This past week really threw me for a loop. I crave consistency, organization and routine and last week was laughing in my face with chaos, pop-up problems and sick kids. Not all of the unexpected things sucked but, as a general rule, I hate surprises…unless they involve alcohol or an amazing PR. Â < – – neither one of those happened
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 7, 2015
RUNNING
This is going better then expected. My legs were super tired after my race day effort in the heat so CRS and I decided to take it one day at a time. I had a hard effort planned for Wednesday:
2 mile warm-up
Over 10K: 2 minutes @ 5K pace, recover for 1 min, 1 min @ 5K pace, recover for 30 seconds, 30 seconds @ 5K pace, recover for 30 seconds – repeat for duration.
It was HARD as hell! And I loved it.
I felt really strong afterward and rounded out the week with six easy miles and 13 long slow distance with a good friend. Those miles always go by so much faster.
Total: 40 miles
CYCLING
Big fat goose egg here. Why? My kids decided to get sick on exactly the days I was supposed to teach spin. #Conspiracy I toyed with the idea of setting up the bike trainer one of the days but, it was the day after the New Haven road race and, watching Odd Squad with my sick boy seemed like a better use of my time.
SWIMMING
So far I’m keeping this in rotation because I hate to think there will be weeks of no swimming. But, this is one of them. Not even one swim stroke and I’m not happy about it. We’ll see what next week brings but I may replace “swimming” with “strength training” since I know there’s a lot more of that in my future.
GEAR
I hope you’re sitting down because I have BIG news! I finally broke down and bought the Garmin Vivoactive watch. I’m now completely and totally addicted to technology and all.the.stats. It’s not my fault that I totally unexpectedly received an email from Amazon alerting me that it was $50 off. I literally had to buy it.
Full review coming (of course!) but here’s a hint: I LOVE IT!!!!
THINGS I LOVE
Other then my Garmin Vivoactive I also love straight hair. I do not have straight hair and I know you always want what you can’t have, however, I would settle for hair that grows down instead of out the way mine does. I’ve whined before about how unmanageable my hair is and I think my hairdresser reached a breaking point with my colic. I have one huge piece of hair, right in the front of my head, that just wants to be a mohawk. A 40 year-old woman does not look good with a mohawk.
I secretly think my hairdresser hated cutting my hair so short, just so it would lay down, so she came up with a fantastically brilliant idea to tame it. Upon entering the salon she told me she wanted to give me a “reverse” perm. In laymen’s terms, that’s an ethnic hair treatment which mostly black women use to relax their hair. Yes, that’s what I got and now I have straight hair:

Let’s see, I now have vitilgo and need relaxer treatments on my hair. I’m starting to think I’m not Cuban and Italian.
THINGS I DON’T LOVE AS MUCH
The leaves are changing! I think this literally happened overnight. Since it was upwards of 90 degrees with 110% humidity maybe I just didn’t notice but, when out for a run I saw them. Colored leaves are already on the ground. Fall is really here people so we may as well embrace it.

You know fall is here when your kids are petting cows. I’m sure this had nothing to do with them getting sick. #Cowbuttsaresoclean
READING
Who has time to read when there’s Netflix? So back 100 years ago when everyone was watching Orange Is The New Black, I wasn’t. The book was so boring and awful that I guess I ignored the fact that absolutely everyone was addicted to the series. Finally a good friend of mine talked some sense into me and I started watching it. I literally haven’t stopped. What day is it?
I will also never look at a screw driver the same way. #MyEyesAreBleeding
On a completely and totally different note, I was not expecting to have freakin’ Bart Yasso read an article I wrote about Yasso 800s. Words cannot express my girl-like giddiness when this happened:
I of course immediately re-read the article and hoped it was all accurate and complementary. It was both.
I hope I don’t freak when I meet him at the Runner’s World Half and Festival in October! #NoChanceofThatNotHappening
PODCAST
Guess who has a podcast? Miss Zippy! Catch a glimpse and then have a listen:
“Have you ever considered running a marathon in flip flops? Didn’t think so. Today’s guest, however, has not only run a marathon in flip flops, but did it in well under three hours, breaking a world record at the same time. But Keith Levasseur has far more to his list of credentials than that, so today we’ll chat with Keith to hear all about his many crazy adventures in just a few short years of running.”
RANDOM QUOTE OF THE WEEK
My husband received the following error message when trying to create a new online account:
“Username may not contain inappropriate words or phrases.”
What was his username? Our last name: Burdick
#ThereIsADickInMyLastName
 How was your week? Did anything unexpected happen?
Do you have a fitness tracker/GPS or Apple watch? Thoughts, feelings?
HA! Last week was such a weird week for me as well. The shorter week threw our entire schedule off.
That’s so awesome Bart read your article and responded. He is truly an incredible and nice guy!
