Reprieve…

Cutest runner ever…

I wasn’t super hip on traveling this weekend, just because of Jasp, and then I became really not excited when I was going to be in the eye of the storm due to hit the Atlantic coast, and I was super, super not excited when I got an email from my weekend conference saying there was no way it would be cancelled. I packed a couple extra sets of clothes assuming I would be stuck, since I was due to fly home at the height of the storm and the airlines were already asking travelers to reschedule.

So I was pretty happy when I got up at 4am Saturday to find out the conference did get cancelled at about 2am.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but I was so relieved not to face spending half the week trying to get home!

So here I am.  I am about to take Jasp to do some bouncing, but it was nice to get a mellow run with Stephanie yesterday and a stroller run that poor Mark joined me on today (I say poor Mark because it felt brisk to me pushing the stroller, but slow to him I am sure).  It’s also nice to get some things done around the house that I wasn’t thinking I would get to this weekend, so yes, I was super happy for my reprieve.

The really nice thing this weekend is we have real fall weather for the first time in a few weeks.  Where was this last weekend when my marathon was 80 degrees by the end?  Fall running is the absolute best though.  It’s not so cold it’s hard to motivate in the mornings, and you come feeling refreshed, not completely zapped like summertime running.   I was actually going to run a 10 mile race today, but I had to register yesterday at the local running store, and I never made it down there with Jasp.   I also got Jasp this super, super cool toy at Terra Toys yesterday, thus kinda, sorta blowing my mad money, and I didn’t know that I needed to spend more for a race that was sounding a little too complicated to do since I couldn’t just register the morning of.  Insert old fart moment here:  I miss when you could make a last minute decision to do a race and just show up the morning of and maybe pay $5 more for same day reg, not double the cost to register, if they even will do it.

Well time to pack up and bounce.  I am back on marathon “training” this week.  Just 3 weeks until the next one.

Colliding worlds and black eyes…

Pancake at the playground. Yes, I take her and Jasper. I am mom to both.

Uggg, I am about to have the least favorite part of my schedule.  I don’t like when my worlds collide and I feel like work eats up too much of my life.  I have a weekend conference to attend, that will keep me away from home for 3 days.  I don’t like leaving Jasper, I don’t like the extra planning that being gone all weekend creates, I don’t like feeling guilty about having to change Mike’s schedule to accommodate this trip.  But it must be done.  I try to avoid making this a “mommy” blog, because wouldn’t you rather read about running than me having yet another breakdown into tears in the car after a massive Jasper fit?  So you won’t find a manifesto about working versus staying at home, but this weekend is one of those times I really wish I wasn’t working.  Ok…’nuff said on that…

I started running yesterday and went to yoga and am feeling pretty good.  I don’t really do a big recovery after a marathon anymore, because when you are as slow as I am they don’t take a ton out of you.   I do try and get at least a couple days of no running though, and that is done.  I am also doing so-so on my proposal to rein in crappy eating habits.  I am working on just keeping the goodies out of the house.  Yesterday was my first cupcake in a couple weeks, and I got one for Mike and I to split.  Still a cupcake is a cupcake.  I don’t know how you healthy eaters do it.  I am so wimpy when it comes to willpower.

Not much else other than kicking off a month where we either have company or travel about every weekend.   When it rains it pours….November will be busy.

One quick story and then I’ll call it on the lamest blog post ever….Jaspy got a black eye yesterday at OT.  The therapist brought him out to me and she was upset, but he seemed ok.  I took him swimming later in the afternoon, and I couldn’t help but thinking how cute he looked.  He was being such a little boy, doing a twirl jump into the pool with his little black eye.  It looks better today, and despite me saying this isn’t a mommy blog, am I a bad mom for thinking he looked cute with his black eye?

#26 and #1

No need to overload you with details.  Yesterday I ran marathon #26.  Here are some thoughts:

#26-My life is just busy.  I’ll never run a marathon again where there are at least a few issues in the week leading up.  Since I know that’s how it will be I cannot freak out at every little issue.

-I chatted with a really nice guy I ended up running with most of the way.  He set me straight by saying his goal was run an honest effort, keep it under 4 hours, and don’t get hurt.  Sounded like a great idea to me.  My training told me I needed a miracle to Boston qualify.  Instead of looking for a miracle I went with my new running buddy’s goal.

-I really love the 26 mile distance.  It starts to hurt at the very end (not at halfway like a 100 miler!), and it’s pretty doable to push through less than an hour of hurt.

