The theme for this week seemed to be…more sleep! I struggled to sleep well at night and just wanted to sleep in every morning. This is normal for me after having a week off of work; the first week back is always rough around the edges trying to re-establish routines…both at home and school. The kids are also slow moving the first week back. Not to mention I always put unnecessary stress on myself during the first week back at work to do this and that…none of which is super important, but all of it keep my mind racing.
Monday:
When the alarm went off at 4 am, I really wanted to roll over and go back to sleep! Instead, I slowly put both feet on the floor and went to the gym for an hour strength training session. After being on break for a week, it was hard to get back into the groove at work…the kids seemed to struggle with this too. With the full moon coming on Wednesday, that might not have helped the craziness!! After work, I had an easy hour on the trainer to spin out the legs from the weekend’s hard work. We followed this up with dinner out with friends. We went to one of our favorite local burger restaurants that is unfortunately closing its doors this weekend. SO SAD!!
Tuesday:
When the 4 am alarm went off, I. Was. Exhausted!! The Iron Hippie and I briefly discussed our options and decided to go back to sleep for two more hours before going to work. Hill repeats was on the schedule for after work and thankfully it was about 66F, so we set out to run!! We like to run the same hill when doing hill repeats to give us a feel for where our fitness is each time we have a hill repeat run on the schedule. This workout always reminds me of a student that we lost almost 2 years ago when he was hit by a car while on a training ride with a group of local cyclists. The reason I think of him…he was ALWAYS trying to be better at everything he did and who he was. This meant doing “just one more” hill repeat to get stronger, “just one more” 50 on the 1:00 in the pool, “just one more” question to challenge his thinking. So we did “just one more” hill repeat to pay tribute to TRJ!
Wednesday:
After not sleeping well last night, I. Was. Exhausted!! I slept in and then was slammed with 8th grade drama at school. Needless to say, when I got home from work, I ate dinner and crawled in bed. Yes, I was in bed by 6:30 pm with lights out at 6:45 pm.
Thursday:
This was another sleep-in…that gave me over 11 hours of sleep for the night!! Boy did I feel ready to go!! After a full day of work, I worked with my personal training client that I see every week, went home to change and grab food, and then went to teach TRX.
Friday:
When the alarm went off at 4 am, I put my feet on the floor and was ready to ride!! It was a nice and easy recovery ride, which was a great start to the day!! It went downhill a bit after riding though…The Iron Hippie’s car wouldn’t start and my car was in the garage, so I couldn’t jump start his car. We texted the neighbor at 5:55 am (yes…that is early!!) and he was able to come over and help. After dropping his car off at the shop, I drove him to work before heading to work myself. TGIF!! After work, I was scheduled to go swim, but had to pick the Iron Hippie up from work and take him back to the shop to pick up his car. Thankfully it was just a dead battery and nothing more serious. By the time I was done running around town, it was time for my much needed massage!! I ended the day by watching the ISU Cyclones lose in the NCAA Tournament…SO SAD 😦
Saturday:
Well…today was a flop! I woke up at 8:47 am…hello another 11+ hour night of sleep!! We went and grabbed some breakfast before doing some grocery shopping and food prep for Easter Sunday dinner. I did some course work for my Living Brave Semester in the afternoon and then we went to our neighbors house for an AMAZING dinner. They are from Switzerland and we love getting together with them…the food and conversation are always top notch!!
Sunday:
After sleeping in until 9:44 am…I told you the theme for this week was sleep…we got on the trainer in the basement. Cleaned up, took the dogs to the park to play fetch, and then went to my sole sista’s house for Easter dinner at 1 pm. Good food, good conversation, and lots of love made for a fantastic afternoon. When we got home, we did some food prep for the week and cut and stacked fire wood before taking the dogs for a walk and calling it a day.
Weekly Totals: 6 hours
Swim: Nadda…Zilch…
Bike: 37 miles
Run: 8 miles
Strength Training: 1 hour & 45 minutes
Quote of the Week:
“When you can’t adjust the direction of the wind – adjust your sails.” ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Today is the start of a new week and time to press the reset button. Let’s go…
PushMyLimits 
My spring break starts today and I’m hitting the reset button myself. I feel like I’ve used my reset button a lot in 2016. I guess the reset button is better than just shutting down and powering off, though! 🙂
Enjoy your break!! The reset button is definitely better than shutting down and powering off!!
