Another Beautiful Michigan Week

Our first full week of summer turned out to be pretty great. Of course, after this past winter, any week when it’s not -13 degrees is worth celebrating. 😉

Here’s what kept us busy…

That’s a beautiful way to start a Thursday morning. Another fun 5:30am run! It was 57 degrees, so not too cool but not too warm or windy, and I was able to work hard, ending up with a 9:22 overall for 3 miles.

I’m officially in training for my next “big” race, the Running Between the Vines half, and I’ve decided to step it up and use the Hal Higdon Intermediate Plan.  Look at me–moving beyond “Novice”! 😉  It includes speed work to help me get faster.  Not that I have grand illusions of a new PR in the middle of August, but I figure it can’t hurt. 😉  Saturday was my first “long” run of the program, but I got lazy and slept in, which was a mistake. It got warm fairly quickly, and by the time I got out there at almost 10am, it was warm and humid. And sunny!

I took the new connector path from Flat Rock to Willow Metropark, and it wasn’t too bad. Parts of it were tree-lined, which helped cut the heat.

Most of it was unshaded, though, so my time wasn’t great…

I took several walk breaks, so I wasn’t overly concerned about my time. My official training plan actually had me only doing 5 easy, so I figured 8 easy in the heat was acceptable!

Besides the run itself, I was thrilled to discover…wait for it…a new cemetery! I am such a history geek. 😉 But this one was really neat!

That’s the first family to settle in Flat Rock! They have a road named after them.  And this…

Is the gravestone of the founder of Flat Rock. 🙂 Love me some history, yes I do!!

For the rest of the weekend, I stayed busy weeding our front landscaping and then taking pictures for the 50th anniversary of the parents of one of my coworkers. I was kind of nervous, like I always am when I take peoples’ pictures, but I think they turned out pretty well. I didn’t ask permission to post any shots of them on my blog (actually, no one I work with knows I have a blog, lol!), but I think it’s ok to share these.

JJ had to be my model when I was trying different locations for lighting, and when I told him he didn’t have to smile for any of the pictures, he took it to heart.

Love that kid!! 😉

I didn’t have any special events or anything this weekend (I didn’t stay for the anniversary dinner), and when I woke up Monday morning, I felt really good after my first “tempo” run…you know how sometimes you just “feel” skinny?  I was pretty geeked to weigh myself to see if I could get back down below 120, which I figured was a sure thing, since I was at exactly 120 last week.  And the verdict was…

Discouraged much?  :/  I don’t want to talk about it.

So instead, we’ll talk about happy things!  Jamie’s school baseball team played an important game on Wednesday, taking on the first-place team in the league.  It was important enough that we had Jamie miss his hockey team’s first tryout for the fall/winter season.  It was a tough choice, but the baseball game was a pretty big deal, since Jamie’s team was in second place in the league.  And…they won!  This put them in a tie with the first-place team, and since it was the last game of the season, the two teams were then tied for first.  At that point, they invoked some complicated tie-breaking rules, and Jamie’s team ended up winning the league!  Of course, the kids went to the local ice cream parlor to celebrate (in our rural area, it’s pretty much the most popular business in town, lol!).  The kids enjoyed celebrating their hard-earned victory.

That’s a lot of ice cream!! 🙂

And the final good news of the weekend…Jamie attended the last two hockey tryouts on Saturday and Sunday, and although there were a lot of skaters, I’m thrilled to say he made the team!  Yay!! That relieves a lot of stress, especially after the spring tryouts. :/ JJ’s tryouts aren’t until next week, so we have some time yet on that front.  For now, though, it’s time to relax a little and enjoy summer…

Woohoo! Pool’s open!!  It’s still a bit nippy (it’s not heated), but the kids don’t care.  And honestly, after a couple of very hot runs this week…neither did I. 😉

Thanks for reading! Enjoy your week. I know I plan to!!  😀