I read a quote last week that said "Find three hobbies you love: one to make you money, one to keep you in shape, and one to be creative." I'm not sure where that quote originally came from (an internet search turns up extramadness.com, but I'm not sure that's accurate, either), but the quote resonated with me.

"Find three hobbies you love: one to make you money, one to keep you in shape, and one to be creative." - Unknown

I've certainly never been accused of not having enough hobbies. Having too many is probably more like it - photography, painting, paddleboarding, running, barre, yoga, sketching, jewelry design, web design, graphic design, any kind of design, etc, etc, etc.

Clearly, the hobby I find easiest to stay on top of is the one to keep me in shape, as evidenced by my regular workout schedule, but even that has been rocky lately (and by lately, I mean for that past year and a half or so). While I'd like to say I'm good at maintaining creative hobbies, it's tough. And the one that makes me money? Well I've dabbled in that one with pet photography and jewelry design, but it's always been very sporadic income at best.

Between all of life's obligations and craziness, sometimes creative hobbies fall by the wayside and a hobby that makes money requires a dedicated amount of time and planning. That's not to say, I'm not working on that - I definitely am in a variety of ways behind the scenes - but it's a process. The ultimate goal is to have all of my hobbies wrapped into making money, but that's slow going, to say the least. And I guess I'll have to find other hobbies then, right? :-)

This week though, in addition to decent workouts, I also got creative. I broke out my acrylic paints, some gold leaf, and a canvas and had a fun early morning painting session. I need to do this much more often. I think feeding my creativity also gives me energy for other things, like running and um...life in general. I die a little inside when I go too long without pure creativity (the confined creativity I deal with in my work environment doesn't count).

This week's attempt at getting creative!

I'm also happy to say that my workout hobby game was strong this week. It's heating up like crazy here in Charleston and summer running is here to stay for the next several months. So far, I'm still holding up just fine, or at least how a normal person holds up in this heat instead of being a wheezing asthmatic mess.

Workout summary

Monday: Barre class
Tuesday: Speedwork (.4 easy, .1 fast, 1 mile easy warmup) - 5.20 miles (9:07 pace)
Wednesday: Barre class
Thursday: Barre class
Friday: Easy run - 5 miles (no watch)
Saturday: Easy run - 3.13 miles (8:58 pace)
Sunday: Progressive "long" run - 7.07 miles (8:36 pace)

Total miles: 20.40 miles
Total runs: 4
Total yoga/barre/strength: 3

I've been good about keeping up with barre classes, but still have missed yoga. We really need a yoga studio in the shopping center across from my house. Having a barre studio there makes it so easy to get there since the travel time is less than 5 minutes. The yoga studio I go to is great, but it can be a pain to get there with traffic and sometimes I don't have the extra hour of time to sit in traffic. First world problems, I realize this.

This is my second week in a row of two speedwork sessions (that may be a record, folks). Tuesday I did 5 miles with a 1 mile warmup followed by .4 miles of easy then .1 of speed (repeat easy/speed reps over 4 miles). My target for the .1 stretches was 6:30 and overall, I did pretty well. Some were faster, some were slower, but average pace was right on target. Speed splits: 6:11, 6:17, 6:28, 6:42, 6:43, 6:45, 6:34, 6:30.

My second speed session was Sunday and it was a progressive run. This run was a big mental win for me because my body did not want to be running. I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine and feeling nauseated and wasn't feeling much better before I ran. I pushed through it and ended up with some decent splits: 9:07, 9:04, 9:02, 8:36, 8:23, 8:04, 7:34. Again, right on my target speeds even though I was feeling less than great.

I'm still feeling good overall and am very happy that sometimes it's my legs holding me back now instead of my lungs. During Saturday's easy run, my legs were really tired and wanted to go slow but my lungs kept saying, "faster, faster." That was new. But I stayed slow because I knew Sunday's progressive run was on the horizon. I'm trying to keep easy runs really easy and hard runs really hard.

And now for something new(ish)...

I'm ready to start setting goals again after finally getting through the frustration of the past year, but not all of them have to be race and PR-related. I'm going to start setting weekly workout goals and I'll log my progress here. So, here are next week's goals:

4 runs
2 speedwork sessions (track, tempo - ugh)
1 yoga class
At least 2 barre classes

Maybe someday I'll start adding creative goals to my weekly recap lists. But first, I want to get better at being consistent with my workout goals before I start getting too crazy juggling all of my hobbies.

PS - I'm linking up with HoHoRuns and MissSippi Piddlin' for their Weekly Wrap post. You can check out all of this week's posts here.