I’ve spent the week on Whidbey Island. My parents’ house needs to be cleaned out & cleaned up before we put it on the market, and I just don’t get enough done when I come over on the weekends. I decided to come over this week, as it’s a recovery week so my training schedule was pretty light.

I drove over Saturday. My first plan was to stop at Lake Wenatchee State Park to go snowshoeing. I’d juggled my training calendar a bit: I moved Friday’s workout to Sunday, and changed Saturday’s easy run to snowshoeing (the workout had a note “okay to walk or hike”). But it was raining when I drove through Leavenworth, and I decided to just drive on through to the Island. That meant more juggling: I moved Friday’s workout to Saturday, and Saturday’s workout to Sunday, and Sunday’s workout to Monday. This meant skipping the three easy miles scheduled for Monday.

Saturday’s workout was the first “real” workout on this training plan; prior to this, I’ve just run with a target distance & a target pace. This workout felt really good, and it gives me confidence going forward. I have a lot of work to do to get my body ready to run a 50K, but the work is done day by day, bit by bit.

Sunday’s workout was the “okay to walk or hike” run, five miles. I headed to the Kettles Trails with the intent to mostly hike & power hike up the steeper inclines. It was a good choice; Millersylvania doesn’t have a lot of elevation gain, but some of the races on my training calendar have long climbs. I definitely got in some power-hiking practice.

That meant Monday’s run was supposed to be 6-8 miles. I went back to the Kettles/Fort Ebey State Park. I’ll be honest that there were times I really didn’t know where I was. Because of the rolling nature of these trails, I set a heart rate goal instead of a pace. It worked, but I was surprised by how slow I was. As with Sunday, I spent the last hour in the dark. I sped up a bit, as I’d left my good running flashlight in my truck – still hooked up to the charger, of course! – and I didn’t trust the flashlight I was carrying & I didn’t want to end up having to rely on my phone’s flashlight.

I took my recovery week seriously! I’ve wearing compression tights almost constantly when I’m not sleeping. I missed stretching my hamstrings & quads on Tuesday & Wednesday, but other than that they’re getting stretched three minutes every morning.

Today’s run was 5-6 miles, easy. I picked a virtually flat trail, and the run felt great. I’d have to guess that my recovery week was a success because this is what an easy run should feel like. I felt fluid. I felt good. I had to rein myself in and not run too fast. (Like a lot of athletes, I tend to work too hard on easy runs & not hard enough on hard runs.)

I didn’t get as much done around the house as I would have liked, but I did get some things done. The kitchen is clean & mostly cleaned out. (I’m leaving dishes, flatware, and some pots behind so that when I’m here I can cook & eat.) The hall closet is cleaned out. A cousin came by on Tuesday & we sorted through a lot of family photos. Michelle is my father’s cousin, and I gave a lot of the pictures of the Mitchell family to her. (My grandmother and her mother were sisters.) We went to the memory care facility where my aunt/her cousin lives to meet with the social worker. We’re in the process of transferring my father’s power of attorney over my aunt to Michelle. Thursday, I met with the attorney who’s handling this process. (We may need to pursue a guardianship. One advantage of being an attorney is that I know when I need to pay an attorney to handle things for me.)

Jim’s sister Deb & her husband Taylor came over on Wednesday as well to take a look at rhodies they may want to transplant to their yard & the equipment we may be able to sell.

I took a few truckloads to the transfer station. I’m leaving tomorrow, and I may try to take another load before I go. I’m eyeing the last week of February, as that’s another recovery week. I may come over that week if I can swing getting another week off work. A recovery week gives me more flexibility with my schedule, and it gives me a fair amount of time to work around the house.

My goal is to have the house sold before the insurance needs to be renewed in May. I haven’t spoken with the real estate broker yet, but I’m hopeful another week of work will give me enough time to get the house in good enough shape for her to come look at it.

Tomorrow is a rest day, and then I’m right back at it on Monday with five miles at steady pace. I’ll most likely do that at Badger Flats – it’s a half-mile loop, and we all know I love running in circles.