Life on the Run, Swim and Bike

Still around

2010-02-14T15:53:00.002-05:00

I'm not doing much worthy of posting lately. Working as usual, anticipating a possible job change. Taking a class on Saturdays from 9am-3:30pm, so life is spent doing a lot of studying, working, hanging with the family and just trying to fit stuff in. Not a great set-up for training, so the plan I had made for a half in May has been put on hold. The half is the day after I have a large class project due and the week before an exam. So spending the day away from the family for school and then driving a couple hours away for another day away from the family for a race just isn't motivating me. I'm still making it to the gym most weekday mornings, but the stomach bug hit two weeks ago and this week a head/sinus cold knocked me out. I'm not recovering from these illnesses as quickly as usual. Maybe due to stress or just whatever. I've lost a little weight that I had packed on over the holidays, so at least that part is headed in the right direction. I'll have to miss the annual family 5K/ kids race because of aforementioned class, which I'm really bummed about. Not sure about the annual 5-miler/ kids race either because of schedule conflicts, oh well, these things happen. I'll find out in May whether I'm accepted into nursing school and whether I start in September or January. If I get in, life's in for some more big changes. While I'm doing my best to make health and exercise a priority, actual races just aren't top right now.

For the next two weeks I've got the Olympics to watch, though, I love the Olympics. And that usually gives me some motivation for a while.

Ready to go

2009-12-24T08:23:00.003-05:00

I haven’t actually fallen off the ends of the earth, and I’m honestly not sure what I have been doing that’s kept me from posting. Except that I don’t think I’ve done much worth posting about. I had some grand plans for starting my half marathon training in October, and now those plans are to start half marathon training in January. I’m registered: Sunday May 2, 2010, 8am start for my third half marathon, a repeat of the course for my first race this past May. I don’t have a great training program picked out that matches up with my weekly schedule, so I’m going to be going mostly on my own. I’m excited about a change-up in the classes schedule at the gym, though, so I’ll be putting spin back into the rotation once a week, at least for the first 8 weeks. And there will be at least once weekly strength training. In addition I’ve joined a judo club, along with Hot Wheels, so that’s sort of a mini strength training session once a week.
I have managed to gain back about seven pounds since the half in September. So, at my weigh-in at the gym for our holiday “maintain don’t gain program”, I’m one and a half pounds under where I was at this time last year. Overall, a 1.5 pound loss for the year isn’t bad, but the fact that I lost and gained about 10 over the course of the year is depressing. This coming year will have an added bonus on the weight loss front, though. My husband is motivated to lose some weight as well. That means we’ll have less junk food in the house, he’ll be making meals with a healthier focus and it will be easier to stay on track in general. The hard part is that he will decide to lose 20 pounds and will just lose them like that. It’s frustrating to watch that knowing that if I’m ever going to lose these last 19 pounds it’s going to take a LOT of work and dedication. Not sure I’m even up to it, but I’ll try to eat well, make good decisions, put in good workouts and not just focus on a number. I once told myself that if I could ever get up and on any random day run three miles, I would consider myself to be pretty fit. Well, I can get up on any random day and run five miles, so I’m at least meeting that part of the goal. I think we’re going to put together a Wii challenge and track our progress there, we’ll make a family project out of it.
I’m sitting at my desk, thinking about the work I could be doing, but am not doing. Taking a few minutes for myself before I head home at lunch time for what might be the best vacation time I’ve ever had. That’s the new theme in my life. For the past few years, every vacation I’ve had has been the best time I’ve ever had. As the kids get older it just gets more fun! Today we’re heading out for our first “real” sledding. We’ve done the small hill in grandma’s back yard, but now we’re headed for the hill down to the kickball field at a local school. We had 20+ inches of snow over the weekend so there’s still plenty left. The boys are looking forward to it and while Princess has no idea what we’re talking about, I think she’ll love it. I’ll cut this novel short here and maybe update more over the vacation. I wish you all a merry Christmas (I already missed it if you celebrate Hanukkah)- and a happy birthday to Siren!
As always, some kid pictures to share.

This was the best visit with Santa Claus, ever! I thought that Princess, at 2-years old might get upset but she just climbed up and gave him a big hug.

The biggest snowfall I can ever remember. We shoveled out a clear tunnel to take the picture.

Hitting the limit of a two year old's energy when the snow is as high as her chest.

No training in sight

2009-10-03T17:15:00.002-04:00

It's been a quiet week of recovery. Soreness passed by Wednesday, in part because I had popped my blisters (even though I've heard you're not supposed to). I had a lot of work to do this week, so I didn't make it to the gym, but Monday starts the next training phase. That's regular strength training, back to base training for run mileage, and losing some weight will help with the goal to drop 13 minutes in May.

Just for fun here are some little snippets of life at home recently:
If Princess wants a banana and it's not peeled enough, she'll hand it to us and say "Turn it louder", if she's hungry and dinner's still cooking she'll say "Want to have chicken nuggets. In my mouth!"

We went to spectate at a high school robotics competition this morning that's associated with FIRST (Dean Kamen's program to increase science and math exposure for children), Hot Wheels will be joining the Junior Lego League next month and I will be volunteering as a program mentor. We're both really looking forward to it.

Spiderman is enjoying his second year of preschool. He's asked his friend, A. to marry him and apparently she's said yes. He's going to build a house for them in the backyard, so they can come in for dinner. He's fascinated by science and space and he's generally a happy kid.

Here we are with Hot Wheels after his triathlon two weeks ago.

I'll take it

2009-09-27T19:17:00.002-04:00

This morning I left my house in low 60 degree weather with plenty of rain and some wind. Nice day to spend about two and a half hours running, right? Actually, except for the fact that it prevented much spectating by the kids and my husband, I rather enjoyed the weather. I lined up at the very back of the pack of 500+ runners and we headed off on a two loop course that is pretty much completely flat. I know the course very well, since the starting line was about 3.5 miles from my house, we've spent much time in the state park we went through as well as the adjacent neighborhood. Here's the picture of a decidedly NON-negative split race.

mile 1-10.11
mile 2-10.36
mile 3-10.20
mile 4-10.29
mile 5-10.34
mile 6-10.48
mile 7-10.44
mile 8-11.06
mile 9-10.56
mile 10-11.23
mile 11-12.00
mile 12-11.59
mile 13.1-12.52
As you can see, the first seven were decent. It went downhill from there, but in contrast to my first half where I ended up walking most of the way after mile 10, I only stopped running for about 30 seconds to hug my kids and my husband at mile 10.5. Overall, I felt better than I did in May, but I've definitely got to put in more higher mileage runs to acclimate my feet and legs to the 10+ mile distances. I have to mention that my husband walked, in the rain with three kids, about half a mile to find a spot to spectate. Then they waited around for me because the race started about 15 minutes late, and had to walk back uphill to the car to go home. He's the most awesome husband ever. And seeing the kids was such a total boost for me, it got me through miles 9-10 without stopping and then once I'd passed them around 10.5 I figured I could at least keep running for the remaining 2.5 or so. I came in 479 out of 510, 76/84 age group and pulled off a 55 second PR, 2:24:05, for 11:03 average. May 2nd, 2010. Half marathon #3- goal- 2:11:00. It's on.

Ready or not. I'll go with not.

2009-09-26T15:29:00.002-04:00

But tomorrow morning the half marathon will be here either way. It's supposed to rain, I've got a cold, I developed a blister on my toe doing a three mile run this week and I'm just altogether uninspired for this race. I've put in a few longer runs, but I've missed enough regularity in my workouts that I'm just not feeling confident. Also, I left myself in a bad place as far as goals. I kept saying I just want to get through it and feel better than last time. Well, that's just not a concrete enough goal for my uptight schedule-loving self. So I'm putting it out there today for 31+ weeks from now. My May half marathon goal is 2:11, 10 minute miles. Tomorrow I'll finish, maybe soaked, cold and cranky. I don't really care when I cross the line, I know I'll get there but I don't think it will be much fun.

On a much happier note, Hot Wheels was awesome in his first triathlon last weekend! He really enjoyed himself and already wants to do it again next year. He certainly wasn't the fastest one out there, but there were only six 6-year olds and his division was 6-8 year olds. Those 8 year olds are just so much more developed, it's not about the competition for the younger kids. Fortunately he didn't even care about who got trophies, he was a bit worried he wouldn't get one before the race. But once he crossed that finish line he just beamed for the rest of the day.

Here's his race report. We got there about 8:15 am and found an open transition spot near an edge, because parents weren't allowed in transition I at least wanted to be able to see and talk to him. Turns out other parents just ignored the rules completely, but we'd been through our transition practice so I knew he could do it. We went down to the beach for the start and the race directors were talking to the kids. Hot Wheels was off in space a bit and we had no idea whether he'd paid attention at all. They fired the gun and he stood there for a minute, then when the other kids hit the water, he ran in. He dropped and dog paddled pretty quickly, I thought he was going to walk until it was a bit deeper. The water did get deeper than his height, but he didn't seem to mind he really swam the whole way. There were lifeguards with floats and he stopped, along with most of the kids, to take a breather a few times. When he reached the shore I wondered whether he'd look around for all of us or stop. Nope, he was focused and determined. He motored up the really long run from the swim to transition area and he had a really quick transition to the bike. He had a volunteer assist him with clipping his bike helmet and then he was off on the two loop 0.75 mile course. He was nervous about stopping before the line from the bike-run transition, but he did manage to stop without falling. He had another volunteer help him unclip the helmet before heading out for the run. I couldn't see the whole 0.25 mile run course but he said there was a water station and he stopped for a drink. He was a little nervous when he couldn't find a garbage can so he stopped to ask the volunteer where to throw his cup. I thought that was cute. He was a little annoyed at all the littering until I told him that volunteers would clean up all the cups. He crossed the finish line and was ecstatic, the first thing he said was "Can I do it again next year?", then he said he was really tired. What a great event this was and we'll definitely be back again next year. I was just so proud of him, it was one of the most awesome things I've experienced.

Guess I'll taper

2009-09-18T19:25:00.002-04:00

The half is a week from Sunday and I've put in two runs over 9 miles or so. I was planning to get in another 10+ miler in, but it just didn't work out that way. As I've been going along with this training plan, knowing that school, vacations and life in general was going to get complicated at times, I've done okay. My motivation has been decent, but not complete. I've put in most, but not quite all, of what was planned. If I can just get through and not feel as awful as last May, it will be a success. If not, then I know what to work on for next May.

But, the highlight of this weekend will clearly be HotWheel's first triathlon on Sunday. Last weekend we did a "wet run". I hosed him down in the backyard and he went through transition and then did a bike/run workout. We don't have a good pool or swim option, so the hose was the best approximation we had. I didn't push the practice much this summer, but he knows that if he does it again next year he'll have to practice more. Not because we want to push him to win, but just because that's part of the event. But for this year I let him sort of dictate when he biked/ran or didn't. The transition to first grade and full days of school has really taken away alot of his Lego time. He would play with his Lego collection for multiple hours a day if given the option, and that's what he did most of the summer. So when he gets home from school, if he doesn't want to bike or run, or do much of anything other than build for an hour or so, I just go with it. That's his relaxation, and it could be much worse. He hasn't even asked to play video games during the week at all, and while I'm not completely against video games, I'm glad that he prefers the more creative Lego option.

I'll have photos of the event to share soon, please hope for good weather for us! I may race in the rain, but it will be miserable if we're all out there cold and/or wet.

Phew

2009-09-05T19:27:00.006-04:00

So much going on, I'm not sure why I haven't posted except that I just haven't had the time. I now have a two-year-old, a first grader and not to ignore him - a middle child that starts 4-year old preschool next week. This summer was just about the best I can ever remember. Fun trips to the beach, a family vacation with my family, and a small trip to Story Land for just the five of us. Last weekend we discovered the fun of geocaching, where you download coordinates to a GPS unit and tromp through the woods looking for a "treasure chest" of sorts. The kids had an absolute blast and now I'm going to invest in a Forerunner so I can have a watch GPS for future geocaching trips. (there's more information at http://www.geocaching.com/ if you're interested)

On a training note, I'm very happy with how the half marathon training has gone. I put in a 9-miler last week, a 9.5 miler yesterday and they both felt pretty good. I was at 10:02 pace yesterday, which I was very happy with. I still have a fear of the last three miles, I'm hoping to get in at least one run over 10 miles before my race on the 27th. I'm not really approaching it as a race, I just want to be able to run through it as if it were another training run. I'm not worried about the time, I just want to get to the end and not feel completely awful like I did in May. My running partner is pregnant, she's about 18 weeks along now and she's still running 4-5 miles at just about our normal pace. For my long run days I've been going out for 4-5 on my own and then meeting up with her for a second "loop". I'm very happy for her that she's pregnant, but I'm a little sad that I'll be back on my own in the not too distant future. However, next summer she'll be back, I hope, and we'll get back into the same routine.

Of course I have more pictures to share, so here they are.
Here we are on our geocaching excursion. Princess with her pony on her birthday. Yes, she accessorized herself and the pony was from a tag sale. But she never needs to know that.Hot Wheels heads off to first grade.We all head off to the bus stop together.

Experiment successful!

2009-08-15T07:50:00.000-04:00

Thursday afternoon was the triathlon with work colleagues and this year there was the addition of a biathlon- 3 mile run, then the 12.6 mile bike and 3 mile run with the triathlon participants. I can't imagine choosing to run 3 miles rather than swim half a mile, but it did attract a few participants which was really nice because there were more people out on the course. My only disappointment for the day was that it rained off and on until about 3:30pm when we decided that my husband and the kids would stay home and I would go by myself since it might rain again and spectating in the rain wouldn't be fun for any of them. About 4:30pm as I was packing up the car it really started to look like it was clearing and I was hoping my husband would spontaneously decide they would go with me. After 10 years of marriage I should be a bit more familiar with him, he's not going to say something like that, I should have asked again. Crossing the finish line without them there was a real letdown since this is the only event that they can easily attend and I didn't realize just how much it means to have them there until they weren't.

Anyway, let's recap before I give the race report. My last swim was some time in February, when I was randomly putting in about 25 minutes during the boys' swim classes. My last bike ride was the triathlon last September when I rode 15 miles in the pouring rain. My last run, however, was just this week and I've been doing a lot more on that front. I'm at exactly the same weight I was last year, so I raced Athena again- there were three of us in the division.

People remarked that the water was cold, I thought it was just about perfect- I think it was upper 60's. They told us the start would be in the middle of the beach, so I stood in the middle of the beach before the start siren. However, when they counted down from 10 seconds, people were already standing ankle deep in the water, which left me at the back of the pack of 52 swimmers. It wouldn't have made that much difference in the end, but I probably spent about 30 seconds trying to get through the pack to a spot where I could swim. I was also clobbered in this swim more than in any other I have participated. I was dunked once, but really nothing that caused me to panic. Honestly the swim just felt great. It was a two loop course with a short jog across the beach between loops. By the time I got to the third leg of the first loop we had spread out a bit and I had a nice spot to swim. Time: 12:47 (I still doubt it's an actual 1/2 mile course, especially based on that time)

Then I got on my bike for the oh-so-fun 6 loop course. My bike computer worked for about 34 seconds and then turned off. I managed to hit the timer on my watch to get an idea of time and double check that I did 6 laps without losing track. There was one spot on the course where they had a traffic sign set up that displays your speed as you approach. I was excited to see it say 17mph each of the six times I went by, so I didn't slow down much over the course of the leg, at least not at that area.
12.6 miles, time: 46:15 (only 17 seconds slower than last year despite not a single practice ride)

As I headed out on the run the sun came out- bummer- and it was hot for the first portion of the course. My legs thought about cramping up at the same point I had terrible cramps the past two times, but this year the extra fluids I took in on the bike must have helped because after some mild tightness for about a dozen steps, they stretched out and I felt pretty good. My only disappointment was that I was hoping to break 30 minutes on this run and I cam close, but not quite.
3.0 miles, time: 30:11 (Last year was 33:09, so that's a good improvement)

I think overall this was my best race ever. I know I was working as hard as I could have. I felt that I'm-about-to-vomit-if-I-don't-back-off feeling a couple times on the bike and once on the run. I was second in my group, but I think the first place Athena was about 8 minutes ahead of me, so it's not as if I just missed out. I truly hope to race age-group next year although there's no chance I'd ever place age group, because I'll be below the weight cut-off for Athena. And, while it didn't go poorly this year despite my lack of training, I intend to put in a well-trained effort next year. And unless it's pouring buckets, the family's coming with me!

I be a scientist

2009-08-10T07:38:00.002-04:00

I decided to do an experiment this summer. Actually I guess laziness put me into a situation where I'm making excuses for the laziness under cover of an experiment. I have a triathlon in three days. I've been running quite a bit and I'm very happy with my progress on that front. When was my last swim you ask? Oh, about February, when I was doing laps while the boys had swimming lessons, until I started teaching the swimming lessons so we could get them for free. And where is my bike? On the garage wall, where it has been since my triathlon LAST September. Yep, a practically un-trained-for triathlon. Guess I'll be able to determine whether it's really all about the run. But, it's only a sprint, it's very low-key, being a bunch of people from work and all I want to do is finish. Barring a flat or some mechanical catastrophe on the bike, I know I'll at least do that. The most important part to me is sharing the evening with my family so the kids can see that this is what we do as a family, incorporate fun exercise in our lives.

I'm happy with the half marathon training. It's eight weeks from yesterday, I put in a 7.4 mile run on Friday, so I'm planning to run past the 10 mile training distance I used for the first half in May. Friday's run I managed to maintain a 10:35 pace for the 7.4 miles, the strongest mile was actually the last. This morning was a short run- 3.36 miles and I kept up a 9:40 pace. It was 100% humidity and 70 degrees so it's just nasty out there, but I did it and it felt strong. I'm taking off until Thursday afternoon's triathlon, just hoping for a little cooler, drier air. I've found the motivation that was failing back in June and I'm feeling great. Except for about 4 pounds that I recently packed on and I'm not sure how or why. But, overall feeling great.

This summer has been just about the best I can ever remember. I'm not on the computer at home very often anymore and I don't usually have time to post from work. The kids are thoroughly enjoying themselves and we're hitting the beaches, parks and outdoor activities with regularity which makes all of us happy. We did also buy Wii Sports Resort for those rainy days and evenings, everyone's enjoying some new games and the boys are expert swordfighters. In two weeks we celebrate Princess' second birthday, which I can hardly believe is here already, and in three weeks Hot Wheels starts first grade. Sigh, just going by so fast. I'm taking a psychology and sociology class in the fall also, so the busy pace of life goes on.

Best brick ever

2009-07-15T20:25:00.000-04:00

Last week we had an awesome family vacation down at the shore. My parents rented a house for the week so they went down there and we joined them and my sister and her husband as well. It was so great to get up in the morning and not even put on my shoes, just walk about 200 steps to the beach. I got out for an early morning run one morning and it was beautiful. I could really get used to running like that in the morning, but it didn't work out more than once. We all spent about 75% of the time barefoot, I love being barefoot. It wasn't the most relaxing vacation, trying to keep three kids occupied away from all their stuff and their normal routine is difficult. But we spent all five mornings at the beach and made a trip to the playground just about every afternoon. Such a great time together, we were so lucky to have that time and those memories.

Now we get to last night's brick workout. Hot Wheels is very excited for the triathlon in September. (We tend to go through the year waiting for each next major event. The triathlon is after the start of school but before Halloween, and it's getting much attention right now.) So, we pulled out Hot Wheels' bike the past few nights and last night we decided on a two loop ride. The hardest part is the getting started. Right now that still requires a curb to step off from, but we've moved up from requiring a push so we should be able to get up to a no-curb start come September. I pulled out the $25 mountain bike that we got at a tag sale last month. A nice little buy, especially since my road bike is still on the rack in the garage- and yes- I have a triathlon four weeks from tomorrow. (yikes) We were cruising along at about 15- that's minutes per mile- and we rode about 1.25 miles. Then he decided to take a break and Spiderman came out for his turn riding the loop. He's still got the training wheels so starting up isn't as difficult, but the speed is an issue. We got four houses down from ours and I realized I just couldn't go slow enough on the bike to stay upright so I ditched it on some understanding neighbors' lawn. They chuckled and said they remembered those days well. I was walking with Spiderman and after about 15 feet or so he looked up and me with these big eyes and said "But mom, you're not running to keep up with me". So, I started running. Or really, I started bouncing to give the appearance of running. We held a blistering pace of about 2mph, so the 1 mile loop took half an hour. My legs were actually sore from the weird run after 30 minutes of bounce-running-without-really-moving. It was a great time, though, and I'm just so glad the boys are excited about biking, running and fitness stuff. Just to brag about Spiderman for a second, we went to the playground earlier yesterday and he crossed the monkey bars on his own- seven monkey bars- which seems really good for a four year old.

