Surprise Run

Monday was supposed to be a rest day for me. On the way home from work Michael mentioned that he might go for a run. What? Go for a run?! He’s not a runner! He ran with me in Hawaii on our honeymoon, which was amazing and one of my favorite honeymoon memories, but it’s never his first choice activity.

The rain had started, and will most likely keep going until summer at this point. No joke, the rain starts in February and ends around July 5th. I hate the rain. But Monday night the rain had stopped, the sun was out, the weather was nearing 60 degrees. Plus, the evenings are lighter again so by the time we got home from work the sun was still out! I decided to switch my rest day to Tuesday and go for a run/walk with my husband instead!

We decided to put the dog/baby gate thing back up in the hallway (which I was a little bummed about because I was enjoying our super big hallway sans gate since we took it down awhile ago) because we wanted to experiment with leaving Bella out to free-roam the house. We were only going to be gone for about 30-45 minutes tops so I figured it was a good time for her first try.

We walked/jogged down to the neighborhood track and happily found it empty. We started out at a slow jog/run as we warmed up. Here is Michael turning on all his gadgets before we got started running:

It was really nice that we could run together. It’s something I love to do and it makes me excited that Michael may want to get into it. He said he wants to diversify his fitness this year. That’s his goal. He bikes to work, does kettlebell workouts at home and that’s it. I think the more cross-training someone can do the better. Use different muscles! Move your body in new ways. The only downside to having a really diverse fitness routine is that you never get REALLY GOOD at one thing. But the upside outweighs that I think. Neither of us are striving to be Olympic athletes…

Since Michael isn’t a runner, we did a lot of walking. The routine we got down was running the straights and then walking the curves of the track. I think that was a good thing for a newbie runner. I think Michael did about a mile and a half. Then I did some running on my own while he walked the track. Finally, I remembered that Bella was running free and loose in the house and started to get some anxiety about that so we turned back and walked back to the house.

We did about 2.5 miles total (including the walk to and from the track). We got back to the house, the sun had set and it was getting dark by this time, and Bella was sitting pretty in the window waiting for us! She saw us and then took off, running through the house to greet us at the door. She hopped and jumped around all excited (and spazzy) and then flopped down on the floor for belly rubs.

Next, review the house. I took a minute to look around and see if she got into anything. Thankfully she didn’t! I think she sat at the window waiting for us the whole time! No mischief like the first time she was left out, or the second time when I got home after she’d been left out and she had destroyed the living room….

I was so proud of my girl! She’s growing up. She’s getting more mature and well-behaved. I think we’ll continue to let her roam free for periodic errands we have to run, etc. The gate is back up so that the cats have a chance to run away and hide if things get stressful for them. I don’t think Bella really bugs them but you never know. My number one concern is keeping the cats safe from a curious and frisky puppy.

I took Bella for a walk in the neighborhood, although it was now really dark out. We didn’t walk a ton, but a little bit and I used that as my “cool down” from the run. I ran about 2.5 miles total but with the walk it came to 2.93 miles total.

It was a nice run and I was glad I changed my rest day so we could run together and enjoy the nice winter evening. Anytime I can get a workout in without having to go to the busy, crowded gym is a good a time! My knees felt good and I was a little sore the next day but it wasn’t too bad. Michael seems to be doing well, too. Hopefully we can run again in the future!