Weekly Rundown

A good week! After Friday and Saturday I was ready for some serious napping. Mother Nature obliged me (I know, no one was more surprised than I) on Sunday by giving us a delightfully rainy day.

Monday: I had to run to town first thing in the morning, which, frankly, rather disrupts my day. I spent the day  after I got home doing my classwork and chores. I rode Charby in afternoon, which is my usual practice, but then I did yoga afterwards. I generally do my run or yoga in the morning and ride in the afternoon. The change felt good, especially since the yoga was the Candlelight Yoga. No stress on the muscles after riding Charby bareback 🙂

Tuesday: Another rainy day. Thanks to my mom giving me that treadmill, I still get to run. On the other hand, I don’t like running endlessly on the treadmill, I have discovered. But there are ways around everything 😉 I did 10 minute running bursts, increasing my speed each time I got back on. In between the bursts I did 5 burpees. Ok, that doesn’t sound like much. But I found a new burpee: using a 5lb weight in each hand, we squat, pop back into plank, push-up and then back row with each arm.  Pop back up (ok, stand up at your own pace, I did), rising from the squat into an overhead press. Then do it again. I watched America Ninja Warrior while doing this exercise routine. Very effective: watching them swing through the course made me feel like the least I could do is another burpee.

Wednesday: So, yes, the burpees were effective. I ran 4.56 miles and was in agony every step. Not my legs. Not my abdomen. Not even my breathing. Nope, it was the forward swing of my arms causing me dismay. It hit me about a mile into the run, and I truly gutted it out. Because I wanted to turn around with every step until I hit the half-way point and did turn around.  My plan this week is to do the long run, and then the burpees.

Thursday: I decided to take Thursday off since I hadn’t done that yet this week. So I weedwacked a good-sized area (that hurt the next day too), checked on my vegetable garden and then went out to break a trail so Mom and I could make a loop around the back field instead of just riding out and back. Christopher Robin really doesn’t like to go back: we’ve seen it already, you know. That was an hour and half of panting and swiping at flies. After resting, I took Charby out in the ring for 35 minutes. She is such a good girl that it was very relaxing.

Friday: I had to take my car to my mechanic’s, so I took it down in the morning and ran the 1.85 miles home. As I have said before, the first mile kinda sucks for me. It sucks more that the first three-quarters of the run home are uphill; usually when I run that route, I have already run at least 3 miles and am warmed up. And, of course, I had to run  back down (but it was down!) to get my car in the afternoon. In the middle I attacked the trail again. I wanted to be able to see where the horses were putting their feet as it is lumpy out in the field, with huge tire tracks from the last time it was logged. So I took the weedwacker out there and cut a swath through the field. After coming home from getting the car, Christopher and I went and did 20 minutes of ground work. The little brat tried to herd me while we were walking! However, I have had bigger horses than him try that, so I just laughed at him. The next thing was a hop-skip-jump that got all his feet off the ground. Everytime he tried to misbehave, I just circled him and kept going in the direction I wanted to go in. Eventually he caught on!

Saturday: I ran 3.75 miles first thing before my mom came up and we attempted the trail. Definitely needs more work, but the horses were awesome and just plowed right through.  They both like trail riding, so they were very cooperative to get out there and see something new. My hubby came home from work, and since it was supposed to rain the next day, we went out and did about an hour of land clearing. I have to say the weight lifting and strengthening yoga is working: I was handling larger pieces of brush with ease 🙂

Sunday: nap day….only I never napped. But I did watch A LOT of tv!