Happy August!!! Isn’t crazy how the 8th month of the year is here??

It was a busy week last week and not a standard training week as far as my runs are concerned. I had to do some changes to my schedule because of some family events and other surprises 🙂 .

Monday I was just lazy. I usually bike for 45 minutes but I just wasn’t feeling it for some reason so I gave myself a break. I intended to “make it up” later in the week and never did. Oops!

I kinda did on Tuesday though when I was able to get a double run in. First, I made it to the 5 at 5 group and ran a pretty good 5 miler, almost negative splitting except for one mile.

Then in the evening, I met up at the local running store’s run for a 3 miler. I was able to negative split this one despite the heat.

Wednesdays are usually track days but my kids had a school function later in the evening so I forced myself out late in the morning. It felt even hotter than what it was because of the humidity (54%) but I managed four negative split miles– 9:33, 9:18, 8:59, 8:35.

Thursday is when things got really interesting. My charity, Ronald McDonald House, posted a challenge on the Facebook page for runners to run a route shaped like a Ronald McDonald Boot.

For reference:

I relayed the info to my husband who designed the best. route. ever. Like, for real.

The only slight area of concern was that the back of the boot had me running through the Indian Reservation–which is quite a different area than where the rest of the route is. I wasn’t comfortable running that part alone. So my husband ran the route with me! 🙂

It was a route that was a little over 6.5 miles and we had to start late morning so it was warm. We had to run part of the route twice (the top half of the vertical back end). And at about half way through the boot near near where it curves, we took a wrong turn. Wah, wah!! We didn’t realize it til about over a half mile later and we knew going back would leave a huge line across the middle. We kept going even though we knew our boot run failed. When we got to the reservation part of the boot, sure enough, our concerns were validated as I turned to my husband and said, “Be careful with that dog over there” to hear him reply, “Um, that’s not a dog!” It was a freaking coyote!!! We did our best to run as quietly as we could past it and then skidaddled the heck out of there. A raccoon greeted us as well as we made our way out of the Res. It was definitely and interesting run.

We checked out the boot run on Garmin Connect and sure enough, our mistake messed up the boot and the front end.

We were so bummed!!! I told my husband there was no way we were running through the reservation again and he agreed. We stared at the map trying to figure out how we could re-route it leaving out the res but still maintain the boot shape. Then, we had it!!!

We couldn’t run it again til the afternoon of the next day, Friday, and we knew that it was going to be scorching hot, but we were intent on getting it done.

At one o’clock in the afternoon and in 102 degree weather, we were ready. And this time, zero mistakes!

You can see where we modified the route on the back of the boot where now it’s angled instead of straight and squarish. I ended up liking this design way better anyway 🙂

My family said we were crazy (it was 106 degrees when we finished) but I was so wanting to do this run because it was absolutely perfect. I mean, it’s a total boot!! And even cooler is that the bottom of it runs along McDonald Drive!! I mean, c’mon!! To top it off, there’s a McDonald’s on McDonald Drive. Yes, I took a picture 😀

I don’t know if I’ll win, but I’ll keep you posted. They should be announcing Wednesday.

Since Fridays are my typical rest days and I clearly didn’t rest, Saturday I decided to give it a rest. I needed it.

But I was back at it Sunday on the trails with friends and one of them snapped this awesome pic of me looking like I was trying really hard not to die ❤

Which ended me with 33.58 miles for the week! I ended July with 124 miles–a tie for my highest ever. Luckily, I’m still feeling pretty good. Still truckin’!

Have a great week, amigos!! ❤ , helly

–How was your running week (and July!)?

–Have you run a route shaped like something cool?