Joyful June

June 2020 in review!

Total running mileage for the month:  241.5

• June 1-7: 47 - this was my first real week of running back!
• June 8-14:  55.4
• June 15-21:  60.1
• June 22-28: 60
• June 29-July 4: 62.2

Rebecca & Jack gapping the group on a
beautiful farm road morning (Missy also
gapped us, then stopped to take photos!)

Total bike mileage for the month:  95.8 - just posting this because it's quite clear I dropped biking real quick once I started running, plus I had some issues from my bike seat after a huge Memorial Day riding weekend and am not sure I could ever go back to riding 300+ mpw now. #thingsnoonetellsyouaboutbiking  Starting on June 23 I was able to start bike commuting to some of our group runs, which was a great way to keep using my bike some and to add onto runs without adding any impact.

See, I biked some! This was after the
June 30 fartlek workout

Post-15 miler

Post mini-workout on June 25

Workouts:

• June 23:  5 miles moderate at 7:09 average (1 warm up, 2 cool down) with my friend Christian who had this workout.  It seemed like a very non-intimidating way to do something that wasn't very easy running, and my hip felt great so it was a success! I miss the GAP feature on the free Strava, because we ran a rolling route (259 ft gain) and I thought my effort was more even than my pace showed (range of 7:02-7:19).
• June 25:  6 x 1:00 pick ups to tempo effort (5:58-6:32) at the beginning of miles 2-6 of an 8 mile run.  Like June 23, this was also Christian's workout and it seemed like another great "intro workout" for me.  It's pretty easy to run only easy runs when everyone else is running easy, but it's harder than I realized when others are doing workouts at the group run!
• June 30:  4 x 2', 1', 30" fartlek at tempo effort (6:02-6:43 on a rolling route) with equal recoveries and 2ish warm up, 1.5ish cool down.  I am loving these effort-based workouts - thanks, Christian's coach!  Related note: I plan to start back with my awesome coach in August so she can save me from myself.  I'm not really training for anything so I've just been doing what sounds fun, which will equate to me making poor decisions if I don't go back to being coached (I think it makes me a great training buddy though, I say yes to about everything!).
• I did strides, hill strides, or unstructured pick-ups 1-2 times a week every week, because I do plan to race again some day.
• Doubles:  June 30 - I said I was going to wait until July to do any doubles, but I don't think one day made a difference!
• Strength Training:  2:00, 1:42, 2:00, 2:43
  
• Yoga:  0:40, 1:20, 1:00, 1:00 (2-4 x 0:20 practices each week)
  

Global Running Day!

I felt so old when these two mentioned
they graduated high school in 2014, haha!

Long Runs:

• June 6:  12.2 miles (8:31)!  I have never been so proud of a slower-than-usual-easy-pace 12 miles (this was my sixth real run back).  It was 73 degrees, with a dew point of 72, which is pretty much death, so the friends I ran with (Christian and Claudio) didn't mind taking it slow - I could not have run this far very fast, although I do think I could have done better without the dew point of death.  I was planning to go for 10 but Christian was running 12 and I felt good so I went with it.
• June 13:  13.1 miles (8:26).  A good-sized group run, with Abby, Claudio, and Sean.
• June 20:  15.1 miles (8:15).  This was another nice group run with Paul, Sean, Claudio, Daniel, Christian, and Rebecca.  Coming back from time off is the only time I can drop around 10 second/week from my zone 1 pace while also adding 1-2 miles/week!
  
• June 27: 14 miles (8:15).  Yet another nice group run with Christian, Abby, Claudio, Sean, Rachel, Sierra, and Amy.  It was an unintentional progression (8:40ish down to 7:20ish), but we ran an almost mile out-and-back section that we usually avoid due to the long hills on it  and those miles were a bit slower (there are currently 2 porta-potties on that road due to construction and several group members needed them along the way).
  
• I also did medium long runs on Wednesdays starting the second week of the month with 10.2, 11, and 12.2.

