Excuses for Laziness!

Ok, laziness might not be fair. But while we had family in town we definitely skipped a few runs and I had to bail out on another because of bad decisions. 

I ran and rode my horse on Tuesday. Rode horse on Wednesday. They arrived Wednesday evening. Didn't run again until Sunday - so skipped a short run in there. Didn't think anything of it and still had Sunday be our longer run, but it was feeling great and we made a wrong turn and instead of increasing our previous long distance from lately by only 5 minutes, we instead increased it by more like 12. Which seemed like no big deal, right? Normally we try to do our long run on Saturday and then have two days off afterwards (from running at least), but we were busy on Saturday. 

Especially since we'd accumulated a ton of steps walking around and hiking around Wed-Sat anyway. 

I felt great and had managed a 6 mile run in the 5th month of pregnancy, go me!

I also rode horse Sat, Sun, Mon. Tuesday came around and we decided it was time to get our normal run in again. As we left my right shin muscles - yup we're real technical over here - were a little tight. I figured they would loosen up. Not so much. 7 minutes into run, I quit. I started walking. I haven't quit a run in Ihavenoideahowlong. Uhm, it's been a while. But I decided that especially with all sorts of weird hormones in my system, running in pain was just not going to happen. And I felt fine walking, which is good. Otherwise I was going to have to stay put at almost a mile out from home and wait for my husband to run back to the house to get the car, lol. No thanks! 

My guess is that with the skipping of one run, plus the much too much increase in distance, plus skipping the run before, plus only one rest day while I was logging way more steps than normal (even though I wasn't running I was putting in SEVERAL miles walking everyday) were just too much for me. 

Consequently, I took a running break for a few days. We wanted to go back to it on Thursday but my shin was still a little sore if I did more than walk. Then we wanted to go back to it on Saturday, but now my calf was sore, so we vetoed that too. Got back up the next Monday (which was yesterday now) and put in a good 30 minutes. That felt ok, HOORAY! I also skipped all yoga, 3-4 horse rides, and serious strength training while we had guests in town.

But I DID do quite a bit of work at the woodshop, plus all the walking, hiking, and a day in Universal Studios, so not ALL bad. 

So this week I'm trying to get back to it. This past Sunday I started my strength training routine again. I put some time into some future blog updates. And I took some pretty pictures of what we were up to!

 This is what happens when you get no heat, overnight temp drops to 43, and you have a mini dachshund and pregnant lady that have been running around all day. Time for sweats and cuddles!

 Isn't this a totally cool looking tree wrapped around a tree? Weird, huh?

 I had to put Barley in jail. Mostly, just because he's cute. 

 Ah, the sign that told us what Strangler Figs were. Figured out that cool tree situation. Nasty buggers, aren't they?

 Found this even more impressive specimen. The hole in the middle is in the last remnant of the palm tree that the Strangler Fig surrounded originally. That small chunk is the last part you can see. 

 This is the rest of that huge Strangler Fig. WOW!

 Super impressive mosaic at the library. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that the background is made up of tiles shaped into leaves before being mosaic-ed - is that a word? I love leaves in art.

Super awesome fountain, or at least, it usually is. The water was turned way down. Maybe because it's "winter"?

Looks like this building is being rennovated by the local art club. So many awesome mosaics, all with mirrors on this wall!

Funky fence and edge of house that butts up to that mosaic building. 

No really, it's a seriously funky house. Love it!

We also spent a day in Universal Studios - but I did not take one single picture there. Oh well. We had a lovely time, but now we're working on settling back into normal habits. And we bought tickets to go up north in April for our baby shower and to see more friends/family, hooray!

It was fun to play tour guide to some local areas that we haven't examined fully, so we were glad to have that opportunity. 

I'm not feeling too guilty on skipping some runs & workouts, but I am getting ready to buckle back down for sure.

When was the last time you just walked around a cute little downtown area and checked out all the stuff?