love and be loved

Went running at the track with Benn today. We did a run through the woods for about 20 minutes and then ran at the track and stretched. Afterwards I ran with Benn and he showed me striders. I did an extra 2 after him. The sunset was so pretty! It was pink and purple and really nice running, though it was kind of cold!!

Went Canoeing with Benn, Jonny (his brother), "momma Griff" (Benn's mom) and Aggie (their St. Bernard). It was really fun but pretty windy and chilly at times. Aggie took a nose dive off the dock into the lake = hilarious!!

Really windy again today, but played some tennis for about an hour or so with Benn, Jonny (his brother), "Momma Griff" (Benn's mom), and Aggie (their St. Bernard). For me, playing tennis consists of anxiously awaiting the ball to come near me and the hitting it off at some obscene direction, many times over the fence. Hah.

Hamstrings were pretty tight so took Benn's advice by warming up before stretching out my muscles. Warmed up for 1.1 miles at 5.2mph then took a good amount of time to stretch thoroughly. Then ran 2.12 miles at 6.2 to 6.1mph. Slowed to a "warm down" for 1.1 at miles at 6.0 to 5.8mph. Then continued for  1.24 miles at 5.1 to 4.5mph. At that point, my mom stopped in and had about an hour and a half before she had to go to work. I haven't been able to see her or spend a little bit of time with her in quite a while, so I got off the treadmill and stretched while I talked to her. We made some iced coffee together and did some newspaper jumbles (something we always like to do together). Once she went off to work, I checked my email and did some researching on various things I had wanted to do. So... after about a 3 hour break, I returned to running. I got back on the treadmill and ran 2.55 miles at 6.2mph. Then did a cool down of 1.036 miles at 4.5mph. Then did a lot of stretching on the yoga mat with Ruby (my cat- she LOVES the yoga mat and I have no idea why). Then finished up the night with some leg lifts and more leg stretches.

Benn drove to my house early this morning to go for a hike with me. We headed out to Adams in the morning in order to hopefully miss the storm that weather.com has been daunting us with. We hiked the Cheshire Harbor Trail to the peak of Mount Greylock. It was a good, tiring 3.5 mile hike to the top. It ended up becoming more and more gorgeous out as we went along, and actually quite hot (which is a big change for the month overall). While at the top, we admired a glistening reservoir (and its wildlife), sat and admired the views, and walked up a long spiral staircase to the top of the war memorial at the summit. After that, we filled up our water bottle, emptied our bladders, and trekked the 3.5 miles back down to the car. We stretched and headed to North Adams to to find some food for lunch and ended up in a cute little cafe for salad and a sandwich. It was another great day with Benn!