It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
Hello again snow, my old friend. I had hoped we might not see each other again until next winter, but alas, here you are again.
Oh, well – a little snow didn’t scare all of us off from the November Project this morning!
My blogger buddies Mary, Chelsea, and I, plus Chelsie’s boyfriend and his friend, all made the push this morning, meeting at 6:05 a.m. to give us time to run down to the Lincoln Memorial by 6:30 for the November Project workout.
It had just started snowing when we met up to make our way downtown. I love the Lincoln Memorial in the early morning light when it’s all lit up – so beautiful.
The snow continued while we ran stairs! I kept it super casual on pace – only 1.5 weeks until the LA Marathon (!!) so I wasn’t trying to kill it out there!
No gorgeous sunrises this morning – it was really foggy/cloudy – but it actually looked really cool with the monument barely peeking through the fog.
At the start of the workout, I actually ran into blog reader Betsy, who I first met at mile 22-ish of the Richmond Marathon (my first full marathon!) back in November! She was with her husband and the three of us chatted briefly and then ended up running near each other until the finish line. I remember her saying: “You’re looking so strong!” and it really helped me to keep pushing through! It was so fun to see her again and catch up. 🙂
And here I am with Mary and Chelsea! I love that you can really see the snow in these photos.
After crushing a whole lot of stair running, we ran the very hilly route back home. I am so hill trained at this point it’s kind of ridiculous. Literally every single one of my runs includes at least one massive mile long hill. Whew!
Snow everywhere by this point! It was fluffy and easy to run on, though – not icy like last week, thankfully.
Between the 2.5 mile run each way to and from the November Project, plus the miles we ran up and down the stairs, Mary’s watch said we hit 7.5 miles. Pretty awesome workout for a Wednesday morning! I reeeeeeeally didn’t want to go when I first woke up and considered bailing, but as always I’m so glad I didn’t. I seriously have to repeat the following over and over to myself when my alarm goes off and it’s pitch black and freezing out: “I know it sucks right now but remember how happy you’ll be once you’re out there – and then the rest of the day knowing you did this. You’ll be pissed at yourself if you go back to bed.” Repeat, repeat, repeat until I get myself out the door and it’s too late to change my mind. 😉
I’ll end by sharing this fun “mug shot” photo the November Project team took of me (and many others) at the end of last week’s workout! Three cheers for gross/sweaty morning workout pictures. Ya’ll know it’s just how I roll over here. Makeup is clearly overrated.
This will probably be the last time I hit up the November Project for at least a few weeks since I’ve got both the LA Marathon and the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA half marathon coming up, but once those are over and done I’m hoping to try out the Friday morning November Project – the location changes and apparently the workouts are a lot more creative/boot camp ish. And they are still free of course, too. Sounds fun!
Time to catch up on emails, AnneTheRD client work, and prep for teaching tomorrow, as usual. I hope you all have a wonderful day!
Anyone else get in a workout this morning? How awesome do you feel now having done that? 🙂
