No Earbuds Week 6

Day 36: Rest days are important. As I slowly build up my training, I'm being mindful of building a healthy rest day routine. Today I took Kaci for a walk for a couple of miles, then I did an easy yoga practice and tried to be thorough in foam rolling. I think rest days should be easy but often I get caught up in making it more and it doesn't stay restful. 

Day 37: I made a beet smoothie after my workout today. Smoothies are eluding me at the moment. I used to make them all the time but for some reason, they currently wreck my system. I'm suspecting its because of the huge handful of greens I throw in. This beet smoothie doesn't have any greens in it but it does have chocolate in it and it tasted great!  

This be the tastiest beet smoothie

Day 38: I was able to run with Anne and Kristy and after they finished their miles, I did hill repeats. One trick I'll be practicing in this new training phase is to commit to run as many repeats as is the number of the month. So I did 4 repeats on each hill until I got the mileage I needed. I did not dress warm enough for the wind and temperature combination and started to feel really bad by the end of the run. I got home and immediately started shivering. Weather in April is weird. 

Day 39: Another early morning run. This time to meet several friends at Jester Park for a complicated loop around the flooded park. We're hoping the flood waters stay away this summer. It has damaged so many of our trails already this year. 

Somehow I became the designated group selfie taker

Day 40: Light yoga and stretching and a good soak in the tub. I'm trying to determine if a weird spot on the bottom of my foot is a callous of some kind or a wart. (hard hitting blogging right there)

Day 41: I'm constantly amazed at the changes a few days can make. Taking an easy pace and letting the mind wander. 

April creek

Day 42: On the plan for today, I was supposed to hit certain paces on specific miles. About mile 1.2 I was on the struggle bus. My diet the night before and leading up to it hadn't been great and I could tell. I remembered a little piece of advice I had heard from ultra runner Sally MacRae and that was to keep my heart up. So on those miles when I was hurting, I just thought of keeping my heart up. For one, it kept me focused on something. And secondly, it pointed my attention to positivity. Eventually I found myself on the last mile and still hitting the pace I needed to even though it hurt. Keep your heart up!