Wednesday, November 8, 2017

WWU - 6 Miles Run, 6 Miles Walked

I'm back!  My BFF Barbara was in town for a week and we were a little busy, so that's why there wasn't a post on Monday.  I'll have more about our adventures in the next couple of posts, but I thought I'd tell you about my exercise over the last week.

I didn't run last Tuesday because I was just plain tired; and then Barbara arrived and we were too busy for me to want to take time out to go to Planet Fitness.  We had a long day planned for last Thursday so I didn't run that morning and I'm glad - I was on my feet a lot of the day and that was enough.

So, come Saturday morning, I was going into our long run without having run for a week...you know I was asking for trouble with that, right?  And, not gonna lie, there was a bit more consumption of treats in the days prior to that run, which I'm sure contributed to my legs feeling like I had heavy lead weights attached to them.  Add to that the 94% humidity, mid-70s temperature, and it just wasn't pretty.  And my ankle was hurting.  I ended up cutting my run short and only finished with 6 miles (out of the 8.9 that was scheduled).  I was feeling pretty bad about my running when Brian came in and said how horrible his run had gone - he was something like 11 minutes slower than the same distance the previous week, when we had that brief cool front.  Once the rest of the Renegades came in, it was the same story - that weather just beat everyone up.  So while I'm not happy that I didn't get my official Logan's Run in, the fact is that this was just a rough day for running, period.
Sad Koda, looking over to his buddy Tucker's yard - but no Tucker that morning.  He was almost as dejected as Tucker had been the last time we'd all been outside after a run.

After we recovered enough to change, I zipped home to pick up Barbara and we went on to Blue Baker so she could spend a few crazy hours with my running friends.  I'm pretty sure she had a great time - they are awesomely funny people!  We were greeted with this gorgeous loaf of ciabatta bread:
 I should have put a coffee cup there for scale - this was huge!

And then a little later, the baker handed us this plate of mystery brownies:
What could they be??  We'd never seen anything like this before!

Turns out the center of the brownies held a layer of York Peppermint Patties!  They tasted AMAZING.  This is a holiday flavor that they're perfecting, and I love that we got to try them.  They certainly helped wash away the bad taste of that morning's run.

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Barbara and I planned to walk with Cary on Monday morning, but she ended up having a meeting at work that she had to attend, so Barbara and I were on our own for the walk, which is how we ended up going all over hell's half acre - OK, really just the fancy neighborhood - touring houses and somehow forgetting that the time had changed and even though we started at 8:00 am, the sun was out in full force for the nearly three hours that we were outside, eek!  Thank goodness there was a breeze, but we were hot and sweaty and despite having applied sunscreen before we began the walk, we both were a little pink by the time we were finished.

The walk itself was really fun, of course - I enjoyed showing Barbara certain landmarks along some of our running routes, and we pretended to be interested in an empty lot simply so we could walk to the back of it to see the yard of the newly-built house next to it.  That yard has a plexiglass fence around the pool and no other fence, so it was easy to see everything - and no, I would definitely not want a clear fence around my pool, if I had one.  Too many lookie-loos...hah!

We also encountered a builder who was starting a new house; it was a spec home so I'm sure he was thinking he might just have an interested buyer in us, and he showed us what it will look like.  Basically I could spend about $200K more than I should get if I were to sell my house, and end up with the same size house, only brand new, but on a much smaller lot.  Good to know?  We were ready to leave the fancy neighborhood when we saw one more house under construction, so we took a tour and that floor plan seemed really nice, plus although it was larger than my current house, it wasn't a mega-mansion like so many in that neighborhood.  It probably will cost quite a bit more than the extra $200K house as that one backs up to a pretty section of the golf course, but I'm guessing at that point, those who can afford it really CAN afford it...unlike me.

Oh - one more interesting thing that we discovered during our walk - take a look at this picture of these Christmas tree-shaped trees:
This neighborhood has a huge garden staff to keep the grounds looking so green and lush.