-It’s so nice to run an old school race for runners by runners.  I love the idea of just me versus the course and not being “entertained” the whole way.   Runs with a lot going on have their place, but sometimes simple feels good.

-I finished in 3:53.  I think.  I actually stuck around long enough afterwards this year to get an age group award.  Always nice even though what will I do with a Frankenstein themed plaque?

-I met the president of the 50 states club.  He was so nice and invited me to a meeting at the Route 66 marathon.  I told him it may take me my whole life to do the states.  Most members don’t do it that way, but he said please join anyways.

-The hardest thing about being a parent and doing marathons is not the training.  It’s the zero rest and recovery.  Post race naps are nice, but not going to happen.

-Post race dinner with friends at our house was nice.  Mike grilled salmon and it was nice to have a healthy post race meal and not a giant plate of fries which always sounds good at the time but just adds the post race misery.

#1-Jasper did his first kids 1K run today.  He did really good with the running.   The race was inexpensive and had really nice shirts for the price and some fun things for kids to do.

-I pretty much felt like crap when I woke up for it, as to be expected.

-While the 1K went well, the 5 mile fun run following it was a disaster.  My plan was to stick Jasp in the stroller and do an easy run with Stephanie and Amelia.  Jasper lost it, refused the stroller and wouldn’t be happy unless I let him run in the street, which wasn’t an option.  Leaving seemed to be the only option, and while I didn’t really care if I shuffled through a 5 miler today, it would be nice if we could do a run like this in the future.  I have my doubts now.

-We salvaged things by meeting Stephanie and Amelia at Kerbey Lane.  I hadn’t eaten there in ages and it was fun to have a late brunch, and Jasp was really good for that!

So, there was our big run weekend.  It was a lot going on and we are all tired, but it felt great to get the rust out of my legs.  I am super psyched that the racing season is in full swing and that I have another race in a month.  Time to recover smart and move ahead.

Inspiration for the manic…

More from our fall photo session. I can’t remember if I took this one or if Jasper did.

Wow, I am about half way done with Chrissie Wellington’s book and it is so good.  For those who do not know, she is an ironman triathlete who’s won every ironman she’s done.  I pretty much don’t give a hoot about ironman, but I heard a couple interviews with her on some podcasts, and was taken with how amazingly humble she was and how she stumbled onto her talent when she was 30.  I love her book so far because it’s not about training and being an ironman, but about her passion for work in developing nations, her travels, and her love of adventure.  She reminds me of my friend Stephanie, who ends up being super good at anything she tries.  And, you can’t really be jealous, because she’s so dang nice.   This book is also so dangerous for me because last night I found myself online looking at beginner cycling groups.   It definitely sparks the desire to take on bigger challenges.

But first, I have a race in a few days.  Hopefully nothing will prevent me to making it to this one as the last two I signed up for never happened.  I won’t rehash all my complaining about feeling a little slow.   But this much I know:  I trained a little too long for this one.  Close to 6 months.  I probably was ready for it 2 months ago.  Oops.   But I’ve got other things coming up and I think I just need to get the rust out of my legs.  The really exciting thing this weekend is on Sunday, Jasper is doing his first race.  He’s been running around the block 2 times with no break, so I signed him up for a kids 1K.  Can you even imagine how cute a race number will look on him?  (if he lets me pin it on).   Then,  immediately following we are doing a 5 mile fun run with him in the stroller (hopefully he’ll get in it).  So I’ve got a lot of running to do this weekend.  I have full blown taper week “all the places hurt where most people have muscles, but I seem to lack  them syndrome”   I seriously shouldn’t taper.  It makes me completely manic.  As in looking at websites late at night planning long bike rides when I don’t even cycle, looking at the little kid bike trailers to go with me on my long ride when I don’t cycle, then flip flopping over to 50K run websites and deciding to give up ice cream and carbs.  Yeah, Mike must really love me during taper week.  Don’t worry….next race I won’t do it.  It doesn’t seem to work for me.

Ok…time to get a couple things done before my little dolphin gets out of speech.  He dives under the water now….I love it!   We’ve got a playground walk later today to channel both  both of our manic energies into.  Up next will be both of our race reports!

Putting it out there…

Ok, here’s  putting it out there to make me more accountable.   I am going to work on cleaning up my diet.  I eat a pretty good diet with lots of veggies, fruit,  greek yogurt, eggs and tofu.  But I’ve been slipping into bad habits for awhile now.

