Slow / Easy Trails & Overdue Faith Post

I had the opportunity this week to run outside of my usual Small Town.  I love running out of town if I can find a good place! We were in Salem, OR to attend our Nephew's graduation (Yay, Erich!). 

After the Domestic Violence Awareness 5K I raced in October, I had been wanting a chance to get back to explore Minto-Brown park and its many trails.

(Photo from Google)

The park system is on an island in the Willamette River, with sloughs and wetlands, fields,  dog parks, and forested areas throughout the park. There are several parking areas and miles of paved and unpaved trails.

I took off on a paved trail and took a turn onto a soft dirt one. The first 4 miles were on dirt, bark and gravel. My average pace was well below my usual easy pace..But I think that is to be expected for trails, so I relaxed and just ran and enjoyed the sounds of birds, the new views and the excitement of what or who might be around the next turn.

After passing a lily pad pond, I thought I 'd circle back to my car to get my camera, but the batteries were dead. Oops! 

 

(photo from Google)

I ran through a moss-covered orchard, trying to guess what fruit the trees might bear- thinking it might be hazel nuts.  It turns out that they were cherry trees...with no fruit and badly needing a pruning job.

At mile nine I headed back to the car to stretch, with many more park-goers there to nod at. Lovely place. I can't wait to go again!

Faith stuff

If you read here regularly, you might have noticed that I haven't written much on my faith recently. If you don't read my blog for the faith posts, don't feel obligated today.

It's not that I haven't been thinking about my faith, just that I have been struggling a bit of late. Sometimes there is a lot I'd like to write, but either no time to write it, or I just feel like it might make me look like a hypocrite. The last thing I'd want to do is put shame on my savior, and by even writing this, I wonder if I am. But on the other hand, maybe if I can be honest, it might help someone else in their faith walk.

Satan is very tricky and he knows my weaknesses. Lately he has tried to convince me that I am worthless, and not really saved.  This should make me want to draw closer to the Lord, but really, I have just tried to hide, spending more time focusing on running (where I feel like I can succeed) and less on my spiritual and other personal growth.  But when I am running, He speaks to me and cuts away at the shell I'd like to keep my heart in. A few times in the last month, I have stopped mid run, due to a sudden outburst of sobbing- sometimes out of frustration, sometimes because I know he is telling me everything is going to be OK...and to just trust Him.

Thankfully God does not see me as worthless (nor does He see you that way- if you are reading this, and this is your situation too.). He still reaches down to pull me out of the cave I would hide in. Music draws me back to Him. A new song with great lyrics, or just an intense melody with simple words, says the right thing at the right time.

Romans 8:1-2 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,  because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
^{Romans 8:18} I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

1600 Repeats and Time to Tighten the Belt (more)

The training part
It was cold (for here) this morning- right around 34F. Today's workout plan was for 10 miles with 3 x 1600 at 6:26.  Usually it takes me a while to warm up and sometimes I'll go 5 miles before doing intervals or tempo runs.

After 2.5 warm up, I turned around and started looking for the milepost. About a half a mile later I was there and beeped my watch for the first 1600.

Normally, the first is my slowest.  Today I kept that in mind and tried to put forth a bit more effort going out of the gate. I had a lot of recovery running time between intervals (would have liked a bit less, I wanted 800, but got more like 1200 or even 1600 one time) due to my pre-mapped routes and using the mileposts. This isn't rocket science (though sometimes I like to pretend it is) and sometimes we just have to adapt to our training scenarios. 

My splits were 6:05, 6:26 (opposite direction on same stretch, but on the money!) and 6:20.

Tightening the belt
Like so many others right now, my family is faced with some economic struggles. (I say this and realize we are doing so much better than 90% of the world (Praise God)...but it's harder than we are used to). My husband is in the middle of a huge work slowdown and has also had customers who were either slow to pay or just say they can't pay (yet).

One thing we both have agreed to do is to try to become more efficient and less wasteful of what we have- including groceries. Our goal is to spend less in this area, but still maintain healthy nutrition guidelines (and feed a marathon training mom!).

Jon asked me to write a dinner menu  calendar that we could use to make our shopping lists with. I was happy to oblige! When I did this in the past, I found it made meal prep easier, as I had the ingredients I needed on hand and I wasn't scratching my head for ideas at the last minute.



Have you ever used a meal calendar?

If so, what's your experience been with it?

What meals are winners at your house? I recycle a lot of meal ideas and my big problems is keeping things interesting and simple at the same time, while using food the kids will still eat.