I did get out for a run on Monday, a regular three mile run. This morning I headed out for a hill workout, it was 3.4 miles, and of that about 1.2 miles was 6 hill repeats. It was tough but felt strong compared with recent runs. Less than 11 weeks until the half, I think I'll be alright.

Did you hear that thud? And then a bump?

2009-07-02T10:26:00.005-04:00

That was me falling off the wagon and then being run over by the wagon as it rolled away with my motivation on it. Ugh. Since the last week of May I have squeaked out maybe two runs a week. Strength workouts? None. Bike and swim workouts for the triathlon I have SIX weeks from today? None. I've got a run tomorrow morning and that will end the LAST lazy week! I've got 12 weeks from Sunday to be ready to rock the next half. Or at the least not want to curl up into a ball and cry for the last three miles. That's my real goal.

On a super-cool "I'm so much more excited for this than I should be" note: Hot Wheels is going to be registered for his first triathlon in September! He'll be competing at the minimum age of 6, and I keep telling him how jealous I am that he'll do his first triathlon 26 years earlier in his life than I did mine. I mentioned it to him in passing to see whether he was still interested and he jumped at it. His age group (6-8 years) will have a 75 yard swim, a 0.75 mile bike and .25 mile run. The bike and run distances aren't too tough for him, but three lengths of a pool is not something he's done yet. It's an open water beach swim, though, and it's all staged in the shallow area where they don't encourage the kids to walk but they are allowed to take breaks and stand up if they need to. He's very excited and I can't wait.

Here are the kids from a recent trip to the children's museum.

The next countdown

2009-06-20T08:03:00.002-04:00

I survived 13 nights of college anatomy and physiology, 4 hours a night, 3-4 nights a week. It was a tough time, for the whole family, but I managed to get an A. I'm hoping this will put me in good standing for acceptance into the nursing program that starts a little over a year from now, but I won't know until next April so I've got to try not to dwell on it. I also found that stress and anxiety could be the key to weight loss for me as I lost about 8 pounds in four weeks. However, I believe I've already gained three back in the three days since class ended.

I was able to get in only about one run a week because I was getting home at 10:00pm and going straight to bed, only to get up at 4:30am the next day and do it again. I felt like every waking minute was spent either working, in class, or studying. It was a real pain sitting at the kitchen for hours over the past three weekends wishing I could play with the kids, but knowing that I had to get that studying done. At least it was a successful endeavor in the end, so I guess the short inconvenience was worth it.

Now, I've got a half marathon 14 weeks from tomorrow that needs some attention. Last night I dragged myself down to the treadmill and squeaked out a pitiful one mile run before I walked the next three. I really enjoyed the show I was watching and decided I'd get showered and watch the rest in bed. Well, Princess had other ideas, so I spent the next hour next to her crib trying to keep her calm and eventually asleep. She took no nap yesterday and still fought like crazy at bedtime. Her brothers both gave up naps before they turned two, we're really hoping she's not headed down the same path. She sometimes sleeps three hours at nap time, so yesterday could have been a one-day anomaly. I'll find out about 1pm this afternoon.

I also have a sprint tri added to the schedule, August 13th. Maybe I should get my butt on a bike since I haven't ridden AT ALL since last September? This year they've got a biathlon option with a 3-mile run substituted for the 0.5 mile swim. And that half mile is generous, I'd be surprised if it's much over a third. I can't imagine wanting to run rather than swim, but I know for many people the swim is a deterrent. So the rest of the summer is shaping up as: a sprint tri, a 5K (I'll probably be pushing the boys in the stroller so I won't be going for time), and another try at the half in September. Should be fun.

A nice time for a break

2009-05-23T12:43:00.004-04:00

This morning was the 5-mile race. Sort of the end of my "race month" of the 5K, half marathon and now this race. Last year my time was 47:21, the thing I remember most about that race was that I felt awful by then end. This morning we woke up to a beautiful overcast day with temperatures in the low 60s. Most of the course is along the water and the only downside to the day was a wind. Not a breeze, a wind. It was behind us on the way out, but for the last 2.5 miles it was a headwind. I brought my iPod this time after the lo-o-o-ng experience at the half marathon and I lined up towards the back of the pack of 170 racers. We took off and I was keeping a relatively comfortable pace. Mile 1- 9:44; good pace but maybe a little slow given that it's a race. Mile 2- 19:40; okay I'm definitely taking it too easy at this point but I just don't feel like I can speed up for some reason. There was a water stop at about 2.5 miles and for some reason right after the water stop and the turn around I felt an increase in energy. Mile 3- 29:03; things are improving, and I'm starting to pass people despite running into a pretty strong headwind. Mile 4- 38:01; now I feel like I'm moving along and it's still nice and overcast, the wind is keeping me cool- this is nice. Mile 5- 46:44- fastest mile of the race came last. Overall a 9:21 pace and almost 40 seconds faster than last year. The best part was at the end, unlike last year, I felt great. Maybe a little too good, should I have gone out faster? It was a race after all. No matter, I finished, I felt good and I finished pretty well for me. I think I was 130/170 and 14th in my age group, not last but not near the top either. I'll find out the real numbers tomorrow when they're posted.

I've mentioned that I found a great running partner at work, we run almost exactly the same pace, we work in the same building and we both like running in the mornings. This past week we did a hill repeats workout and an easy 4.5 miler. We were pretty proud ourselves pulling off the hill workout on our own at 6am. It felt good. She's very nice and we chat during the easy runs as well. She's thinking of starting a family which makes me sort of sad because I finally find someone to run with and she'll likely be pregnant in the next few months. But I'll take it while it works for both of us.

When I logged in to write this I saw that I have 299 posts, so this is post #300. It's been fun writing here and I'll still check in from time to time but I feel like I'm not really putting much out there that's worth reading. Lisa, I love reading your blog, I really appreciate all your comments, and I find you quite an inspiration. But there aren't many other people "around", and while I do write this in part for myself, I've got a paper journal for the same reason. I'm about to start a night class and work's getting quite a bit busier, so I think this is a good time for me to step back and bit and maybe take a break from blogging. I'll stop in from time to time, especially to show off picture of the kids, and I'll update when I've got a race report or something that I think/hope might be of interest. To those that have stopped by over the past couple years, thanks. I've always appreciated all the comments and support here. I hope that in the future I'll have more to share. Until next time, enjoy these photos of the kids from the day today. Hot Wheels and Spiderman both completed the 1/2 mile kids race and did a wonderful job! Princess enjoyed spectating and I think she'll be happy to be included in the racing next year.

What it's really about

2009-05-11T18:34:00.002-04:00

A completely non-training related post since I've done not a single step of running since last Sunday. Yes, it's been over a week. But, I'll get back at it tomorrow morning and I've got a five mile race coming up a week from Saturday and then it's back to half training full swing.

I've just got to share my mother's day experience because this year was so special for me, it was the first year the boys really understood and got into it. It started Friday when Hot Wheels came home from school and said he wanted to look through his paperwork in his backpack (he's never done that). I pretended not to notice that he grabbed an envelope and headed upstairs claiming "I've just got to check on something in my room, mom". Spiderman had been asking me since Thursday if I'd like to open the present he made for me in preschool. Yesterday morning I heard whisper-yelling at 5:40am coming from the boys room. Here was a little of the conversation:

H: "S, it's Mother's Day!"
S: "Yes, Mother's Day!" sound of jumping as Spiderman jumps out of bed and then up and down. "I'll get dressed in my clothes so mom doesn't have to."
H: "Okay, I'll go see if mom's up." (I pretend to be asleep) Then, while he's still in my room "No, she's still asleep, I'll go downstairs".
S: "Okay, I'll get mom and wake her up." He does.
I come downstairs and am greeted by both boys with their wrapped presents for me and the home made card that dad helped them to spell. I got a wonderful bookmark with a picture of Hot Wheels and Spiderman made a great votive candle holder, so we had mood lighting for the morning with his beautiful candle. It was really so sweet to see how excited they were to give me their gifts. Then we went to my parents' house in the afternoon to celebrate my dad's birthday and Mother's Day. Overall, just a wonderful day with family.
Here's a picture of the kids with my parents:

And here's a new favorite "race photo" of me and Spiderman at the kids run after the 5k a few weeks ago:

It IS a real race

2009-05-09T19:25:00.001-04:00

This week a few people asked me how the half went. For the most part people were very complimentary of the accomplishment and I appreciated that. For me, I've mentioned was a little disappointed with how it ended, so I was losing sight of the fact that the end was a 13.1 mile finish line. Once I decide to do something, I generally consider it done so sometimes the actual finish is very anticlimactic. Now that I've had more time to reflect, I'm happy with the experience and I'm looking forward to improving next time.

But, a few times people followed up quickly with the question- do I want to do a "real" one? I know they mean full marathon and they didn't mean it as an insult, but what's not real about a 13.1 mile race? For right now I don't have the time to devote to training for a full marathon and I know that. I'm very happy with the idea of improving my half marathon for the next few years (or as my schedule allows). If I can maintain a lifestyle where going for a 5 mile run is a regular, non-heroic effort, I will be happy with that. I've got three relatively young kids, I work full time and I'm about to add school to the mix shortly. I'm doing what "real" I can handle. Okay, rant over.

Monday starts training again, I've taken this week off entirely. The next half is 19 weeks from tomorrow, this time I'm quite sure I'll be plenty prepared barring injury or life event obstacle. I'll be using a different training schedule, one that has 4-5 days of running per week as opposed to the three days on the past schedule. I think that Friday nights will be long run night, on the treadmill, because I can't fit in the long runs in before work anymore. Sunday night will be short run night, also on the treadmill, so that I won't have to give up weekend family time for training, that's one trade-off I'm not yet ready to make. We'll see how that goes for a while and whether I want to maintain it for the full training program. I'm also going to get back to the hundred push-ups challenge. I won't likely be going to the gym regularly, so I need to find effective training options that don't require the equipment. I'm looking forward to the "next phase".

The nitty gritty race report

2009-05-06T15:58:00.000-04:00

Before the details get too fuzzy in my mind I want to get down what the race was like on Sunday. More for me to look back on in the future, but feel free to come along on the ramble....

I woke up before the 5am alarm and got in the shower about 4:45am. Yes, it may seem ridiculous to some people to shower before a race, but it helps me wake up and I just feel icky until I've showered. I was on the road at 5:20 to meet up with my coworker, Kelley, since we had decided together to train (on our own) for the race we wanted to travel up together. Otherwise we never would have found each other in the 2500+ runners. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter and a small glass of water with imodium before leaving the house. We arrived at the registration hotel a little before 7am and I ate my banana as we headed for the registration area. We got our bags, went back to the car where I took my inhaler and proceeded to forget the vaseline I brought for my toes. BIG MISTAKE. But I wouldn't realize that for a couple hours yet.

We headed to the start and we were not too far from the front, but it didn't seem as though there was any time seeding, so we stayed where we were. We heard the gun and a few seconds later the crowd near us started moving. About 14 feet later we stopped again. We finally got underway for real, crossing the line about a minute after the gun. Kelley and I have never run together but we were thinking we might be similar pace runners so we stuck together. First mile: 10:14, felt pretty good and we were intermittently chatting. Past the first water stop just after the 1 mile mark but we decided to skip that one. In hindsight that might have been a bad idea because the next one was not until about mile 4.5. We ran through the city and there were some small hills but we were holding under 10 minute mile pace pretty easily for the first three miles. Miles three through six still seemed pretty comfortable for me, but Kelley wasn't feeling so great so at six miles she stopped to walk a bit and I went ahead. To that point I'd thoroughly enjoyed myself running with her. No pressure to talk, but no resistance to conversation, either. Mile seven is basically a long shallow hill. I passed a local guy with cerebral palsy that is working towards completing 51 marathons by pushing himself backwards in his wheelchair with the one leg that he has control over. I think his average marathon time is somewhere around 9 hours and I heard this one took him about 11. As I passed him I wished him luck. Miles 8-10 were on a nice paved trail, I ran most of that on the grass next to the trail and that's where I realized that I had not used the vaseline and I was developing blisters on my big toes.

Mile 10 was probably about the highlight of the day where after a short steep hill I hit a water stop for water and some gatorade as well. When I passed the 10 mile marker my watch time was somewhere around 1:42. I don't think it was entirely psychological because I was really excited when I hit 10 miles and I felt so good. But, things went bad amazingly fast and by about 10.5 miles I was hurting and barely moving forward. I'm not sure whether it was just too little water and no real calories to that point. Maybe it was partly psychological since my longest run ever to that point had been 10 miles. For whatever reason I switched to a run/walk/shuffle that was just slow. Everything from the hips down felt like it was cramped up. My ankles were really hurting for some reason and I've never had that problem before. I also think that if I had an iPod that it would have helped at that point. Kelley and I both read they're not allowed so we didn't bring them, but just about everyone else did. So there was no one to talk with or to work through it with. Kelley passed me a little after 11 miles and she wasn't feeling great, either, but she was moving faster than me. I could see her most of the way. I'm thinking that mile 13 must have been about 20 minutes. I could not imagine that I was going to get through it. It basically sucked. Then, all of a sudden, there was the mile marker and only 0.1 miles left. I was able to get myself running again and I finished running, but I did not feel wonderful. I have no pictures of the race, maybe next time.

I am happy with the overall result, I think that my time was pretty decent for a first-timer and I learned some things to remember for next time. I have to invest in a running water bottle/gel belt and get myself used to taking in nutrition during a long run. That's the key, I think. We'll find out in September.

It's done anyway

2009-05-03T14:53:00.001-04:00

So this morning was the half marathon and I have to admit that if I look at the big picture, I'm very happy with the result. If you told me before the race started that I would run 11:04 pace and finish in 2:25, I would have been pleased. However, at the ten mile mark I was on track for about 2:11- 10 minute mile pace! Or I thought at least a sub 2:20 was likely. However, the last 3.1 miles were awful. Awwww.Fullllll. But, there are lessons to be learned here, I'm going to try to learn.

1) I was clearly dehydrated. Throughout the race I stopped at 5 water stops. Each water stop had a dixie cup of water with somewhere around 3-4 ounces of water. That's only 15-20 ounces total. At mile 10 I also had 3-4 ounces of Gatorade. That's 18-24 ounces of liquid in 2 hours and 25 minutes. I had taken some hard candies with me because I was battling a bad sore throat this morning and hoped that would help. I used two, they're about 15 calories each. So, in total I took in probably 100 calories of liquid (if Gatorade's 200 cal/8 oz, I'm not sure) and 30 calories in candy. Clearly not enough. I AM going to invest in a belt with water/gel flasks for long distances and figure out how to fit that in.

2) I forgot the vaseline on my toes. By eight miles in I had blisters. By 11 miles in, those blisters had babies. They're only on my big and small toes, so it doesn't appear to be my old problem of the toes rubbing against each other as much as my toes rubbing the shoes.

3) Longest training run was 10 miles. I think that in the future I will pick a training plan that includes a run at least up to race distance, if not one with a longer run. Something happened at mile 10 and everything from the waist down cramped up, and my hips, ankles and feet were in serious pain.

Overall though, I made it. Some mile times were: Mile 1- 10:14, Mile 2- 20:03, Mile 4- 38:59, Mile 6: 58:58, Mile 9 1:31:47, Mile 10 1:42: 07, then I didn't look at my watch again for splits until the finish because I just didn't care at that point. Then I came home and had a big slice of pie. Yum. Pie.

I have to say that right now I have NO interest in a full marathon, but I'll try the half again in September and I'm definitely planning to hit this course again next year.

PR: check

2009-04-25T18:32:00.003-04:00

This morning was the 5K race that's an annual family event. My husband, brother-in-law and I run the 5K and then our kids run the kids' races. I was on a business trip from Wednesday morning until last night and let's just say that my nutrition over those days left much to be desired in the way of health. However, it was tasty. At least I avoided the breakfast pastries in favor of cereal and fruit, and I skipped the lunch time desserts. But, I still ate more than I should have and knew it might have an effect on my race. Also, I slept awful. I thought that for sure with a king sized bed to myself, no kids to wake me up in the middle of the night and no husband snoring like a chainsaw, I'd sleep like a rock. Nope. Up many times both nights and then slept awful again last night. The forecast was for possibly up into the 70s for the race, and considering it's not been that warm since September, that was not a good sign. But, we woke up to overcast and 50s. The race started at 10am and it was cloudy and cool until about 9:58 am. We were literally at the starting line when the clouds just disappeared and in rolled the sun and heat. I've set myself up here to use many excuses, but I actually had a pretty good race. First mile: 8:38, second mile 8:44, (those times were by my watch) last 1.1 miles was 9:22, for an overall 26:44- 8:37 pace. (My watch times don't really match up with the final time but I'll take it) Woohoo. I started out feeling pretty good and the first two miles were strong. Then, it got hot and ugly. In all honesty, the thought that kept running through my head was that I could not possibly enjoy running another 10 miles after this race was over. And next weekend I'll have to do just that. Granted, I do not intend to start out anywhere near the same pace, and I know I'm trained and capable of finishing. But it might not be too pretty. For today I finished up 73 out of 139, and 8 out of 20 in my age group. Last year the same time would have been good for 4th in my age group. Oh well. Not sure how realistic it would be for me to try to shave off another minute next year, but maybe I'll give it a shot. Pretty happy with the effort and I was really proud of the boys. Spiderman and Hot Wheels were both dressed in long pants and long sleeved t-shirts because of the cool weather when we left the house. By the time the kids' races went off it was easily in the mid 70s. Spiderman was in the 5 and under quarter mile race- he paced himself well and ran the whole way. He held my hand for about the first 300 meters and then let go to finish the last hundred meters on his own. He came in at 2:32 for the quarter mile. Then Hot Wheels had the option of a quarter mile or half mile race and he chose the half mile, because his cousin wanted to run that one as well. He was a total trooper. He was the youngest in the race, since he just turned six a few weeks ago. At the start the other kids took off and he was dead last for the first half loop. He kept going at his steady pace, though, and soon he was passing other racers that had gone out too fast. He slowed to a walk probably twice during the two laps, but it was briefly and he was determined. He crossed the line in 4:58 for the half mile.

Speaking of kids, I was beaten by 8 kids under the age of 13, including a 7-year-old that busted out 7:51 pace and an 11-year-old that flew through 6:38 pace. Wow. At mile 2 I passed a girl who was either 9 or 10 years old. She was hurting and crying. She said she had a cramp and she just looked so upset. I told her to stretch her arms up and try to work the cramp out. She kept going and she ended up either 5 or 10 seconds behind me (I'm not sure which of the finishers she was), that was pretty good, I thought. This race attracts quite a few younger racers, there were 18 finishers under 14 years old- I thought that was quite a high showing for only 139 racers total. It's great to see all these kids out there running, and all the families with kids in strollers- including a guy that I think finished fifth pushing two kids in a jogger. A great event for all involved.

A week from tomorrow. The half. It's getting close.

Ten in the books

2009-04-21T21:24:00.002-04:00

Last night I got on the treadmill after the kids were in bed and ran 6 miles at 10:00. I got off the treadmill and thought I'd go to bed, but I could hear my husband snoring from downstairs and I wasn't all that tired, so I headed back down to the treadmill for another 4.1 miles. They were in the 11-13 minute range, depending on when I could jog or just walk. After the first six I had a glass of chocolate milk, and that was not going to sit well if I tried running hard again. I finished 10.1 in under two hours. Now I know I'm ready for the half. Not that it was a great run, since I only ran the first 6 at a good pace, but I covered the distance and I know I could have gone another 3 miles after that. Going to bed at midnight is definitely not my style, but it was worth it. I'll try an easy 2-3 tomorrow and then I'm taking off until Saturday- it's 5K day! This morning the weather man predicted that Saturday will be 80 degrees- ugh. Too hot for me. I hope it's not that hot for the half on May 3rd, but with early May I guess you never know.

I leave for work in the morning. I'll only miss two bedtime tuck-ins (well, three for Princess since she'll be asleep before I get in Friday night), but it's still hard. Has to be done, though, and everyone will survive. I feel so much better now that I've gotten that long run/walk in!

Great weekend

2009-04-19T19:39:00.002-04:00

What a wonderful weekend, yesterday was almost 70 degrees and then today was in the upper 50s. Friday afternoon we hit the local park for a hike and then a picnic. Followed by many races up and down a very large grassy hill in the park. I love that the kids all love to run and I hope that we will be able to keep that fun and love for running as they grow older. We played out in the yard for a while yesterday, using the new soccer goals that Hot Wheels got for his birthday. Then later in the day I took Spiderman to a birthday party, his first kid party with all his preschool friends. They had a battery powered car that didn't have a working battery, but they have a downhill driveway so the kids could ride down, they just couldn't get the car back up. So, for about 40 minutes, I pushed kids up the hill in the car and then ran down the hill holding onto the car because some of their 4-year-old driving skills couldn't get them down the driveway safely. I sure got in a a good workout there.

