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Hey there! How has your week been going so far? It continues to be very cold here on the East Coast. Finally this week we got some decent snow accumulation, which gave me an extra workout as I had two cars to clean up yesterday! I’m starting to think that Spring may never come…
Since it’s Wednesday, I’m linking up with Workout Wednesday, hosted by Diatta at Femme Fitale Fit Club and Sheila at The Frugal Exerciser. Check it out and get inspired by some cool workouts!
So I said last week that I would tell you about Valentine’s Day and now I can finally give an update: Bret and I spent Valentine’s Day/President’s Day Weekend in Washington, DC. Every year we like to go away for the weekend and while we would have preferred somewhere closer to Florida, we had an amazing time. DC is a great city (and dare I say a LOT nicer than Philly)!
We stayed in the Dupont Circle area and found everything to be so convenient. We actually used the Metro only once because we were able to use the Lyft phone app to get free rides throughout DC. It’s very similar to Uber. I wish we had learned about it earlier in the weekend, since we were able to get 10 free rides and only used 3! The drivers were so nice, and the rides are stress-free. You can get a free ride if you use the code: JANELLE836608.
We had some fantastic food while in DC, even though it was ridiculously difficult to get a reservation just about anywhere! It was nice to splurge for a couple of days but still feel like we got our money’s worth.
We had such a fantastic vacation and it was right on time! Thanks DC for being so good to us! Bret and I will be back for the Cherry Blossom Run, and I can’t wait!
Speaking of Cherry Blossom, I realized that I needed to make a change with sharing my training posts. If you’ve been following along, you know that I normally write my training recaps on Monday to summarize the previous week. However, I also have my What’s for Dinner meal planning posts on Sundays. Then, I often like to link up with Tuesdays on the Run. I’m realizing that these are WAY too many posts at the front of the week, and in order to fulfill all of those posts on time, sometimes my writing gets compromised.
To solve this problem, I’m moving my training recaps to Wednesday to space things out for you, the reader, and to make sure that I can really focus on making all of my content great. One of the reasons that my meal planning posts aren’t as consistent is because I simply run out of time to write, let alone find recipes and plan what to make for the week. So I hope that this is a win-win scenario for all of us!
Anyway, here’s how week 3 of Cherry Blossom training went!
Monday 2/9: I’ve been bumped up to 3 miles on Mondays. To give my poor knees a rest, I ran them on the treadmill at an 11:19 pace. After the run I did a very thorough workout for my hips and glutes: one legged bridges, clamshells, leg raises, donkey kicks, and hydrants. I am so unbalanced!
Tuesday 2/10: Boot Camp Class. We worked a lot on our core but did some squats and squat jumps as well as the usual burpees and planks. While in the laundromat I did 1 set of 30 hip hikes on each side.
Wednesday 2/11: I made it to Cardio Kickboxing a little late but was able to get in about 20 minutes of working out. Then in the evening I went running with the City Fit Girls for 1.5 miles. A new girl who hadn’t run in a while joined us, so I was happy to be her pace partner and be supportive when she needed to slow down or walk. I split off from the girls and finished my 2 miles and strides. Then when I got home I stretched, foam rolled and did some donkey kicks.
Thursday 2/12: Unintentional rest day – I had to work late, plus get my hair done after work so I had to postpone my hill run to Friday.
Friday 2/13: We arrived in DC in the afternoon and ran on Embassy Row in the evening. I had to do 10-second hill repeats this time, so it was fun to get Bret involved. We found a side street on a hill where we could get them done – I could tell Bret really enjoyed himself! After that we had to finish our distance to 4 miles, but I miscalculated the distance so we had to run a bit past our hotel and back to get it done. After running I spent a good amount of time stretching my hips and doing some donkey kicks and clamshells.
Saturday 2/14: On Valentine’s Day I was due for a 7 mile long run. I haven’t run this distance in a LONG time! But thankfully it went well and I didn’t have any knee problems. We ran all over the city – we ran through Georgetown, over the Key Bridge into Arlington, ran over another bridge, went through GW’s campus, passed the White House and went down the Mall, and eventually ended up in the Eastern Market area. It was insane! The average pace ended up being around 12.5 minutes per mile. There were a lot of hills along the course, one of which was brutal! I was happy to have a very long stretching session when we finally got back to the hotel.
Sunday 2/15: Rest at last – even though we did briefly hit up a couple of Smithsonian museums.
Monday 2/16: Our last day in DC, 10 degree weather, and the most amazing 3.5 mile run in Rock Creek Park. It was absolutely gorgeous! I was THISCLOSE to chickening out and running in the hotel gym, which would have been a missed opportunity to see some amazingly beautiful sights. Have I mentioned how much I love trail running?? I followed up this run with 30 clamshells on each side.
I have to say that I’m really happy with how Week 3 went. I didn’t go overboard with my workouts and I didn’t kill my body. I’m getting used to running every few days, and I’m excited to see my mileage increase each week. Not to mention, 11 miles in two days is really good for me!
I’m also very happy that I have been incorporating my hip and glute strengthening exercises after each of my runs, on top of foam rolling. It’s so important to treat injury prevention as a habit. If you’re not consistent with your prehab, you will regret it later!! So fingers crossed that I can keep it that way!
With all that said, I have to give Week 3 an A!
How was your Valentine’s Day/President’s Day weekend? Are you participating in Lent this year? I can’t believe it’s already here!