Ooof, those weeks after a break are SO hard – for the kids and also the teacher (I’m back today – eek!). Sounds like you took the tweaks in stride and took care of yourself. Have a great week of working out and otherwise!
I’m glad I’m not the only one the weeks after break are hard on. I hope this week goes better for you than it did for me. Have a great week!! xoxo
Off weeks like that aren’t a bad thing, you clearly needed it! I have no doubt you’ll be back at it this week!
Thanks Emily! Recovery weeks are important and I obviously needed sleep since I had 4 nights with over 10 hours of sleep each night. I’m bouncing back well so far 😉
I think its great that you listened to your body and gave it what it was asking for: more sleep! Sometimes that can be hard to do, but you DID IT!
Thanks Laura!! It can be hard to listen to our bodies…more mentally for me 😉
WOW! It sounds as if your body was in some serious need for solid sleep! Good for you for listening to it and taking a step back from training for a few sessions to recover. You know this was a smart decision in the long run and your body will thank you for it.
I love your motivation on the hill repeats. Drawing from life experiences like that can really force us to dig deep and remember we are lucky to be doing what we are doing.
Random question….since your schedule is so early typically on the work days, how do you get your pups to sleep in on the weekend? Our girl still wakes up early on Saturday and Sunday and usually my hubbie will take one for the team and get up with her and let me sleep longer. What’s your secret?
Sometimes taking a step back and listening to our bodies is hard…at least it is for me. I know my body will thank me for it in the long run 😉
TRJ is always my motivation while running hills and my constant reminder that I am lucky to be out there running!!
Our girls don’t let us sleep in, but once we feed them and let them out, they do let us go back to bed. I am very grateful for this as we are usually only up for 10 minutes before being able to go back to bed. 😉
Wow, you must have been so tired, but doesn’t it feel great to let yourself sleep in and recover?! I assume it would be bad news if you didn’t, so good for you!!!
I have to say I’m quite jealous over you having hills to run on. I wish! We have one set here in town and they’re super short so you go back and forth and back and forth. Not real fun. I miss Iowa hills 🙂
And on another note, sad about ISU but at least they didn’t literally give the game away like UNI did. We enjoyed watching the clones play!!!
It is a double edge sword for me when I listen to my body by allowing it to sleep in and recover. My body thanks me for it, but I also find that I am mentally beating myself up over all of the rest and not completing my workouts. This only adds to my stress. Thankfully we have started a new week and I’m already seeing green in Training Peaks 😉
We are lucky to have hills to run here, although they aren’t quite like the hills that I’ve run elsewhere, they are better than not having any to run on!!
It was fun to watch ISU play and not give the game away. It was also fun to see Iowa, UNI and ISU all make it into the tourney!!
What a week you had! They all can’t be training winners, but getting some extra rest and a massage are important too-good on you for listening to your body. My guys are back to school this morning-I thought I’d be happy about it, but we had a really nice break and I’m sad to have it end. Cheers to a fresh week!
It was a week! It is hard sometimes to listen to my body, but it usually is the best move. We only have 9 more weeks until summer break. When are your boys done? So far this week has been much better on the training front 😉 Cheers!!
They go until June 24th-I can’t wait! My youngest is much easier to take places now that there are no more diapers and he can keep up with his big bros, so I’m anticipating a very fun summer 🙂
June 24th?! Oh my! Our kids are done May 27. It will be a fun summer now that he is able to keep up with his brothers 😊
I could definitely use a little more sleep in my life. At least Axel sleeps through the night and doesn’t wake us up until 6am or so. Sleep is something I will always be missing a little… it seems to be last on the priority list. Someday, right? It sounds like we had similar experiences with swimming this week. 🙂
I used to skimp on sleep because it wasn’t at the top of my priority list, but I’ve learned that eventually it catches up with me and makes me unbearable to live with 😉 Now, I try to listen to my body more (though not always)!! It does sound like we had similar swimming experiences this week. I hope you are off to a better week this week!!
If you slept that much…your body is probably loving you right now!!! 🙂 Sleep is huge for recovery! I have a hard time sleeping less than 8 hours a night….i used to love the good ol days when i could sleep for 5 hours and be roaring to go….I would probably die if i only slept 5 hours in a night!! #gettingoldsucks
My body has felt AMAZING this week! I don’t function on less than 8 hours of sleep a night and don’t know if I ever have. I’ve always been a sleeper 😉 I completely agree… #gettingoldsucks 😉