Then today my husband and I packed up the kids in the two jogging strollers. Hot Wheels was in the single and Spiderman and Princess rode in the double. We headed down to the beachside boardwalk for a nice two mile run. It was WINDY! I had Hot Wheels on the way out and then I got the double on the way back. I think I got the short end of the stick there because the double is heavier and the trip back was into the wind. It was a nice short, but tough, workout. Then we played on the beach for a while before heading home.

On the training front things are just alright. It hasn't been the stellar month that I had in March, but I'm getting through. My mileage is down this month, but Friday morning we headed outside for a 4.5 mile run that was under 10:00 pace. I went with a woman that I rode with last year before our triathlon. It was our first time out running together and it was great having a partner that runs a very similar pace and we get along just fine. I'm looking forward to running together for the summer as it gets light earlier. I was quite embarrassed, though, that at 4.5 miles of the 5 mile planned run I had to stop due to some major intestinal distress. I ended up walking back while she ran because I wasn't sure I would make it to the restroom in time if I kept up the running. As it was I only barely made it. Not my best showing for a first run with a new partner, but she seemed quite understanding. I've missed two long runs now, I'll only get in one more before my May 3rd half marathon. I'm pretty sure I'll cover the distance, although it might be ugly towards the end. Not sure why I'm having these intestinal troubles, though, I had a repeat problem today. Must be something diet related but I can't pinpoint it right now.

Overall, life is great. If the biggest of my problems is related to something as non-essential as running, I'm doing pretty well. I've got a three day business trip this week. It's the first time I'll be away from Princess for that long, I've only missed her bedtime a few times since she was born. I don't want to go, but it has to be done. And, I'll get to have dinner with my sister and see her new house so that will be nice.

Phew, I didn't forget

2009-04-11T15:22:00.001-04:00

So this week was not great, following my previous not great week, and it started to make me nervous. I missed Monday's scheduled long run and there was a part of me that was really afraid that my body would just completely forget how to run after two weeks of less than great training. Last night I decided to hit the treadmill after the kids went to bed. I wasn't sure how long I'd last, I ended up running 5.1 miles and felt really good, I was even at 10:00 miles the whole time. (except one commercial break bathroom stop) I was ready to switch my long runs to Friday nights because I don't have to get up early, try to fit it in on a weekend day and worry about the kids giving me a hard time, and I enjoyed the Friday night TV more than the early morning gym TV shows. However, I took a shower at 10pm and then I couldn't fall asleep for a long time. I'm not sure that's the best solution for me, but it's definitely an option. I haven't watched a 60 minute TV show in ages. It was fun. I do plan to get in the 9 miles on Monday, then I've got a 10-miler before the race. I can't believe it's only 3 weeks from tomorrow. At least now I'm sure I'll finish, the back end miles might slow down, but they'll get done.

Finally

2009-04-08T08:15:00.003-04:00

Maybe not my smartest decision ever, but after taking the past two days off because I just felt run over, I decided that today was going to be my first outdoor run of the year. I took a puff of my inhaler and headed out the door, into the 36 degree weather with a 10mph wind. The weather website now says it's 39 but feels like 33, I ran 2 hours ago, so I don't know what it felt like temperature-wise, but it did feel cold. I didn't really know how long the route was, so I just ran along, periodically checking my watch so I could track my times when I got back and mapped my route. The run felt pretty good, although I was NOT pushing myself due to the cold. I was running next to the water, into the wind, for a while, and my eyes were watering so badly I was constantly wiping off tears. Even with my inhaler, by the time I came to the last section, my chest was tight and uncomfortable. I'm alright now, I just sound like I smoke a pack a day, that should subside by this afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised when I got back to my desk to find that I ran 3.7 miles in 37:30. My long runs on the treadmill have all been at 10:20 pace and they felt more difficult. I think it's just the actual moving and being outdoors that helps. I do hope that the spring weather actually arrives soon, I'd like to move outdoors for good, but will have to wait for a day warmer than today to try this again.

Next time I'll share pictures of yesterday's awesome afternoon at the playground. It was cold, but the kids had a blast, and that's what it's all about. It's a shame that so many very nice school playgrounds sit empty while kids are on their couches these days.

Overtraining?

2009-04-07T05:20:00.001-04:00

missed my planned 4-miler on Friday, but made up for it with a 3.6 miler on Saturday. Wow did those 3.6 miles HURT. I had thought that overtraining only affected ultra athletes that did some extreme training, but I looked it up yesterday and I've got just about all the symptoms. Muscle soreness, fatigue, insomnia, headaches, irritability, got 'em. Weight loss? Nope, don't have the one symptom that might be of some use to me. I was up for a couple hours Sunday night with Princess and yesterday morning's planned 9-mile run just wasn't going to happen. I had enough trouble dragging my lazy butt out of bed and to work, forget going to the gym, it just wasn't going to happen. I know that trying a treadmill run when I felt that way has lead to tripping in the past. Maybe it's just my inherent laziness coming through after a few weeks of training. It's just so annoying, though, because two weeks ago I ran my longest run ever, 8.25 miles, and I felt great. Now with four weeks left to go until my half marathon, the thought of dragging myself across 13.1 miles is the last thing I want to do. I hope that missing yesterday's long run won't be too detrimental to training, but I have to remember that training schedules don't take into account sick kids, family obligations, work conflicts, etc. This morning I got up and even though I didn't do training of any sort yesterday, I hurt. My arms, legs and core are sore as if I had a really tough workout. I'm skipping one more day at the gym and then I hope to get something done in a workout fashion tomorrow. I really wish I had just stayed in bed.

I'll fake it 'til I can make it

2009-04-04T14:43:00.002-04:00

This was just a crappy week on the physical fitness front. Not really sure why, either. It was a recovery week on my running schedule, thank goodness, but even the short 4 mile runs I had scheduled seemed long and painful. I'm NOT looking forward to Monday's run, it will be 90 minutes on the treadmill, it's supposed to be a 9-miler, but it will likely be a bit shorter than that since I'm not at 10:00 miles yet for that distance. I was going to transition to outside runs Monday but I decided I'm going to wait until Wednesday and go with a shorter run for my first outdoor foray. I've still got to get a good water bottle belt and I know that there will be some additional aches and pains transitioning from the forgiving surface of the treadmill to the pavement and concrete outdoors. So, one last boring treadmill run and then I'll have two long distance runs before the half. Only four weeks from tomorrow!

Strength training was weak this week, too. Tuesday I was just too lazy and bagged it. Then Thursday I went to the gym with the schedule from my trainer but I knew I wouldn't push myself as much as I should. So, I switched to a class instead. It was a good workout at least. And I got my miles in, so overall it wasn't a total loss, but not as good as other weeks have been recently.

On the non-fitness front, we're preparing for Hot Wheels' sixth birthday. SIX. I feel like I say it all the time, but I can't believe how quickly time just flies. The kids and I went to an Easter Egg hunt with my mom this morning. Spiderman and Princess were in the 2-4 year-old hunt, then Hot Wheels was with the K & 1st graders. Princess wasn't technically eligible yet, but she's taller than many two-year olds, and she thinks she's a four-year-old like Spiderman, so it worked out fine. That girl's a challenge, though. She's into testing limits like nothing we ever experienced with the boys. She's got a temper and a fierce independence. Things that will make her a very interesting adult, I think, but add to the challenge of parenting her. This phase too will pass, and some day I may long for these days of toddlerhood. Although I've yet to find an age beyond 12 months or so that I don't completely love. I'm not a real infant person, but give me a toddler on up and I just love it. I've got to get to cleaning now, we're hosting my husband's family for the birthday party tomorrow. We haven't gotten into friend parties yet, but our family party has 7 cousins ages 11 and under, so that's plenty of activity.

Saw that FOUR!

2009-03-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

Last week was a little discouraging, I felt like I was stuck at a weight plateau and my motivation was just failing a bit. I did get through my 8-miler last week and this week was 8.25. Next week, outdoor runs will happen! Maybe not all of them but at least one will be outside. Also, today's weigh-in was a nice way to end the week- drumroll please, 149.8. That's 11 pounds since the start of the year, and I'm out of the 150's for what I wish I could say would be the last time in my life. I would like to think so, but we'll see what happens down the road. For now, I can proudly state that I can no longer race Athena, I'm an Age Grouper from here on out.

I went to core training again and I have to say that there are some things I can do now that I never thought I'd be able to do. When we're using the swiss balls, I can pike up into a full pike position, I could never do that before. I can do a solid backbend, and when we're doing heel touches, I can lower my heels all the way to the floor without putting my hands under my lower back. All good things, but I've still got a way to go.

Comfort Zones

2009-03-18T19:41:00.001-04:00

I hit the treadmill for a 5K today and decided I was going to push it. I started out at 8:49 pace for 1.6 miles, I notched it up to 8:41 pace for 1.1 miles and then the final 0.4 miles was back at 8:49. Grand total: 27:19- my fastest 5K time ever. If I had my water bottle I would have kept up that pace, I think, but I was really pushing it and needed the dial back just a little. It didn't really feel much easier, but at least I finished without throwing up, something I was worried about at one point. I'm pretty pleased because last April was my personal best 5K at 27:41, and I've still got five weeks until that race. Could I potentially come in under 27 minutes?! That would be awesome. I pushed that comfort zone today.

However, I've got to move off the treadmill, my other comfort zone, and get outside. All of my training has been indoors thus far, because my asthma is really aggravated by the cold weather and because I'm running at 5:30am and I'm a wuss about the potential wildlife with raccoons and skunks around. But, I don't know how to pace myself for personally propelled running anymore. A treadmill is easy, dial in a pace and boom, steady pace. I've got a high boredom tolerance I guess, as long as I've got my iPod, or even the TV sometimes, I'm alright on that dreadmill for long periods- at least up to 85 minutes. That's how long I was on there Monday for my 8-miler. I maintained 10:21 miles for the whole 8 miles and really it felt like just about the strongest run I've ever had. The treadmill also helps me to push at times when I'm sure I would slow down under my own pacing. I've got to figure out how to start out. I don't want to start too slow and cheat myself on a good workout, but I don't want to take off blazing and blow up five minutes into a run. I know this is something I've just got to do, can't wish it to happen. I supposed if money were no object I would invest in a heart rate monitor with pace output, but right now that's not a very feasible option for my finances. I was hoping to one day invest in a Polar S625 (or something like that), so I can make cool graphs and stuff, but maybe that's more than I need and a more basic one would be worth the money. Maybe I'll see how the outdoor runs start out and evaluate from there. A couple more weeks and it will be warm and light enough to hit the outdoors.

Status Quo

2009-03-14T08:44:00.001-04:00

Nothing too exciting to report, but it was a pretty decent week. After a great start Monday and Tuesday, I was a little stiff and sore so Wednesday's run was a bit shortened. Thursday was a good strength training workout, yesterday morning the run was not quite what was planned but then this morning I actually got my butt out of bed and put in three miles on the basement treadmill. All in all it was a 16 mile week with two strong strength classes. Monday is planned as my first 8-mile run. At my pace I might not quite complete the 8 before the 90 minute time limit on the treadmill runs out, I'll be about a minute short. I suppose I could always start the treadmill again and finish, but I'll likely hit 8 miles in the cooldown. By the time I hit 9 and 10 mile training runs I'm hoping I can start outside and put in a couple miles and not need to spend the whole time on the treadmill. But, we'll just see what happens. Overall I'm very happy with how training has been going and I'm confident that I'll be able to complete the distance in seven weeks.

A bright spot for the week was that I hit the ten-pound mark for weight loss. I was at 150.8 yesterday morning. And that's fully clothed at the gym so I'm flirting with that Athena limit, guess I'll be racing age group from here on out. If I can keep up the approximately 1 pound a week loss until the race I'd be under 145 at the starting line, a number I don't think I've seen since 2000. My ultimate goal is to be at 140 in October, our tenth wedding anniversary, to be back at my wedding weight. I think that's reasonable at this point, although I have no illusions that the last 10 will be easy, I think those are always the toughest.

We're up for a day of play with friends and then we're hoping for a trip to the playground with grandma and grandpa tomorrow. Spring is on its way!

the long and short of it

2009-03-10T08:28:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's long run was 7 miles. It started well and then at mile three my stomach started rumbling. I got off the treadmill and took a pee break. From mile 3-4 I wasn't sure my stomach was going to hold out, but then from 4-6 it felt fine. Mile 6-7 was sort of ugly, but it got done. Final time: 72:02 for 7 miles. I was at 10:21 at first and ended at 10:32 pace. I was happy with that.

This morning was strength class so I went for a short speed run before class. My 1-mile time was 7:52. Then in strength class I did 2 sets of 10 full pushups.

A pretty good start to a week if I do say so myself. Here are a few more recent pictures to share.

Princess with her home-cut bangs.

The boys at the local aquarium, right after Spiderman fell in a puddle.
When a snowball's coming your way, little brothers are a good shield.

Recovery Week

2009-03-07T16:55:00.001-05:00

I've never done any sort of training that was intense enough that I had a recovery week in the middle. It was sort of cool, but I realized that I may want to be a middle distance runner. (Of course I realize everyone has a different definition of distances and to an ultra-marathoner I'm obviously still a low mileage runner) But, I've always considered anything in the 5-10 mile range a middle distance. Once you get beyond 10, that's long distance to me. It was nice to be on and off the treadmill in 30-40 minutes, but I felt like I wanted to go a bit longer. I didn't, because I want to follow the training schedule, but 11.2 miles for the week, which I had never even done before 8 weeks ago, seemed a little anti-climactic. I'm going to get back on the strength training this month, although I had to miss Thursday morning because I pulled a much-of-the-nighter with Princess Wednesday night.

We had such a great day today. We had 12 inches of snow on Monday, so there was still a bit left this morning, so we went out a built what is likely our last snowman of the year. It was already over 50 degrees at 9am, and he's already fallen over because of the melting over the course of the day, but it was a nice day to play in the snow in our snow pants and no coats. I was wearing a t-shirt and running pants with my boots because it was so warm . Then the boys and I went to a grammar school carnival where they won some prizes for tossing bean bags and we found some cheap books- always a highlight of my days. The whole family took a walk down on the boardwalk near the beach and we skipped rocks, found shells, ran some races and just had a great early taste of spring time. I love winter and the snow, but getting back to hikes with the kids and days at the beach is very appealing. Here's a picture of Mr. Snowman with the kids.

Another month gone by

2009-02-28T08:44:00.003-05:00

I've always heard people say that as you get older time seems to pass more quickly. I can't imagine that it could get any faster! I just took Cutie for her 18-month check-up yesterday (she's happy, healthy and on her way to potty trained!), and Hot Wheels will be six years old in about five weeks. Wow! The boys have also told me that Cutie should be Princess from now on. She is in love with anything Princess, pink, and girly. So, Princess it is.

I remember only a month ago, I looked at the February training program and saw 5, 6 and 7 mile runs on there. I really wondered how on earth I'd get to seven miles before the end of the month. This past Monday morning I hit the treadmill and 82 minutes later I had completed 7.1 miles running and then a cooldown. For March I've got a recovery week followed by another seven miler, I think my longest this month increases to only 8 miles. The training program I'm following (from Runner's World on-line) has only a 10-miler for the longest distance run. It makes me a little nervous to leave an additional 5K un-practiced before the race, but this seems like a common thing. I'll know whether that works for me and I can always change it up before the September half. And by the September race I will have run the whole distance at least once anyway.

Overall, it was a great month. I ran a total of 52 miles, did my first tempo run, speed workout, and I did complete that 7-mile long run on schedule. I missed one run due to child illness and I missed one strength workout due to laziness. There was also one strength workout that was done on the Wii fit- not quite as challenging as it should have been. I have a little less motivation in the strength training department, not sure why. I'm up and motivated for all the running workouts, but I find myself dogging the strength a bit. I may go back to group classes just to keep me on track, we'll see. I'm just not usually interested in the drama of the group classes. On the weight loss front I did manage to lose a little more, Friday's weigh-in was 152.4. A few people have even commented that the weigh loss is noticeable, which I will readily admit is quite flattering and motivating. Overall, on a good note heading into a new month.

Why the starting is easy

2009-02-21T12:29:00.002-05:00

I think one of the reasons it's so easy to start new things is that it's so gratifying to accomplish a first. This week I completed my first 10K distance run. It was on the treadmill, and it took me 64:26 to get to 6.2 miles. But then I went on to finish a total of 6.6 miles, so I'm half way to the half marathon distance. This week also marked the most miles I've ever logged in a week, 15.8. Thinking back I can think of quite a few years where I probably didn't run 15.8 miles in an entire year, so I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment, especially coming off a stomach virus last weekend. I could see a point where for me, running the same distance would lose its excitement when it's not something new anymore, but maybe it won't, because I certainly hope to try to maintain a higher level of running than I have in the past.

I've figured out a few things that most people that are seasoned runners/athletes would probably read and say "duh", but it took some figuring for me. I realized that while I've been doing well with my weight loss so far (yesterday's weigh-in was 152.8, so I'm eight pounds down from the beginning of the year), I'm going to have to increase my calories from approximately 1300 the days before I run a longer run, and probably during the day after the run. On Tuesday I made sure I drank plenty of water, something I've been slacking on recently, and I ate closer to 1700 calories for the day. Wednesday morning I had a banana before my run and really, it was the best run I've had so far. During the day Wednesday I kept myself to about 1600 calories, but I felt quite hungry. Since I had burned off over 850 calories according to the treadmill tracker, I probably could have gone a little higher but I didn't want to. I think that for the rest of training I may have to accept that weight loss shouldn't really be a goal I'm focusing on if I want to effectively train for the half. The running and strength training will help with my overall body shape, I'm already able to put on and take off my size 10 jeans without even unbuttoning them. At Christmas they were feeling a little snug. So I know the change there is due to the toning up from exercising as much if not more than due to the calorie reduction. So, I'm going to have to efficiently fuel my body for working out, that might mean more calories but it will get me through tougher workouts feeling stronger.

I'm looking forward to this evening because my husband and I have a date. My parents are hosting "dinner and a movie night" for the kids at their house. We're going to an Italian restaurant for dinner where I'm sure I will far exceed that calories I need for an entire day, but I'm giving myself the night off from worrying about it. We haven't had a dinner to ourselves in many months and it will be nice to spend time enjoying our food without worrying about cutting or cleaning up everyone else's. I heard that the average couple only spends about 12 minutes a day actually talking to each other and that sounds about right in the case of our life recently. Happy weekend to all.

The week that wasn't

2009-02-13T19:00:00.002-05:00

I knew I'd hit a bump the training road some time, I was hoping it wouldn't be quite so early in the training process, but, oh well. Monday morning was supposed to be my treadmill 10K and I was actually quite excited about it. Got on at 5:35am and things started out just fine. I usually cover the display with the towel so I'm not staring at the time that's going (or seemingly NOT going by). Especially when I entered 68 minutes for time it seemed it would never end. About 40 minutes in I was sweating more than I could wipe with my shirt sleeve so I took the towel off the display and wiped my face. Then I put the towel back in the small holder on the side of the treadmill. I didn't realize at the time that the cord for the magnetic stop button got wrapped up in it. So, when I went to wipe my face again at 4.75 miles I pulled out the magnetic stop. The belt stopped, I ran into the display, as I've done before. I was fine but when I tried to get started again I just couldn't get into it. Tuesday was a nice highlight to strength training as my three sets of full push-ups were 8,7 and 7. I was also complimented by another member on my push-up form, so that was nice. Wednesday was a 5K plus a little extra and it felt good. Yesterday's strength training went well, too.

Here's where the life-drama disrupts my plan again. Monday night Cutie was sick over night. We thought it was a reaction to fish sticks. Unfortunately for my wonderful husband, she had thrown up overnight and not even woken up so by the time he got her in the morning it had dried and covered her hair and much of her upper body. It took three days, four baths and finally a mixture of baking soda and baby soap mixed into a paste to get the awful smell out of her hair. Then yesterday morning I called home to find out that Hot Wheels had gotten sick early in the morning, in our bed and then in his room. More laundry for my wonderful husband. Last night Spiderman came into our room just before 2am and I realized, after he laid down in my bed, that he had been sick some time earlier and was also covered in it. So, it was into the tub for him with a thick baking soda/baby wash paste to get the smell out of his hair and off his body. I was up watching him for a while, afraid he was going to get sick again in our bed, since I'd already stripped the sheets off his bed. Needless to say, my planned 5 mile tempo run and Friday morning weigh-in at the gym just didn't happen. I went to work and work only to try and get a little more sleep between 4- 5:30am. I'm the only one in the family that hasn't gotten the bug yet, but I'm not feeling great so it's not looking like a 5-miler on the basement treadmill is in tomorrow's cards either. It's only one run, I'll be okay, but I'm still disappointed. My husband does deserve husband-of-the-year after the week he's had. He washed and changed each of the kids sheets and did our three times. Ugh.

