Weekly RunDown: November 8 – 14 / Fall Cleanup, Surgery Recovery, and a Low-Key Celebration

The Short RunDown of the Week  

It was a week of transitions and milestones! From completely blowing up my new cardio distance goals and wrapping up some long-overdue dumbbell maintenance to supporting Bill through his total knee replacement surgery, it was a busy balancing act. We wrapped up the stretch with a healthy mix of recovery days, physical therapy homework, and a wonderfully low-key 69th birthday celebration complete with a 6.9-mile spin, a 6.9-kilometer walk, and some well-deserved Tex-Mex.

A New Look

You’ll notice a fresh look to my daily entries here on the blog! Moving forward, I’m streamlining my cardio recaps by dropping the granular data—no more listing out the weather, exact pace, and elevation gain for every single workout.

If I’m being honest, all of those numbers were mostly for me anyway, and I always secretly hoped readers would just breeze past them to get to the stories and highlights of the day. It made for a pretty long recap that was probably a bit tedious for everyone except the stats-obsessed author! Since all of that detailed data is safely stored in Garmin, Strava, and my old-school logbook, writing it all out here felt a little too repetitive.

Overview of the Week

Before getting into each day’s workouts, here’s an overview of my workouts from this past week. Scroll beyond the infographic for daily details…

Sunday

Only one day into my new plan of upping the distance on my walks, and I stopped at three miles! Tired from a busy weekend, three miles felt like the perfect distance. I immediately decided to throw rigid distance goals right out the window and let each walk, ride, and workout go purely on feel. It was another gorgeous fall afternoon, and honestly, the best part was simply being outside enjoying the incredible weather. Later on, I fit in an easy stretch to wrap things up.

Monday

Aside from work, I checked off my own workout with a Peloton lower-body session, followed by a bodyweight core and stability routine featuring a medley of planks, dead bugs, and bird-dogs. Later in the afternoon, I enjoyed another gorgeous fall day out on my 4-mile walk.

The real headline of the day, though? Finally refurbishing three sets of dumbbells! Who knew it could take over three hours to bring them back to life? From sitting mostly unused, my Hampton rubber 40, 45, and 50-pound dumbbell sets had developed a white, chalky rubber bloom. Bringing back that deep black rubber luster has been lingering on my to-do list for a couple of years now. With a little help learning what to do from Gemini, I washed them with Dawn, wiped away any remaining bloom with 70% isopropyl alcohol, and finished them off by conditioning them with mineral oil. What a satisfying project to finally cross off the list!

Tuesday

After a relaxing sleep-in, I eventually made my way down to the basement for a Peloton 30-minute Power Zone ride, followed by a cool-down ride and a good stretch. The weather was simply too nice not to get outside, so I headed out for a walk and zoomed around our neighborhood circle at a sub-15:00 minute/mile pace—genuinely surprised at the extra pep in my step! Afterward, I spent a couple of hours outside tackling the fall clean-up—clearing out potted flowers on the deck and getting our deck furniture properly covered for the season.

Wednesday

My husband and I were up super early and at the hospital before 6 AM for his total knee replacement surgery—something he had been pushing back for twelve long years ever since he first had to give up running due to knee pain. Here’s to a lot less pain and a smooth return to hiking (and perhaps the occasional run) for him down the road! Our Dawn Patrol orthopedic surgeon friend even gave Bill a fun target to work toward: participating in an outdoor group ride on New Year’s Day!

On the fitness front, I fit in a 3-mile walk around the hospital grounds while he was in surgery. My route even included a fun little peel-off to an old section of road that’s been cut off and closed down amidst all the recent area development. Much later in the day, once things had settled down at home, I completed a Peloton upper-body session followed by my own bodyweight core and stability routine.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

To celebrate my 69th birthday, I kept things playfully on theme with a 6.9-mile spin followed by a post-ride stretch. Later on, I headed outside for a 6.9-kilometer walk and wrapped it up with another good stretch. I capped off the day with 5:30 Mass followed by a delicious home-cooked salmon dinner. It was definitely a low-key birthday!