This Week’s Fitness in Review

Hi friends! First – thank you SO much for your enthusiasm over the launch of Joyful Eating, Nourished Life! We hope many of you will join us in June for the first round of our 6 week intuitive and mindful eating program. Be sure to get on the email list if you want to be notified when sign up launches!

And now – this week’s fitness in review! No April Fool’s jokes over here, although I always love seeing them on other blogs. :) I’m excited because one of my favorite races is finally almost here: the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler (<—last year’s recap) is this weekend! (Running this weekend, too? Check out this post: Top 5 Nutrition Mistakes Made by Runners)

As you guys know, I’ll be running the race this year as part of a big group of friends and a couple blog readers thanks to my friends at Cabot. Fingers crossed the blossoms hold on to their branches until Sunday!

Yesterday morning, my friend Heather and I decided to check out the state of the cherry blossoms via our running shoes. Getting up a bit earlier to make sure we caught the sunrise? Worth it. Stopping to take a million photos and running action shots? Also worth it. :)

It was lovely out there – the blossoms were a little less full but still going strong, and the tourists appear to have gone home because we had the place practically to ourselves. Glorious.

This view never gets old:

4.5 miles, done! Despite the views and good company, my legs were feeling tired on this one so we strolled the last half mile instead of running it. Thanks, Heather, for being down to keep it casual! :)

My other run of the week was Tuesday morning at the track! On Tuesday, unlike Thursday, my legs felt AWESOME – super energized. We did mile repeats (3 of them) – the first two at a solid threshold pace (10 miler pace) and the last one at a faster clip. Felt great out there – I hope that’s how my legs feel on Sunday!

As for fitness the rest of the week, Monday I enjoyed a rest day and Wednesday was a nice lunchtime restorative yoga class downtown. Always a nice break in the workday when I do that!

As for today, this morning I had a nice stretch/strength session from trainer Paul of Capital Energy Training as part of our ongoing partnership (more on that in this post)! Since I have the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler on Sunday, we focused on loosening up my hips and posterior chain in preparation for the race. One of the most interesting things about today’s session was that we did a specific stretch at the start of the session that I got very little movement in – and then when I tried it again at the end of the session I was able to really get into it. These sessions are definitely helping, that’s for sure! My hip and lower back still feel much better and he has noticed a difference in what I can do in our sessions, too, in terms of mobility/strength. Hooray!

As for tomorrow, I’ll be resting and will do a few light rounds of the moves pictured below that Paul had me do the day before the Rock ‘n’ Roll DC Half Marathon (details and instructions in this post: hip stretches for runners).

Fingers crossed for good racing weather and for the cherry blossoms to still be around on Sunday! I’ll be going for a new PR – wish me luck! And lots of good luck to those of you also running – hope to see some of you out there! :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

From around the web:

• Food: Whole Wheat Vegan Carrot Cake Muffins // Tasty Uses for Nutritional Yeast // Ginger Curry Roasted Cauliflower // Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese, and Turkey Bacon Egg Bake // Thai Tempeh Stuffed Sweet Potatoes // Healthy Brownie Bites // DIY Brown Rice Salmon Sushi (<- made with canned salmon – genius)
• Workouts/Fitness: Easy Pre-Run Warm Up // Balls to the Wall Medicine Ball Workout