Four Miles Baby!

After church today I made everyone lunch and then jumped on the treadmill.  I usually run at night after the kiddos are in bed but today was my 4 mile and I was a little excited.  Plus I wanted to make sure to get it done in case something happened - I didn't want to have any excuses for avoiding it.

That's the longest distance I have ever run in my entire life.  I've done a couple of 5K runs but nothing beyond that.  Even at the point in my life several years ago when I was running consistently I never got further than that.

So this is super exciting for me.

My pace was pretty slow.  I finished in 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 32 seconds.  Which has me running 18 minute miles.  Which is slow.  But I finished and that's what I'm focusing on.

The trainiing schedule I'm doing is really focused on distance over speed because it's a schedule for a half marathon.  Now, I'm NOT running a half marathon.  What I'm actually running is one leg of a half marathon, 6.2 miles (10K). But I want to train for a half marathon.

Even though they have training specifically for a 10K. 

Don't ask me why - it makes no sense. But neither do I.

So next Sunday is 5 miles.

Let's see what I can do...

I Am Electrifying

I carry a lot of static electricity.  Like an unusually large amount.  I am constantly shocking people – from the static, not my behavior.  Although sometimes my behavior too, but I’ve gotten better about that… 

I have no scientific proof but I kinda feel like my static issue is a result of an incident that occurred when I was about 10.  My mom took us to the car wash and there was a cement sign/marquee that had a lamppost coming out of it – similar to this:

Except the cement part was smaller and there was no ocean. Or pigeon.  Well, there may have been pigeons but never when we were around. 

It was just this small little cement block and my sisters and I use to run around and play on it while my Mom washed the car.  I think she preferred that car wash because we would go free and stay out of her way. 

We would jump up there, swing around the lamppost and pretend to be Broadway stars up on stage.  It was so much fun.  Until the day that it all went horribly wrong. 

I jumped up, grabbed the post and the very next minute I felt the weirdest sensation of my life.  I don’t even have words to describe it.  Everything was in slow motion, I had no control over my body and I felt like I was being suspended in the air.  Then abruptly, it stopped.  I was on the ground.  I looked down and saw blood all over my hand - my fingertips looked like they had been popped open.  I didn’t know what happened but I knew it wasn’t good and I was scared.  I just started screaming.

I had received an electric shock.  The current entered the tips of my middle finger, ring finger, and pinky and exited the same way.  The doctors were surprised because apparently it's unusal for a current to have the same entry/exit point. Personally, I found the whole experience unusual.

No one knows how it happened; it wasn’t anything obvious to my parents or to the owner. No exposed wires or anything like that.  It was just one of those freaky things. 

Of course, it ended my Broadway star days.  I never, ever climbed up on that cement block again.  Never felt like pretending to be a Broadway star after that either.

And besides the tiny scars on my fingertips you would never know it happened. 

Well, that and the fact that I attract more electricity than anyone else I know…

Blog Break

I am in avoidance mode.  Really, I’m trying my best not to do the thing that I need to do the most, which is to work on my annual performance report.  I just can’t get started.  I have it at the very top of my to do list but I still haven’t started.  I told myself that I needed to get all these other things out of the way first, so that I could concentrate.  But really, I just keep finding things to do and I could keep finding things to do forever.

So I just need to get started. Now.

I’m freaked out about it though, which makes no sense.  I’ve been doing APR’s for the last 6 years.  In fact, I did my last one during my maternity leave. And if I can do it while being sleep deprived, in between feedings and diaper changes with new mommy brain then this should be no problem.  But, I don’t know.  I’m nervous.

It just seems different to me now.  I just feel such a huge sense of responsibility and I just don’t want anything to go wrong.  Which is all the more reason that I should start working on it now…

Speaking of working – I worked my tail off the other night and made my long run - 3 miles!  I was so excited!  I have a 30 minute run today and I am pumped! 

Next week I’m going to start incorporating strength training on my off days.  It won’t help me run my 6 miles in the relay marathon but it will help me look better in a tank top...

Dear/Deer - What's The Difference?

So sometimes I do silly things - like type "dear" when I really meant to type "deer". It happens.  It's not that I don't know the difference between the two - really, I do.  I'm not claiming to be the best speller in the world but I did make it through the third grade, which I think is about the time they teach you the differences between those sort of things.  It's just that when I blog I literally just type whatever comes through my head, there isn't much filtering or editing going on - and I like it that way. 

So just ignore it and move on. Or go to great lengths to point it out if that's what makes you feel good. Either way, I don't care.