In addition, my car ended up unworking and immovable in a parking lot last Sunday. My little Civic did give me 14 years and almost 150,000 miles so I really can't complain. We donated it and bought a brand new '09 Honda Fit Sport on Tuesday and I feel like I'm living in luxury with power steering, power windows and locks, I even have air conditioning, cruise control and remote entry. We got a decent deal and if it lasts another 15 years it will be well worth it. But I'm still a little queasy when I look at the bank balance now.

Sunday is the Penguin Plunge. The weather is forecasted to be almost 40 degrees with the water temp about the same. Should be a good time and it's for Special Olympics so it's a very worthy cause. Happy weekend to all.

New month, new goals

2009-02-07T20:10:00.002-05:00

My run mileage for January was 43 miles. That's the most I've ever run in a month in my life. This week I was feeling a bit drained, and the runs were definitely a little harder. My schedule right now is that my long runs are Monday, Wednesday is hills with a steady pace mile cool-down and Friday is a 5K or so. Tues and Thurs are strength with light cardio like the elliptical trainer. This week starts the tempo and speed work on the schedule from Runner's world. Monday is also going to be my first 10K ever. I'm very excited, although hanging out on the treadmill for 66 minutes sounds incredibly tedious. At least I'll have the iPod and random elevation program. My goal for February is 50 miles, that's an average of 4.1 miles per run, a lofty goal for me but I think I can do it.

The good news this week was that my weigh-in yesterday was 155.6. That's five pounds down since I started and I'm settled back into a more mindful eating routine. I think that's really the key for me, I don't need to write out everything I eat, I just need to be aware, as if I am going to keep track. That, and a 700 calorie workout Monday and 400 Wednesday and Friday certainly help.

Friday morning's run was the toughest, as I had a flashback to only a few month ago when Cutie still wasn't sleeping through the night. Thursday night I went to bed about 10pm, a little later than usual. Then, at 12:30am we were awoken by our dog having a seizure. He's had them before, but we need to sit with him to make sure he doesn't try to get around because he could run into the wall or fall down the stairs. So I was up for a while. Then at 2am, Cutie woke up screaming and I went in to calm her down so I was up a little while then. Finally at 3:15 Hot Wheels came into our room complaining that he'd had a nightmare and since I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep with my dear husband snoring like a chainsaw, I just told him to climb in my bed and I slept in the top bunk until the alarm went off at 4:30. Ugh. I thought about skipping the run entirely and while I'm glad I didn't skip it, I'm lucky that I only tripped once. And I was expecting it might happen so I didn't get hurt. I'm not sure how I survived almost six years without more than maybe a dozen nights of sleep without waking up at least once or twice overnight because someone needed something. But I'm not complaining, I'm just loving my sleep these days!

The week was tough on a couple fronts, I broke my self-imposed rule of not crying at work, fortunately it wasn't a complete breakdown in front of anyone. Trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life is causing me a bit of stress and while I know that I've got to figure these things out for myself, I'm not used to being at such a loss of direction. I'll get through it and things will be fine I'm sure. Sometimes I just lose sight of that and the stress gets to me.

I'll leave you with a kiss from Cutie, it always brightens my day.

I should qualify that....

2009-02-01T15:40:00.001-05:00

Reading over my post from yesterday I would imagine it comes across as preachy and judgmental of others. Not really my intention, I include myself among the people that justify things about life. As Lisa pointed out, things like the BMI charts are also not accurate for many people with a large frame size. And, when I mentioned my mother weighing 125 pounds at 5'7", I do not think that people should aspire to waif-like thinness without any fitness. I don't want to be skinny, I want to be healthy. I'm not sure that at 125 pounds I would be able to run 4 miles or do a single push-up, I'd probably be eating only 1000 calories a day and I'd likely be hungry and weak. Or maybe not. Just because society has adjusted what is considered "normal" for size, it doesn't mean that people reap the health benefits they did years ago. I think our daily calorie consumption has increased by something like 20%, and for women more than men, and our lives have become increasingly sedentary. Just random thoughts to try and get myself out of "excuses" mode.

Selective Hearing

2009-01-31T07:59:00.002-05:00

I had a frustrating week this week on many fronts. Large number of former-colleagues were laid off and left work, had some major road blocks thrown up for my application to nursing school and it seemed the scale was just not going to move. In the end the weight thing turned out to be a hormonal issue and yesterday's weigh-in came in at 156.8, over a pound lost since last Friday- good week after all on the weight front.
The weight issue has come up with a few people lately for different reasons and it surprised me how often we delude ourselves to think that we are the exception. People rail against BMI charts and call them crazy because people that consider themselves to be non-overweight are classified as such, sometimes even to the point of obese. When I had my initial assessment with the trainer, my BMI according to an on-line chart was just under 24.9 (it only does whole pounds, so it's not exact), then Chris did the measurements with calipers and my body fat percentage was 24.5, pretty close. Now, I think I'm a relatively strong woman and my muscle mass is maybe a little higher than average, at least in the circle of women that I know and speak with. Another woman mentioned to me that according to those BMI charts (said with a look of disdain), she's overweight, but those are clearly wrong because she has a lot of muscle mass so she's not really overweight. I think that some extreme athletes may have enough muscle mass that the BMI charts are inaccurate, but I think for most of us average people, they're a decent measure, even if we don't like the result.
Then this week I was talking with another woman about being a little frustrated that the scale hadn't moved even though my clothes were fitting a bit better. She says- well, you're building up muscles and muscles weigh more than fat. People always spout that gem as well. No, a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same amount. But yes, a pound of muscle will take up less space than a pound of fat. However, I think people really overestimate how easy it is to build up a pound of muscle. Just lifting weights a little more often isn't likely to build up my muscle mass that quickly, at least I don't think so. At this point I would doubt I've put on any actual muscle weight, although I'm glad to be reducing my body fat weight.
My mother talks about the days when she was a size 8, she's about 5'7" and she weighed 125 pounds. These days I'm sure that would be a size 2 at the most. I'm not delusional enough to believe that at almost 157 pounds I'm really a size 8, but that's what the clothing manufacturers want me to believe, and I'll readily admit I'm sucked in. But I don't have the health benefits of being a size 8 from 30 years ago when that was about 30 pounds less. I'll likely never get close to that and I think I can still be happy and healthy, a weight of 140 would get me to a BMI of 21.9, I think that's quite reasonable. I'll admit that sometimes I'm the one that hears just what I want to hear, but I think that as a society we want to think that we're good the way we are, eating what we want, living as we want, and justifying our weights and our lifestyles. I don't know whether that's bad or not, it's just the way we are.

On the training front it was a great week. Three strong runs and two tough strength sessions with some light cardio on weights days. Finished 11 miles total running, including 2 miles of treadmill hill work that had inclines up to 7%. Monday is my first 5-miler of this training season, I'm looking forward to it. I've got new songs on my iPod all ready to go, love my shuffle.

Nice start to the week

2009-01-26T08:17:00.003-05:00

This cold is still hanging up but giving up a little of its grip, and I did hit the treadmill this morning and ran 4.2 miles. I was at 10:43 pace and the random incline level was set at 4, so it ranged from 0-3.4%. Felt pretty good, but I'm supposed to do 5 miles next Monday and by the time I hit 4.2 miles I was pretty well done, and soaked. I'll worry about that next Monday. My stomach also started protesting a bit, hoping that doesn't become an issue, but I might start taking a precautionary Immodium pre-run for Monday runs.

One of the trainers, Chris, stopped me on my way out of the gym to tell me that my running form looked really good. He mentioned that he was watching myself and two other runners and of the three I looked the most natural. It makes me chuckle that my running could ever look natural. As I walked out to my car to drive the 0.3 miles to my building, because I was too lazy to walk over in the cold this morning, I was thinking of the other people running. Depending on when he was watching three of us, it could have been when the only other people running were two regular marathon runners, or it could have been towards the end of my run when there were a few beginners on the treadmills. Either way I'll take the compliment, but if I want to delude myself I could think that I look more natural than marathon runners.

Enough is enough already

2009-01-24T18:52:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning congested and coughing for probably the 16th day in a row. I never had a really awful sick day with this cold, you know the one that completely knocks you out and then you start recovering? So I think my body just forgot to start recovering. I ended up cutting short the second run of the week this week because I was afraid of drowning in snot. (Okay, and I accidentally hit the emergency stop button and ran into the display of the treadmill, and then I lost my motivation) Yesterday I used the elliptical rather than strength training and my plan was to use the Wii fit today. Unfortunately, some domestic chores got in the way of that plan, and tomorrow's not looking much better, so I threw in a few sets of push-ups and called it good. Monday is supposed to be my 4-mile run and I'm NOT getting off track this early in training. I weighed in yesterday morning at 158.0 (of course the trainer checked my weight after my workout and I'd gained 0.4 pounds because I drank water) so it looks like I lost nothing this week, but I know I did. Oh well, focusing on the long term goals here, a little blip here and there isn't important. And, my size 8 jeans are more comfortable and less obscene to wear. I still sometimes cringe at these jeans styles with a more fitted hips/thighs area- I'm a mom and I don't see what's wrong with "mom jeans".
We're finally really cleaning up the family eating habits and our plan is to have not a single meal on the credit card this month. For us that means no eating out since we pretty much never carry cash. My mom did buy McDonalds for the kids and I today at lunch (I love the southwest salad), but grandma's house is sort of the no-rules zone. Although they're supposed to be starting the South Beach Diet next week so I'm hoping they'll be giving up junk food as well. I'm even planning to start helping with the cooking more. I made one dinner last week and my husband said it wasn't bad. That's high praise for my cooking which usually borders on the barely edible. I'm not much help around the house. At all. I don't cook, I don't do laundry, I don't mow the lawn, just about all I do is clean the bathrooms and shovel snow. But, my husband puts up with me anyway. And I am going to start cooking, healthy meals that we can hopefully all enjoy. And then we'll play Rock Band.

Two trees and a shrub

2009-01-16T20:16:00.004-05:00

The boys both love doing yoga. We call it home made yoga because in addition to very few actual yoga poses we spend most of the time making up our own. Sometimes the boys just try to tie themselves up in knots. Well, Cutie has decided that she can clearly do anything that her big brothers do so she joins in the yoga party fun. Here they are practicing tree pose. She doesn't quite get the feet part and the boys were holding it so long waiting for her to join in that they lost their balance by the time I snapped the picture. We decided that since she can't quite do the whole tree pose, hers is shrub. This is just one of my favorite things about having kids. Here are a few other recent family fun adventures.Rock Band has become one of our favorite family past times. Here's Superman rocking out. He's prefers to sing, especially to The Who, Who Are You. He's also informed me that now that he's four his "code name" should be changed to Spiderman, so I will indulge him.
Both Cutie and Spiderman would live outside if given the chance. With a fresh snowfall the other afternoon we spent time outside sledding and swinging. Since our backyard has no real hill to speak of, sledding is really dad running behind the sled to push the kids across the yard. But they enjoyed it. Things like yoga, playing in the yard, going to for hikes together, those are truly the best times of my entire life and I am always amazed that somehow I did something to deserve all of this.
Training started out a little rough this week as I had a cold that's really just hung on for quite some time. Monday was only a 2.0 mile run before I switched to walking for another mile and a half. Wednesday and Friday, though, were really good runs. I have found that the random incline program on the gym treadmills is the key for me. Running at a constant speed and incline I get much more bored. I did 3.25 miles on Wednesday and 3.65 miles on Friday and felt really good at the end. Strength sessions are going well, I'm doing three sets of regular pushups rather than modified. I'm only doing 3 sets of 6, but it's an improvement over where I was. And my weight after Friday's run was 158.4. Creeping down slowly, but at least it's the right direction.

A first

2009-01-10T12:31:00.000-05:00

In contrast to "resolutions" of years past that have ended in disappointment after the first week, my year is starting off on quite a positive note. While on vacation last week I tried to get in a few treadmill workouts in the basement. My husband routinely heads down there for workouts of 30-90 minutes and life goes on for the rest of us upstairs. Not exactly the case when I headed down myself. After the first workout, during which I practiced selective hearing to ignore Cutie yelling at the door for me, I was met with her wailing and crying and clinging as I tried to get upstairs to shower. Then on day number two, Superman got stuck in the cat door trying to get downstairs to see me on the treadmill. After some hysterics on his part, pushing and pulling on the part of myself and my husband, he was free and I was done. Day number three I got dressed to head downstairs and just bagged it when Hot Wheels was going through a bout of constipation, Cutie was miserable for some unknown reason and Superman was acting like a nut. I decided that I had made a decent effort and there really was a reason I don't usually workout at home other than my own general laziness. It just doesn't work. Not until the kids are older and I can get away and get my mind and body focused. Until then my home "workouts" consist of Wii games, some family yoga and stretching, our hikes and neighborhood walks. And you know what? That's good enough for me.

Returning to work Monday morning was difficult, just because the 4:30am alarm seemed to darn early. But in a way it was good because we all needed to get back to a normal routine. Twelve days of vacation is too long for a kindergartener, preschooler and toddler, and add to that the excitement of Christmas, Superman's fourth birthday, and a mom that wants to fit in "fun stuff" like aquarium trips, children's museum trips and gatherings with friends most days- and it's just a recipe for some fried kids. By Sunday afternoon they had just gone insane.

I hit the gym at 5:40am Monday, only 10 minutes after it opened and the New Years Resolution spectacle was in full force. I ended up on the last treadmill open, the one off in a corner with no TV or radio speaker. I had also forgotten my iPod, so the 3.25 mile run was painfully boring. Tuesday/Thursday were decent strength workouts and additional runs on Wednesday and Friday totaled the "first" of the post title. While some people run 10 miles in a single workout, I think this week was my first ever 10+ mile week. Wednesday my 3.5 miles was on the random setting that changes the treadmill elevation. The level selected only went up to 4.3% incline, so it wasn't too difficult, especially since I had lowered the speed a little bit anticipating that I wouldn't be able to maintain my blazing speed of 6.0mph on elevation. I was pleasantly surprised that the workout was not as hard as I had expected and next week I'll either be increasing the speed or the level. When Cutie naps in a little while I'm going to hit the Wii Fit for a while as the boys watch a movie. It won't be a very taxing workout, but some hula hoops for cardio and some pushups for strength can't hurt. I do enjoy the 6-minute hula hoop challenge.

The half marathon is 16 weeks from tomorrow. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to do it. I've had a few people try to convince me that distance training with my Nike Free shoes will lead to injury, but I know another woman at work that has run 3+ marathons including an iron distance triathlon event and always used her Frees. I've never had shoes that I felt that good running in. While an overuse injury is possible, or I've been known to break my foot walking off a step so anything can happen, I think this is going to work. Ben is a great trainer and he's going to help me stay on track. I've got weigh-ins on Monday with him and on Friday with another trainer. So the diet portion is really going to get more focus from here on out. I was at 160.8 last month, 159.4 last week, so I'm not dropping pounds like flies, but as long as the general trend is in the right direction, we're good.

I've started studying for my anatomy and physiology prerequisite for the nursing school program. I've forgotten how happy I was to get out of school almost 10 years ago, getting back into studying is kicking my butt. At least I enjoy the subject material, it's just that focusing, by myself, is more difficult than I remembered. But it will pick up as I move through the book and get to some next stuff, I'm sure. As I'm sitting here with Superman hugging me, I'm reminded that I am just so blessed. While all these goals for 2009 are good, I've got far more than I could ever need right here. But I'll still keep working on them, maybe it could be even better.

Rockstar Run

2008-12-18T14:33:00.000-05:00

This week I started the half marathon training. Monday morning I weighed in (160.8- ugh!) and hit the treadmill for a 3-mile run. That sucked. The first mile I eeked out a 10 minute mile and then had to dial the speed back to 10:20 for the next two. I finished, but it felt like crap.

Tuesday morning, Ben (my trainer) set me up with a strength program that’s upper body and core focused. A good hard workout that I was definitely feeling yesterday and today.

Yesterday was 35 minutes on the ARC trainer, hill intervals and a good workout.

Then today was the annual holiday fun run at work. The run’s supposed to be 3.0 miles, I was hoping to be done under 33 minutes. I haven’t run outdoors since my triathlon in September and after Monday’s run I had very low expectations. Wow, was I pleasantly surprised. The run starts with a half mile or so incline and I was feeling good at the top, so I pushed a bit harder from there. I felt about as good on the run as I ever have. It was truly perfect. I could not have gone any faster, or any farther, but I felt strong. Really, I felt like a rockstar. I came in at 29:30 and was happy with that. Then I got back to my desk and mapped the route, it’s really 3.2 miles- I busted 9:13 miles! Woohoo! Now there’s some positive reinforcement and motivation for the beginning of a training program, I am pumped.

Tomorrow morning’s the second strength training session and then Saturday morning I’m running at home. Because of the fun run being on Thursday I had to modify my intended schedule of Mon/Wed/Fri runs and Tues/Thurs strength sessions. I want a third run this week, so I’ll get it done on Saturday. Really, I will.

Motivation!!

2008-12-09T14:36:00.003-05:00

So yesterday I was asked whether I'm pregnant. Yes, my children are currently 5,3 and 1 (15 months to be exact). So, if I were to be having another, I might be pregnant about this time. However, we are done. I've gained about seven pounds since September and apparently to someone that I don't even know that well, it looked as though they were strategically placed pounds. No, I've just been eating too much. A second comment recently came from my three-year old. Believe me, I am well aware that three year olds have no clue what they're saying, so when he told me that my name should be "Chubby Mommy", I mostly blew it off. However, part of me could not ignore it. I'm creeping back towards a "6" in the middle of my weight and I swore to myself I would never see that weight again. Time to get serious.

So, here's the plan. Sunday. May 3, 2009. I've got a date with the Providence, RI half marathon! I contacted one of the trainers at the gym today and he's agreed to be my coach. His words were that he would "guide me to greatness", but my goals are considerably less lofty. I'd like to finish the half marathon in under 2:30. To me, achieving greatness would be 2:11, or 10 minute miles. However, at this point in my fitness I could manage three 10-minute miles and that's it. Whole workout, done. Not sure that in the less than five months between now and the race I could add 10 more 10-minute miles. Besides, there are the holidays coming up, so training in earnest won't start until January 5th. It will be 17 weeks of training. I asked this specific trainer at the gym because he's no cheerleader. He's not the one that will blow sunshine up my butt and accept some lame-ass excuse for why something wasn't done as he outlined. He's a no-nonsense guy and I honestly find him a bit intimidating. Perfect for a coach. He's not supposed to be my friend, he's my coach. Ideally, I'd like to be down about 15 pounds by the time the marathon comes. However, I've not been that weight since I got married and after having three kids, will I even be able to get there? Who knows, I'm going to give it my best shot to find out. (Hmm, haven't I read those words before? Oh yes, I wrote them back in September before I fell off the wagon and was then run over by the back tires.)

After the half marathon I'd love to consider an Olympic distance triathlon, but we'll have to see what life says about that. I've applied to nursing school and I should find out some time in February whether I'm accepted into the program. If I am, I might be looking for part time work at the local hospital which would all but eliminate workout time. I'm just taking things as they come for now. But there's the goal. May 3rd, 2009. Big day.

Tomorrow I'm volunteering to help at a home building for Ex*treme H*ome Make*over. I'm looking forward to the experience, although I've read I'll likely be rained on. Oh well.

Of course, I can't leave without sharing the latest and great picture of my kids. It will be the family Christmas card, or course. Too bad with three kids we can only ever get two out of three smiling in the same shot.

