A Buggy, Fishy Weekend

It’s been a while since I have linked up with HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin for the Weekly Wrap. I’ve kind of gotten back into a good schedule with the blog, so hopefully I will stay up to date and make this a weekly thing again!

First of all, it seems silly to blog about running in the wake of the terrorist attack in Orlando this weekend. I know that there is nothing I can write or say that will make this any easier for anyone, so I just want to share a few things because not saying anything definitely seems like the wrong thing to do.

I don’t want to minimize the event itself. It is truly horrific and mind-boggling to me. If we are being completely honest, random acts of violence and attacks like this make me incredibly fearful and scared to live in a world full of such senseless evil. My sense of security and safety are shattered all over again.

The only thing that brings me comfort is to remember that we are living in our temporary home. We weren’t created for this earth, we were created for eternity with Our Lord. We will undoubtedly experience problems and tragedies in this life. However, we are not merely earthly beings, we are eternal beings. Life is precious and life here on earth is short. If you are alive today, be thankful and know that God has a plan and purpose for your time here on this earth. Use it wisely!

I will cling to My Savior, knowing that He alone is my source of comfort, my wisdom in confusing times, my strength and my hope.

So now … let’s talk about the weekend runs!

Saturday morning Rebecca tricked convinced me to run trails with her. I was actually really looking forward to it. I hadn’t run on trails since the 10 mile trail race I did in April and I was eager to do some more off-roading. As it turns out, June is not (I repeat is not) the time to run trails in lower Alabama.

We don’t have a ton of trails to choose from in this area, but we do have a 67 acre historic park with some pretty decent trails. The last major battle of the Civil War was fought on the park grounds at Fort Blakeley. Here are some of the remaining breastworks that protected soldiers from enemy fire.

We wanted to get an early start because … summer in Alabama. Unfortunately this meant that we were blazing the trails so to speak and we ran through just about every spider web known to man. Also, the bugs were out of control! We both had on bug spray, but we still had a constant swarm of horse-flies, mosquitoes, etc. all around us. They were circling our heads and hitching rides on our clothes. The only way I can think to describe it is it using this Pig-Pen Peanuts cartoon, except for all of those little specs are bugs and not dirt.

After about two miles, we were both over it. I did at least thankfully get a really pretty picture from the trail that runs along the Tensaw River.

We tried to push through, but we only lasted a few more miles. We ended up with just over 7 miles, but I’m fairly certain that we worked a lot harder than normal. If nothing else, we got an upper body workout in by flailing our arms about all around us the entire time to swat the flies! Rebecca also yelled “PEACHES!” about once every minute! This is her code word for … well, anything ugly (she has an almost two-year old).

Since we entered the park earlier than it opened, we stopped by the guard gate to pay on our way out. We thought we were trying to do the right thing here, but the guard was clearly not happy with us. He told us it was against the law to enter the park prior to 8 a.m. (clearly he doesn’t understand summer running). Don’t worry, sir. We will absolutely NOT be doing it again!

It’s really funny now, but y’all. We were so. miserable. I’m questioning this whole “trail running” thing that I was so gung-ho about a couple of short months ago.

We stopped at Starbucks after our run. Ironically, the Starbucks closest to us was the store that was closed for about a week because a swarm of termites got in the store and it just recently reopened. Bugs eerywhere! We ran into our friend Jessica, who had run at RW that morning instead of joining us on the trails (clearly she was the smarter one) and we ended up hanging out at Starbucks for several hours. Oops.

Daniel had to do rounds at the hospital this weekend, but thankfully he was home just after lunch both days. He has been working a lot and he was pretty tired when he got home, so we didn’t do anything majorly exciting. Resting was totally fine with me!

Sunday morning I had a 20 mile long run. Daniel ran the first few miles with me before work. When we started our run at 5:15 a.m., the *feels like* temperature was 93. Holy Moses. I knew that it was going to be a long run! Daniel ran 4 miles with me and then I continued on for a couple of miles before meeting up with our usual Sunday morning crew. I ran 8 miles with them and then 6 more miles on my own. It was kind of nice to be able to break the run up into several different segments (even though I did it continuously) and it went by a lot quicker than I was expecting!

The pace was a little slower than I would’ve liked, but given the pretty extreme conditions I’m cool with it! I definitely wish it was actually cool out. During the summer it is important to adjust your pace as needed for the heat and humidity. I wrote a post about that last summer –> here. I went back and looked at my chart and realized that I was right in the adjusted range for my easy pace.

I was absolutely drenched by the end, so I decided to hop in the bay for a few minutes to cool off.

This picture popped up on my Timehop yesterday.

We went snapper fishing a few years ago. That was the only time that I’ve been and it was so much fun. I actually caught the fish in the picture, but I couldn’t reel him in. Hopefully after all of my push-up training this summer, I will be able to do things like reel in my own fish! Ha. We’ve been wanting to go back out. Yesterday afternoon, one of the doctors that Daniel works with texted him and told him that he had some extra snapper that he was going to bring us. So nice!

In typical Sunday evening fashion, we lit up the grill. We usually just cook chicken and burgers or something like that, but yesterday it was snapper and salmon burgers. One of the many perks of living on the gulf coast!

I have one last thing to share and then I promise I’ll be done.

I am going to be coaching with my coach! I had no idea when I took the RRCA course and even until a few weeks ago that this would be an option. I even referenced my coach on a blog post that I wrote a few weeks ago and said, “I hope to replicate what he is doing for my athletes!” As it turns out, replicating what he is doing is exactly what I will be doing!

I am so grateful for this opportunity to work alongside someone with so much knowledge and passion for the sport and someone who I respect. I also shared in the same post that I felt like I was being called to help people and for now that meant helping people meet their running goals, helping people to discover and fall in love with running and being an encouragement to them along the way. I feel like another door has been opened with this opportunity and I am so thankful!

If you have ever wanted to work with a one on one coach, check out Maximum Performance Running!

I hope everyone has a great week! What is something that you are looking forward to this week?