One of my friends has an Apple watch and she absolutely loves it. I just use my normal watch and it works out well for me!
I love that you just use your “normal” watch. That is seriously great. I have a feeling I will pull a complete 180 soon and not even wear a watch!
Thanks Hollie. Looking forward to meeting you in a few weeks 🙂
I LOOOVVVEE that pic of you and the kids! They are SO precious….thanks for sharing those! As for Amanda, YES! I cannot wait to hear more, she is gonna do SO well, I love talking to her……yes you if you are reading 😉 As for the leaves changing….I can’t believe I am saying this, but I am not ready for summer to go yet…..maybe I need to move to florida hahahah
Florida may be a tad drastic but, I have to say, I was actually COLD for my warm-up miles this morning and I loved every second of it.
And yes, I loved that picture as well. It was a perfect day and the boys had so much fun!!
Thanks Tina…looking forward to more podcasts from you and Runners Connect as well 🙂
I am embracing the Fall and I love the Bart Yasso shoutout!! Your runners world trip is going to be amazing. Just awesome. I am happy you have finally converted to OITNB!! The show is just so great. Yes there are a lot of things I’ll never look at the same lol
I did have some unexpected things happen like what I hope is a “little” injury. Resting it though and hoping it gets better really soon.
I need to listen to Amanda’s podcast. All I listen to is podcasts these days. I find a new one and catch up. It’s crazy. But awesome!!
Can’t wait for your review on the vivo fit!!!
OH NO!!! I truly hope it is just a small injury Miss Nellie. Be smart (I know you will be) and rest, recover, ice, stretch – all of that good stuff. You will be fine, just need a little TLC!
Podcasts as SO great for long runs, right? I’m with you on that one.
And YES the vivofit is so much better then I even expected. LOVE.
haha. Love the error message! And love your beautiful haircut! So excited for Amanda and her new podcast. I got a chance to listen over the weekend and it’s so nice to hear her voice! Yeah, last week was weird. The kids started school Wednesday and that whole trying to get back into routine thing really threw me off! And that Garmin is beauuuuuutiful!
Isn’t that just great? So crazy.
And yes, it’s so cool to actually hear Amanda’s voice while I’m running along.
I love the Garmin!!! Can’t wait to write the review…
Good luck with having a more “normal” week this week…if that’s even a thing.
Awww…thank you SO much for the shout out! Really appreciate it.
You crushed that workout! And so soon after your race, which is super impressive. I seriously limped through this past week following my 12-miler last weekend. Being old sucks!
Sorry the boys got sick, especially so soon into the school year! But good mama for hanging with them like that. The bike will be there when you need it.
No leaves changing here yet and that’s fine by me. We are having some awesome cool mornings this week, though–can’t wait to run w/o melting in humidity w/in the first five minutes!
Of course!! I’m so glad you’re doing this now since I need all the great podcasting I can download for all my upcoming mileage!
And yes, being old truly sucks. I was freaking shocked I was able to pull off that workout and went into it thinking I would have to cut it short. I guess it’s good my old bones can still surprise me 🙂
Get ready for those leaves to turn. I was actually COLD for the first mile of my track work this morning and I loved every minute of it! Bring it on!!!
Ah yes, the screwdriver. I watched the first three episodes of Jane the Virgin this week, and that is now my new binge. Hope everyone is well now in the Burdick household. Heh heh – #isaiddick. Yes, I’m a 12 year old boy.
LOL! Love it.
I have never heard of Jane the Virgin?? I will have to check it out. I’m still trying to figure out how I watch The Mindy Project on Hulu. #Loser
I have had a whirlwind crazy week myself….not bad crazy but busy good crazy ….yet exhausting. Since I started running and writing, I’ve pretty much stopped watching any TV. But I’ve really been wanting to try to watch OINTB, too. Someday…..
Note to self to go and like your running Facebook page so that I can know when you publish posts on other sites….Yasso reading your post …how exciting.
Their is a dick in your last name….. there is an ass in my last name (Hassouri)…. but I’ve never had problems with accounts and passwords. As my husband likes to “lovingly” say of my double J. Lo. derrier…”You put the ‘ass’ in ‘Hassouri'”…. (he’s still a 9 year old boy in there)
HAHAHAHA OMG I love that! I seriously had not noticed the “ass” or your actual ass either 🙂 I did notice you and Mr. Big so…
Thank you for liking my Facebook page!! I’m pretty sure I “liked” yours since I do see your post updates there.
Hope things calm down a bit for you, but still stay exciting!
