Fit After Little Bits

eat right..work hard..play harder

Last Day of Ski Lessons and Hoping My Knee Cooperates with Life.

Happy Friday, Everyone!! Who is doing something fun this weekend?? Hot date? Long run? Sleeping until noon?

We had some plans (well, Ken still does), but Brooke woke up with a cold this morning, so we will play that by ear. Ken is headed out to ski with friends tomorrow morning and then to possibly ride with friends on Sunday. I feel like there is a lot of cuddling and chilling happening for the rest of us.

Let’s flashback to Wednesday! It was Brooke’s last day of ski lessons for the season (though she is really excited to ski with Ken and I until the snow leaves us).

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Ken got to sneak away from work (lunchtime!) to watch her “performance”. It was really awesome to see how much she has improved in 10 weeks.

Rough place to learn to ski.

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Killing it!

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She was the only girl to make it into the “A” group. No biggie 😉

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It was such a pretty day so we hit up the park after skiing.

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Yes, please.

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Such a fun day!

Spent most of the night grading….as well as every other night this week.

Since the knee is still on the mend, I have been riding instead. Making sure to keep the knee warm with my ’80s style leg warmers. Always a win.

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Proof for Ken that I made it over 100 watts without my knee exploding…

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Most of Thursday was spent doing chores and playing outside in the sunshine. Look at this weather love!

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Starting to look like Spring and we are not sad about it.

This morning was spent on the trainers. I made it 45 minutes before hopping off to make breakfast. Brooke has been resting most of the day (and apparently that means playdoh and ballet performances to a 4 year old).

I had some things to go to the mailbox, so I decided to try out an easy jog. Made it down and the knee was okay, so I continued on for the rest of a mile. Turned around and finished at home for 2 miles. Dream big. I was conservative with every part of the “run” and ended up with a 9:30ish pace. Really worked on my gait for the whole thing. Still not sure what started the knee issue, so I am being very careful starting up again.

Just dressed like the most non-runner ever. Baggy pants and a cotton t-shirt. So much no…but it was more of a “jog” than a “run”, right? 😉

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No big plans over here for the afternoon. Working on a training plan for Ken while giving Brooke all the snacks.

Hope that you have much more exciting plans for your Friday night!! Playing with tentative workout plans for the weekend. May try to run on the treadmill tomorrow so that I can bail if the knee acts up (and not be miles from home). We shall see how it plays out!

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Fat Bike Date Night and a Crash.

Good morning! How was your day yesterday?? Ours was a bit of a whirlwind and I woke up this morning feeling like I got hit by a truck. Complete with whiplash…apparently stacking it into hard-packed snow at 18 mph will do that to ya 😉

Yesterday started out perfectly normal. And then I made the final decision to do the Fat Bike Race in the evening…I was a little fearful 😉

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I have been doing a LOT more running than riding and all of my actual “workouts” have been run based with my rides being mainly recovery efforts. Translates into bike racing, right?!

We started out by heading to town to do some grocery shopping. This little guy was looking for some breakfast so we stopped to watch him for a bit.

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Once we had run our errands, we headed to ski lessons. The 5th week is their “performance” day, so everyone dressed up and showed off for the parents.

Apparently she made some friends 😉

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Cutest ever.

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Ken managed to sneak out at lunch to watch Brooke and it made her whole day. Mine too 😉

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The coaches and volunteers have been awesome this year and I just signed Brooke up for the second session!

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Warming up on the little hill….and spending more time looking at us than the coach. Oops.

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Then she moved over to the big hill!

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We said goodbye to Ken at the end of the lesson and booked it home to prep for the remainder of the day. Our neighbors were sweet enough to play with Brooke and put her to bed while Ken and I had a date night to the bike race. Perfectly normal date night 😉

Racing in the dark is SUPER attractive.

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I met up with Ken and we headed to the venue where we got suited up to ride. A bit of a warm up and we were off! I opted to do the long course which was 12 miles over the 9 mile short course. I really thought it would be terrifying being out there alone in the dark, but with the light on my bike it was pretty great. It was a bit unnerving on some of the descents…not knowing which way you were going to go at the bottom, but it was okay. I had a BLAST (first time racing my fat bike!). And the moon was spectacular as it crept over the mountains. The unfortunate crash occurred about 2 miles from the finish. I was going down the last steep hill and dont really know what happened, but I ended up in someones track in some soft snow and went down hard. I cant even tell you how I landed, it happened so fast….but I can tell you that I remember hearing the crash of my helmet hitting the snow on the right back side. Ugh.

I made the mistake (?) of being tentative going into the next turn onto singletrack and let a guy go around me. Turns out he wasnt quite as fast as I hoped he would be and I was stuck behind him coasting until we hit the wider trail again. Ken happened to circle back to check on me (he took 3rd in his race!!) and just missed seeing the crash! He cheered me on and I worked really hard, but I got out sprinted in the last 200 feet to go from 4th to 6th. I was still super happy with that after going down so hard! I finished about 27 minutes faster than I had anticipated!

We had a wonderful time having dinner with friends after the race and it was really cool to be a grown up for an evening! Headed home for some showers and fell (gingerly) into bed.

Hoping to get in the 5-6 mile run with some tempo miles that I skipped yesterday…we will see what the neck allows!

Hope you have a great Thursday…and keep things upright 😉

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Thursday Ramblings

Howdy! Who else is super excited that it is Thursday already? <Raises both hands>

Yesterday was a little more exciting than we expected when we quickly realized that ski lessons were starting! Around 11, we headed into town to get Brooke ready to hit the slopes!

We need snow sooooo bad.

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These two melt my heart. ❤

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We were excited to find out that Brooke had several friends in the class!! And we knew 3 of the instructors from different areas of life. There is something amazing about living in a small town. Love it so much!

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While Brooke was skiing, I got in a 5 mile run with Jasper. I love taking him running, but he has to stop to pee so much and it really does a number on my pace 😉 I guess the tradeoff is worth it…he thinks so. The path in town was mostly dry, save for a few sections of treacherous ice….managed to keep it upright so I am calling that a huge win!

Post-athletics, Brooke and I headed home.

Upping my running miles means that I am hungry….all the time!!

Like … give me all the foods!!!

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All food. Any food. Just typing this makes me want to find a snack. Geesh.

There has also been a fair amount of roller action happening. Yesterday was the first day that I had run on pavement in a LONG time and my shins were not thrilled about that.

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Neither were my feet. Ugh.

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Got some recovery time while playing dress up. Dont be jealous of my look 😉

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The husband ran at work yesterday. He has been jogging for the last two weeks and then he does this….I only hate him a little bit.

 

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Apparently I was successful.

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This morning we are doing some school work.

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I am aiming to get some miles in when it warms up a bit. The sun is shining, so that ups the motivation to get outside! Lots of chores on our list today….better get after it!

Hope you have a fantastic Thursday!!!

 

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