Knowing isn't quite half the battle

2008-11-15T15:30:00.003-05:00

I remember being the person that I want to be. As recently as two months ago I had myself thinking that I really had this all figured out. I was living the life that I only could have dreamed of; things were really going along great. I had this feeling of calm about me all the time, and the joy in my life was so overwhelming that it truly amazed me that I could deserve all of it. I had managed to lose the 15 pounds I had wanted to (the last 10 were a reach anyway), I had the perfect balance that included triathlon training, getting up at 4:30am, working my job, hanging with the family, all of it. I really thought that it was something I had managed to achieve myself. I have since come to realize, sure, I've got things all figured out. I am that person that I want to be, when everything in my life is going exactly according to the plan in my head. As soon as that gets derailed, I become someone else. It's someone I'm familiar with, having lived like that for years and I've got my good days when I'm almost who I want to be, but there's less patience, less tolerance, more moodiness, less joy. I find myself getting short with the kids, a tone has crept back into my voice that I thought was gone, one that I sometimes hear coming back at me now, and then I have to discipline them even though I know they're only repeating back what they've heard from me. I find myself getting hung up on small issues with my husband and at work, things that shouldn't be ruining my day now linger for not only that day, but a few more. I've got a feeling in the pit of my stomach that just sits there, and there's an underlying anger that I thought was gone. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was that brought about this change, and I can't predict what will resolve it. But I truly hope I can get back there because that year of my life was by far the best I've ever had and my family deserves to live with me as I was at my best. Until I get there, I'm going through the motions as best as I can and waiting.

On a training note, I've gained back five of the seven pounds I lost at the beginning of the TTW challenge. I'm too embarrassed to update those numbers, and I still hold out a little hope that I'll get back there, and a little below, before the end of it. I've got a 5K in two weeks and I'll be happy if I can finish in under 30 minutes. My asthma has been bugging me in the cold, so I might have trouble with the 5K, I'll just give it my best shot.

A sad good-bye

2008-10-26T13:16:00.003-04:00

I haven't had such an emotionally draining week in a long time. I've applied for the nursing program, now have to figure out how we'll afford a year of potentially no income, finding health insurance, plus a school schedule that will be brutal. And that's if I get accepted. No way to know whether I'm making the right decision, but if I make the wrong one it would be much tougher years down the road.

Yesterday morning we said good-bye to our sweet Ozzy. Fortunately we were all able to go outside to play for about an hour and a half first. By the end he was too exhausted to play much and we knew that we were making the right decision about when it was time to say good-bye. Still didn't make it much easier, I cried most of the morning and I was holding his head as he passed. We hope he had a good life, he was certainly a wonderful dog and we'll all miss him. It's going to be a tough adjustment for Kodi, he was Ozzy's littermate and alpha dog. This morning we took him out for a walk and we let him run a few houses before returning to our house. In the past he's always grabbed Ozzy's leash and "walked" him home as they ran together. When my husband dropped his leash this morning, he circled around as if looking for Ozzy, and then just stayed with us. We hope to have years ahead of us with him. Here's a last picture of the two of them together, he's the shorter one.

The Holdout

2008-10-18T13:11:00.002-04:00

A completely non-training related post, but I feel like that's my life lately. I've got so much on my mind. I keep trying to remind myself that I have got a great life and these things on my mind are really all good. One thing I thought I was set with was the fact that we'll have three kids and that's it. They're wonderful, I'm truly blessed, I keep telling myself that should be good enough. Then a good friend of mine said she's pregnant with her fourth. Before the words "I'm so happy for you" had even finished leaving my mouth, "I'm so jealous!" was screaming through my head. I keep thinking I'm convinced that I'm okay with our family decision and then my heart decides it doesn't agree. What can you do when your heart holds out against all the practical, rational reasoning your mind can muster? I'm trying to convince myself to go the just "suck it up" route- I hope my heart comes around soon. Of course probably not as much as my husband hopes that, I can be miserable when I'm obsessing.

There's still the whole school-change-of-career thing in my life, too. I should have more answers this week after attending an open house about the nursing program.

I feel like I spend most of my time making excuses for why I'm not getting in the exercise and training that I should be. I'm not working towards the weight loss like I wanted to, and I'm just sort of floundering a bit. I may just take a break for a while until I've got my head, and maybe my life, a little more in order. Thanks to those that often leave me comments of support, I'll still be checking in. And who knows, maybe three days from now I'll be back to rant, rave or even post that I did something productive.

Things will always work out fine

2008-10-14T08:46:00.002-04:00

Because I have this in my life.

A Rut

2008-10-10T06:55:00.002-04:00

So I had an excellent first three weeks with the weight loss challenge, down seven pounds in that time and then.... not so much. I think I gained back three last week (although I'm cheating a little and not updating my weight until I'm back on track) because I ate like crap. Then this week I caught and cold and only made it to the gym on Monday. I was feeling better this morning but I still slept in.

I feel like I'm in a life rut. There are many uncertainties with my job future and I'm looking into other options. There are days when I really want to make this change. Then there are days when I realize I've got it really good here and going back to school and changing jobs, well, that would be hard. But is it worth it to stick with something just because it's easy? I could easily say no if it were only my life involved. But, I've got a family to support, so is it fair if I take away what makes life easiest for all of us, just so I can pursue something I think I am more passionate about? Then I start getting a little resentful that I've got all the responsibility for supporting a family and I feel a little tied into things that I can't control. But, if I stay where I am and I lose my job five, ten years down the road, the changes would be harder to make for all of us. I guess this is just one of those situations where I'll never know whether the decision I make is truly the best one, but it will end up being the right one. At least it will have to be.

Oh, and next week I'm getting back to the gym. Those 13 pounds won't lose themselves. These days I feel certain I won't lose them either, but I'll get working at it.

A first for me

2008-09-28T12:51:00.004-04:00

This weekend for the first time, I did a weekend workout. Yes, last night after the kids were tucked in bed and nearly asleep. I escaped to the basement and did a two mile run. Okay, two miles is a pretty pathetic little workout, 22 minutes with cool-down, but it felt great. After my Friday night run-induced insomnia, I wasn't sure whether another crack at the night time run was worth it, but I was surprised at how good I felt running at night. I'm not exactly sure how it was different from a morning run, but it felt good. I wonder whether maybe I'm ready to add real weekend workouts to my schedule. It might just be a consistent three mile run night, since I won't often be starting until 9pm and I'm not willing to give up the whole night- or be up until 3am on a regular basis. Or maybe it was a random night that I wanted to run. Either way, it felt good.

I'm not a night exerciser

2008-09-27T11:29:00.003-04:00

Yesterday morning I didn't get to the gym before work because I had a busy morning in the lab. I had intended to get there later in the day, but didn't make it. So, the boys were asleep at 8:45pm and I grabbed my sneakers and headed for the basement treadmill. I had a little stomach distress, so I was able to run only 2 miles and then I walked another 25 minutes. I ended up burning 450 calories- according to the treadmill- and I felt like I had worked pretty hard. Here's the real problem with an evening workout- at 2am I was still awake, and knowing we'd have a relatively full day today, I wasn't very happy about that side effect. It was better than no workout at all, and when I got on the scale this morning I was 0.5 pound lower than last Saturday, so it's all good. I'm actually leading the Through the Wall weight loss challenge. I can't remember winning much of anything before, and I know it's not likely that I will maintain this weight loss rate much longer so I won't likely win, but it's nice to have an early lead. I'm taking the day off today, and likely tomorrow as well because of family plans. But cardio intervals will come bright and early Monday morning again.

Feeling it

2008-09-24T08:47:00.004-04:00

The past three weeks have been some butt kicking workouts! I am feeling it most days. I was happy to have a weight loss initially, but I'm stuck right now. I'll get past it. Sunday I was splitting wood for about an hour and a half. My husband would be quick to point out that I was not using the maul the whole time. I often use the maul a few times and when I get a good dent, I use the splitting wedge and a smaller hammer to finish the split. I can't seem to coordinate the sledge hammer and the splitting wedge, although my aim with the maul is pretty good. Anyway, I was sore after that.

Monday morning was cardio intervals, and this class was high intensity. There were six steps set up ranging from 0-6 risers on each step. The class consisted of jumping on, over and running around these steps. That was tiring. Then Monday night I decided to swim while the boys were in their lessons. Of course by the time I get them dropped off and settled, the 30 minutes was down to about 25. I planned to do 10x100 on two minutes. I got through the first 100 and had to stop because the instructor wanted to talk to me about Superman. Then I got through the next 2 x100 on time. After the third set I had to fix Hot Wheels' goggles because they had come undone. Then another set followed by a break because Superman "had" to tell me something. Not even sure what he said, but he had to tell me. There were a few distractions, so I ended up doing only 800 yards. The repeats, however, were pretty consistently 1:45. Not great, but not bad.

Yesterday I hit the ARC trainer. This is not your garden variety elliptical trainer. This thing kicks my butt. I used the interval program and did 60 minutes, it said I burned 726 calories. I was drenched.

This morning was another high impact aerobic intervals class. Lots of jumping jacks, squat jumps, mountain climbers and burpees- the last two are my least favorite. My legs feel like jelly. But, I was complimented this morning at the gym for having taken off some weight recently. I'm glad the results are noticeable on the outside as well as the inside. I will get back to real running at some point, I'm just enjoying the change of pace with the interval classes. Tomorrow morning's strength training class, another good one. In addition to the mental adjustment to the end of nursing Cutie, the physical adjustment is a little uncomfortable, but I think it should only be a couple more days at most. That might also account for a little of the weight plateau.

The next life phase

2008-09-23T07:34:00.004-04:00

Since June of 2002 I have been pregnant with and/or nursing someone for all but five months. That's almost six years of my life spent sharing my body with someone else, either the space in it or nutrition from it. Cutie turned 13 months yesterday and I'm pretty sure she decided to give up nursing. We were down to once before bed anyway, I think it was just sort of her way to unwind and relax a little before bed. If she truly has given it up at least I know it was on her schedule, she's just grown past it. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that's now a bit sad knowing that the phase of my life where one of my jobs in life was in part to sustain another life, is over. A part of me is happy to have my body back to myself, and I know that my most important contributions to my children's lives is not really the pregnancy, or the nursing. It's helping them grow into the best people they can be. It's showing them how to love people, care for those around them, and to always do their best at whatever it is they choose to do. I look forward to this next phase of life, the kids growing into these really interesting and unique people, and I know it's what has to happen. But that little part of me that found a new purpose in life when I first got pregnant with Hot Wheels, feels a little loss of usefulness, and the part that really loved the possibilities and love that a baby brings will need some time to adjust.

Here she is, all "grown up".

11.6%

2008-09-19T08:45:00.003-04:00

That's my weight loss goal for now through the end of the year. I started the Through the Wall Challenge on Sept. 4th, when my vacation ended. I weighed in at 158.5 and I intend to get down to 140. I think the first 8.5 should go pretty easily, and I'm actually 7 pounds down already, but once I hit the 150 mark it's going to take more work than I've been willing to commit to up to this point. I've got some hard core cardio intervals classes on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and then yesterday I put in 50 minutes on the ARC trainer for another 600 calories. However, my husband and I are enjoying a rare date night tonight, and we have a gift certificate for dinner at a good restaurant with some great food- although larger portions than I should probably consume. Anyway, this is really more about long term life, not what I weight tomorrow morning. I'm going to live my life, enjoy my dinner, just try for moderation. We're riding at lunch today, anyway, maybe a few bike sprints to up the calorie burn will help.

Tomorrow's the Corn Maze and apple picking for the family. I love fall!

I'm going to check out some new layouts, too. I'm tech challenged so I just go with the options available, I might give it a few tries to see what I like best. Any opinions are always welcome.

I hit the ceiling

2008-09-17T14:34:00.002-04:00

Not the glass ceiling, the asbestos kind. This morning in the gym we had cardio intervals again. For one of the intervals we were to "high skip" and try to hit the ceiling. Instructors have told us to try to hit the ceiling in the past and I laughed because this girl has a vertical leap of zero. Apparently, though, I've improved because I was able to hit the ceiling numerous times. I really enjoyed the thunk sound of the tile lifting up and then coming back to rest on the ceiling structure. I was pretty proud of myself. I guess sometimes the improvements we're making aren't really noticeable, but they're there. Also, I grabbed the wrong jeans when I was packing for work yesterday. They were the ones I've got on my shelf and told myself I'd wear when I lost about 10 more pounds. They're a bit more fitted than I would normally like, but I received three compliments on them. Guess they look okay. The size said 6, but we all know it's just vanity sizing these days anyway. But, I was glad to wear them and hear they weren't obscene at least. It's the little stuff that makes my day.

Always a good time for pictures

2008-09-16T12:43:00.005-04:00

Here's Hot Wheels from his first day of school:

This was a family hike the last week of summer vacation:

Here are the boys at a friend's birthday party:

And Cutie using the freezer door handle as a ballet bar:

This morning was total body strength conditioning at the gym. After the triathlon Sunday, the cardio intervals class yesterday and then lifting today I'm feeling a bit trashed. Tomorrow morning's another cardio intervals class and then I'm thinking Thursday if we don't bike at lunch I'll take the day off. At some point I've got to run, too.

A fond farewell

2008-09-15T09:28:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was my second and last tri of this season. It was also my fourth tri ever, and my last as an Athena. I'm at 152 pounds now and I've decided that this off season I will kiss Athena status good-bye forever as I work towards my goal weight. I haven't exactly decided my goal weight yet, I think it will be 140, that's what I weighed when I got married almost nine years ago. That's 12 pounds to go and I think I should get there. However, if I don't get all the way there but reach a point where I'm happy, so be it.

Here's my report from the women's triathlon.
The weather was crappy on the way up, driving through drizzle alternating with downpours, so we knew we were headed for a wet morning. There were 418 racers, we were broken up into four waves. I went off in the first wave. It was an in-water start, I lined up in front but over to the left of the right side buoys course to avoid the pack. I knew that the buoys were approximately 45 degrees to my right for the triangular course and yet, when the race started, I swam straight. I had two friends in waves behind me and they said a few people mentioned the "poor woman that swam so far out she'd have to swim way farther to get back on course". Yes, I was that swimmer. I'm guessing I swam an extra 150 meters or so, really stupid. The part that was annoying was that when I joined the pack again after the turn buoy, I was now with the slower swimmers in my wave and I was trying to swim through them. Ugh. I also took my first real hard kick to the ribs in a swim, it knocked me off for a minute. I don't begrudge people that can't swim freestyle the whole way, but do you have to kick so hard with the breaststroke kick? It takes up much more space and it's very hard to swim around a breaststroke kicker, because you don't always see it before you get hit. A few pink caps flew past me from the wave three minutes behind and I was able to get through behind them.
Anyway- swim time: 16:02 145/418 should have been at least two- three minutes faster, grr.

Transition was uneventful, but a long way to run with the bike on wet pavement. I'm a bit awkward in the bike shoes anyway. 2:49

The bike was 12 miles, some small hills but nothing too difficult. However, it was wet. We were drenched and it was almost like a constant enema as the water just streamed up from the back tire. I'm a nervous biker in the rain, but it did a little to increase my confidence, I was able to maintain an okay pace, just had to slow down a lot more than usual for the turns and downhills. I had no computer, no idea on top speed or anything. I averaged approximately 16.5 mph, which is pretty fast for me really. Total- 43:45, 213/418

T2- more awkward running in bike shoes back to the rack. I skipped the hat since there was no sun to shield and headed off. 1:13

The run was a trail 5K, more hilly than advertised and muddy. It wasn't raining as hard by that time, but I was already soaked so it didn't much matter. I didn't cramp up this time, which was nice, I just couldn't move as fast as I would have liked. Total- 33:41 278/418

Overall: 1:37:28, 201/418 and 15/53 Athenas, and I had a great time. Had I raced age grouper this year I would have placed 43/75. I'd like to finish top half of my age group next year. I'd also like to shave at least 3:45 off my bike time- 18mph average, and 5 minutes off my run time- 9:00 pace. Someone 9 minutes faster than me this year was 23/75 age group. I'd be thrilled to get there.

That's it for the tri-season. Back to the gym for cardio intervals class twice a week for conditioning and more running! I'm also adding some more weight training and we're going to keep up at least a once weekly lunch bike ride at work, weather permitting.

Ripped off

2008-09-05T16:13:00.003-04:00

It was a Saturday in early March, 2001. My husband and I were volunteers with a local animal rescue organization and I had some of our foster cats at a local Pet-A-Thon. We would bring foster pets to a local pet store where potential adopters could meet and greet the rescued animals. In walked one of my fellow volunteers with the most adorable five-week old lab mix puppy. He was blonde and squirmy and I had to have him. We went out to the foster home the next day to visit the whole litter. The mother had been unable to nurse the pups and they had been hand fed since five days of age. Ours was the runt of the litter and he was particularly close with one of the largest of the litter that had some strength issues in his hind legs. When he couldn't get over to the food, the little one would roll him over small pieces. Well, we couldn't split up the pair, so on April 8, 2001- Ozzy and Kodi (Kodiak for long) came to live with us. They had the life. A fenced yard, a couple with no kids that took them for plenty of walks, runs and swims. The dogs trained for my marathon with me, coming with me for training walks up to 14 miles. We told ourselves that when our son was born we would still love our dogs, and give them as much attention as before. And I do believe that we tried our best. But here we are five years later and they just don't get as much attention as I would like, or them, I'm sure. Kodi enjoyed spending time with the kids and family but Ozzy has always been a little nervous around the kids and he spends most of his time up in our bedroom. I've been telling myself that once the kids are bigger they will be great with the dogs. Hot Wheels enjoys playing fetch with them and I envisioned all of us hanging out in the yard, everyone having a great time together. I found out today that Ozzy has lymphosarcoma and his prognosis is anywhere from two weeks to three months until he's no longer with us. The lymph nodes in his neck are already extremely inflamed and that will likely cause him to stop eating and have difficulty breathing in the weeks ahead. We hope he will be kept comfortable with the steroids and associated medication, but we won't be going the route of chemotherapy and radiation. He's not even eight years old and I understand that it's not an abnormally short life span for a medium sized dog, but I still feel ripped off.

I'm just so NOT hard core

2008-09-02T16:48:00.006-04:00

I was at one of my favorite stores, a gigantic used book store, last Thursday and I picked up a like-new copy of the Triathletes Training Bible for only $4. Seemed like a good investment to me. I started the introduction and quickly realized that I am not in the target audience for this book. The author refers to the athletes using the book as people that would be concerned about losing fitness by skipping a day or two of workouts, or at least that's my understanding of the target audience. I just did nothing related to training for the past eleven days and I have thoroughly enjoyed every single moment. I have had the best vacation, not termed a staycation I guess, hanging out with my family and keeping busy. I may not have done any specific training but we were on the go! Here's a snapshot of the past week and a half:
8/22- Cutie turns one. We had a family dinner, she got her present and then when she went to bed the boys and I headed to a friend's beach to watch the stars and look for constellations.
8/23- Cutie's party with my husband's family.
8/24- Great morning hike at a local park and then off to local fair for some rides, animals and tasty ice-cream sundaes.
8/25- Chuck E. Cheese's for some play time on a rainy day, then for Cutie's one-year old pictures, including a family shot, then dinner with friends.
8/26- Cutie's one-year old dr. appt- including 5 shots- yuck. The afternoon with friends celebrating two birthdays, then to pre-school open house for Superman.
8/27- Kindergarten open house for Hot Wheels then a picnic at the local splash pad park.
8/28- Trip to the Children's Museum with grandma where the boys saw their first planetarium show.
8/29- Hike in a local park with a really cool waterfall, with the kids' cousins and aunt.
8/30- Off to grandma and grandpa's house so mom and dad could help grandpa cut down trees while grandma watched nervously from the porch.
8/31- Grandma and grandpa watched the kids while we were at our annual Fantasy Football draft.
9/1- Trip to the beach with some friends for picnic lunch and fun in the sun!
9/2- Hot Wheels first day of kindergarten and the last day of my vacation.

It can't possibly get any better than this. So, no training. No excuses, no regrets. I think I've managed to gain about eight pounds. Yes, eight. Ridiculous but true. So now it's back to work. I've got a book on my shelf to live up to.

Now THAT'S fast

2008-08-22T11:34:00.002-04:00

A whole year has gone by since Cutie joined the family, I swear it's been the fastest year of my life. At 2:03pm she burst onto the scene and has been an absolute joy since then. She's so happy and laid back and at the same time very determined and independent. She sure keeps us on our toes with her running around (yes, running at 1-year old), attraction to the stairs, dog water bowl and toilet, love of climbing and all toys choke-able. She's a trip. We love you, sweetie!

Correction and confession

2008-08-21T11:31:00.002-04:00

Some of the people on the work running team are very competitive runners and noticed that their times for the 5k on Tuesday seemed slower than they should. A few people also had Garmins that determined the distance was actually 3.18-3.2 miles. Based on that correction, my time for the race was 11:43 miles. Again, a stroller aided time, and I'm even happier with the new one, but my participation wasn't about the time. Incidentally, the correction gave the overall winner a mind-blowing 4:51 pace.

