That sucked. It was good, but it sucked.

The sentence in the header is pretty much how I have been feeling about my workouts this week!  I ran 3 miles on Monday morning, followed by forcing myself to do an arm workout on the weight machines afterwards.  I did the outdoor interval class at lunchtime on Tuesday.  And then today, Jess had a "tempo run" on her marathon training schedule and since we run together on Wednesdays, I joined her for it.  It will be interesting how things work with the inevitable merging of her plan and mine.  However, I have to say I liked it!  I mean, the run today sucked.  But it felt good!

I have never done any sort of speed work, so if you are lost when I say a "tempo run" than don't worry because I am right there with you.  One of the things I'd wanted to do this summer with my running was explore different types of speedwork to try and become a faster runner.  A tempo run is a run that is at a faster pace than what you usually do.  Runner's World says it should be "comfortably hard."  It should be a sustained, steady effort over a distance of time.  Today we did 5 miles, with a 1.5 mile warm up, 3 miles at a 8:45/pace and then a .5 mile cool down.

I did not think that I could do that going into this run.  Even after my confidence being built up over the past weekend, anything under 9 minute miles, in my mind, I equate to being ridiculously hard.

And the run was hard!  We were out of breathe at the end and I was so glad when the 3 miles were done.  But we did it!  Just another example of how I am super happy to have Jess as my running buddy.  It would have been a lot harder to attempt to do that on my own.

In addition to the exercise, I've had a really fun week.  As I mentioned, this is the summer of "killing it" and totally being awesome both health wise and activities wise.  On Monday I was supposed to go to a local baseball game but unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate.  The sudden thunder storms caused us to change our plans to just meeting for a drink, but it was great nonetheless because any time I spend with my friend Jenna is a fabulous time.  She is literally one of the best people I know in the world.  And after chatting, we went to go stop by a local bar and were totally surprised to see a full orchestra in there.  We've been hanging out at this place for years, and they have never even had live music before, nonetheless an orchestra!

It was such a fun surprise and totally made us smile.

Tuesday night, my friends and I who had caught the water ski team practice the week before, returned to Jumping Jack's to see the real show.  It was so cool!

I was thoroughly impressed with everything that I saw and totally wish that I had enough talent to be a part of this group.  I cannot even get up on water skis!  I just love being able to see people doing things that they are good at, it is so impressive and enjoyable to me.  The show was so cool!

We were really lucky that the weather held out for us because at the end of the show it started to look like it was going to downpour.  These sporadic thunderstorms can be pretty annoying!  On Wednesday evening we had a major storm that seemed to come out of nowhere.  Usually you can find me cringing in a corner at a sign of a storm, but something came over me tonight and I went out and watched the storm roll through from my porch.

It all of a sudden got really loud and I couldn't figure out why until all of a sudden I realized it was hailing out!  Hail!  Big pieces!

I have never seen such big pieces of hail and it was totally weird to me to see if falling from the sky!

As for the rest of the evening after the entertainment of the hail storm, I didn't have any specific plans on Wednesday, so I e-mailed a group of my friends who live in all different parts of the country and in different cities and invited everyone to have a virtual happy hour.  For an hour, we jumped on a Google Hangout and just chatted.  I had invited friends from different parts of my life and despite if people didn't know each other, or could only stay for a few short minutes, I wanted to make it as much like a real happy hour as possible.  Just come as you are, for however long you want, no pressure, no formality, let's just get together for a drink!  It ended up being really fun and I am totally going to do it again.  If anyone out there is ever interested in joining, let me know.  Like a real happy, my virtual happy hours are for any and all!

Oh, and at my virtual happy hour, I drank Firefly sweet tea vodka with water and lemon -- my favorite summer time drink as of last summer -- and my first one of the season.  It was well enjoyed!

I hope your weeks are going just as pleasant as mine!