Dear blog, I've missed you. But I had to stay away for good reason. We've been quite busy.
On Friday I had my long run; it ended up being 9.39 miles, again my longest yet. I ran with both my sisters for the first 3 miles, and just Audra for the rest. The group selfie looks a little funny since I was trying to get the phone far enough away to get our outfits. Turned out we all wore Skirt Sports running skirts, which we got a kick out of.
I am not in any way affiliated with Skirt Sports, nor are my sisters, but we all love their products and have for awhile now. Cute, well made athletic wear for women. It's nice to feel comfortable and confident in my clothing while I exercise. It makes a difference. Plus the running skirts have so many usable pockets! Most of my other athletic wear does NOT. Although on Friday, even with the pockets, we needed to carry belts for water and fuel. It was quite warm, which I am not used to for running right now. We ran slow and mostly steady, stopped to stretch and hydrate and fuel often. I still haven't really exercised since then, although did quite a bit of walking this weekend (more on that later), but recovery from the run has been good. I was really sore Saturday, and my feet are still a little tender in some spots, but I'm happy and injury free still.
Now normally I would feel quite guilty about not having exercised in... 2, 3, 4ish days, but I'm also recognizing that I am allowing a taper before my 10 mile Colorado Women's Classic race on Mother's Day. I'm getting rather excited about this run, and I'm finally feeling like yeah, I can really do it. It's going to be challenging, I've definitely gotta be careful that I don't start out too fast despite the jittery race mentality (it's not like I'm racing this one, hah), and my feet and muscles will really be feeling it by the end. But I know I can finish it, as long as I don't injure myself in the next week and a half. I'll still run some before the race, but nothing more than 6 miles at a time, and that much would probably only be once. It's strange to be referring to 6 miles as like "not that much", but it didn't used to feel that way for me, and not that long ago. In the fall, I did my first 10k and that felt extremely daunting. It is so awesome to be in the best running shape of my life, as Nasser recently put it.
So let's move on from running. We actually finished our run and had dinner at my parents house with some of our families Friday evening. Cousins had a wonderful time playing during the run, under my mom's watch, which was so incredibly helpful, and afterward we also brought home my brother-in-law and one of the cousins (N who is RG's age) for a sleepover. The boys stayed up way past their bedtime having a grand time, although luckily TK fell asleep at least a little bit earlier. Nasser and Jeff had some quality video game time, and the grownups enjoyed some hangout time before we all crashed. On Saturday after driving our visitors home, we had a 5 year old gal friend's birthday party with many of our friends in the area. But then we were in a rush to leave to drop off the boys at my parents house for another sleepover!
Date night you ask? Even better!
My good friends and roommates from college, Jigna and Magda, came to visit and landed Saturday afternoon. We went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, about a 2 hour drive south of Chicago, in the middle of lots and lots of corn fields. It was wonderful. Jigna was my roommate freshman year in the dorms, then again junior and senior year in a 4 bedroom apartment. Jigna and Magda had a 2 bedroom apartment together sophomore year, and I often visited. Magda lived in the same apartment with us, along with another girl, junior and senior year. The three of us were very close through college and we try to remain so, even if we don't often talk. Jigna is the best of us at making a point of visiting and she always has been. She lives in the Chicago area and Magda, along with her husband, lives in Orange County.
Nasser and I ended up picking the gals up from the airport, after it appeared not worth it to attempt the new train to downtown. The train just started running, plus it was a free promotional day on Saturday, so people were taking it just for fun. We had a wonderful night on the town, went to three different places for drinks and shared plates, kinda tapas style. We even went to a coffee shop in there. We were trying to make the night fun for Jigna's birthday, which hopefully we succeeded. :)
Sunday and Monday were more low-key, girls time shopping on Pearl Street in Boulder Sunday afternoon/evening, little hike and some time at Celestial Seasonings for lunch and tea tastings on Monday, before Magda flew out Monday early evening, then Jigna flew out just this afternoon. We really had lots of quality friend time the entire long weekend. I am so grateful. And I get to see these lovely ladies again next month for a friend's wedding. Actually first Jigna flies here again for a concert with us at Red Rocks and she'll fly with us to DC for the wedding. I'm super excited about that entire trip. :)
I've been doing really well emotionally since last Wednesday. I intend to run tomorrow which will be good to get back into the exercise routine, and I wanted to immediately get back into blogging. I am recognizing that I could be at risk, with some letdown of friends leaving, but hopefully by being aware, I can combat the start of anything.
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