Ever wonder how they get their shape?  Here's a closer crop of the picture:
Do you see the cage on the tree?  And see the size of the gardener by the tree on the left?  We are figuring that he must have to climb the ladder to the tree cage in order to trim the branches to shape the tree.

This was so interesting - I always figured they just eyeballed that shape when trimming the trees, but to see that cage, both Barbara and I were all "oh, THAT'S how they do it!"

We watched the tree trimming for a minute and then Barbara said she was done and ready to get back to the car so we could go have breakfast; well, it was rapidly approaching brunch by that time.  I didn't have the heart to tell her just how far we were from the car; we set out walking and nearly a mile and a half later, we finally finished our little walk.  Oops.  I kept having flashbacks of when we were teenagers and would go to the beach for the day, and would set off on a walk; we'd meander down the beach and go around rocky cliffs and eventually we'd turn around with me having no idea of how far it was back to our beach towels, and Barbara would just keep charging ahead, telling me it was just around the next bend...so this was a funny form of role-reversal for me. 

All in all, it was another BS adventure to go down in our friendship memories...and yes, that is teenage Shelley speaking - we used to leave notes for our Director of Volunteers back when we were candystripers and sign them B(arbara)S(helley) because we were pushing the naughty envelope.  I know, I know.  Nerd alert, really.

13 comments:

  1. Hey, 6 miles is better than no miles! I got so confused by that weather because it's been pretty cold here lately. Sorry it warmed up there again! :(

    I actually found a recipe for peppermint patty brownies about 10 years ago and have made them for several Christmases since, but they definitely don't look as good as Blue Baker's! Sigh.

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    1. I don't know how they managed to get the peppermint patties to not melt during the baking process; but then, BB has some pretty skilled and creative bakers, so I guess they know all the tricks!

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    2. That's exactly what happens to mine! The filling melts and bubbles up to the top. I'd love to know their secret :)

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  2. Oh my goodness, that landscape looks gorgeous. And sort of out of place as everything around here is in brown shades lol. So do these fancy neighborhoods have HOAs? They must if someone is shaping trees to look like Christmas trees.

    Running is weird and so many things affect it - or don't. Sometimes I can take a week off and run like the wind, I guess because I needed rest. Other times, I take off and legs are lead, I can't breathe, etc. etc. Just keep running is my motto and you've been doing this enough years to know that as well!

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    1. More than an HOA, I suspect that to live in this fancy neighborhood, you have to join the country club. Waaaay out of my league, LOL - but hey, at least we get to run there!

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  3. Geez, that tree trimming--is it really important to have such groomed trees? Truly first world problems...

    I hope your running picks back up again.

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    1. If you saw that neighborhood, you'd understand. Everything is impeccable.

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  4. I've had brownies with a mint buttercream in the middle and those were quite tasty! So fun to hear about your BFF adventures! The tree trimming looks pretty funny. Us yokels don't trim all the trees out in the woods where we live. Come to think of it, there's no country club for us to join either😁

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    1. We don't trim our trees into fancy shapes either - it's pretty much limited to this neighborhood. While it's interesting to look at, I prefer a more natural look.

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  5. Aww, it's so fun you got to show her the landmarks by you. I love doing that with family and friends when they visit. And how funny that you were the one saying "just a bit more" now.

    I had no idea about the trees. I am shook.

    Gawd, those brownies sound DELISH.

    Hells to the no to a clear fence around a pool. You know some kid is going to run in to it and get hurt, too :(

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  6. I will be going on a week without running and am wondering how difficult my first run back will be???

    Your Blue baker sure is good to you all! I am going to have to try making some brownies with some filling in them this year. Around the Holidays I usually make Candy Cane Brownies. Oh, and when I saw the cage on the tree I just figured that they were going to be putting their Holiday lights up and thats how they did it. Makes sense, right?

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    1. OOH, I wonder if that's how they put the lights on the trees?! I will have to keep a watch out for that...

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