What Should I Do This Weekend?

Here's a quick summary of my workouts last week:

Monday - 6.3 miles tempo-ish run
Tuesday - 5.6 miles normal (included in the same post as Monday's run)
Wednesday - 19.25 miles !!
Thursday - REST
Friday - REST
Saturday - 4 miles normal w/ Angela and Olivia in northern Michigan - also, some paddleboarding = arm workout
Sunday - cross train - 12 miles biking, leisurely on a tandem bike

Even though I didn't get a run in on Friday as planned, I'm still really happy with the runs I did this past week and glad to have gotten my mileage up (both long run mileage and total weekly mileage which was about 35 miles).  I would still like to get that weekly mileage up a little more over the next 3-4 weeks before I taper.  But I say that every week.

I haven't decided yet what I want to do this weekend.  I might go to Madison, WI to watch the Ironman Wisconsin and in that case I would probably shoot for a 20 mile long run on Saturday.  But after all the driving this past weekend, a day trip to Michigan planned for the following weekend, and then UD Parents Weekend at the end of September, I think a weekend without traveling will be nice.  So if I stay here in Chicago this weekend, I can do a half marathon on Sunday or do a long run either day.  Here's my plan for Monday through Friday at least.  Obviously Monday already happened, so I just put in what I already did.

Monday - hill workout ~4.5 miles
Tuesday - 10-12 miles
Wednesday -6 miles
Thursday - Speed Workout - Mile Repeats
Friday - 5 miles

And now it's September!  As far as August running mileage, I ended up with 140 miles. If you've read some of my other posts, you know that I am comparing these couple months of marathon training to how I did during 2010 when I was training for the Columbus Marathon. In August of that year, I ran 145 miles, so I'm pretty much at exactly the same.  I was hoping to be significantly higher for the August mileage, but the beginning of the month was pretty low-mileage.

September should be a big increase over 2010 because I only had 98 miles that month. I want to shoot for close to 200 miles this September.

I decided I needed another picture and thought I'd include another one from the lake weekend, but then I thought - why not find a picture from last September?  My soul was sold away to the public accounting world for most of the month, but then I got to go to Nashville to celebrate Grace's Bachelorette party!!  Are you aware that according to whatever spell check system this blogging software uses, bachelorette is not a word?  It wants to correct it to bachelor.  That is weird.  And now I just typed it in Microsoft Word and it is a word there.  Google Blogger must not think that girls have fun too.

What are you planning to do this week?  Or this weekend?

Have you ever been to Nashville? 

Cincinnati Cabrewing Weekend

I'm on my way home from Cincinnati right now and thought I'd recap all the adventures of the weekend. Luckily, I was able to get a ride with Belinda and her friend so I didn't have to worry about driving and can write this while I ride! We are listening to Celine Dion, so it's just a good atmosphere all around.

As soon as I got to Cincy Friday evening, Kristin and I went for a run. I was a bit nervous for this because the Ohio valley is mountainous and I had just done a hard workout on Thursday night. Even right when I got in the car with Kristin and started to laugh as we were talking, my core muscles felt extremely sore. But we started out on our route through Oakley and Hyde Park and chatted the whole way. It was a great normal run, but I am definitely not used to the hills! Sometimes I wish I had a little more terrain variety to run on but this felt like going from one extreme to the other. We did a solid 4.25 miles that went by super fast. Besides just the hill factor, it was a lot different that running in Chicago because of the peacefulness of it. We passed a few people and were running on some busier streets, but it is nowhere near the amount of people and stoplights I always have to fight through if I don't run at 5:30am before everyone else wakes up.

After the run we got ready for a night out! We went to Nada, a Mexican restaurant downtown. Everything about it was amazing. We shared chips and queso dip and were practically too full to eat our actual meals.

First round of drinks was a mojito for Kristin and a margarita for me. Second round was sparkling sangria for me and a coffee for her. No sleeping allowed!

We met up with Tim and his group that went to the DMB concert for a night in Mt. Adams. Besides the one time I came to Cincy for a night a few months ago and went to a bar near Tim's apartment for about a whole 10 minutes, this was the first time I had been out in Cincinnati. We did the Hofbrahaus one night in college too but I'm going to consider this the first real weekend I got to experience the city nightlife.

The real adventure of the weekend though was cabrewing on Saturday! After coffee and sandwiches, we met Tim, Dan, Eric, and Erin to drive to the river. We decided to tie our 3 canoes together to float down the river instead of really paddling. When we started, the canoe lady said the trip should take about 1.5 to 3 hours. We were in the river for 4.5 hours. We did make some necessary stops as we floated to (1) use the rope swing off the bank of the river to swing into the water, (2) climb up a tree that had wooden planks nailed to it to use as steps and then jump down into the water, (3) use the bathroom and (4) save a lady whose canoe had flipped at one of the more rapid parts of the lake. Jumping off the tree was definitely my favorite part but it was scary being up that high. The biggest regret of the trip was that none of us brought a phone or camera onto the water because we were scared to tip, but since we anchored all 3 canoes together, tipping wasn't even possible. But we did have the necessities - beer, water, chips, salsa, and Twizzlers.

After the river adventure, it was time for more coffee and getting all fancied up again. We met up with the cabrewing group (organization name: Terry's Fairies) and went to Yardhouse for an awesome dinner and then out to another bar downtown. My pictures from Saturday night are on my real camera, so I can't upload those just yet so here's another from before the canoe adventure.

The weekend was filled with a lot of activity, fun, and good food! Kristin and I even got brunch this morning before I headed out. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work up the energy for a short run when I get home, but maybe I should just to get above 30 miles for this week.

What was the best thing you did this weekend?

What is your favorite thing about running in a new area?