Now for my confession. I'm lazy and I hate the treadmill. I have always professed to enjoy running on the treadmill, but it was a cover for my laziness. The treadmill is convenient, there's no weather or terrain to deal with and I can stop any time and still be at the end. There's also a restroom about 100 feet away, which I needed after only one mile this morning. But, it's time for me to move up in my running world and take it outside. I'm going to scope out some routes near work and start going either before work or at lunch. The two main reasons I need to do this are: I think I have psyched myself out about needing the bathroom more often than I actually do, and it's too easy for me to cut it short at the gym- like today for instance. I need to run a route so that when I'm tired, I've still got to get back. It's time. I've got the 5.5 miler in November and I'm toying with the idea of a half marathon in the spring. That's only just popped into my head in the last couple days and will need to be discussed with my ever-patient, wonderful husband before any plan is enacted. End of confession.

In cool news, for being the first place Athena in the tri two weeks ago, not only did I receive a very nice medal, but also an obnoxiously loud but very useful cycling jacket. I ordered the men's medium thinking that would be plenty big and it does fit, but there's not much extra room in there. Those darn slim cyclists.

Asterisk

2008-08-20T09:45:00.002-04:00

(subtitles for this post are also: "Two in Twelve" and "Riding on Empty")
I know that when there is a wind-aided time recorded for some races they are given an asterisk. So, I'm reporting my 122 lb double-stroller "aided" time for the 5K last night was 37:13. That's 12:00 miles even, I'm not too disappointed considering I was pushing the boys the whole way. Well, they each ran about a total of 0.2 miles at different times which only meant I had to stop and start as they climbed out and back in. I wanted to encourage them to run, though, so I didn't really mind. Hot Wheels really had trouble understanding why we were doing a race that we weren't going to win. We finished 243rd out of 251- it's a fast race. He kept asking me how many people were behind us until I told him I didn't want to hear another word about where we were going to finish. The boys kept up a pretty constant chatter the whole time, including "are we almost done?" every two minutes or so. I was a nice change of pace from a normal race, and I was given much support and many compliments from spectators who seemed unnecessarily impressed that I was running with the stroller.

The race last night started at 6:15pm and this morning we left for a 13-mile bike ride at 6:15am. I think it was actually 6:17am by the time we got going, but close enough. That covers the two in twelve. As for the riding on empty- I only ate half a banana after the 5k last night and then I didn't eat before the ride this morning. I also brought my water bottle in to work to fill it and then left it at my desk, so I was really riding on empty. I bonked. I think we were somewhere between 14-15 mph, but my legs were wasted by the time we finished. Even now, I'm feeling it.

I went to donate blood last week and was told that my iron levels were low enough that they wouldn't take my blood and they said I should call my doctor. Being a still nursing mother, I've been way too lax about my vitamins, that would probably explain part of the reason I've been so blasted tired for a while now. I try to remember to take my iron and multivitamin, I make it about every other day, so my energy level should bounce back up soon, I hope. I'll try to give blood again next month, if it's still low, I'll call a doctor.

Change

2008-08-19T07:03:00.006-04:00

My plan to run a 10k in October has been changed, because Cutie's baptism will take place at the same time as the race. That's the priority so no 10k this fall, but there will be a 5.5 miler in November. I've also added another triathlon on September 14th, going with a few friends from work, so that will be fun. Tonight's a 5k and kids run. The boys are going to run the kids run and then we'll all do the 5k. It's a no-pressure one so the boys will run when they want to and I'll push them in the jogging stroller when they need a break. No time goal, no expectations, just some fun family exercise.

Here are some pictures from the recent triathlon. Be forewarned, the image of me in a trisuit is not exactly flattering. Oh yeah, and I'm smiling in the run picture because my kids were cheering like crazy and I'm almost finished, not because that run felt good.

The next phase

2008-08-11T14:09:00.002-04:00

Now that my one and only triathlon for the year has passed, I'm on to my next goals. First, there are 8 weeks until my first ever 10k and I'm a little intimidated by working up to the distance in time. And, this morning I started the 100 push-ups challenge. I was pleased to complete day 1 level 1 without too much difficulty. Considering I started at 2 push-ups, it can only get better from here. This morning was a cross-training day, 40 minutes of step aerobics. I don't really enjoy the group classes at the gym as much as I once did. And the gym workouts in general just don't make me as happy as they once did. For safety I'll stick with the treadmill runs- and they're a good way to keep track of my progress as well, and I'll keep up my group bike rides until it's too dark in the morning to ride before work. Here's a recent pic of Cutie, my favorite so far.

Left it all...

2008-08-08T06:42:00.002-04:00

Quick results: Swim- awesome, Bike- good, Run- not so much. First place Athena division- out of one. Total time: 1:35:12. There ended up being 53 individuals and 32 teams competing.

Here's the detailed story- might be longer than the sprint itself.
Overall it was the most perfect weather I could ever have for a triathlon. I think it was in the mid 70's and it was cloudy. Even the humidity that had rolled in during the day seemed to clear out. There was a threat of some big thunderstorms, but all was clear.

The swim: The swim course ended up being a 2 loop 0.4 mile total course with a short beach run between the loops. I'm not a fan of a run in my swim, but it went well. And for me it was the best I have ever felt in a swim. I even got right in the pack and was part of the kicking/ pushing/ shoving, but it didn't throw me off much. Until I saw the results this morning I thought I had done a bit better statistically in the swim, I was 47/85 with a 13:25. But I felt really good and enjoyed it.

T1- This is where I lost tons of time last time I competed because I had a wetsuit on that time and sort of fumbled around. This time I didn't even wipe my feet off, just threw on a t-shirt, my socks, shoes, gloves and helmet and headed off. Time- 1:26, 48/85. (Time in 2006- 2:16)

Bike- The bike course is 6 loops of a 2.1 mile route. It's a bit boring, to understate it a little. I leapfrogged back and forth with one of the female team competitors that I know from the gym. She would pass me on the uphill and then I would catch her on the downhill. It was a good motivation, especially when mostly I was just getting passed, as I knew I would. I was really working, though, I had told myself I was going to push as hard as I could in the race and I really felt strong on the bike. The only negatives were that I have a hard time drinking on my bike and oh yeah, I threw up. I didn't even have any warning on it, all of a sudden my mouth was just full and I was spitting it off my bike. Somehow I menaged to miss both me and bike, but it was gross. Total time: 45:58, 66/85. (Time in 2006 for the same course- 46:20)

T2- Felt a bit shaky getting off the bike. I'd been telling myself to drink some water in transition and I promptly forgot after changing my shoes, grabbing my hat and running off. Time- 1:14 74/85 (2006 time- 1:30)

The run- I started off okay. Then about a quarter mile in I felt cramps like I have never felt before. It was my calves and my stomach/side stitch. My calf muscles were just a ball of knots, I was trying to pick up my toes as much as possible between steps to stretch them a little. There a short but steep hill just before the mile mark and I was hurting at that point. At the water stop at the top I grabbed a drink of water and I'm not sure whether it was the water or the stretching from running up hill but my calves eased up. I was passed by about half a dozen people on the run, I think. My first mile must have been some horrendous split, but the second two were more comfortable. Running into the finish, though, my husband, my parents and the kids were sitting on the curb cheering for me and I was just so happy. Run time- 33:09 81/85. (2006 time- 31:07)

So I met most of my goals, the only one I really blew was the run goal. I wanted to finish under 1:40:00 and I was almost five minutes under that, although the swim was 0.4 miles and not 0.5. Next year I want five minutes off that bike time and at least that on the run. I'm going 1:25:00!

Right after I finished the thunderstorms rolled in so we didn't stay for food or awards. I think I've got a medal to pick up at the gym. I was pretty beat by the time we got home, showered, got the kids to bed and then fell into my own. I'm still a little sore this morning, but not as bad as I had anticipated. Next up- October's 10K.

I'm all tapered

2008-08-06T07:26:00.003-04:00

Because you taper for a sprint, right? It was an unintentional taper, but that's how it goes. I went for a group open water swim last Saturday morning and then nothing since then. Oh well. The OWS was awesome. The distance is supposedly 0.46 miles and I was done in just over 15 minutes, with a probably two minutes stopping for sighting problems, then some goggles adjustments and then looking around for the rest of the swimmers because somehow I got out pretty far ahead. The people I was swimming with, though, admit that their goal on the swim is to just not drown. So I look pretty fast next to them, but then they can drop me on the bike and run pretty quickly. Again, oh well.

So, tomorrow's the day. The weather looks awesome. Low 80's (maybe even 78 by the shore) with moderate humidity and possibly some cloud cover. I've heard the field this year is really big- 30 teams and 125 individuals. That's the twice the size of when I participated two years ago. I've got some goals, I should put them out there.
1. Have fun.
2. Work hard enough that I don't get to the end and say "I could have gone faster on the...." My husband remarked the other day that I've said that at the end of almost every race. I'm so worried about hitting the wall that I'm saving something, for what, I don't know.
3. Swim- 1/2 mile- 18:00
4. Bike- 12.6 miles- 47:00
5. Run- 3.1 miles- 29:00
6. Total- under 1:40:00
7. Place in Athenas, not sure how big that field is.

Oh yeah, and I'm still legally an Athena. My weight this morning was 150.5, so I gained back some of my stomach bug weight loss. I feel better knowing that I'm not cheating in any way, although I hope to be solidly under Athena weight for next season. I've decided I'm going to wear my tri suit. I used it in the OWS and it was surprisingly comfortable. I still feel a little like stuffed sausage wearing it, but I've been looking through pictures of past events and there are other people about my size wearing similar things, so I think it will be fine. I also realize that no one else is there to look at me and if they are, too bad.

After tomorrow, it's time to train for my October 10K. I've slacked on the running recently, I'm looking forward to getting back to it. And I'll get a better idea of what the end of an Olympic will feel like. I've got a few more people lined up for an '09 Olympic, it will be fun.

Had 'em. Didn't use 'em.

2008-07-28T08:13:00.003-04:00

Excuses that is. I woke up this morning, before 4 am thanks to Hot Wheels, and one of my first thoughts was "Why did I commit to a Monday 6am ride?" I decided before I was even out of bed that I had numerous reasons (or excuses) for why the ride would suck. I'm tired. I'm still sore from splitting wood on Saturday. It's too wet (I'm still afraid of riding with wet tires, I've slipped on the road in the past when it's rained), it's too humid. I met up with my friend, whom I will just call Biker Chik from now on. She took me through the time trial workout again. I didn't have time to give her my excuses for why the ride would suck and you know what? I actually didn't suck. I gained 10 seconds on one leg, but lost it on the second sprint leg. I didn't time the third one again, I'm just too tired by that time. I think it went maybe a little better than last time, although since the triathlon's next week I'm not going to improve much at this point. But, I couldn't just bag it, she was there and she kept me pushed. When I got back to my car, there was a fire alarm sounding in the building, so I did a 5 minute run around the parking lots. Not much of a brick, but better than nothing. Good start to the week anyway.

Realization

2008-07-27T11:13:00.005-04:00

My triathlon coming up in a week and a half will be useful to me as a baseline for my fitness in this sport. The realization I came to this week is that I have never done any real training. If I'm swimming, I just swim. Maybe a few drills or speed sets here and there but mainly I just swim, back and forth, back and forth and then get out. My time trial workout on the bike last Wednesday is the first time I have ever done anything on the bike other than just ride straight out for whatever distance or time we're riding. And except for 6 hill workouts I did with the running club back in April and May, my running workouts have just been a run, for time or distance maybe, but just a run. I've got some work to do! I'm going to look into some training plans and figure out what I'll be doing. For a while I'll still do just base work, to build up to the Olympic distance events, I guess. I've got a 10K I hope to complete in October, that's my only event after the August 7th tri.

On a side note, I've found a new strength training routine- wood chopping. I love it. I'm a little sore today from about an hour and an half of chopping yesterday, and I did drop the splitting wedge on the top of my foot, so that still hurts. But it's useful for the family, and it's a good workout in addition. I'm also going to try the 100 push-up challenge after my triathlon, so I've got plenty to keep me busy!

I'll attach a couple pictures from my sister's wedding. She purchased the CD, so I don't think it's copyright infringement to post them. Aren't my boys so handsome? Even if I am a little biased, I thought they looked so adorable. I like the one of me and the boys on the steps. It was taken before the ceremony started and to keep them amused, we were playing the silly stories game. I just like the memory of the moment as well as the pictures itself. And my wonderful husband even requested our wedding song for a dance.

That's what 22mph feels like- breathe!

2008-07-23T09:04:00.003-04:00

This morning I went out for a 12 mile ride with a friend who is an Iron-cyclist, if only she swam she'd kick butt in triathlons. She's an awesome biker and in addition has very good information and pointers. And, she doesn't mind taking an easy day and going out with me. We did a loop with three time trial sections. Well, I time-trialed and she cruised along behind me, I don't think she even broke a sweat. My bike computer needs new batteries, so the speed is the average over the course of the section with my watch time. First time trial section- 7:10 for 2.01 miles, or 16.8 mph- over all a +50 foot elevation. Second time trial section- 6:50 for 2.55 miles, or 22mph (woohoo!), however, there's also a -100 foot elevation, so I was basically going down hill most of the way. I don't have a time for the third time trial section, it felt somewhere in between but it was also after the shorter recovery period. Overall we were just above 15 mph and after the 48 minute ride, I was beat. I did a brick of two laps around the parking lot- probably a quarter mile total and that was all I had. I didn't have the energy in me for a three mile run, which I will have to do two weeks from tomorrow in the triathlon. I was sucking wind pretty good in those time trial sections, that's tough. Good practice, though, I'm hoping to get in one or two more workouts like that before the tri.

I've also decided that since I've failed in my attempts to convince my wonderful husband that one more kid would be great (crazy guy doesn't want to be home alone with four kids six and under), I'm making a plan for an Olympic tri in '09. I realize that many of them are still over a year away, but I like to plan and have long term goals. I think that an Olympic is reasonable given my time constraints, and I'll plan to add weekend workouts to the regime. Or that's the plan anyway.

Pictures, pictures, pictures

2008-07-19T10:20:00.008-04:00

Hot Wheels is thinking of being a goalie.

Superman has got his backfloating just about mastered.

It's not a pretty stroke, but Hot Wheels and get around the pool.

A rare moment of Cutie sitting. We've changed her name around the house to Little Miss Daredevil. She's walking, she's into everything, and she's FAST.

Our new strength training workout will be splitting this wood. I should have arms and shoulders of steel. Or maybe titanium.
My new training partner. The trail-a-bike is a bit tippier than I was expecting at first, but we've done a couple rides of neighborhood loops. It's fun.

Worthy? Technical bike confusion

2008-07-17T07:53:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I went to the local bike shop to buy some clips for my new bike shoes. They had a "ladies night" sale a few weeks ago and I got new shoes. Since having the kids my feet have grown too large for my old bike shoes and I've been wearing my husband's. I decided to treat myself to shoes and ended up spending only $68 for shoes that were originally $120. They're very fancy for me- Louis Garneau, blue and silver, I like them. However, I don't really feel serious enough for them.

Anyway, I had my bike on the back of my car and I asked about switching out the gears from down tube shifters to the front handlebar (STI) shifters. (I know so little about bikes I don't even know what they're called) So I wheeled my Trek 420 into the shop and the two guys working back there got all excited about it. They both said they love that bike- and one seemed surprised that I'm thinking of changing the down tube shifting- and they would recommend I keep it and upgrade rather than buying a new bike down the road. Refreshing to hear from people that want to sell things that I should keep what I have rather than buy something new. However, there's a whole can of worms opened when thinking about upgrading my bike. To upgrade the shifters would run about $200. He said the front derailer will have to be replaced also. The recommends changing out my brakes in the future because I don't have quick release- another $70 or so. Then there's the shifting cassette. My bike has seven gears on the back and apparently that's out of date, and there's a larger chain ring for the front now that would give me more speed because there are more teeth on it. I could also get lighter wheels to decrease my rotational drag or something like that. It sounds like for $400 or so I could have a really nice bike. My question is- do I need a really nice bike. I'm nowhere near top fitness level and before I would even think about buying lighter bike parts I'd need to know that I'm as light as I'll get. What's a couple ounces with heavier wheels when I've got 10-15 pounds extra on me? I'm thinking of just upgrading the shifters and stopping there for now.

Yesterday I rode with a woman that's a pretty serious biker and I got my butt thoroughly kicked for 49 minutes. I think we averaged about 15mph, which was clearly nothing for her, but I was sucking wind big time. Right there was a big clue that three weeks from now, I'm going to get smoked on the bike. Oh well. I also went for a swim last night while the boys were in lessons. I had only 27 minutes to swim but I did get in a set of 4 x 100yd fast repeats. I was quite pleased that going on 2:00, I was able to do all 4 repeats under 1:40. The first was actually 1:28, but I was really pushing it. Unfortunately for me there aren't any walls to push off in open water swims, so I know those numbers don't mean much. An older gentleman in the lane next to mine complimented my form and I was flattered, but he was off on his next lap before I could ask if he had any pointers for me. Lunch time bike/swim/bike today and I'll get in either a run or ride tomorrow morning. Three weeks to go, gulp.

Been awhile

2008-07-16T08:56:00.002-04:00

Been quite busy this summer. Swimming lessons for the boys- both are doing awesome. Soccer for Hot Wheels with a local chapter for disabled children, he gets to play on a team with my best friend's son, also a 5-year old, with some developmental delays. We always talked about our kids growing up and playing together and it's so cute to see them in their soccer uniforms together. Watching the other parents that deal with such major health issues in their children on a daily basis is a great reminder at how blessed I am with three healthy, happy children. Cutie is walking all over the place, started at just 10 months, I wasn't quite ready for that. She's still the happiest girl, just very active. And it's wonderful to watch the boys interact with her, they all love each other already. She's very amused by them, and they love to have an audience for their crazy antics.

My sister's wedding and the associated trip to Baltimore both went very well. The boys were on their best behavior and Cutie even got to join us at the reception for a while, which was nice. I'll share pictures when I've got some. Unfortunately I was hit with a major stomach bug just before the wedding- I did manage to lose the 5 pounds I had hoped to lose- but it was all in two miserable days. Fortunately everyone was recovered in time for the trip, but I lost almost a week and a half of training. Even yesterday, I only managed a mile and a half on the treadmill before I was queasy and dizzy again. It's quite a lingering bug. I'm going to be way behind in training for my triathlon August 7th. I'll be lucky to get a total of 10 rides in before the event. But, it's all for fun, I wasn't going to be competitive anyway. I'll just enjoy as best as I can. The other drawback to the bug was that my milk supply for nursing Cutie just tanked. I had to give in and give her a bottle of formula last week. I made it to ten and a half months, but I still feel like I failed a little- her brothers never had formula and I pumped for a year for them. I'm not getting much pumping, so she'll likely get more formula before we switch to milk next month. She's fine and healthy, just a little personal disappointment.

Other than that, not much going on here. I'll be around and I'm checking in on other people's training even if I'm not doing as much of my own as I should.

Sports amnesia, and a start

2008-06-19T07:53:00.002-04:00

After one year and nine months, I went out for a bike ride this morning. I have this affliction, the opposite of childbirth amnesia- where you forget the pain because of the wonderful outcome. With sports like biking and swimming, I remember the pain or inconvenience and forget how much I enjoy them. Once we started I remembered how much I enjoy being on my bike- although being on it for over an hour did make me a bit uncomfortable- I've got to investigate seat options. It was not a speedy ride, 13.3 miles at 11.8 mph. I was with a couple people on mountain bikes and I wasn't really interested in pushing too hard anyway. I nice warm up. I've got seven weeks left, I'm hoping to get in at least two rides a week. We'll see how that goes. If nothing else, it's a start.

Next week. The pool.

I must have been dehydrated

2008-06-17T10:07:00.002-04:00

For some reason this morning I stepped on the scale again, back to 152.5. At least I don't have to feel guilty about signing up as an Athena anymore, right? Ha,ha. In all seriousness, I'd love to get back to 140 pounds, but I don't have the motivation right now. I had forgotten about a work obligation that meant I needed to be at my desk by 6am this morning, so the swim did not happen. I can get ready for a sprint tri in only seven weeks, right? Oh, that bike is gonna kill me. And, maybe I should run again soon. Whatever.

Laziness Reward?

2008-06-16T11:38:00.002-04:00

I've been quite uninspired for the past few weeks. After the ugly 5-miler, and then the ugly swim last weekend, last week it was all I could do to drag to the gym and slog through some half-hearted workouts. I've also just been so, so tired again, this morning I was up from 3-4:25 and then when I looked at the clock and thought "I'll get up in five minutes", I fell asleep until 6am- the start of my class at the gym. Oh well. I'm planning a pool swim tomorrow at 5am, I've got my fingers crossed that it happens.

