Snow Day!

Hey guys! The weather has been so incredibly strange lately! The rain that started during our Monday night run continued all day, all the way through to Tuesday evening. The rain that was so nice and refreshing during Monday evening turned to one of those cold rains all throughout the day Tuesday and dropped our temps like a lead balloon.

We headed to the gym Tues night after work since it was so nasty outside. I did 5 quick miles on the treadmill and called it a success. It's amazing how 'just' cutting back 10 miles a week off my mileage has really made my legs lighten up and start to have some speed again. I was easily able to work the pace up on the treadmill where for the last mile I ran around a 8.30 mile. Yeah!! I was also motivated by the two annoying people on either side of me on the treadmills at the gym. We refer to them as "The Strollers". I haven't seen them there since before Christmas, and they're quite the Odd Couple. She's fairly young (20's?) and he HAS to be in his 50's. Nothing about them looks right together. Typically she will putt around on the elliptical and he will crawl along on the treadmill and they flirt the whole time and never so much as lose a drop of sweat. For whatever reason the gym was packed Tues night and the only two treadmills left were on either side of me. Brent and I both saw the absolute look of despair cross their faces when they walked in together and saw they wouldn't have adjoining machines. They circled a few times and then faced facts - I was the fast moving, sweaty cream filling in their Oreo. And honestly, I wasn't happy about it either. She was wearing some cheap floral perfume and it only made me run faster. From time to time they'd glance across me and wave. Ugh. I swear they couldn't have walked a mile in the half hour or so they were on there, and once again neither one broke a sweat. What's the point? I was half tempted to throw a harness on them and have Pips show them how to walk AND get a decent workout.

Anyway, we left the gym and headed home. We'd only been home about 5 minutes when I noticed out the back windows that it was snowing! Big, fluffy fakes! The nice wet kind that would be great for packing. I danced around and ran out on the deck with Pips. This is his third winter now, and we've yet to have a decent snow. He quickly decided he didn't care for the falling white stuff so he wanted back in - pronto!! It piled up to maybe a .25 inch overnight. And of course that means one thing - school was canceled. Pathetic, right? I agree. It warmed up quickly today and by lunch every last flake was melted. Obviously a reason for an entire snow day! And the roads were completely clear, nothing at all one them. One spot in our subdivision was pretty icy this morning, and during our am walk Pips discovered he HATES ice! When his feet would start to slide he'd panic and try to pull harder, knocking me a bit off balance! I have a good pair of shoes for ice, but they're buried who knows where and my old sneakers definitely don't have ice traction left! We ended up walking through people's yards some and we even stopped to watch one car slide around on it. We only did two laps this am, Pips was NOT feeling his first semi-decent snow experience and a lot of people weren't hardly scraping their windows enough to see so I didn't really want to take my chances with squirrely drivers this morning. We made up for it this evening and Brent walked a mile with us, giving Pippin a grand total of 1 and 2/3rds miles today. (Plus a lot of ball tossing this evening!)










This taper thing.....makes me antsy! My appetite has reduced, which I am pretty happy about. Tonight was my first non-weeknight run in a LONG time! (Except for Friday's which are always off). It's very weird....it will be extremely strange not to walk into work tomorrow and jot down my mileage on my calendar! It's going to leave a strange whole in a nice block of numbers. I don't think I'm a good taperer. I'm fidgety and most likely qualified as an exercise-aholic. I ended up doing 25 minutes on our elliptical tonight (easy pace, no sweat displaced) while watching the strange new Skating with the Stars show and then 20 minutes of stretching/toning. Oh well, maybe I'll get better at the taper as we go along!

Make sure you check out Brent's new video of Pippin vs the String!! What a nut!!

Exercise Log (I keep forgetting this!)

Wed- 1 mile am walk with Pippin;6 miles, outdoors
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pippin;6 miles, indoors
Fri - 1 mile pm walk with Brent and Pippin (am thunderstorms!)
Sat - 12 mile run, 2 mile pm walk with Brent and Pippin
Sun - 2 mile afternoon walk with Brent and Pippin, 40 minutes toning/stretching focus: abs/thighs
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 6 mile outdoor run
Tues - 5 mile indoor run (Major am rain, no walk =( )
Wed - 2/3 mile am walk with Pips, 1 mile evening walk with Brent and Pippin, 25 minutes elliptical, 20 minutes toning/stretching focus:butt