When I was pregnant I ate really well.  I didn’t withhold calories, but I did withhold excess sweets and junk food.  After I had Jasper I lowered my carbs to take off my baby weight and it worked.  I did really good watching my rice, pasta and bread portions for about a year and a half.  Over the last year though, I’ve been pretty weak around my faves:  sweets and carb-y snacks.  I’ve been feeling a little softer than normal in the middle lately, and for a few weeks I’ve been telling myself I need to clean things up.

So what does that mean for me?  Well, I never want to deny myself having fun in life.  Jasp and I will still get cupcakes, but that is my treat for the week…not a treat for the day.  And, when your husband brews fantastic beer, no sense in saying no beer, but once again, much limiting.  On the day to day, I’ll go back to limiting carbs.  I do really well when Mike is out of town, but it is so true when you are married/ live with someone you tend to eat more.   It’s soooooo easy to say “let’s get ice cream!”

Anyone with me?  Anyone need to rein in their sweet tooth?

This does mean one small pumpkin spice latte a week…NOT two a weekend.  Looks like some pumpkins lives will be spared.

I’d rather be eating a cupcake…

Lots of running/ fitness stuff rambling on this post.  Consider yourself warned.

Yoga at the Y has been fantastic.  I’ve been meaning to post about yoga for a long time.  I was doing Ashtanga for the better part of the year, and have changed it up in the last few months.  First off, the time it was at no longer was really that great with our weekend schedule.  It took too much time away from Jasp.  But mainly, I was doing so much intensity over the weekend, come Monday I was wrecked…and Tuesday.  It would take me until about Wednesday to recover.  I think for runners, or any endurance sport people, the really high intensity yoga classes aren’t the best.  We get plenty of intensity in our other workouts.  My hamstrings were permanently sore.   I’ve been going to flow style classes, but they aren’t quite as intense.  I still get plenty sore, but it’s not the same.  Also Ashtanga is in a hot room so I felt like I was chronically dehydrated from all the sweating I was doing.  Also, Ashtanga is always the same, and there are some poses great for runners that never get done:  the lunging poses, core, pigeon (my fave). I like that I get these in other classes.  I still think Ashtanga is great, and am in awe of those who do the full series, but I am glad I stepped away.

Because the Y is 5 minutes from my house, and the classes are only an hour, I’ve been pretty consistent lately about going twice a week.  Plus I do a couple short sessions on my own at home, I am doing more yoga than I ever have since Jasp was born.  Last night we tried a big experiment.  Mike has been taking a masters swim class at the Y, and we thought we’d try out the free childcare and I would go to yoga while he swam.  I had a few reservations…Jasp spends the majority of his week in childcare, so I hated to give him even more.  BUT, he always eyeballs the kids area when we go to swim, and when Mike is out of town, that free childcare may be a godsend for me.  I wanted to at least try it.

Fail.  Before I had Jasp I know I questioned why some of my friends with kids didn’t do the gym childcare thing.  Of course I totally get it now.  I felt beyond awful when we got there and he realized I was just dumping him off and he lost it.  The folks working there assured me most kids quit crying in a few minutes and start playing.  I know all this…it’s the daycare routine I do everyday.  I went to yoga and really couldn’t enjoy it knowing Jasp was so ticked he had been shuffled off to more daycare.  Mike got him after his class got out and said he seemed ok, but not like he thought it was a fun thing to do.  I don’t know that we will make this a regular thing.  We had talked about doing it one night a week, but now I am not so sure.  I might still use it when Mike is out of town.  Sometimes he’s gone for 10 days, and that’s a long time to do every single run with Jasper.

I’ve been wanting to start a new goal of subbing out a run each week for a session on the bike trainer.  It’s mainly just to keep my legs healthy and get some time on the bike which I never have time for.  I also want to get a little more used to it, so I have a back up when Mike is out of town that I can get up early and do.  I’ve failed the last two weeks, mainly because the day I set aside for it, Jaspends up waking up early, so we end up on a stroller run.  I am convinced the stroller run is the perfect exercise.  Now that I have the stroller weather proof bubble (which Jasp loves!), I can take it out in just about any weather.  We went this morning in the rain, and it was so much fun to keep him cozy and dry while I ran.  Still, I want to convince myself to do more biking.  I have Chrissie Wellington’s book on the way and am considering some new cycling shorts for  biking motivation.  I love, love, love my morning run and would rather “add” biking to the mix that “sub” it for a run, but there are only so many hours I can spend on this stuff.   I’ve got go to work every now and then and vacuum the endless dust bunnies too.

