10 miles and Lake Michigan

After spending all last week in Colorado for a conference–listening to lectures, participating in workshops, making new friends, running in the mountains, and eating a lifetime supply of jolly ranchers–I was down for the chillest, most sleep-filled weekend ever.  Ryan arrived on Friday evening, and we got Jimmy John’s and planned for all of the movies we’d watch and books we’d read.

Instead, Saturday came, and I got up at 4:30am to run 10 miles and then Ryan and I drove to Michigan for the day!

Since I’d been running 6-7 miles without pain for two weeks, I thought I was ready to join back in with the weekly Saturday running group…I had missed them.  Running with the right group of people makes the 4:30am alarm almost something to look forward to.

There were two back-to-back 10 mile routes planned, and I joined in for the second 10-mile loop.  I was a little nervous because I hadn’t run more than 7 miles in more than 2 months, but it felt great!  Not easy, but doable.  I’m not sure if the week of high altitude training helped or what, but I was pleasantly surprised with how my body handled the mileage after a break.  I ran every mile with Erin, and she helped push me through.

After the run, I stretched, hydrated, and iced for good measure (though my knee felt normal), and Ryan and I hit the road for a spontaneous trip to visit my friend Olivia on Lake Michigan.  She called the evening before asking if we wanted a spur of the moment trip…YES, yes we did.

We upgraded from this…

To this:

Liv is one of my best college friends and running partners, and I hadn’t seen her since the marathon, so I was very happy to spend an entire day with her, her family, and her dog Franklin.  We stayed on the beach for the majority of the afternoon–she basically lives ON a secluded shoreline, which is really awesome.  We waded in the freezing water, lured Franklin in with floating leaves, and eventually dove in…but only once because it was soo cold!

Here’s our ad for friendship and Lake Michigan. 🙂

Olivia also gave Ryan and I a tour of a few surrounding lake towns, and we hopped out of the car to get a few more scenic pictures.  The weather was so perfect.

We enjoyed the evening with snacks, conversation, and a cookout.  
Thanks for spending the day with us, Liv and Franklin!

Ryan and I left before the sun set so that we’d get back at a reasonable hour.  Though car sunsets are pretty, lake sunsets are gorgeous.

The unplanned eventful day was awesome and completely worth compressing our lazy weekend to Sunday…which is what we did.  We got up for our respective workouts (5 miles with 3 sets of lunges, squats, & push ups for me), visited a new-to-us (and new in general, I think) church that is about 2 miles away and we’d been wanting to check out, and then chilled for the rest of the day.  Ironically, the sermon was a motivating lecture on working hard v. being lazy… and then we went home, ate lunch, took giant naps, and ate dinner.  I started a new book (In The Woods by Tana French…it’s a thriler…bad choice for me) and Ryan watched a movie somewhere in there.

And lastly, I’ll show you the rainbow called dinner:

—–
Do you have any pets?
Do you like scary movies/books?