Anyway, Saturday morning I stepped on the scale for the weekly home weigh-in, expecting about 152. I looked down and saw 149.5. I stepped off, stepped back on- 149.5. I picked up the scale and moved it, stepped on again- 149.5. Really? Finally, for the first time since probably 2000, I'm below the 150 mark?! Woohoo. Maybe that's the motivation I needed to get me back on track. Maybe not, given that I slept through this morning's planned workout, but maybe it will work.

Last week I signed up for my August triathlon, though, in the Athena category. I'm only 0.5 pound under now, and I just figured maybe I wasn't going to lose any more weight. I guess if I do, I'll contact the race director and switch to the open category.

I've organized a group ride for this Thursday morning, it will be interesting to get back on my bike. I'm looking forward to it, except for the obvious drawback of seeing how very far out of biking shape I have fallen.

I'll take the whole pie

2008-06-08T11:04:00.002-04:00

Humble pie, that is. I got up this morning and experienced the most unpleasant swim of my entire life. There were a few contributing factors, though:
- Yesterday I was busy most of the day with my sister's wedding shower.
- Last night I attended her bachelorette party at a local casino and didn't get to bed until 1:15am.
- I was up at 5:45am with Cutie running a fever of 101 degrees, bringing the grand total of sleep to four and a half hours.
- The tide at the race was so low that for almost the first 200 meters and then again for the last 100 meters or so, it was impossible to swim. The water was not even as deep as my knees for much of that distance.
- Finally, and the part that was the most disturbing, I experienced my first swim panic.

Literally, I got into the water to start swimming, took a giant swallow of water and thought- "I've forgotten how to swim". I felt pretty sure I was going to have to swim with my head completely straight up out of the water at first. Then we stopped swimming to walk again, I was able to catch my breath and I calmed down a little. I started swimming again, was still very much out of rhythm, I could put my head in the water, but I had to breath every right arm stroke. After I rounded the first buoy I calmed down and was able to swim the longer leg, still only every third stroke breathing, before walking in from the final buoy along with everyone else. It was ugly and it was a wake-up call.

Time to swim, run and bike- the race will be here in less than two months. There's a smack from reality.

Swimming's like childbirth

2008-06-06T08:29:00.002-04:00

I've been wondering all week whether I should try to find my wetsuit before Sunday's triathlon swim. I'm hoping that even though I haven't been swimming, at all, I should be able to cover the half mile in under 20 minutes. That's about the pace I was at when I started training for my '06 triathlon, and that was after about 15 years off from swimming. I was talking with another woman in the locker room and she equated the question to the whole natural vs. drug-assisted childbirth. Did having a child without drugs earn me some sort of reward? No, not other than having a baby, which would have happened even with drugs. It didn't really make me tougher than anyone else, it was just what I wanted to do. Would swimming with no wetsuit mean I'm tougher? Not really, maybe just stupid. The water temp is in the mid 50s, and I haven't immersed myself in mid fifty degree water for 20 minutes and tried to maintain a swim. I think I'll look for that wetsuit this afternoon, the epidural of swimming.

Last night Hot Wheels moved up to Level 2 for the last night of swim lessons. Not sure why they moved him for only the last day, but now at least we know what to work on over the summer. He was so proud that he completed Level 1, and he's really taken to the swimming. Superman will likely be a level 1 for a few more sessions. He'll have to float on his back, float on his stomach and demonstrate a seated dive before he moves to level 2. Even then, he can't move up from level 2 until he's 5 years old, still a year and a half away. So there's no rush. I'm just glad to see them enjoying the swimming lessons. Some day soon I'll get Cutie in the pool, too.

Another reminder

2008-06-05T07:36:00.002-04:00

I am aware on a daily basis how lucky I am to be living my life. A very good friend of mine gave birth to her son back in March, 12 weeks premature. He's been such a fighter since then and things were looking good and then this week he took a turn for the worse. He's likely not going to make it more than a few more days, his little lungs just haven't grown to support a growing baby. The staff at the hospital are at a loss because they haven't had a child with this condition live more than a few days. I've heard that they are just waiting at this point and hold very little hope that he could ever recover. But, miracles happen, so if you've got a prayer to offer up for Fletcher, he could use it. His family could use some prayers, too, he's the youngest of four children, the oldest being only 5, so it's a tough time for all of them.

Who needs practice?

2008-06-03T14:48:00.002-04:00

I was determined that this week I would start my swim workouts again. Then, yesterday, I was talked into swimming the 0.5 mile leg of a triathlon- this Sunday. My sister's bachelorette party is Saturday night and the last actual swim workout I did was in November. Of 2006. Should be fun. I've decided I'm not going to do any workouts before then, I'll just swim it cold. We're a very relaxed team, so my team mates are fine with that, they're just happy to have a swimmer. I'm shooting for under 20 minutes, under 18 would make me happier, though.

The boys went to "buddy night" with some friends that take karate. Hot Wheels was so excited to be there and he really took to the whole class. Then I found out how much they want to sign up- $189- a month. He was so disappointed when I told him it just wasn't going to happen. That's more than I pay for his preschool class. I told him he's got swimming for now, and he seemed okay with that. I was so sad to see his disappointment, though. I would love to sign up for karate again myself and I've thought about getting a family membership somewhere when the kids are older. At that place the bill would rival my mortgage. Oh well, we've got other luxuries, the kids will learn they can't have, or do, everything.

Backtrack

2008-05-29T12:16:00.004-04:00

I just realized I never posted any follow-up on Saturday's event. The boys had their kids race after my 5-miler. It's a 1/3 mile race around a residential block, most of the kids are accompanied by a parent because you can't see the whole course from a single spot. Also, because many of these kids couldn't make the whole race alone. It was so cute, there must have been about 20 kids, ranging from probably eight years old down to two or three. I was running with Superman, husband had Hot Wheels. I was so proud of Hot Wheels, he kept up a single pace almost the entire way. He's not really built for speed, but he's determined and steady. He was quite excited to beat his cousin who is a year and a half older than he is. We tried to downplay the competition aspect of it, because we didn't want his cousin to feel bad, but he was very proud of himself for it. Superman was a little trooper, too. He's got more bursts of speed, started out a bit too fast and then wanted me to hold him. I told him I could hold his hand, and he was okay with that. He finished the whole way on his own, and he stopped for a couple quick walk breaks but ran for the most part. He's so tall for his age, he didn't really look like one of the younger ones, even though he was. I know his time was 5:52 for the third mile. I asked husband to check Hot Wheels' time when he finished, but he forgot, it was likely between 4:30 and 5:00. I know the times aren't really important, I'm just weird like that in wanting to know. Here are the pictures. A little far out, but the first is Hot Wheels and Dad, the second is Superman holding my hand.
Tonight is swimming lessons. Hot Wheels is really hoping that he'll get the front float down well enough that he'll be moved to Level 2. We'll see. Superman just likes to "disappear"- their terminology for dunking themselves. Anything that gets them excited about swimming is good in my book!

Starting again

2008-05-29T12:03:00.002-04:00

Now that I've had some time to think about it, if I had thought back in January that I would run a 5-mile race at a sub 10-minute pace at any time this year, I would have been psyched. So, to run a 9:28 average pace for 5 miles is a great accomplishment for me. I also learned the important lesson that I need to eat before a race of that distance and so it's all good. Moving on to: actual triathlon training.

Ten weeks from today is the sprint triathlon at work. It's a 0.5 mile swim, 12.6 mile bike and 3.0 mile run. The swim until this year has always been a very generous 0.3 miles, I think probably a bit shorter than that in reality. The bike course is 6 loops of a 2.1 mile course, boring but not too difficult. There is a small hill, so six small hills and then there's one short but steep hill on the run. Next week I get back to the pool before work and there's a group riding a 15 mile loop at lunch every now and then. I'm planning to recruit a few people for some 5:30 or 6 am rides as well. I know going in that the bike is my weakest event, and at least before my first triathlons I had spin class- they haven't offered them at the gym recently, so my biking is really cold. I mean really. But, it's time to start!

This morning was an excellent strength class at the gym, before that I decided I'd try to do a faster warm-up. I intended to start at 7.6 mph, a 7:53 pace, and see if I could hold it for a mile. I accidentally entered 8.6 mph, a 6:58 pace, and was able to keep up for 0.5 miles before I nearly fell off the treadmill, gasping for air. Actually I backed off a bit after that half mile, but still managed to hit the 1.0 mile mark at 7:54. I was happy about that. I can't attend the group track workouts for the work running club because they're evening events- but I've got the workout schedule, I think I see some treadmill intervals, or even a family trip to the track in my future.

I took most of the day off this morning to take Hot Wheels to his kindergarten orientation day. I sat next to a mom I know from his preschool class, she was there with her youngest of four (and only girl), and him being my oldest, it was a different experience for both of us. I'm so excited to see him growing up, gaining some independence and really becoming a cool person. She's having a tough time with her "baby" heading off to school. Less than five years from now I'll be sitting in her shoes. Time just flies.

Ug.Ly.

2008-05-24T20:50:00.002-04:00

I meant to post my pre-race goals but never got around to it. They were
1. Finish the 5 mile race.
2. Have fun.
3. Keep up 9:00 mile pace.

As it turned out I managed 1 out of 3. I finished, but I did not enjoy myself at all and my pace wasn't exactly what I would have hoped for. The only good thing is that I think the lesson learned was that I cannot run a 5-mile race on no food or water pre-race. I had intended to eat breakfast but I was running around a bit crazy pre-race trying to get the kids ready for their races and wrapping an anniversary gift for my parents.

Short story would be that my splits were as follows:
Mile 1- 8:40
Mile 2- 9:00
Mile 3- 9:20
Mile 4- 10:20
Mile 5- 11:01
Total time- 47:21, a 9:28 per mile overall pace. If I had finished with that time and felt like I did my first two races I don't think I would be as upset about the time. But since I really felt awful, I'm a bit disappointed with the race. Oh well. There will be others.

The boys did great in the kids race, I'll have details and pictures soon.

120 equals 2. Or eleven and a half.

2008-05-20T14:02:00.006-04:00

First, the important stuff. Here's Cutie, drool and all. And here are the boys do a semi-regular pre-bedtime yoga session. The two poses shown are Tree and Bow. Maybe not perfect, but good enough and I hardly want to squash their enthusiasm by correcting them.

Today was the final hill workout of the season for the work running team. They switch to track workouts next week and those are, unfortunately, during the evening hours when it's just not possible that I can attend. Today was two sets of 45, 90 and 120 seconds. For the faster people in the group the exact wording was "twice all the way to the top, 120 seconds". For me, however, 120 seconds is not all the way to the top. The first 120 I made it around the bend in the road, a personal record, and was happy with that. For the second 120 I decided I was going all the way to the top, rather than the 120. So, at 120 seconds, everyone else in the group stopped running, many of them at the top, but I kept going. I actually reached the top somewhere around 4 minutes and by that time everyone was already running back to campus, so I just kept running. It's a little ways down hill, but then there's another very large hill on the way back. At one point I thought I really had stopped moving forward up that hill but eventually it ended. I looked down at my watch and I had been running since the interval started somewhere around eleven and a half minutes earlier. I walked the half mile back from the top of the hill to work, showered and then collapsed into my desk chair. And here I am.

I've decided that my new effort into going green (and really only one so far other than recycling) is going to be to start composting. I've been mulling over whether to go worm composting or not and I think at least for my initial effort, I'm going to go wormless and just try a bin in the yard. Or a wooden frame from scraps. I'm hoping to have something up and running by next month, and maybe when I plant my garden next spring I'll have some wonderful home grown compost for fertilizer. And we'll also reduce our family's contribution to the landfill somewhat. Every lit bit helps, I hope.

Gulp

2008-05-19T08:08:00.003-04:00

Only five days until the five miler. I won't be getting in a 5-mile practice run, especially since I've had some calf troubles on my last couple runs. I'll just hope that the 4-mile practice runs will get me through the first 80% and the desire to not fall over in front of my family will get me through the last mile. Husband has decided he won't be running, so a small portion of my motivation to try and stick with him will be gone. But I'm looking foward to it. Then, the tri-training has to start in earnest, because there's only 11 weeks until the triathlon. I haven't swam a stroke in a year, and my bike has been untouched since September of 2006. Yes, that's year and a half and it could be ugly. I'm happy to hear that the swim of the this sprint has been increased to a half mile swim, however back when this course was supposed to have a one-third mile swim, it was never even close to that distance- probably less than a quarter mile, so I'm not holding out too much hope that the swim will really be a half mile. I'm looking foward to the race, there are a lot of people in my department that will be doing it and it's always fun to race with friends.

This morning was a fun time at the gym. Our normal instructor's on vacation so we had a new instructor that chose step aerobics for class. He was enthusiastic, flambouyant and had some funky moves. I laughed, I tripped, I moved and sweated. It's all good at 6am. Last night was a tough one, though, with all the kids up at some point; 11:30pm, 1am, 3am and then the alarm at 4:30am. I'm glad I made it to class, but I'm hoping that by some miracle I might be able to sneak in a few minutes of nap this afternoon. Maybe the babysitter, I mean TV, will occupy them for a few minutes and I'll catch some zzz's on the couch. Really, a 15-minute power nap would do wonders!

On the home front, Superman announced yesterday that he's wearing underpants from now on. Remember the trying times I had with Hot Wheels and the issue, I had decided not to push him until the end of summer because he'll need to be potty trained before nursery school. We'll be traveling in July for my sister's wedding and I decided I just didn't need something else to cause stress then, either. Yesterday he soaked the underpants twice and didn't actually make it to the potty successfully, but he actually sat on the potty multiple times, which is more than he had done until then. So, wish us luck. I've got the M&Ms all ready for potty successes and I've told him that if I can return the unopened box of diapers to the store, I'll buy him something with that money. Bribes, I mean, incentives, can be good.

Tomorrow's the final hill workout for the running team. I'm determined to make it to the top of the hill. The front-of-the-packers are up on the 120 second repeats. However, at 120 seconds I'm still only about half way. Depending on how my calf feels, that's the goals. And on Wednesday, the Wii Fit comes out. Good times.

I'm not fat

2008-05-14T07:43:00.003-04:00

I still can't say that out loud, but I'm trying. Yes, I could still stand to lose some weight, but at 152 pounds I'm within the range of normal and my BMI at 5'7" is under 24. (I've still got the bat wings, my inner thighs still touch a little and I've got some muffin-top if my pants are too small, but I digress) To say I'm not fat, though, sounds vain to me and I feel like an impostor. I still identify with myself at 194 pounds, really fat, and out of shape. Recently one of the women at work asked me why I'm always referring to myself as the "big girl" or as being overweight. I realized that my current coworkers never knew me as my 194 pound self, so they don't identify me as fat, or even formerly fat. I feel comfortable making fun of myself as the big girl, but that's something it's time for me to change. Especially with the kids getting older and really paying attention to everything we say and do, even my unintentional comments about my weight could lead to misperceptions for them that everything's about weight instead of health. And I certainly don't want to raise Cutie to think anything negative or her body, adorable fudgy thighs and all. I've got to learn to think of my weight and size as a non-issue. Most people seem to make it through days without ever referring to their own size, why is it something that I've always brought up more- just to put myself down for being fat? I'm never going to be waif-like or even skinny, but if I can be fit and healthy, that's what's most important.

Along the same lines, I've always referred to myself as slow. Yesterday I went to the group hill workout and the first four and a half repeats out of six went pretty well. I was actually only a couple steps behind a woman that I always considered pretty fast. I referred to myself as a slow runner and then realized that she could misinterpret my comment and think I was saying she's slow- since we were almost the same pace. I always told myself if I ever ran under a 10 minute mile, that would be fast. Well, two races now have been under 9 minute mile pace (okay, just barely) and I still don't feel fast. But I guess it's time for me to stop saying out loud that I'm slow. It used to drive me nuts on the cross-country team when the fast girls that were blowing by me would talk about how slow they were. I thought that speed was totally wasted on the fast because they didn't appreciate it at all. Maybe some day I'll get there, physically and mentally.

Doesn't get any better than this

2008-05-11T21:10:00.002-04:00

Happy mothers day to all moms, grandmas, moms-to-be, and anyone else I may have forgotten.

Two weeks to go a mile

2008-05-08T08:10:00.003-04:00

This morning I decided I would run 4.5 miles. I got to the gym and found that all of the treadmills near a TV were taken, so I ended up on the odd back row treadmill off by itself. I have lost my wonderful clip on iPod shuffle and favorite headphones, but I brought my older iPod with me and some headphones. I set the treadmill at 6 mph and off I went. Within five steps my earphones had fallen out so now I had no TV and no music for an intended 4.5 mile run. Crap. I've also decided after running my two outdoor races and the outdoor hill workouts, that I prefer running outside. Too bad for me because for safety and daylight reasons, the treadmill is the only viable option at 5:30am. In a couple weeks I might get a month of two of outdoor runs, we'll see. Anyway, I started off and the first two miles felt great, they actually just flew by. Mile three was definitely sweating and working but still I decided that 4.5 was reasonable for today.

All of a sudden I felt as though I had really hit a wall. I checked out the distance- 3.1 miles. Apparently my body feels well-trained for a 5K, anything more than that, not so much. I made it 4.0 miles and I just quit. I was beat, my heartrate was up to about 177+ (it read 177 a minute after I stopped) and my feet and legs hurt. Not a good omen for a 5-mile race in two weeks. I tried to hang in there, but with no TV, music or other distractions, and the fact that I had to get to work, I just stopped. Two weeks, can I do another mile?

Here's a picture of the boys from the local comic book store. They are Darth Vader and Boba Fett in the middle. The date says last year, but it was last weekend.

No title

2008-05-07T07:09:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm still tired. Between Superman and Cutie I had a good hour and a half of awake time from 1-2:30am. Enough so that I didn't even hear my alarm this morning which resulted in my getting up almost an hour late, missing the gym. I'm hoping to fit in a workout before lunch, we'll see how that goes.

Yesterday was the sixth hill workout, unfortunately I had been unable to attend last week because of work commitments. It was 3x60, 2x75 and 1x120. That 120 second climb was rough! Also, I had slowed way down because at the 60 second mark I was still about 20-30 feet short of my normal 60 second mark. But I did it, and also ran the whole route back. Definite signs of improvement.

Hot Wheels was funny the other day, husband told me the story. They arrived at school and there were already a few kids there. Hot Wheels looked around and said "Look, there's three friends and a girl here". We tried telling him that girls can be friends but he wasn't buying it.

THAT tired

2008-05-06T07:23:00.002-04:00

I'm tired. I know, whine, whine, whine. I'm not sure what it is about this tired that's so different, but I actually took a left-over pre-Cutie pregnancy test just because I feel that tired. (Thankfully, negative on the pee-on-a-stick.) The tired where I feel like my bones are heavier and I could easily nap at any given moment, if the opportunity ever came up, which it doesn't. This morning I fell asleep again while pumping milk for Cutie.

And today is hill workout day. I've also just sent in my registration for the 5-mile race that is two weeks from Saturday. Holy cow that snuck up quickly. Five whole miles. I know the course and it's pancake flat, but it's right along the water and there will likely be a strong headwind in one direction. I hope it's a tailwind on the way back.

Oh well, what's the saying- I'll get plenty of sleep when I'm dead? I sure wouldn't mind some now.

A great start

2008-05-04T11:03:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a 3.5 mile road race that was a work-sponsored entry race. There were actually 64 runners from work, 470 total in the race. It's a walker friendly race as well, so at the start I had no idea where to place myself so I wasn't too slow for those behind me or stuck behind other people. I couldn't find my iPod before the race and I decided that since I was going alone- originally we were going to push the kids in strollers, but my husband decided to stay home with the kids because it was chilly and rainy- I was really going to try and push myself the whole way. I placed myself a bit too far back as it turned out and I spent the first couple minutes trying to find openings to get around other people. I didn't enjoy listening to my breathing as much as I had enjoyed running with my iPod, and I felt like I was working harder than I did at the 5k last.
Mile 1- time check- 8:35, not bad! I was feeling pretty good still and passed a guy from work that finished 2 places ahead of me last week. I wanted to keep him in sight for pacing but felt strong enough to get ahead for now.
Mile 2- time check- 17:00- whoa, that's an 8:25 mile, Nice! We turned a corner and hit a slight head wind for a few minutes which felt good because I had over-dressed myself for the race with a long sleeved t-shirt and my running pants.
Mile 3- time check- 25:45- still 8:45 but I was feeling quite warm.
Finish time- 31:27, which made my pace for the last half mile almost 6 minutes! I was very surprised and disappointed because I did not feel like I was running a 12 minute mile over the last stretch. I thought I was still moving quite well, so there must have been something wrong with my timing on my watch. My final pace came out to 8:59/mile. I was a little disappointed since the first three miles really seemed faster, however, in the big scheme of things, under 9 minute miles again for my second race is pretty decent. I was 14/56 in my age group, exactly the cut-off for top 25%. I finished 190 out of 470. That did include many walkers, though, in a running field only I'd be happy with 50%.

