Hey friends!
I am getting SO EXCITED about heading to Seattle this coming weekend for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon with my fellow Brooks blogger Ambassadors! Yesterday morning, I had my final track workout for awhile. Perfect timing, because apparently they are closing W&L track this summer to do some construction on the turf field!
As you guys know, I’ve been doing an in-person track group/training program with Potomac River Runners (looks like they changed the program to be a little cheaper and not include training plans anymore, just the coached in person workouts) for the past 4 months. It has been so helpful for me to have coaches telling me exactly what to do and actually being there each Tues/Thurs morning to make sure I do it, too! It has helped a ton with getting my speed back – highly recommend the workouts to anyone in the area. Love the coaches, Margie and Ray, too. Since W&L will be closed they’ll be moving the locations some this summer, I think, just FYI. I’m going to take a breather after the race but might come back later this summer just to keep my speed going – we’ll see!
Anyway! It worked out perfectly that this was my final week of workouts with the group. I decided not to go on Thursday morning because I’ll be doing a shakeout run with the Brooks team out in Seattle on Friday, and think sleeping in tomorrow morning will do me more good than another run. I fly out tomorrow evening and don’t get into Seattle until late!
For yesterday’s final workout before the race, the coaches had me do a warm up (I did a half mile), then a mile and a half at goal pace (I was right around 7:45 min/mile pace), then four 400’s slightly faster (I did each lap around 1:48). I finished with another lap or so to cool down, plus some walking. This time my watch includes everything – the warm up, mile and a half, the 400’s, and my cool down lap too.
I’m going to share more details on Friday about my game plan for the race – stay tuned!
As for food this week, I’ve been enjoying eating out a lot! We don’t have a ton of food in the house and I don’t want to hit the grocery store since I’m about to leave (Matt will be gone for grad school stuff for part of the time I’m gone, too). Good excuse to enjoy some local restaurants! 🙂 On Monday night, after finding out that SUP Yoga was cancelled due to weather, I hit up Boulevard Woodgrill for a dinner date with my mom. I love this place – always hit the spot!
I had their tuna ponzu, which is an Asian-y seared tuna that I’ve had before and is always delicious. Pretty, too!
I also had a glass of chardonnay – and a side of asparagus for good measure. 🙂
It was massive so I saved half of the tuna dish and asparagus to take home and enjoy later!
Yesterday, I was working out of the UberOffices downtown and had an al fresco lunch in Dupont Circle with Lauren and Amanda. We had fun enjoying the weather and chatting nutrition and blogging!
We grabbed lunch from Teaism and walked down to enjoy it on the benches in the circle. Beautiful day to eat outside! I got a random assortment for lunch – a side beet salad + some grilled shrimp + a side of brown rice. Yum!
And as for last night, I had a fun date night with Matt! We’ve decided we’re going to pick one night each week to have a date night, since we haven’t been spending as much quality time together lately as we’d like because of all his grad school/work craziness. We’ll alternate who plans the date night – for our inaugural one last night, it was his turn! On the menu? A stroll over to Rocklands BBQ, one of our local faves.
I got chopped pork, baked beans, and sweet potato fries. Hit. the. spot. All of you guys on Instagram agreed with me that clearly my sweet potato fries counted as a veggie. 😉
I also shared some of Matt’s beer. 🙂
I’m working from home today and tomorrow so I have a little extra time to get organized for my trip – and so I’m not spending a ton of time commuting that I could use to wrap up some work stuff before I go. It’s days like these I feel very grateful for the chance to work from home if I feel like it! I’m also looking forward to a post-work yoga class with my friends Karen and Kathleen. It will feel nice to get in a good stretch!
Have a great day, everyone! I’ll leave you with some reading from around the web:
- Great blog post over on Strength Running by my Nutrition for Runners program co-author Jason: Why Am I Not Losing Weight? 4 Surprising Weight Loss Myths That Have to Die.
- The Washingtonian blog did a great round up of the mass quantities of free fitness classes in Georgetown this summer. Love it – will have to check some of those out!
- My friends at Wild Blueberries put together a great One Week Workout and Meal Plan inspired by the Winter Shape Up that my friend Gina and I co-hosted. It’s free to download – check it out!
- Speaking of – Gina just shared more details about the Summer Shape Up, which launches next week! Since my travel schedule is so crazy every summer and I’ve been making an effort to not overbook myself as much with work this year as I did last year, we decided it made sense to only co-host the Winter Shape Ups in January together from now on. That means Gina will be hosting the Summer Shape Ups solo (as she used to for years before I got on board to do the meal plans!). The summer variation will be more low key with workout graphics instead of full videos, and meal ideas instead of a full plan; then we’ll continue to team up for the winter version full force, which will have the workout videos from Gina and full meal plans from me. That said, I’m still looking forward to cheering you guys on this summer! 🙂 Have fun!
