A Look Into An 80 Mile Week, Our Christmas + Happy New Years's Eve!

Hey friends, can you believe this is the last day of 2018 - crazy, right? We are having such a relaxing winter break and even though the kids are literally climbing the walls at times, we are loving the down time. Christmas is such a special time for our family and as the kids grow it becomes even more meaningful. Christmas Eve was spent at our church service in the late afternoon and I love singing Christmas carols - I'm the person singing her heart out without a care in the world. The meaning of the songs really resonates in my heart now more than ever and I love everything that Christmas represents.

Let's talk about this picture for a quick minute. I was happy with it, except for the fact that Megan decided to look like a chipmunk - ugh. So we took another one...

The light is shining in my eyes, but whatever... I think it's a miracle to get five people to smile and look at the camera. Anyway, after service, we went to our friend and neightbor's home for a Christmas Eve party! This was really fun and different as we usually have a quiet evening at home. They had an outdoor movie for the kids and tons of food and drink - we loved it and I got a chance to meet my new friend Don...

You can read all about Don's story HERE. He is so fantastic and I can't wait to see what he does with his running this year.

We opened lots of presents on Christmas morning...

For the first time ever, I woke up before dawn to get in an 8.25 mile Christmas Day run. It was glorious - an incredible sunrise + the feeling of getting it done super early + later in the run, there were tons of runners dressed in Christmas gear out... running a Christmas race on the bike path!

I loved that we got to spend Christmas with my Mom! She means so much to us...

(sorry for blurry pic)

Josh got a lot of great use out of my Brooks running sweater this month - he even dressed up for ugly sweater Christmas Day at school and WON the grand prize!

I also ran 80.75 miles this week and this is what it looked like... kinda feels like a dream in that this week went by incredibly fast.

Monday December 24th - 5.5 miles easy

Tuesday December 25th - 8.25 miles easy - MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Wednesday December 26th - 8 miles easy

Thursday December 27th -  AM workout: 2 mile warm up, 8 mile wave tempo (6:46 pace), 2 mile cool down.

I like wave tempos - the faster paces make the "easier" paces feel really easy. I started out at 6:55 pace and alternated between that and 6:35 pace. 12 total miles

PM workout: 3 easy miles

Friday December 28th - 11 miles am and 3 miles pm

Saturday December 29th - 8 miles easy

Sunday December 30th - 22 miles at 7:33 pace. I definitely ran this on tired legs (already had 58.75 miles on the legs) which was a great marathon workout. I practiced fueling and although I don't have everything figured out yet with my stomach, I'm working on it - including a much needed scheduled trip to the doctor soon to figure things out.

In no way do I take this kind of mileage lightly, there is a whole lot of recovery going on over here including:

1. Lots of protein rich food. I had a steak, mashed potatoes and lots of veggies for dinner.

2. Banana and almond butter as soon as I finished the run.

3. TONS of water.

4. Light stretching and lots of rolling on my R8 roller.

5. Hot shower.

6. Jerold gave me a much needed massage. I really depend on him to help me out with this - my body needs it so much and I can't always get out for a daily massage :)

7. Epsom salt hot bath this morning (I was too tired to take one yesterday evening).

8. I take iron, B12, Vitamin D and a Multi vitamin every day. Need to add a probiotic...

9. Lots of tart cherry juice (so yum).

10. Put off my morning run to sleep in - have to run today before the sun goes down - eeek. Plus, I will run very easy and do whatever my body wants.

I do have another marathon on the horizon and will talk about it very soon. I would be lying if I didn't tell you that I'm working hard on not putting any sort of pressure on myself since CIM ended in a complete disaster. Ugh. I need to still talk about it, but haven't really felt ready to yet (soon), just trying to look ahead and work hard for the next opportunity.

Okay, I have to dash out for this late evening run before we go to see fireworks at the beach with kids for New Year's Eve! We are going to celebrate on NYC time so we can all get to bed sort of early.

I know it has been a while since my last post and I miss it!! I miss you guys and can't wait to connect so much in 2019. I really wanted to write this post before the new year. I am so excited about all the wonderful things 2019 will have in store for each of us and so thankful for you guys!

Happy New Year from me to you. Blowing you a big air kiss!

Do awesome things.

xo,

Natalie