No pain, no gain.
“If little labour, little are our gains:
Man’s fate is according to his pains.” – Robert Herrick

I’m not so sure I agree with Mr. Herrick and his little poem. I guess this is an “everything in moderation” situation.

The past few days have been a little stressful for me. As many of you know, I’ve been training for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in DC this weekend. I’ve been looking forward to this race since December when I entered into the lottery and then actually got in (I never get chosen for things or win anything…and I mean, never!). Anyway, I went out Sunday morning for my one and only long run (training schedule is different from normal due to my marathon last month) and somehow managed to hurt my knee. (womp, womp) I called Steve to come pick me up a few miles from home, cried, and iced. Monday I had another run that ended too quickly and was followed with a few tears. By Tuesday I was past being sad and I was just PO’d. So I did what any normal person would do…planted flowers.

This was another one of Steve’s great ideas (the bathroom remodeling was his idea, too). It really was a great idea – I wanted flowers and vegetables planted. I just didn’t want to do the planting. My go-to gardening joke is that instead of having a green thumb, I have a black thumb (funny, right?!). I kill everything. Basil plants are great ideas, but they don’t last long around here. Orchids, that don’t require much watering, don’t last long. And bamboo trees, that literally require no work….well, that one is actually still alive, though we’ve had some close calls. So yes, put me in charge of planting the flowers!

picking out flowers at home depot

Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed myself. And it was even therapeutic. Don’t get me wrong, I would have preferred going for a nice long run. But you know what they say –> if one can’t run – garden! (no one really says that)

helper #1….he’s mad b/c I planted flowers in his favorite dirt spot.

helper #2…

my ocd kicked in a little bit when he got dirt on my Brooks (!)

I really want some fresh garden tomatoes this summer, so I decided to leave the vegetables to Steve. I think he has a better track record for keeping things alive. He did a great job! Hopefully we’ll have tomatoes, squash, peppers (sweet and spicy), and a couple herbs!

Our neighbor studied agriculture – I love looking at his garden (top pic), but I’m kind of glad he can’t see our garden (bottom pic) haha

All-in-all, it was a good day and a positive way to work out some frustrations! To help with my knee, I’ve started doing some cross-training (which I should have been doing consistently all along!) – Jillian Michaels is a beast. I’d like to find a dvd with more runner specific workouts, but this will do for now.

shredding

xoxo,
Jo