Happy August, everyone!

The last week of July was delightfully busy. I had four different job interviews, with two coming back to request a second interview this upcoming week. I’ve dealt with unemployment more than once, but last week was the first breakthrough of its kind, and I have faith that a new job is going to be mine by the end of August.

My training schedule was a little off. I have a habit of doing one thing well while the other falls by the wayside when I’m first getting back into the swing of marathon training. This past week I stuck to my Monday-Wednesday-Friday lifting schedule and slowly increased my weights. My back and shoulders are coming along nicely and I feel like I have that part of myself back. However, while I was able to stick to my lifting schedule and make progress there, my running got a little wonky.

Typically I run Tuesday – Thursday – Saturday. Tuesday I was toast because of Monday’s lifting session, so that was an impromptu rest day. I ran seven miles after lifting on Wednesday. Thursday was another toast day, and Friday morning before my mom came out I lifted and got five miles in.

Mom coming out and spending part of the weekend with me was my main focus and highlight last week. She took last week off of work and we planned to go to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Friday, since we hadn’t been there in four years and it was high time we make the day trip. In true Mom ‘n Allison fashion, she drove while I navigated her along 315 northbound – contrary to what my former boyfriend would say, my sense of direction is sturdy and I can navigate like nobody’s business – and showed her another way to get to the northside.

We moved slowly, partially to accommodate a sore quad muscle Mom was dealing with, but also because we just wanted to. There’s no place we needed to be right away, so we walked all over. I got to see my sea lions, otters and big cats, as well as the newborn elephant calf and sleepy koalas.

Five hours. We spent five hours lollygagging and looking at everything. The zoo is close to Dublin, Ohio, where there’s a new S-shaped suspension bridge connecting two districts across the Scioto River. I asked Mom if she felt up to walking on the bridge. The quad was flaring up, but to her credit she’s a trooper, so we spent a half hour walking around Dublin, crossing the bridge, wondering aloud how sturdy it actually is (the bridge is up pretty high and a gust of wind can set anyone on edge) and then making a pit stop at the grocery for dinner.

Dinner Friday night was a white sheet cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Nobody stayed on a diet this past weekend.

Saturday was a low-key day. In spite of frequenting there myself, I had never taken my mom to the Columbus Park of Roses. That was our early afternoon adventure, walking around the rose gardens and me taking more pictures like I haven’t been there before. Mom enjoyed herself and the quad wasn’t bothering her as badly. We then followed the rose gardens up with a trip down to Lancaster for lunch and regular grocery shopping. Getting the groceries wasn’t much to write about, but Mom loved the Downtown Bistro that I suggested.

After Mom left on Saturday afternoon I was dead tired. Mentally I had the desire to go to the gym and run, but physically? If I thought I was toast last week, then I was definitely toast after Mom left. I wound up sleeping for a few hours on the couch, only to wake up, unmake my bed and go back to sleep again with Marina.

So to bring it back to my training recap: I ran fewer miles than Week #1, which I wasn’t originally planning on doing. But I’m also not sweating it either. My body needed to rest, and the trails aren’t going anywhere. Time with family on the other hand is limited, so I focused on having a blast there. And it was a great decision.

I hope all of you have a great week ahead. I appreciate all of you who read this – I can follow the numbers on my stats page and with each month I have more people reading and enjoying the (hopefully) funny, entertaining and even sometimes dumb stuff I put online.

Yours in writing and running,

Allison