Have a great week my friend…
There is no fb page for my blog to like….I just post them on my personal fb page and bombard my friends with them whether they like it or not, so yes you are following me ….I’m not quit #BIG enough for my own fb page…despite my associations with Mr. Big;)
I would say you’re TOO BIG for FB 🙂
Hilarious about your husband’s password! Let’s not forget there is an ass in password too! 🙂 I love OITNB and have binge watched every season. I was supposed to do Yasso 800’s today but am still recovering from a 5k race over the weekend …didn’t expect to be this sore (ouch!) but excited about the PR. 🙂
CONGRATS on the PR!!!! Awesome job! And congrats on being smart enough to hold off on the Yasso’s. They will be there when you are ready.
And yes, let’s not forget the “ass” in password 🙂
Last week was so weird. Was there a full moon or is mercury in retrograde (whatever that means)? Your hair looks great – whatever works right? And Amanda’s podcast is awesome!
Whatever the hell it was, I hope it has now passed! And yes, I will do whatever it takes to make this hair behave 🙂 Thanks Angela!
Ahahahahaha. I love that automated message. LMAO!
I have very very very straight hair and I would love just a little bounce every once in awhile. Maybe a slight wave?
Have you started watching Narcos yet on Netflix? I think you would love it. I told you I went to high school with the girl that plays crazy eyes right? I sat next to her in music class. She was really talented even back then.
OMG seriously? I did not know you sat next to/went to high school with Crazy Eyes!? I also just discovered she is a runner! Very cool.
Thanks for the tip on Narcos. That will be next!…I still have to catch up on Ray Donovan. #Somanyshows
The week was shorter but felt longer to me. Weird. I think your hair looks great! I read the book after watching the first season so I had different expectations. I was interested in how her experience actually was but yeah, not as exciting and racy as the show!
I agree! And thank you. Straight hair is so much more manageable!! I may even grow it out a little.
Yes, I would have been much better off reading the book afterward but honestly, I couldn’t finish it. It started out great and then fizzled.
hahaha that last nugget was hilarious! dick, LOL.sorry i’m 8.
i got to meet Jeff Galloway! ok i’m sort of an uber fan of his just recently when i started training using his galloway method, and then joined the galloway club of houston. well holy crap, he came to our run on saturday and swear i nearly died. i acted like a total groupie and giggly, but i couldn’t help it. his program saved my life in many ways, maybe that sounds dramatic but so the EFF what. haha!
happy monday! i love podcasts so can’t wait to check that one out. flip flops???
Isn’t it funny how we can form this bond through running with people we have never met?…and then freak when we meet them? I obviously, totally get it. I met Jeff Galloway a few years ago at a conference and actually had breakfast with him and his wife (and about 6 others) and they were the sweetest, most down to earth people. I have a picture with him that I absolutely love so yes, I feel you on that one!!
The podcast is a must!
The boys are so adorable with thier matching missing front tooth!!
Thanks Jess! You should hear them talk with their matching little lisps 🙂
I snort laughed at the last one. Because I’m apparently an immature teenager.
I’ve missed you! I’m sorry I haven’t been blog reading for a while. Life and all that. And that multiples anthology (submit something ok??). Hope you’re well!
Obviously so am I because, as soon as he told me, I wrote it down for inclusion 🙂
SO happy to see you here and YES, I started working on my submission!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the twins!!!!! xo
Id forgotten the reverse perm!!!!
SO many of my friends growing up used to get them (Jewish).
Not I.
my hair is sooo flat and fine.
((sad face :-)))
You mean ((happy face))!! I love your long straight hair. In fact, the only time in recent years I grew mine out was when I was pregnant with the boys. Now, they will look at those pictures of me and say “That’s not the real mommy.” LOL.
Well I would love to have waves in my hair 🙂 and I bet your hair is really easy to style after a shower and quick too:)
That beach picture of you and the kids is rather lovely. (I typed up this comment in my British accent)
Why thank you my dear. So lovely to catch you in a civilized moment 🙂
Ok, so wait….I thought you said no fitness trackers! Isn’t the vivofit a tracker??? I’ve met Bart Yasso a few times and he is so super cool and easy to talk to!! Very cool that he tweeted 😉 Hope the boys are feeling better!
That is absolutely correct Sue. I’m a complete and total hypocrite and I cannot wait to write all about it. Seriously though, the worst part of this thing is the “activity” tracker. I love it for the run, bike and SWIM tracker plus text, Instagram, twitter and FB alerts.
The boys are ALL better and so far, so good this week!
I couldn’t AGREE MORE! I crave consistency and routine and what not and ummmm yeah, my life in Los Angeles, NOT SO MUCH! I have gotten pretty used to it, considering I have been here for almost 5 years at this point (holy crap) but every so often, it still throws me through a loop!
Last week was NOT a good week for me either, but not for schedule reason… Personal reasons, UGH. But I do believe ALL IS GOOD in the hood… Let me knock on wood though too! lol
I cannot even imagine! My life was total chaos when I live in L.A. but that’s because I was in my 20s and it was on purpose 🙂
Hope all is well this week. If not, let me know who’s ass needs kicking!!