  

  Post 13.1
  

Running Highlights:

• Clearly, returning to "real" running was the huge highlight of this month!  During the final week of May I did five run/walks and one straight run, and the first week of June I switched to all running.  Words cannot express how good it felt!  I thought I loved biking until I started running again and felt a hundred times better.  My endurance came back quickly (perhaps the biking wasn't totally worthless), and I have no idea if/when my speed will come back but I don't care that much at this point!  I'm thankful for what I have instead of wanting more.  I had to hold myself back to not run more mileage, but I stuck with 6 runs a week this month - one day off each week and no doubles.
  
• I ordered an Ellipigo!  I've wanted one for years but I think I always felt that buying one was admitting I'd be cross-training (which normally means I am not running).  It is ironic that I bought this now and not 5 months ago, but I am going to try a little lower mileage supplemented with the Elliptigo training and see what happens. Now is a great time to experiment in training, and staying healthy is very important to me.  My Elliptigo is scheduled to ship on July 13.
• My resting heart rate was running around 50 when I started back to running after 15 weeks off, but by the end of June it was down to 33-34, which I thought was crazy!  I've seen it hit 28-30 when I'm at top fitness, but I have never seen it change so quickly (I've only had a Garmin that monitors it since early 2019 though).  I also learned that it is much easier to get your HR high when you are out of shape!  My first week back I couldn't keep my HR in my easy range no matter how slow I ran, and I still have long way to go but it's getting better every week.

We are better at running than at 
centering for photos

Strava sent me some goodies!

This buff from the Run Farther & Faster podcast
is great for keeping sweat out of my eyes on the
spin bike (can also be used as a COVID mask!)

Albani told me that "llamas are trending"

My sedentary cross-stitching hobby lives on!

With cat & cousin

Albani's summer job at the farmer's market

Yet they wouldn't do yoga with me

I should have taken a photo when my RHR
was 50 not long ago! Also I apparently got
my HR up to 170 in the "light" fartlek on 6/30

Life Highlights:

• We did a lot of gardening this month...  I learned that I highly dislike gardening when I'm in "single parent mode", and told Jon that if he was gone much longer the garden was going to die.  Fortunately it all lived, and I got really good at mowing our yard!
• Jon was traveling for work from May 8 through June 19, and I developed a huge admiration for single parents.  We did this once before and I remember feeling the same way then!  Albani is now old enough to stay at home by herself while I run (she is also sleeping), but last time she was (I think) 8, so I only ran loops around my neighborhood in case she woke up while I was out.  One week back then I ran over 60 miles, including a 20 mile long run, on that 0.8 loop!
• I have been cutting my own hair and Albani's hair during COVID-19, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep doing it!  We also did highlights this month.
• We celebrated Father's Day with take-out ribs and working in the garden.
• Jon and Albani are selling produce (mostly blackberries) at a local farmer's market 3 days a week; I help on Saturdays (after my long run, of course).
• We had visitors for the last week of the month, my brother-in-law and his two children who are a little older than Albani.  Albani is dying for a phone like them, but we aren't letting her get one until she starts driving.  She often tells me that all of her friends have phones (which I believe, based on what I saw at middle school orientation), and I always respond, "Good, you can borrow one of theirs if you need to make a call."
  

Summer evenings

I'd missed this church sign!

Orange Leaf Friday

Albani got an Andy's gift card along
with her Timothy award for Awana

Big beets

                                               

Father's Day

                                                     

She likes to do this and ask us if we'd buy her

I found this gem when looking for
old pics of my dad & I for Father's
Day - a little road race in 1987

Books:

• The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
• House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig
• Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall
• Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
• The Dance by Richard Paul Evans
• The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
  
• An Unwanted Guest by Sherri Lapena
• I am about 30% through I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb (it's 1444 pages)
  

My reading suffered this month, because every weekday was non-stop from when I woke up between 4:30-5:00 a.m. and went to bed between 9:00-9:30 p.m. (i.e., I only read to fall asleep in bed and on weekends). I read ebooks during easy rides on my spin bike, and I only did one of those this month (vs. about 5 times a week when I wasn't running)!

Theme for the month:
Endorphins. I have never been so thrilled with 6 mile slow runs as I was on June 1 and 2, or for really any running I did this month! Does time off reset your endorphin levels?