Hiking in the Adirondacks...and some running!

"Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach." 

John Muir

Today's post is mostly with vacation/hiking pictures.

Day 1: Top of Rocky Falls

The water was so clear and refreshing.

Day 2: Hiking up Cascade Mountain

Lots and lots of rocks.

Cascade Mountain Summit

It was a tough climb, but the rewarding view was extremely rewarding!

We even had a view of the Green Mountains and so I waved to ajh.

I may not have been showing the right mountains, but I thought of you :)

1 mile later, we had crossed over to the summit of Mount Porter.

A refreshing soak in Chapel Pond after over 4 hours of hiking.

There are so many beautiful places to experience in the Adirondacks!

Day 3: Exploring Whiteface Mountain - which we climbed by car.

After lunch in the Castle Café, we headed back home. It was only three days, but it was wonderful!

After a grand total of about seven hours of hiking between Tuesday and Thursday, Friday morning, I was up at 6am for my long run with my Super SIL. We had a "short" 16km long run as this is a recovery week. It's interesting that the more often we run together, the more we seem to have to talk about. I've noticed this phenomenon before with girlfriends. She's more up-to-date on what's happening in my life, and vice-versa. Therefore, conversation topics are easier to find as we catch each other up without having to start at the beginning. It's this having to start at the beginning that sometimes makes us avoid certain topics, as its more difficult to catch up in less than two hours, if it's been a while since we got together. I may have mentioned this before, but I'm really enjoying having a partner on my long runs :)

Cheers!

Week three already!!

Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

During our 20km run early this morning.

Another week completed with success and I'm feeling good. It's hard to believe that, with today's long run, we are already beginning week three of our training program! I have a feeling we'll be standing on the starting line so much sooner than we can imagine.  

We started our run at 6am this morning, the weather was perfect, as was the company. It was one of those magical runs,,,exactly the kind that you are talking about when you tell everyone how much you love running. It felt wonderful to have 20km under our "fuel belt" ;) before 9am...to have the whole day ahead of us to enjoy. There's a special kind of smile on the face of someone who ran pretty much a half-marathon before the neighbors had breakfast :-) 

We followed that great run with brunch, together with our husbands...just perfect I tell you! 

In unrelated news, Uber H and I are going on vacation in the Adirondacks next week for three days...which means some cross-training for sure :) I'm looking forward to enjoying some hiking!

Cheers!

What a difference a training partner makes!

"It's when we start working together that the real healing takes place...it's when we start spilling our sweat, and not our blood."  David Hume

Being silly  - we ran 18km that morning, then spent the evening walking around at the Jazz Fest.

We were both pretty proud of our bodies, as we had no lingering pain :)

Running my last half-marathon with my daughter was an amazing experience. However, we did not complete the same training program (as it was her first) and so ran only one or two training runs together. Therefore, having completed my last training cycle mostly by myself, I am thoroughly appreciating having a training partner for this cycle. We don't do all our runs together, but Last Thursday, I had a really full day and we had a 40-minute run with 8 X 100m relaxed strides. My SSIL is a nurse and is used to getting up at the crack of dawn to go to work, so she suggested we go at 7am (before my crazy day started)...I know that for many of you 7am is almost mid-day :) but, for me, 7am is so much easier to do with a partner. 

The next day was our long run, most of which we will try and do together. With the crazy humidity and heat, we decided to head out at 6:45am for our 18km run. We'll probably have to go earlier than that when the runs are longer if it's that hot and humid! My SSIL suggested a new route, where we went by these huge and beautiful houses. Talk about an enjoyable distraction. One of them had a small waterfall coming from these low brick towers on each side of their driveway...so we went to the water and wet our hands and our face. It was so refreshing :) By the time we were at 14km, my SSIL, who barely sweats and therefore has a really hard time dealing with heat, was starting to find it tough. Luckily, in the summer, there are places to stop and refill water bottles. The first place we stopped, the water was tepid, but a few kilometers later we stopped at another fountain and the water was nice and cold. So, we poured water over our heads and body, refilled and felt better as we moved on. By the last two kilometers, I unexpectedly found myself encouraging my SSIL to stay strong and get this done. 

My SSIL gets me out there early in the morning, she is one tough lady, she is super healthy, she is a faster runner than I am and has many more years of running experience, but heat is her kryptonite. It evens out the field between us and allows me a turn at being her support system. Being able to motivate her and get her through the last few kilometers felt great, but mostly it was a revelation! It made me realize that together, we are stronger than the sum of our individual selves...as a team, we push each other to that next level. Our individual strengths come together and we form one powerful badass team! 

I love you SSIL...let's keep on rocking that marathon training!!

Cheers!