One thing I was happy with, although I'm not proud of the character trait, is that I came in ahead of some people from work that I really thought would be faster than I was. There were a few people that really seem like "runners" and they were behind me.

Only three weeks until the 5-miler, that's going to be a struggle. I certainly didn't feel like I had another mile and a half in me yesterday. I'm planning to switch up my Thursday 5k this week for a Thursday long run. I'll try 4.5 miles- keeping it to 6 mph. Even if I have to pace myself for that at the race, a 50 minute race would be a success in my book.

After the race, we took the kids to Free Comic Book Day at a local comic book store. There are some people that come out in costumes, including some local Star Wars fans that have professional grade costumes and make appearances at different events. We didn't tell the boys where we going and as we drove by the store to find a parking spot the boys yelled "Look! Stormtroopers!" Then we saw Boba Fett- a big favorite of theirs from the movies, a Tuscan Raider as well as some other non Star Wars characters like Superman, Indiana Jones and some called Sailor Moon I think. I told the boys I happened to have their costumes in the van, so they also dressed up- Boba Fett and Darth Vader. They had their pictures taken for the paper with some of the characters and of course we also took a bunch of pictures. They had a great time. Then we headed off to a playground before calling it a day. A great day for everyone in the family.

New world

2008-05-02T08:00:00.002-04:00

Last night we joined the realm of kids activities and the boys started swimming lessons. Hot Wheels was signed up for the lessons already and an hour before we were going to go, Superman decided he wanted to take them to. I took him along with me and by a great stroke of luck there was an opening in pre-school level 1, so they both started lessons. I think Hot Wheels was a little disappointed because he felt like it was his "big kid" thing to take the lessons and I debated just leaving Superman home. However, I think that swimming is really important for them, so I decided to take Superman because he's always trying to keep up with Hot Wheels, at least he'll learn a little more comfort and safety.

I recently read something by a parenting "expert" that said you shouldn't spectate all your kids events. They should learn to be proud of their accomplishments independently of your praise or involvement. So, I thought, maybe after the first night I'd use the half hour to do my own swimming rather than sit and watch. Well, scrap that idea. I loved watching them and I don't care if that makes me too involved. It's also a nightmare trying to get them both changed to leave so if I tried to get in a swim and had to change myself, that would just be crazy.

The boys were both so excited when they got out of the water and couldn't wait to go back for another lesson today. They were both really disappointed when I told them the next lesson isn't until next week. At least when the weather gets warmer we can go swim at the beach between lessons.

Automatic PR

2008-04-26T18:47:00.004-04:00

This morning was my first ever stand-alone 5K. Going in I had three main goals:
-Pace myself so I could run the distance the whole way.
-Try to make it in under 29 minutes.
-Beat my husband- as a stretch goal.
Most importantly I wanted to enjoy myself.

Short story is that I had a great run, came in #98 out of 176 participants and my time was....
27.38, an 8:56/mile pace. WOOHOO!!! I think I actually ran a little more conservative than I should have, I recovered much too quickly. I didn't beat my husband, he came in at 26:26, but I enjoyed myself so much that I didn't really care about that goal after the race started. I was very nervous before the run because I hadn't gone to the bathroom this morning and I was afraid I'd have intestinal distress but things turned out fine.

I can't even really explain how good that felt. I've never felt like that in a run before and I actually enjoyed myself.

Unfortunately Hot Wheels has got something nasty fighting him, he had a fever for the past two days and has barely eaten anything. He woke up this morning looking better and said he wanted to run his kids race. The boys were the last two finishers in the under five category and walked a good bit of the lap with me. But they did it and they are so proud of their medals, they've worn them all afternoon. A great morning overall and after the race Outback provided chicken and salad (and steak and salmon for those that were interested) with cheesecake for dessert. I don't even care that I ate more calories than I burned, that was some good cheesecake.

Take that, b!tch

2008-04-24T08:22:00.004-04:00

Here are the kids again...

Tuesday was hill workout #4 with the work running team. The repeats were 45, 60, 75, 90, 75, 60 and 45 seconds. That was tough. I'm not sure I've ever just run up hill for 90 seconds before. It gave me some insight into how the kids feel when I tell them they have to wait one minute before I'll get them a snack or drink or do something they want. One minute can be a l-l-l-o-n-n-n-g-g time. Then, on the way home we have to run up a hill known as The Bitch. I had yet to make it to the top of The Bitch without stopping and I finally made it on Tuesday. I'm not quite sure how much I've improved because of the hill workouts but I know I'm getting just a little farther on some of the repeats than I did just four weeks ago.

Yesterday was also my retest for the 12 week "New You" program at the gym that started in January. I was on the strength track- weight loss and flexibility were also available. At my first test I was able to do 11 pushups (yes, on my knees) and 4 pull-ups with 80 pounds of assistance. Yesterday I was able to so 12 pull-ups and 22 pushups (yes, still on my knees). Had I not done the pull-ups first I'm sure I could have done 25 push-ups. I'm moving up to toe push-ups now. Also, initially I weighed in at 168.8 and yesterday I was at 153.2- a 10.1% weight loss. Overall I'm pleased with how things are going, despite some days of low motivation and frustration I know I'm headed in the right direction.

I've managed to put some miles on the bikes in the past few weeks. Most recently, this morning on the recumbent bike. I used to think the exercise bikes were just for lazy days, but I was concentrating on keeping my RPM above 80 and on the hill program that was a workout with some tough spots. I ended up somewhere in the 20mph range, but that doesn't count on the exercise bike. I did forego the Thursday 5k today because I'm hoping for fresh legs for Saturday's big race. Unfortunately, Super Dad isn't feeling so great lately, so if by some miracle I'm able to beat him, it will be a tainted win, with him at less than 100%. I'll do my best and see how it goes. I think I'll leave my watch at home and just go by feel. Can't hurt and it will be interesting to see what my training has produced.

I'm closer to back on track with my nutrition, got back into tracking at sparkpeople.com and I'm under 154, finally. The three week plateau was frustrating, but it was my own doing.

The weather is just spectacular lately and we're enjoying evening bike rides with the boys. Superman made the whole loop last night- just over half a mile, without a single push from me. Just a couple weeks ago it seemed I was pushing him the entire way, which was tough with Cutie in the carrier in front of me. She's moved up to the stroller and really seems to enjoy sitting there and watching what's going on. She's so amused by her brothers lately and of course they are very encouraged by her laughing to just get sillier and sillier. Not good while on a bike, but we haven't had any major spills yet. I know they're coming, though.

Not much from here, really. Just daily reminders that as the t-shirts say "Life Is Good".

Growing Up

2008-04-18T07:59:00.002-04:00

Here's Hot Wheels from his five-year-old pictures. I'm a department store pictures fanatic, we go for all the kids birthdays and then some random times as well. I'm struck by how old he looks at times, no more baby faced boy. He's such a sweet kid and the first four and three quarters years with him were so easy. Just recently he's started feeling out his boundaries, a little talking back here and some testing the limits there. He's easily corrected and responds well, although he sometimes can be very sensitive when he's done something wrong. At times the testing drives us nuts because it's not his usual good behavior but I know that it's his way of growing up and learning that he can be independent, so I try not to be too harsh about a little attitude from him here and there. He's very gentle and caring, and he has a silly streak that can crack us up. He's really interested in so many things around him and is very aware of other people and their actions and feelings. I worry sometimes that he's so easy, he might get passed over in the shuffle, even in our house where Superman demands more attention and Cutie still needs more because she's a baby. But Hot Wheels takes it all in stride and smiles. He's a Star Wars fanatic, he can build for hours with his Legos and TinkerToys, and he's really into riding his new Spiderman bike. There's a kids' triathlon in June, allowing ages five and up. He can use a floatation suit for the 25 yard swim and then it's a 1-mile bike and 0.6 mile run. He says he wants to do it, but I need to have him try the bike and run distance back-to-back before I sign him up. The last thing I'd want to do is sign him up if it's too hard for him, that would just leave him frustrated at his first experience, not something I want to do. He's adamant he wants to do it, but after the practice run this weekend on the bike and run we'll see what he says. There's always next year.

It's amazing to me that each of the kids is so unique and I love them all so much, but so differently at the same time. To my first baby, the one that gave me the best name I'll ever have- Mom, your smile lights up our lives and you're a joy to all of us. We love you, Hot Wheels.

Plateau

2008-04-17T12:46:00.003-04:00

I knew it was going to happen. I had a nice little graph with a negative slope going for quite a few weeks- 13 actually. It's now been three weeks at a basic plateau, at 155. I saw that lovely 154.0 once, but not since April 2nd. I guess I'm at where I've been before. I know what I need to do, but I'm not currently willing to do it. I'm 39 pounds less than I was at my highest weight of 194 and I'm pretty happy with that, but it's not really where I want to be. Eventually. But maybe for right now it's okay enough and then when I'm motivated again I'll get below that glorious 150 mark! I'm usually fine with the bag of dark chocolates in my desk, I eat one every day after lunch. Except today I've had four. And yesterday, I ate a 230 calorie candy bar from the break room. And I didn't even enjoy it. I'm doing the eat-because-it's-there-not-because-I'm-hungry thing, and I even know I'm doing it, but I don't stop myself. I tell myself it's to deal with some of the stress I've got going, except that I feel like I've got no real stress. So this is just a dip in the road, I'm not going to beat myself up, I'm going to ride it out, hope it's a short phase and then get back on track! That's it. Now I've got three more hours to not eat more chocolate in my desk, enough of a challenge for today.

Great week

2008-04-11T08:01:00.002-04:00

Hot Wheels turned five last weekend, wow does time fly. (Hard to believe it's been over five years since I regularly slept through the night! He just started sleeping through the night regularly about two months ago, so now it's just Cutie up overnight. Maybe some day they'll all sleep- just in time for mom to have hot flashes and insomnia. But I digress...) He got his Spiderman bike, with training wheels, for his birthday and on Wednesday afternoon we took our first trip around the neighborhood with both boys riding bikes. Superman took to it really quickly and if the wheels on his bike weren't 4" smaller than Hot Wheels' bike I think he could have kept up. He did fall twice, which scared him, but he got right back on and kept going. Hot Wheels discovered how much he likes going down hill- fortunately they're small hills, and I think he's headed for a major wipe-out before he realized he has to keep himself in control. He was cute, though, and he kept asking me whether he can have training wheels on his bike when he does his first triathlon. There's a kid series that he had do next June if he can swim a length of the pool by then. I told him he'd probably be good enough to have the training wheels off by then and he seemed very excited about that.

Tuesday was the second hill interval workout with the running team. I managed to pull my quad muscle last weekend while picking up Superman (not sure how those actions were related), so I had to hold back on the hills, but it felt pretty good. I'm right with the back of the pack of runners, closer than I thought I'd be to anyone else on the team so I was encouraged. On Wednesday I decided to hit the spin bike and that made me realize just how far out of biking shape I am. Since they stopped offering morning spin class at the gym, I haven't touched a bike in a little over a year. Ouch. It amazes me that when I first signed up for my triathlon it was four months away and I hadn't biked in years, yet I didn't think much of it. It's four months to the triathlon again and I'm a bit worried about the biking now, of course it's only 13 miles, I should be fine. I skipped the Thursday 5K because of the quad pull, this morning was interval boot camp. I had a little trouble with the repetitive step motion and my quad, but I think after resting it this weekend it should be fine. Only two weeks until the 5K!

The past two afternoons have been gorgeous! I love all the seasons and it's nice that in New England we have all sorts of weather. I think that spring's my favorite. Yesterday afternoon it was in the upper 60's with a nice breeze and we headed down to the boardwalk on the beach for a two mile walk. Then we had our first dinner on the porch since we moved to the house. We ate on the porch almost all summer at our old house and I think we'll do the same here. The only bad thing is that we appear to be infested with ladybugs. They're everywhere on the porch and they're in Cutie's room as well. I keep bringing them outside to free them, only to find more. I guess everyone wants to get out and enjoy the spring. I'm just not sure where they were hiding in the house all winter- yuck.

The highs after the lows

2008-04-04T07:12:00.001-04:00

Thanks for the comments that brought a bit of optimism to my month in review post, I wasn't fishing for compliments but they were nice to read. It's funny that most days I'm really pretty happy with how I'm doing and then some days I feel like I'm never going to get to where I want to be. Not even sure where that is. Weight-wise, fitness-wise, I've just got to see where I end up, and getting there is the most important part, I've just got to be patient.

The funny thing is I got on the scale at the gym on April 2nd and it read- 154.0. So I was only two days behind. Then, yesterday was Thursday treadmill 5K #5 and my time was - 28:38, that's 6.5 mph pace the whole time. So I accomplished some goals this week, and I'm back to reality. I'm going to be a back-of-the-pack age grouper, and that's FINE! I'll still be faster than everyone home on their couch. I'm so incredibly lucky to be able to live the life I'm living; my awesome family, my great house, I've got a good job and we're all healthy. I guess I was just having one of "those days" when it didn't feel like enough.

Another nice thing about this week was that I went to the running club group workout on Tuesday. I went with a coworker I really like, she's a back-of-the-packer as well, her running pace is about 15 minute miles. I jogged over with her to the hill called "the bitch", about a mile and a half from work. We did 6 x60 second repeats up the hill. The two of us got there early and we did three on our own before the team showed up. I felt really good for those three and the first one with the group. However, they did them on so little recovery time that the last two I was sucking wind a bit. For repeat #4, though, the first one with the group, I was actually keeping up with the back of the club pack. I was really excited about that because a lot of them are FAST. They're nice people, but most of them are very serious runners, so I feel a little out of place.

Back to the goals thing, I've got to set some for this month.
Weight- 4/1- 155, goal for 4/30- 151. (sort of cheating since I already got down to 154.0 on the 2nd)
Running- 5K on 4/26- finish under 29 minutes. The 28:38 yesterday on the treadmill was really pushing for me. And I still don't know what that would translate to outside when there's wind resistant and some hills, although they're small. I may not even wear my watch and just see what I can do by feel- we'll see.
Distance- I'd like to complete a 4.5 mile treadmill run. And I'll attend the hill workouts on three of the four remaining Tuesdays.
Strength training- At least twice a week, once in boot camp class, once on my own.
Biking- yes, biking- time to get back into it. It will be on the spin bikes until it's light at 5:30am, at least once a week for now.

Phew, I think that's enough goals for one month. Happy Friday.

Another month in review

2008-04-01T07:31:00.002-04:00

Really, another month has gone by? Guess so. Here's the breakdown on how mine went.

Weight assessment: Weight 3/1- 158.2, weight 3/31- 155.0.
My stated March goal was 154 by 3/31, so only 3/4 of the way there. Better than nothing, I guess.

Gym goal- 21/21 days. Result- 14/21 days. Yikes. Didn't realize until just now how poorly I did on that goal. I did also have Saturday's race, so I guess that would make it 15/21, but that's still only 71%. Not good.

Tracking goal- at least three days a week tracked at Sparkpeople. com. Result: tracked three half days all month. Complete failure on that goal.

Running goals- 4 miles at 6 mph and 3.1 miles under 29 minutes. Results: made the 4 mile run, only once, though. The 5k time only came down to 29:32- the one with the bathroom break- I was sick for the 5k last week, but I still don't think I would have been under 29 minutes.

Strength goal- Strength train two days a week with short cardio prior. Result: Completed 6/8 strength sessions, although a couple were half-hearted.

Overall for the month, I give myself a D. Not an acceptable grade and it's time to stop making excuses if I really want to see improvements. Of course if I'm not really all that concerned about improvements, I can spout excuses until the cows come home, I've got plenty of them around. I've got to take a really hard look at things and decide how serious I really am, and about what.
I'll get back to myself on that.

Top 10 finish

2008-03-30T13:30:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was the backwards mile race, I was #220. Unfortunately, I woke up with a cold on Thursday morning and then had a bout of intestinal distress Thursday night into Friday morning. By Friday afternoon I was feeling a little better and the kids really wanted to do their race yesterday, so I decided to go for it on the backwards mile. There were only seven racers, and I did come in last, my husband had the kids yell "You'll be in the top 10" when I first ran by. If I was feeling better I think I could have come in as high as third, I couldn't have been more than a minute or so behind the other racers, except the winner. He had clearly trained for this backwards mile and I heard him talking about other events he had done. He finished in 7:57, right after he lapped me on the 1/2 mile course. I think it took me about 18:00, I wasn't really all that tired when I finished, that's how I know I could have gone a bit faster. I'm a bit sore today, but not nearly as much as I had expected. It was a very strange experience running backwards, I'll plan to make it an annual event. Next year I'm going for first female finisher! Or not.

The kids race was ridiculously short, maybe 100 feet or so. There were only 4 kids entered, a girls older than Hot Wheels and then one younger than Superman. They finished in chronological order as well. All the kids got a green ribbon and a lollipop. Unfortunately our camera batteries quit just as I tried to get a picture of the start, oh well. Cutie was back at my parents' house, so we went to pick her up and the boys had a donut that grandpa bought. Okay, I had a jelly donut, too. It tasted worth the calories.

The rest of the weekend has been spent finishing some painting, doing some cleaning projects and getting ready for Hot Wheels' fifth birthday parties next weekend with our family. Really, I'm about to be the parent of a five year old. How did that happen, didn't he just come home from the hospital?

Home transformation project #2

2008-03-26T11:44:00.004-04:00

Kitchen before:

Kitchen after:

This may be one of the most dramatic home improvements we'll ever make. The difference with that wall open is incredible. I used to hate sitting in one chair in the family room because it felt claustrophobic, but now it's great. In case I haven't mentioned it recently, my husband is completely awesome and has busted his butt for the past seven months to get us moved and into this house. We've lived there five months today and he's already done the bathroom and this project.

By the way, the picture of the boys was from when they were helping dad install the recessed lighting. Hot Wheels has the shop vac hose for reducing the dust flying around when he cut the ceiling and Superman was in charge of lighting.

A rather uninspired strength training workout this morning. I'm bench pressing 65 lbs, but the third set's a challenge. I'm also down from 120 lbs to 90 lbs of assistance on the pull-up machine. I'm making progress and even a less-than-stellar effort is better than nothing.

Watch out for that....flat spot....there

2008-03-25T10:51:00.003-04:00

This morning for the second time in one week I tripped while running on the treadmill. Maybe it's the treadmill with speed bumps? I was able to catch myself before falling- a lifetime of clumsiness has gained me decent reflexes for that sort of stuff at least- but I still was annoyed. At that point I decided to stop at 2 miles rather than run the planned 4.5 miles. I switched to the elliptical trainer for the remainder of my workout. From now on I'm only running on the back corner treadmill, less likely that eight people would watch me trip from there, unlike my front and center performance today. Ugh.

The rest of the day has followed suit as just being annoying. I'm going to blame it on being tired and move on. I was really hoping to hit 4.5 miles today, I felt good for the 2 I ran before tripping, but I was just done after that. Oh well.

Until I have the final home renovation project pictures to post, here are the boys "helping".

It was short.

2008-03-24T09:29:00.003-04:00

This morning's one mile time: 7:54. Absolutely as fast as I could go on a treadmill. I still have no idea what that would translate to in a self-powered mile, I'm hoping I could do somewhere in the 8:30 range.

Then I walked around the gym, did a half-hearted lifting set and dragged my butt to my desk. I'm just not feeling up to anything today. I feel like I'm walking through water, or a fog, or something.

Here's a picture of Cutie's first experience with sweet potatoes last week. So far it's the only food she likes. She really ate some, she didn't just wear it. She wants to charge of that spoon, though, and is quite annoyed that after this result, we limit her spoon control because we don't want to bathe her immediately after every meal. She's quite laid back, but with a streak of independence as well.

But I really meant it

2008-03-21T07:27:00.002-04:00

I've got a friend trying to lose weight and I've been trying to be the motivator and positive outlook for her as she hasn't been as successful as she would like. My year to date has been mostly successful in that area and I was entirely sincere when I was telling her that she should be focusing on the positive improvements she's made when the scale didn't tell her what she wanted. And I meant it. Really. Until I stepped on the gym scale this morning and read 157. What? Last Friday read 156 and this was my best week of running and lifting ever. I even ate well for the most part and tracked my food. Usually I've got a feeling before I get on the scale and I know about how the week has gone, today I expected closer to 155- not 157. And you know what? It ruined my mood. I completely ignored my fast run to date, my longest run to date and how good I felt. That number crushed me. Guess I haven't come quite as far as I thought.