A great weekend!

I know I've been MIA for awhile, but lots of things have been going on!

For one, my best friend Erin, who moved to St. Louis, came to visit this past weekend.  I was so excited to see her again because it's been 2 years since she moved!  We had a pretty low key weekend, but we did get to do some fun things.

We decided to participate in the UNDY 5000 5k race Saturday morning.  Erin was recovering from bronchitis, so it was a pretty low key event.  Instead of a race t-shirt everyone got a pair of boxers.  Here we are sporting our boxers...ha ha!  Actually, they do make pretty awesome summertime PJs! :)
Anyways, we jogged a little bit throughout the race, but for the most part we walked most of the 5k and just chatted and tried to catch up on our lives.  It was great!
Usually when I do a 5k it's all about speed, speed, speed.  So, this was nice to just hang out, enjoy the beautiful scenery in City Park, and spend some time with my friend.






The next day, we decided to go for a hike up in Evergreen.  The weather was absolutely beautiful!  The hike was 2 miles up to a waterfall, making it a 4mile round trip.  We didn't know how our boys would do, but they ended up doing great!  We didn't make it all of the way, but we did find a great stream to hang out by.  My boys were totally into throwing sticks, pine cones, and whatever else they could find into the water and watching them flow downstream.  Who needs a waterfall?? :) Overall, they ended up hiking for about 2 hours, which is awesome!  They got a little tired towards the end, but they were total troopers! :)

Gotta love family pictures!  Ha ha!  I have NO idea what face my youngest is making! 

The trail was beautiful and there were columbines everywhere!

Columbines are so pretty!

Another great thing about the hike was that I got to try out my Merrell Pace Glove trail shoes.  They were awesome!  Bye bye chunky hiking boots!  These will now be my go to hiking shoes!  They are light, comfortable, and did a great job on the rocky terrain!

All in all, it was a great weekend!  I didn't do any training, but I was fine with it because I got to spend some quality time with my friend.  And for me, it's all about priorities, and being with my friend takes priority over training.

Erin and me! 

P.S.  WE CLOSE ON OUR HOUSE TOMORROW!!!  We are sooo excited!  Hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll be moving in this weekend!  Woohoo!!!  I'll be MIA for a little while longer, but soon I'll be back into the swing of things with training and blogging! :)

A week in review, other things too, and a reward!

Training:
I have had a great training week so far.  Because both of my boys are in school now, I was able to tweak my schedule a little bit.  I decided to start doing my tempo runs on Mondays, my long runs on Wednesday, and my speed work on Saturdays.  Usually I do my long runs on Saturday which takes up a lot of time.  But, because I don't get to spend as much time with my boys during the week anymore, I wanted to free up some time on the weekend.  I know I'll be doing my speed workouts, but they are relatively short in comparison to a long 16, 18, or 20 mile run!  Plus, it will be nice to have more time on the weekends to spend as a family. :)  

*  I am happy to say that I did my first 16 MILE run this week!  I was actually really excited to do it because up to this point, the longest I've run is 14 miles.  I loaded up my Nathan belt with Hammer gel, Gu, water, NUUN, and watered down Gatorade and took off. The weather was perfect, and although I was excited, I had a little voice of doubt in the back of my mind questioning whether or not I could make the distance.  It seems like no matter what we're training for, we always get to points in the plan where self doubt comes into play.  But, I am constantly amazed by what my body can do.  I have found that if I'm consistent and do the work, then my body will continue to do things that I never thought it could do (like run 16miles at once!).  I know 26.2 miles is still 10.2 miles further than 16, but after that run I was finally able to visualize myself running the marathon.  I know that may sound weird, but up until this point, I haven't really pushed myself beyond what I've already done.   Being able to do the 16 miles, gave me a boost of confidence that I needed!  

Happy and sweaty after my run.  I have come to terms that I am just a SALTY, SWEATY runner and the "rocky mountain peaks" on my visor will always be there after my runs in the sun.

*  I started going to my weekly yoga classes again, and oh how I have missed them.  I have found that it is just an all around awesome workout.  I am able to work my muscles, get in some good stretching, and release some stress.  I love it!

Other things too:
*  We took our boys hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday, and it was awesome!  We hiked up hill for 1.1 miles to two beautiful lakes, then hiked back down.  Although there was some whining throughout the 2.2 mile hike, which was totally expected with a 3 and 5 yr. old, they were both real troopers and did better than we expected!  My husband and I both commented about how we cannot wait until they are old enough to go on backpacking trips.

*  Diana from Diana Tries a Tri gave me the Cherry on Top Award! Yay!  If you haven't checked out her blog, do it, because she is hilarious and has the best pictures in her posts! :)

Here are the rules:  

#1 Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?


Answer:  Hmmm, this is a very loaded question. Of course there are things that I wish I could change, but ultimately I think everything we do leads us to where we are at this point in our lives.  But, maybe one thing I would change is I wish that I would have had more fun and gone on more adventures when I was in college and then newly married.  My husband and I look back to the time before we had our boys and think about all of the missed opportunities we had to go backpacking, hiking a 14er, or going on a spectacular adventure together.  Before we knew it, time passed by, we bought a house, and had two kids.  I LOVE my boys, and could not imagine my life without them, but when you have kids, your life automatically changes.  Our days of backpacking are long gone, and I know my boys will grow up way too fast and before I know it we'll be backpacking as a family.  But, there's a part of me that misses doing these things with my husband.  It's something that WE did together and it was awesome!  It makes me realize that I need to make more time for my husband and get better at planning date nights.    
#2 The second thing you have to do is, pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award.


Answer:  This award has been going around like crazy, so there are already a lot of you that have been picked.  So, I'm going to pick bloggers that I don't think have received it yet!


1.  Anne Marie from Anne-Marie's Blog
2.  Kathleen at Dare To Dream
3.  Kevin at Ironman By Thirty
4.  Alexa at Just Keep Swimming
5.  Julie at You Just Have to Tri
6.  Alisa at Ambitious Aspirations Make Great Accomplishments
#3 The third and final thing is, thank the person who gave you the award.


Answer:  Diana, thank you so much for the award!  :)  Your blog always make me smile and/or laugh!