Fitbit and slurpies oh my!

Late last year I bought a fitbit.  I really love my fitbit!  It has helped me add steps to my day.  My dog loves it because he gets more walks.  I'm friends with people I know and some I don't know.  I am secretly a bit competitive with some of my fitbit friends.  I am friends with a parent from school.  We will often leap frog each other.  There are days that I purposefully look to see how many steps she has and if I can beat her.  She doesn't know that I have this little competition with her. :)  There were days that our numbers were close and Riley got an extra walk out of the deal just so I could get more steps in for the day.

Last week I became friends with Zack and Becca.  They are my friends from high school and are engaged. Zack is a bit sarcastic, a bit competitive and likes to make fun of his friends.  Well if you do not have a fitbit you may not know that there is a place where you can send a cheer, taunt the person or send them a message.

Who would send a taunt?  Really why is that there?

Well last week I found out who would send a taunt and his name is Zack.  Now I will say that I'm not sure how Zack is getting in his steps, but he is averaging 22,000 per day.  I have asked him if he is training for something?  No.  He claims he is just walking.  I think that sounds suspicious to me.  I haven't been able to catch him yet.  I'm building up my steps so it could happen.   Becca averages 16,000 steps.  I was told I could not taunt him since his fiance is also beating me.  So I have been out to beat Becca's step and send Zack taunts.  I am pretty sure Becca knows what I am doing. :)   Poor Becca I think she has been forced to go hiking for most weekends so both her and Zack can have lots of steps. :)  I did send him a nice message about his feet are tired and he should spend the afternoon napping.  He sent back a message about he enjoys sleep walking.  Ugh...  So because of some fun taunts I have now upped my walking game.  I also keep it on when I run, but it is my walking that really has increased.  I have even started taking Riley on a walk and then after a mile I drop him off at home and continue on with my walking.

In other news Friday was free food day.  If you dressed up as a cow you could get free chick fila, Krispy Kreme donuts were buy a dozen and the second dozen was 77 cents (bet there were lots of offices that had some donuts on Friday) and it was 7/11 so free slurpie day at 7-eleven!!

I did not take advantage of the Chick fila since I just had lunch there the day before.  But I did take advantage of free slurpie day!  I stopped and got one after summer school.  Traffic was bad and I was passing a 7-Eleven.  Well I am was just sitting there so might as well stop and get a slurpie...a blue slurpie my favorite kind!

I finished that up sitting in traffic and decided that I would stop at the 7-eleven near my house for my second free slurpie of the day.  So 40 minutes later I had my second free slurpie.  I had strawberry Fanta.  Not bad, but not my favorite.  I would have gotten blue raspberry but they did not have it at my 7-eleven.  All in all a great7/11.

Did you get any free food on Friday?

What is your favorite Slurpie flavor?

Some days you just have to listen to your body...and sleep

Today was supposed to be my 20 mile run..which I have been dreading all week long.  Well the 20 miler didn't happen this morning.  I pushed it off until tomorrow morning.  I didn't think it would go very well today because I just was so tired yesterday and didn't have the dinner that I wanted to have before my last long run before the marathon.  I ended up sleeping in late too so I think it was a good choice to run on Sunday.  So rather than hate life I will complete my long run tomorrow morning.

This morning I have been super productive. I took Riley on a long walk.  Thinking I will take him on another longer walk in a few before it gets really warm today.  I am now cleaning my house (well not really cleaning my house right now since I am on the computer)  With school starting and running I just haven't been keeping up with things around the house like I would like to. I have a mowed yard and the vacuum still gets run..but the place just needs a really good cleaning. :)  Looks like today is the day for it!  I would also like to do some yard work this evening but we will see if that happens.  What I really need is a maid..anyone want to apply??  I can't really pay you so the pay would be the knowledge that my house is clean and you did it :)

After this week I have three more weeks until my first full marathon!  Yikes!  I will say that I don't think I will be running another anytime soon.  It just takes too much time out of my schedule to train.  The night before a long run I have to make sure I am in bed early and have eaten something that will work on a long run. It is just a lot of running.  I much prefer a half marathon.  Training for a half marathon does not take over your life which I sort of like. :)

Yesterday I was looking at some shoes and found my Pure Cadence pretty cheap at Finishline.com.  70 dollars.  Its like Christmas in October!  I love getting a shoe deal!

