Finally Friday!

Woo hoo! It's the weekend! Which for me means I have a family reunion on Saturday, Chris is working both Saturday and Sunday at varied hours and 9 miles on tap!

The Rue family reunion is Saturday. My great grand-parents had 13, yes 13, kids. This makes for some large family gatherings! As you can imagine, the family is scattered throughout the country, so not everyone can be there every year. We do love getting to see who we can, when we can! Attendance helps for me, since the reunion is in Casey.

This year will be a little bittersweet. Since the last reunion, 2 of my grandpa's brothers, Rodney and Tony, passed. This year will be a year of remembrance, and also story-telling. New memories will be made, and lots of food will be consumed! My great-grandma was THE BEST cook, so we celebrate the way she would, with a FEAST! I will earn all those calories with the 9 miles that are in store in the morning.

Updates since we last spoke

I took a rest day on Tuesday. It was wonderful. On Wednesday, I was supposed to run 4 miles on a hilly course, pushing up the hills. I thought of the hilliest area I could run to in those 4 miles and headed that way. I had to dodge road construction, and change course, but got in a hill workout. When I changed course, I ended up running up a decent hill. I went on for about 3/4 mile, turned around, and ran up that hill 2 more times. Nothing too hilly, climbed 83 feet according to my Garmin (elevation chart looks worse than 83 feet). The run itself felt great, and I did a great job of pushing myself going up every hill. The next hill run is 5 miles, and I think I know just where I am going.

Although I stretched and foam rolled, I am sore from the hills. My muscles just aren't used to pushing me up hills. I probably need to do some squats. I have yet to dedicate time to strength train, so it's not getting done. I need to pencil it in my schedule, so that it gets done. I did 30 minutes of yoga yesterday, and rolled some more.

This morning, I headed out for 3 easy miles with strides. It was cooler, but very muggy. The first mile was tough, as my legs were just getting loose. The second mile felt better, and the third was downright hard. I wasn't sure how I would do during the strides. It was nice looking and seeing 4:37 as my best pace! On tired, sore legs nonetheless! The ending of the run, made the toughness of the run that much better. That's the wonderful thing about running, you develop amnesia, ha!

I'm going to roll again tonight, and go to bed early for that wonderful 4:30 alarm! Gotta beat the sun! (And take a nap before the reunion)

Happy Running!