Hello, friends! I’m back to the real world and the blog world after my long weekend. We left Thursday for my parents’ and came home yesterday. It was a great visit, but it’s always nice to come home.

My 10-year high school reunion was this weekend. It started Friday night in a bar. Bars are not good places for reunions, in my opinion, because when you haven’t seen someone in 10 years, it would be nice to be able to hear them talk. Then again, maybe I’m just an old lady. Saturday there was supposed to be a potluck/picnic, but somehow there was a miscommunication and only a few people showed up. Oh well. It was fun to see some of my old friends, anyway.

We also got to spend a good amount of time with my parents and grandparents, which was very nice. And we got to spend some time in one of my favorite places in the world: the mountains near my parents’ place. Here are some pics from the weekend, but I didn’t get any pictures of my mom because she was behind the camera the whole time. I know there’s one of us on her camera, though. (Hey Mom, send me that picture, okay?)

Dad made me a hollyhock doll for old times’ sake. If you never got one of these as a child, you missed out. They’re cool. 

Dad showing me something across the canyon

The wildflowers were blooming despite the drought

Jordan and me at one of my favorite lookouts. You can see pretty much the whole Western slope and part of Utah. It’s amazing.

I nearly stepped on this nest hidden against a stump where we stopped to picnic. The momma bird was not happy that we were there, so we ate quickly and got out of her way.

We walked part of the way down into the canyon. Dad and I did the whole trail when I was eight-ish; we need to do it again.

Not a bad place to spend a weekend, right?

Here’s an update on the foot situation: I ran only once at my parents’ place — an easy four-miler (which was actually one of my favorite runs in a long time. My folks live way out in the country, and a lot of other people out there apparently think that living in the country means not having to pen up their scary dogs. So my dad rode his bike alongside me and protected me from canine encounters, plus we got to have a good talk).

Good news after the mostly-rest weekend: I ran my scheduled mileage today and yesterday (5 and 8, respectively). Both runs were on the treadmill, as my foot seems to like the softer surface right now. I certainly won’t complain — treadmill miles are better than no miles, by far. My foot is definitely on the upswing, so I think *knockonwood* it should be okay now as long as I pay attention to it. Phew.

And now, on to Target Practice.

I talked about Target Practice last week; it’s a weekly goal-setting idea that I borrowed from the ladies at Fit Fun Femme.

Life: Suddenly July is almost over. School starts again one month from today. This week, I need to make some serious progress on my curriculum adjustments for next year. I also need to update the syllabus for the college class I teach.

Health: This is an easy goal, but I don’t care. My goal this week is to eat as much fresh produce as is humanly possible. My parents live on the Western slope of Colorado, which is renowned for its fruit and veggies (especially sweet corn. If you’ve heard of Olathe Sweet corn, that’s my hometown’s pride and joy). We came home with corn, peaches, cherries, summer squash, plums, nectarines, beets, and bell peppers. This will be one delicious accomplishment.

Fitness: Get back on track to conquer Rock n Roll Denver! Complete all my scheduled training runs and strength train three times. And stretch at least a little bit every day. And of course, keep taking good care of my foot.

This post is really long. If you’re still reading, thanks. Have a great Tuesday!

 

What was the best part of your weekend?

Your goals for the week?

What are you training for right now?