I’ve also been thinking about my what runs I want to do as my big events in the upcoming run season.  I’ve got my race in a week and a half, my birthday run, and pacing again in our local marathon.  I’d like to pick a local spring race as a goal and have wasted plenty of lunch break time looking at websites.  I am between the Prickly Pear 50K, the Big D marathon, or both.  Thoughts?  Anyone interested in joining me at any of these?  Travel buddies could easily push me one way or another.   Now that I have access to a pool and a bike trainer, I have considered the possibility of doing one triathlon to check the box.  This is a huge maybe a post unto itself I’ll do later, as I’ve always had a bit of an issue with triathlon (but NOT with my many wonderful friends who are triathletes).

Ok..Jasp’s therapy is almost over and I should rest up for our Gabba Gabba dance party.  Does anyone else’s kid go nuts for Gabba songs?   A Jasper Gabba dance party is pretty much the ultimate test of endurance.

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin syrup and 187…

This is why he drinks about 8 glasses of milk a day..the boy burns some energy.

Yes it did go splat I had to buy it.

Every year millions of innocent pumpkins give up their lives for Starbucks to make a syrupy $5 drink.

Yesterday was my last longish run until post marathon.  It went very well.  I don’t even know how long it took me because I never looked.  But, I ran big hills, felt good, and had plenty of energy at the end.  I also had the realization that yesterday’s run is what running should be from now on.  Weekends are no longer about me….they are all about Jasp.  I was just happy to get out for a 16 miler and knock it off my list without worrying about “how I did”.  The rest of the day was all things Jasper, as you can see by the pictures.  If his interest in all things active holds up, I have a lot of kid’s sports in my future.  Going to swimming lessons is the highlight of my weekend, as it should be.  I’ll have a lot more of Jasp activities as he gets older.   Weekend runs are great and they’ll still keep happening, I just can’t take them to seriously.  And, doesn’t mean I’m not super excited to put on a race number in a couple weeks and shake out the cobwebs.  It’s been about 6 months since I’ve done a race.

And damn you Starbucks for making a $5 drink I get addicted to every fall.    I am ashamed that I had two pumpkin spice lattes this weekend.

Finally, I’ve been walking once a week.  It’s to give my legs a run break and still get a little exercise.  I did 3 miles before work on Friday.  It took about an hour.  I had my garmin on, and while I generally do not pay attention to such things, it noted calories burned.  187.  Are you kidding me?  That’s about 3/4 a granola bar.   That’s depressing.  You would think going out and brisk walking for an hour would at least burn through a cupcake.  Ignorance is bliss when it comes to calories.  I’d freak if I knew how many I ate and how many I burned if I actually tracked it.   187.  That’s probably 2 tablespoons of a pumpkin spice latte.

Get over it already…

One great things that friends do is point out to you when your wrong…and they usually do it in a nice way.  My friend Steve is my phone buddy…he moved awhile back but we chat every weekend, and trade texts about our long runs: “My legs felt doughy and I was passed by a 4 year old on a tricycle, how about you?”    He emailed me and said “you’ve done Boston, you should move on.”

He’s right.  I had to admit it.  I’m busting my butt trying to hit a bucket list item I’ve done 4 times over.  I have so many runs I want to do, that next year I should shoot for something else.  I’ll push it at my marathon, but I refuse to be bummed if I don’t get the time I am hoping for.   And, it may sound like an excuse, but I’ve had a lot of runs this training cycle not go as planned. 

Anyhow, I have those other bucket list items.  I still want to do more states.  I don’t know that I’ll get them all, but I’d like to shoot for a few more.  I’d like to do a few of the Texas races I’ve never done.  I want to run the Blue Ridge marathon someday.  I want to run a marathon in Maine.  I want to run St George again.   I want to keep up my pattern I’ve established the last couple years of a fall race and a spring race, and pacing the Austin marathon in between.   You get the idea…there’s still so much out there that it is time for me to move on from one race.   It’s a bit liberating actually.

Time to hit the work again.  I see a latte in my future.  A certain little boy refused his inhaler for  his cough last night and at about 4 different times during the night woke us and declared “All done sleep.”  I don’t know about you, but my sleep is NOT done at 1:18 am.