On Vacation

In my Mt Olivet recap, I mentioned that I had good reasons as to why I was almost too tired to keep up with Jamie. The first reason was that I had run six miles with my friends Ann and Toddra on Saturday morning.  We had fun, but they run a bit faster than me, and they really pushed me–our overall pace was a 10:38, which is fast for one of my long runs.

After running six miles, I then went home and spent the entire day cleaning my house.  Why?  Because, two days earlier (Thursday night), my husband got a call from his aunt.  This is the aunt who comes to stay with us about once a year so she can visit her mother (Jason’s grandmother).  Can you guess what the phone call was about?  If you guessed that she was calling to tell us she was coming to visit, well, you passed that quiz, but if you want extra bonus points, you would have to know that she was coming in three days and that she was bringing her husband, Uncle Bob.  What? You didn’t see that coming?  Yeah, me either!!!

So Saturday I cleaned all day, which seems like overkill, but you have to understand that our back room is considered our “guest room,” but mostly it’s just the kids’ play room and a repository for all the crap we accumulate.  Since it hasn’t seen a guest in two years, it took a lot of work to get it to the point where their air mattress could fit into it.  So needless to say, I was a bit tired when I ran that 5k the next morning!

Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob came Sunday night.  Now, here’s the part of the blog that changes from “health and fitness” to “true confessions.”  I do not like having houseguests.  If that makes me a terrible person, so be it, but my house is small When people stay with us, it’s impossible for us to not be on top of each other.  And also, my house is old.  I have doors that just do not shut.  Like the one to the “guest room.”  :/  Also…my husband had to work every night for the first four nights they were there, so it was up to me to entertain our house guests. (And cook for them!!)

So, without going into a big, long story, suffice it to say that I was on edge most of the week.  I just have a really hard time when someone upsets my routine, especially when I have a lot going on, like I did last week.  We had a practice for Jamie’s new hockey team (at 8:30 on a Sunday night?!) and JJ had a baseball playoff game on Monday. To our shock, his winless team actually won and advanced to another game on Wednesday!  While all this was going on, I had a major deadline at work on Thursday morning, and I spent all my spare time doing work on my laptop (including the time I was at the hockey arena and both baseball games).

Add a couple of house guests into that mix and you might understand why I was stressed last week. :0 It was challenging to have my routine disrupted, but I am thankful that I have one thing that keeps me sane: running.  I ran Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning (I normally run Tuesday as well, but took it off this week since I ran on Sunday.)  Although it was stressful to try to be quiet when I was getting ready at 5am (remember…the door to the guest room doesn’t shut), once I got out on the road, it was like a haven.  No kids, no guests, no work deadlines…just me and my music and Mother Nature.  I saw some beautiful sunrises last week, like this one on Wednesday morning.

Friday morning was a different story.  First, I have to back up and say that I almost forgot about the other event we had going on last week: I’d promised Jamie the previous week that he could have two of his school friends over to spend the night.  Since we don’t have a big house, they had to sleep in the living room…which is also on the same floor as the guest bedroom.  They stayed up all night (they’re teenage boys, you know), and I know they probably kept Bob and Paula awake, but I’d promised him this sleepover and he was really excited about it.  They came over Thursday night, and when I awoke Friday morning to do intervals (ugh), I found them still awake and alert at 4:45am.  They assured me they weren’t going to sleep any time soon.  It was raining, but I went out and did the intervals anyway, and hated every minute of it.

That was me when it was over.  I got poured on for almost the whole run, which included a one mile warm up, 6×400 sprints, and then a one-mile cool down.  I was so glad to be done! On the other hand, I was quite proud of myself for doing it.  I hate intervals! (Does anyone not hate them?)  But I always feel good when I’ve actually done them.

Pretty darn good for me!  When I got back, soaking wet, I came in to discover this:

It’s hard to make out, but that’s three exhausted teenage boys (two on couches, one on the floor) who finally crashed about 5:30am, ha ha!

Saturday, I ended up running 7 miles with Ann and Toddra again on what was truly the hottest day of the year so far.  The temperature was 71 degrees when we started at 6am, with 93% humidity.  It was a hard run, and we walked several times, whereas we only walked maybe once the previous week.  We were exhausted when we were done, but we managed to smile for a picture.

I actually think we look pretty darn good for three hot, tired runner girls. 😉

After that run, I went home and discovered Bob and Paula had just left.  I was sorry to miss saying goodbye (yes, I really was), but I will admit I breathed a sigh of relief to have my house back.  I jumped in the pool to cool off, and then I decided I had earned a treat.  The boys really wanted some chocolate-covered donuts when I took them to the grocery store for snacks Thursday night, so I caved and bought them, although I knew having a dozen of my favorite food (chocolate-covered donuts!!!) in the house was probably a bad idea. They only ate six, and that left six in the house on Saturday morning.  I decided for my treat that I could have half of a donut, and then I left the rest there for others in the house.  I thought about that other half, and passed it in the kitchen often, but I decided that half was enough.  And I really did leave it there!

I was proud of myself for not caving. And eventually, my husband ate it, so I survived the Great Donut Escape of 2015.

And now you’re probably wondering why I’ve titled this post “My Vacation” when my week was clearly not a vacation at all.  Well last week wasn’t, but this week is: my kids left for camp this afternoon.

This is the first year that they’re both going, and that means this is the first year I have five whole kid-free days!!!  Yes, I’m a bit excited about that. 😉  Don’t get me wrong, I adore my boys, but I am happy to have some time to do what I like to do, eat what I like to eat, and watch the shows I like to watch.  Lest you think I’ll sit on my butt and eat bon bons all week, let me tell you what I’ve done so far.

I rode my bike seven miles in 90-degree heat this afternoon. It was hot, but it was a nice, relaxing trip, with lots of nice views.

Also, I noticed today while wearing a tank top (something I rarely do, but the heat necessitated it) that I’ve managed to develop some pretty decent “guns” after 2+ years of strength training.

I can assure you that my biceps have never looked like that before in my whole life!

After the bike ride, I hopped in the pool…and stayed there, floating in my chair while listening to classical music and reading a book on my kindle…for two hours!

When it was time for dinner, I made something that no one else in the house will eat but me:

That’s a spinach and shrimp salad with Tuscan Italian dressing and all kinds of other yummy stuff.  (I’m the only person in my house who likes seafood.)  I used 1 1/2 containers of spinach and ate all of it! It was so good.  And yes, I did have a bit of wine, too, though less than what’s in that glass…I had the wine earlier in the afternoon, because I don’t drink with meals, so that glass was just for the picture. 😉

After dinner, I watched 2 1/2 episodes of Hawaii Five-O (the new one).  I’ve caught a few episodes here and there, and I decided to get a free Netflix trial just so I could catch up on all the seasons.  I doubt I’ll have time to watch all 5 seasons this week (ha! maybe if I didn’t have a job!), but it’ll be fun to try. 😉

So, I’ll be “on vacation” this week, and I plan to relax and stay away from the computer after I finish this post.  I should add that I weighed myself last week and lost .6 pound, which was kind of a bummer.  I’d switched to only eating half my activity points for that week, and I was really hoping to see a bigger loss, but I am well aware that a loss is always better than a gain, so I’ll just take what I can get and hope that tomorrow’s weigh-in is in that same direction. 🙂

Thanks for reading!