Four Pictures

      8 Comments on Four Pictures

I have been very busy since school and hockey started.  I haven’t had a post in almost a week—oops! I will try to get at least two in every week, but sometimes that’s just not possible. And let’s face it…until the “blog gods” decide to bestow untold riches upon me for my awesome and informative posts, I do need to keep my day job. 😉  Hopefully things will slow down a little bit as the season and the school year settle into a groove. (Maybe???)

At any rate, I am still running, and still following Weight Watchers, even as I attend hockey games, wine club meetings, and all the other things going on.  I’ve actually run 4 times since my last post! I’ve also navigated the waters of a work luncheon and a wine club gathering, still able to stay on plan.  Yay, me!  In fact, I actually lost weight this week, which is really not what I’m supposed to be doing. It actually astonished me to see the scale this morning! I’m not starving by any stretch, but I will admit to choosing things like bananas, apples and carrots over cookies and cake.  I guess all the running is really doing the job it’s supposed to, and I suppose I need to be more diligent about eating those activity points I’m earning. So…I’m thinking that there might be an apple pie or some other dessert in my future soon. 😉

As far as the running, it’s been going very well.  My foot hasn’t hurt me at all since the 5k with DS#1 last week. Hooray for that!  Instead of going into long, boring detail about each of my four recent runs, I’ll just give you one picture for each run with a small description.

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Earlier in the week, I wanted to do some intervals, and DS#1 (who ran the 5k last week) wanted to try as well.  My intervals are about a mile warm-up run, then 4 intervals of a quarter mile at my fastest pace, interspersed with 2 minutes of walking, and then a cool-down run until I get home (usually about 3/4 of a mile).  I decided we’d only do two intervals, since DS#1 is only 10 and it was his first time.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the issue wasn’t the number of intervals but the length of the intervals.  He could not do an entire quarter-mile at his fastest pace.  He did the first one, though he faded at the end, but he was unable to do the second one.

I told him to just walk after the one interval, and he ran a little bit for a cool-down, but he was very tired and discouraged when he was done. 🙁  However, I did my best to remind him that most 10-year-olds don’t even know what an interval is, much less have done one, and he did eventually perk up and feel good about himself, as evidenced in this “after” picture of us.

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On Thursday, I did my usual two-miler, and due to a ridiculous chain of events that involved me losing my usual tune-belt (holds my phone on my upper arm so I can listen to music while I run), I ended up running my fastest mile ever!

I ran a mile in 8 minutes and 40 seconds!! 😀  You can see my second mile wasn’t nearly as impressive.  I’m not going to lie–I walked for the first couple hundred feet of that second mile. 😉  But I felt really good knowing that I can at least run one mile at a sub-9 pace. 🙂

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Saturday morning, I slept in a little bit since I knew it was going to be a cold morning anyway.  I headed out to the Metropark at about 9:30am, and it was still pretty chilly, not to mention windy coming off the river!  Even though there wasn’t a sunrise picture to snap, the sky was gorgeous.

I absolutely love the sky in the fall.  It just seems so much bluer and more vibrant when the sun is not at that harsh summer angle. I ran five miles that day, with my fastest pace to date for a run that long: 10:17!  That felt pretty good.

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Finally, this morning I did another full set of intervals.  It was a good run, though very, very cold.  It was 40 degrees when I went out…I actually had to wear gloves!  My intervals were my best yet, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I realized during my 3rd interval run that I was stopping too soon. So this time, since I was actually running the full quarter mile, so my times were great. 😀

While I was doing my cool-down run home, I saw the prettiest sight…pretty enough that I had to go back and take a picture later.

Apples are one of my most favorite things ever. (Walk into my kitchen and that will become infinitely apparent. 😛 ) I love to eat them, and I love to look at them.  That apple pie will be coming sooner than you think!

Thanks so much for reading!

 

8 thoughts on “Four Pictures

  1. Renee

    8:40 mile…wow,that’s impressive! You were definitely cruising! It is so nice you can run with Jamie. I ran with Ben last night at cross country. He whined the whole time. But, if he were running alone, he’d do it just fine. With some kids, mom is a hindrance! lol.

    Reply
    1. steph Post author

      Aw, thanks. It was just one mile, but it’s a start and it made me really happy to do it. I never would have seen myself there five months ago!!

      Your youngest is just like mine…whine, whine, whine, until Mom’s not there, and then it’s “get ‘er done”! 😉 xoxo Thank you for being such a wonderful friend and supporter!

      Reply
  2. Bailey @ Onederland or Bust!

    Love the Pictures and congrats on the 8:40 mile, very impressive!
    I’m loving the cooler temperatures, it’s making the running much easier 🙂

    By the way, I switched over to WordPress format so my blog has a new location… you can follow me by clicking my name above – I don’t want to lose my favourite readers. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Jenn

    Congrats on that mile, Steph. Way to go! Tell your DS#1 to hang in there. He ran farther than I ever have. You have to start somewhere. I missed my weigh in because of a meeting so I am not sure if I am back on track yet. I leave in a week for another conference so I am going to have to dig deep.

    Reply
  4. Joy

    Wow congrats on the eight mile run amazing!! I am in week two of my running program and it is still pretty hard but I am hanging in there. Love the pictures too!

    Reply
    1. steph Post author

      Thanks, Joy! I’m so happy to hear that you’re working on running, too–I know you can do it!! Keep it up!!

      Reply

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