Brunch, Bluegrass, Backbreaking Labor

Coming at you today with far less energy than I had after yesterday’s 16-miler. There has been no rest for my tired body – I kind of can’t believe how much we crammed into this long weekend.

We met up with my in law’s yesterday for brunch after my long run. I was ready to take down some food. I started out with a big trip to the salad bar.

I love salad bars. I wish I had all of these awesome toppings on hand all the time in my fridge!

After salad I moved on to more traditional brunch fare.

Grits topped with scrambled eggs and cheese, a blueberry cinnamon biscuit and fresh fruit.

And of course dessert was a must – I earned it!

Heath cheesecake, pecan pie and some sort of trifle that I didn’t eat because it wasn’t as good as my other two! Black coffee on the side. Mmm…..

I swear to you that I was hungry again three hours after I ate all of this food but I controlled myself! Long run days just equal insatiable hunger for me.

Last night we had plans to go to the U.S. National Whitewater Center with friends for a night of bluegrass under the stars.

The set up was really cool. The stage was on an island and everyone had their chairs set up all around the water. During the concert the Whitewater Center had some of their staff kayaking. I loved watching them.

The headliner was the Del McCoury Band. The concert was part of the “Del Yeah” weekend (the band played a show in Black Mountain, NC and Charlotte) and all of the concert goers were totally on board with Del Yeah. I can’t tell you how many creative ways the phrase was used throughout the night.

Del McCoury, the lead singer and founder of the band, is 71 years old and still tours and puts on a great show. So impressive. We had so much fun – old school bluegrass. Love it!

I volunteered to drive our group home last night since I had early plans this morning. We didn’t get home until after midnight and I had a 7 a.m. wake up call  to chauffeur Brandon’s parents to the airport for their fabulous vacation to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary! I was feeling verryyyy sleepy when I woke up.

I had plans to go to a 90-minute hot vinyasa yoga class after I dropped them off. I was so on the fence about yoga. I was really starting to feel the fatigue from my long run and the late night. I was really thinking that going back to bed sounded like a good plan. I ended up going anyway and I’m not lying that the first 10 minutes I was there I thought about rolling up my mat and leaving. Every spot in the room was taken and I was so tempted to give my spot up to someone and head home. I ended up sticking out the class and honestly, I shouldn’t have been there. It was too much. I got it done but rest would have been far more beneficial. You live, you learn. Listen to your body – I should do this more often.

I whipped up an omelet for brunch/lunch when I drug myself home from yoga.

In the omelet went sauteed mushrooms, spinach, onions and green peppers as well as cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I had a cinnamon raisin English muffin and grapes on the side.

While we were eating lunch we discussed our afternoon gameplan. Brandon informed me that we were doing yard work. I was not excited about this – I was thinking that lounging and a nap sounded good. Yard work ended up being so much more than I anticipated.

Brandon decided that it was time to cut down a tree in our backyard near our patio that was too close to the house and blocking a ton of sun from making it to the backyard. We picked up a chainsaw from his parent’s house and things went downhill from there.

Everything was good until Brandon realized that the (enormous) tree was going to fall on our house. I ran over to get the neighbors and chaos ensued.

Operation save Jen and Brandon’s house got underway. This involved ladders, straps, wenches and chains. After about 15 minutes of damage control we had the tree moving in the right direction.

I don’t think you can really appreciate the size of this tree in pictures but it was way taller than it seemed. I felt so bad about cutting it down but it just had to happen.

The fun with the tree continued because we had to cut all the limbs into small sections and create piles to be hauled away. We are using as much of the tree as possible for firewood for our fireplace and fire pit this winter.

I was totally defeated and exhausted when we finally called it quits at 5 p.m. We showered and got pizza from the Pizza Peel. Now we’re hanging out watching football, drinking wine and waiting for brownies to come out of the oven. I’ve pretty much made the executive decision that ashtanga is not happening tomorrow morning. I am so tired and can’t face a 5 a.m. wake up call.

I hope you’ve all enjoyed your long weekend. Now we get a short week! Nice! 😀