The Broad Running Broad

Well, I didn’t see the last half of June or July coming.

Not too long after my last post, my boss sent my teammates and I a group message. I can’t go into too much detail, but there was a cyber incident. Our company decided to go offline while investigating what happened and getting the issue resolved. Day One happened to be a Friday, so we all got a three day weekend and that was pretty nice.

It’s now been five weeks. And as of now, it looks like we might not be back online until early August.

Thankfully we’re still getting paid, so there’s no financial hit. I’ve been able to use the time to take my AU60 exam and get started on studying my AU61. But frankly, eight hours to fill by studying and checking emails gets boring pretty quickly.

It’s even gotten to the point where I’ve started keeping my TV on in the background to have some noise, which I rarely do. I found The Red Green Channel, home of reruns of all 11(?) seasons of The Red Green Show. It’s a Canadian version of Home Improvement, and I surprised myself by getting into it. The characters on the show remind me a lot of a few dads I knew growing up.

Marina has been having a ball. She’s discovered her mom being home and kinda-sorta not working means she gets unlimited sink water and couch snuggles, which she has been taking advantage of. In a way I feel like I’m on maternity leave, with a furry baby who needs a lot of attention and confirmation her mom is maybe a few steps away at all times. But at least she hasn’t been singing the song of her people at two in the morning, so I’ve been able to catch up on sleep.

Then there’s training for my fall races. I’m gonna be honest – I haven’t been making the distance gains I thought I would at this point with running, and cross training has fallen by the wayside a bit until this past week, since I was on my regularly-scheduled PTO and had the time.

The other hand of catching up on sleep means early morning runs haven’t been happening until later in the day, so I’ve been hitting the treadmill instead. Treadmill running is fine when outside conditions don’t allow for running, but the benefits of running outside are definitely better. So I’m not where I want to be at this point.

I have, however, gotten back into distance cycling for the cross trainig benefits as well stress management. I brought my bike back from my folks’ on Father’s Day weekend, and over the past few weekends have been going on rides up to Galena and the Ohio to Erie Trail.

My distances have increased from 11.3 miles to 28.4 to 46.7 miles this past Friday. The longest ride I’ve ever done was 57 miles back in 2022 for Pelotonia, and I’ve now unlocked a new goal of going on a 100-mile ride before the year is up. Start at the depot near me, ride the Ohio to Erie trail north to Mohican State Park, and then come back. Or who knows, maybe Mohican isn’t the 50-mile turnaround and I bike well into Amish Country. It’s beautiful up there in the fall.

New goals for 2024: half, full and Century ride. As well as passing my AU exams and getting that designation.

So here we are at the end of July, a hodgepodge post of long days, shifting goals, and a lot of kitty snuggles. And my mom and I having a staycation this past week that didn’t go according to plan for three out of the four days we were together. But that’s okay – the one day did, and that was a trip up to the water park at Cedar Point Shores.

And now with all of that being said, I hope you all are enjoying a peaceful Sunday. Thank you for stopping by my corner of the internet. To August we go!

Yours in life,

Allison