Weekly Recap: 15 Weeks Until the Amsterdam Marathon

Hi friends!

I’m (hopefully) back to regular blogging with my weekly recaps!

If you’ve been away for awhile, much has happened. I ran the Boston Marathon in April, took a little break from blogging, went through the devastating loss of my mom, and then announced our upcoming move London (in 3 weeks!)

Now that we know exactly when we are moving to London, we decided to register for a fall marathon in Europe to kick off our running tour of that continent. We decided on the Amsterdam marathon on October 16th, which is 15 weeks away.

I have no idea how training will be for me in London; I hope to find a running club, but if I train alone, that’s fine too!

Though I didn’t recap last week, there were two fun highlights- running the Brave Like Gabe 5k for fun with some friends and a lovely farewell party hosted by my friend Vicki!

Here’s how this past week went in training for the Amsterdam marathon:

Monday: Easy 4 miler after work, followed by 10 min core + 20 min of upper body on the Peloton app

Tuesday: Rest from running; I did 10 min core and 10 min of upper body plus a few dog walks, but otherwise took a rest day, which was much needed.

Wednesday: I started the day with a 5 mile run with my friend Rachel; we met in downtown Minneapolis at Gold Medal Park, ran 5 miles, and then met up with the November Project that started at 6:30. Rachel is a frequent November Project attendee; I had actually never been before!

The workout of the day had a Stranger Things theme, where you’d flip a coin and if you were wrong, you’d run “to the upside down” which was up and over this big hill in Gold Medal Park. If you won the coin flip, you’d get to run a somewhat easier hill.

After your hill repeat, you’d do 6 burpees, 6 star jumps, and 6 Russian twists before starting the whole thing again. The whole workout was about 30 minutes long. They had a finisher at the end, but I needed to head to the office to shower and be ready by 8 am, so I missed it.

Overall, a fun little morning!

I had packed a second running outfit to join in a short lunch time run with some colleagues; I’m the only female in the running group and it is a bit harder for me to make it work in the middle of the day; I have to at least take a quick shower and then blow-dry all the sweat out of my hair afterwards, ha!

We covered another 4 miles for 9 miles on the day.

After work, we had our last bocce ball game of season 1. We met up with our teammates at Martina for dinner and drinks before the bocce game.

It was such a fun summer night. I’m going to miss these people and Minneapolis!

Thursday: A much-needed wfh day and I was able to sneak out over lunch to get in a run. I brought Ruth at first, but I could tell it was too warm for her; she was pausing to rest in the shade and wasn’t pulling ahead like she usually does. I never want to push her too hard, so I actually called Dustin to come pick her up (thanks Dustin!) around 3 miles for her, and then I finished the 7 miler on my own.

Unfortunately no time for strength training after work, as we packed up the car and hit the road right to head to Dustin’s family cabin in northern Wisconsin. I still had to work on Friday but we wanted to maximize our time with Dustin’s family as it would be our last time with them before we move, so we drove up on Thursday evening.

Friday: 6.2 mile cabin run, solo- except for tons of deer along the way.

Some of the young ones were not scared of me at all and didn’t really move out of the way as I passed on the road!

I followed up the run with 10 min core + 10 min barre + 20 min upper body with some weights I brought up to the cabin. Then a bit of work and a bit of fun…

Saturday: The Gordon Good Neighbor Days 5k!

I’ve run this small-town Fourth of July race many times in the past (most recently last year when our friends Sarah and Jeremy were at the cabin with us, read that post HERE!)

Dustin’s brother, his mom (who is 80!) and his two nephews also ran the race.

I ran 3.1 miles to the start line from the cabin, did the race, and then did a mile cool-down circling back with Dustin to find his mom (who was walking the race) for 7 miles total.

Dustin’s mom completed her first 5k at the age of 80. How incredible is that!

Everyone did so great; it was a really fun small town event.

Dustin ran 18:13 and got second place for males overall.

I got lucky; I ran 22:13 and got first place for females (and first in my age group, 40-49, hence the two medals.) My splits were 7:30, 7:24, 7:03. An actual progression race!

Usually there are some University of Minnesota- Duluth track female athletes who show up, but none this year, so my 22:13 was good enough for the win!

Ruth ran with me; it was her first race! She was SO happy, all the volunteers on the course kept commenting on how happy she was and how she must really love to run! It wasn’t too hot (maybe 70) during the race, but I still stopped at the water stop for Ruth to drink some water at the halfway point.

She drank a full cup; great job staying hydrating Ruthie!

After the race, I did a 10 min core and 10 min barre on Peloton, and then lots of boating, SUP, and time outside with the family and pups.

Matilda sat out the 5k this year, but both dogs are having a blast up here (which is sadly our last visit for awhile, but they’ll have lots of new adventures in the U.K.!)

Sunday: My schedule had 90 min of easy time on feet; I ran 6 with Ruth and Dustin and then 4 on my own to get to 10 total.

Summary: 45 miles of running, a random mix of strength on the Peloton app; not a ton of strength training, since this week was a bit busy, but I always feel better with regular strength training, so I hope to have more time for it next week.

I’m linking up with Running on the Fly and Confessions of a Mother Runner; check out their blogs to connect with other fitness bloggers for workout ideas and inspiration!