ETC..., Running

Weekend Wrap-up Crawfish Edition

crawfish boil

Happy Monday, friends. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I’ve had worse Mondays. I’ve got no meetings on my schedule today, which only happens once in a blue moon. That means, I can have myself a really productive day without any interruptions from Zoom. I hope your Mondays are shaping up to be just as nice. I had one big item on my schedule this weekend: a 10 mile run. So, why don’t I just jump right into it?

Friday

cali

By the time Friday rolled around, I was pretty tired. Work came at me fast and furious because of our trip to California earlier in the week. Note to self: it’s really hard to come back on a Thursday and expect not to buried in emails. I spent most of Thursday and Friday trying to dig myself out from under the emails that had piled up. So, by Friday evening, I wanted to stay in. I called my mother-in-law while I hung out with the dogs outside so we could all enjoy the wonderful weather. Once Aaron got home, we walked the dogs, had pizza night and we were in bed by 10 or 11. Now, I purposely did not set an alarm because I needed to catch up on some sleep, but I should have.

Saturday

I woke up around 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, and it was already hot outside. I’m talking in the mid 70s, and I knew I was probably in for a hot 10-mile run. I haven’t done as many long runs as I would like in preparation for the Nashville half marathon, and this was the only weekend I had left to do a double digit run.

breakfast taco

Aaron had grabbed us breakfast tacos so I would have some good running fuel. I prepped some of my running essentials that I know I would be using on race day, and I set off.

running essentials

I always put a Nuun in my water for proper rehydration, and I do like to use an energy chew of some sort for half marathons. As long as I stay on top of my hydration and nutrition, I can usually avoid feeling terrible after a long run. These skratch gummies are new to me, but I like the idea behind them. They don’t have as much sugar as some of the other chews, they use real fruit for flavor and they include more electrolytes.

10-mile run

I knew I would have to take these 10 miles slowly – because it was going to be in the upper 80s by the time I finished. So, I set off at a 10 minute/mile pace and knocked out my run in my neighborhood. My run took me up and down all of the streets in the neighborhood, and I was really glad to have some shade from the trees. This long run felt okay – I didn’t break any records, and I knew I had enough gas left in the tank to finish a half. So, I feel okay about going into a half marathon in less than 2 weeks!

running

And, there I was at the end of my run. My toes took the brunt of the damage from the run, but my legs feel pretty decent today.

dog toys

After my run, I took a quick shower, grabbed a protein shake from Smoothie King and set off to run some errands. I needed some more Skratch gummies for race day, and the pups needed some new toys. We’ve gotten to the point where they defluff any stuffed toys, but I couldn’t resist this sloth for them. And, I can confirm, they were able to defluff the sloth in less than 5 minutes!

dog toys

I also grabbed this ball because Tex loves to fetch in the pool, and I always worry that a true tennis ball will obstruct his airway when he’s swimming.

And, we played in the water to close out our Saturday afternoon. These dogs love the water.

By that time, I was exhausted from my run earlier in the day, so Aaron grabbed some dinner for us on his way home from work, and I was in bed by 10 p.m. Now, the 20-year-old version of me would have been mortified at even admitting I was in bed by 10. But, the older, wiser version of myself is really dang proud of it 🙂

Sunday

crawfish boil

We had an early morning on Sunday because some friends of ours invited us to a crawfish boil at the Houstonian. It was all-you-could eat crawfish, which sounds a bit daunting. If you aren’t from Texas, you might not understand the allure of crawfish. In fact, it’s taken me about 17 years to try to wrap my head around it. But, since living in Houston, I have come to appreciate – and enjoy a good crawfish boil. The spicier the better in my opinion. I was able to knock back two boxes of crawfish, and I made my husband proud. Aaron and our friend, Mike, decided to forego the sides – and try to just eat as many crawfish as they could. Such a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

bahama bucks

Aaron and I capped our Sunday evening off with a snow cone!

And now, I’m refreshed and ready to tackle this week!

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