Weather.com you are such a liar!

I walked three miles today.  While on my last mile and a half with Riley I felt a lovely breeze.  I thought to myself, "Great!  I will drop him off and then run and that breeze will feel so nice!"  And that is exactly what I did.  I dropped Riley off and headed out the door.  I figured since it doesn't look like I will get my 11 mile run in tomorrow since I am headed to PA, I can at least see what I can do tonight.  I knew I didn't fuel properly for a really long run.  I don't think baked breaded mushrooms constitutes a great fuel plan.  The BBQ Chicken salad from Panera for lunch wasn't going to offer much either, but I figured anything is better than nothing.

I started off and quickly noticed that there is no freakin' breeze!  It sort of disappeared!  I think mother nature was screwing with me.  She just wanted to lure me out to run and then melt me!  Once again I am calling foul on weather.com and their feels like temp for my  town.  I know it was hot but I still do not think that at 8 at night the temp is 87 feels like 101..you want to say it is 95 and feels like over 100 I can believe that..but not what weather.com was giving me.

I headed around and got in 4 rough miles.  I was sweating like crazy.  I was slow as a turtle.  I actually think I remember a turtle passing me at one point.  Someone posted that they change their shirt mid way through their long run, I think that may have to happen.  I am thinking that I can add some miles to the beginning of my long run and then pass my car and pick up a new shirt at mile 5 or 6..better than nothing I guess.  Sopping wet tanks do not wick away sweat.

Tomorrow I am going to try and get up early to run some..but we will see how that works out..I am not stressing about it.  If it happens great, if I rollover and get some more sleep..then I need sleep.

Then after my run or snooze hitting fest I am off to PA to wish Becky a final goodbye.  She is headed to Columbia next week.  The nice thing is our friends Rachel and Mike are coming down from Ohio to wish Becky a bon voyage too.  I haven't seen them in years so it will be a nice reunion!  Should be a fun weekend for sure.

The skeeters are coming!! The skeeters are coming!!

Well I got up and took Riley on his 1 1/2 mile walk this morning and then had enough time for a mile run.  I figure a mile is better than nothing.  So I dropped Riley off at home and headed back around the loop.  I think Riley is liking the new routine of long walks.  I always worry about the long walks in the summer..I don't want to give him heat stroke, but he seems to be fine with it so far.  It helps that it has not been as hot as in past summers.  Last year I think we had 100 degree weather for most of July..this year only upper 90's.  Ah I can feel the cool in the air!

After summer school I came home and took a nap.  Those kids wear me out.  This evening I decided to try a new place for a walk...Government Island.

I have lived here for ten years and I have never heard of this place.  A neighbor told me about it.  She walks her dog there all of the time.  I guess that George Washington had some of the stone from the quarry here in Stafford sent up to make parts of the white house and the capital. Government Island is an historic 18th and 19th century quarry site that provided Aquia sandstone for the construction of the White House and the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Government Island was purchased by Pierre L'Enfant on behalf of the federal government in 1791 to provide stone to build the nation's new capital city - Washington, D.C. The Island was first known as "Public Quarry", as it was owned by the federal government to build public buildings.
Who knew?!  Well we decided to walk it.  It has a nice paved path and a long wooden boardwalk over the marsh and then some wooded paths.  It was a nice shaded walk.  Riley loved it!

I came home drank some water and headed back out the door for what I was hoping would be a five mile run.  It was hot and soupy outside.  I thought I was doing pretty well considering that my weather.com app said the feels like temp was 100.  I think it probably was wrong because it said that the actual temp was 89 feels like 104...although maybe it was right who knows.  I waited until 8:20 to run. I was running the loop and getting bit by some skeeters.  If you know me, you know I don't normally get bit.  I guess they liked my sweaty self.

I couldn't take it anymore so I stopped at 3 miles.  I really do need to start running more in the morning.  Less soupy air and less skeeters.

 

 three miles of sweaty  mess...