So yesterday's training was suppose to be an easy walk.  I left the house at 5:30 and didn't make it home until about 11 that night - so there was no easy walk.  I'm not trying to deviate from the program but I don't feel guilty about it, like I would if it was a run day.  I do, however, feel guilty about my eating.  Ugh, it's been horrible.  Got to get that cleaned up right now!

This morning as we were leaving the house M asked me if I was pregnant.  I told her no and asked her why she thought that and she told me my tummy was getting big like when I had M2 in it.  I did tell her it was not polite to tell people their tummies are getting big but geez, the kid was just being honest.  And I'm not a big t-shirt person - really, the only t-shirts I wear are the fitted ones so it's not like I can hide the obvious.

And it's not that big of a deal, I know how it works: working out = healthy and not working out = weight.  What is frustrating though is that the weight I have gained has all gone to my tummy.  Well, almost all of it.  A little tiny bit has made it's way to my chest.  Which should have been a positive thing except that little tiny bit apparently favors the right.

I've always been fortunate that I was happy with my chest.  Decent size, symmetrical - not perfect but acceptable.  I felt pretty lucky.

Then I got pregnant.  I had heard horror stories about changes after breastfeeding - everyone said they were never the same.  But it was something I wanted to do, even if that happened - decent boobs were something I was willing to give up.

During that time they actually looked phenomenal. Sorry if that's gross, but it's true. I was so excited.  I thought okay, so that's how it works - it's kind of like a Mommy gift - you get these really amazing boobs while you breastfeed.  Then they kinda get gross afterwards - it 's like a parting gift.

Except that really didn't happen with me.  They didn't get gross and all was well.  Until now.  Now they've changed and I've ended up with a  mismatched set. 

So this is yet another reason that you can bet I will be on the treadmill tomorrow (today is an off day)...at this point I don't even mind if they get even smaller - I just need them to look like they belong together.

I Will Run You Over, My Deer

Spent the day conducting leadership training for our state association.  You know, it's interesting because no matter how old I get or how much experience I have, I continue to discover new things about myself.  Here are some things I discovered today:

1.  I have some awesome friends.  Okay, so I didn't just discover this today, I've known it for a long time but the more time I spend with them the more amazing I think they are.  I'm telling you, these girls rock!

Love these girls...

2. No matter how hard I fight against it, there are just some things that are innate to my personality. I should spend less time trying to change these things and more time trying to figure out how to use them to my advantage.

3.  No matter how much I prepare, how well I know the material, or how entertaining I make it - I am always paranoid about my presentations. I have a deeply held belief that it could have been better, I could have done more.

4. Taco Casa's super nachos. Yuuuuum.

5. Durant, OK is home to the largest peanut in the world. But it's not a real peanut.  So really, it's just the home of the largest peanut statue in the world.  Somehow, that makes it a little less impressive.



The peanut statue



This bench is for people confused about what town they are sitting in...

6. In addition to not being able to cook, bake, or successfully play sports - I also cannot drive.  I actually discovered this at the end of my day.  When I hit a dead deer.  Laying in the middle of the road.  I feel like I have a somewhat legitimate excuse for how this happened but by the hysterical laughter of the passenger in my car I'm assuming others would find it less legitimate than I do.



We survived the deer!



Day 2 Is Through!

Day 2 of training complete! 

I know it's only my second day (yesterday was an off day) but I'm getting really excited about this! Can't wait to make it the full 13 miles!  That's both thrilling and frightening.

But I'm super determined to make this happen.  And if it's one thing about me it's that when I get something in my head I'm stubborn beyond belief and I won't let it go.  Just ask my husband.

So I'm putting that determination to use and channeling that energy into making this happen!

Punch Drunk

I feel slightly drunk this morning.  No, I haven’t been partying it up – just severely sleep deprived.  I’ve been going to bed too late and then last night we pulled an all nighter with a sick kiddo.  Or a healthy kiddo that just didn’t want to sleep… I’m not sure at this point which one it is. 

Thank goodness that kind of thing is rare in our house – both my girls sleep like champs.  They get that from me.  This is not so great for the hubby because when they do actually wake up, I sleep right through it.  I attribute this mostly to my ability to secure a coma like state of slumber.  Most the time I can sleep through anything – storms, tornado sirens, roaring trains…and crying babies.  I am almost certain this is the reason my husband wasn’t willing to go for baby number three.

And even though this is completely out of my control, it’s a point of resentment for the husband.  Not that I blame him – it really would suck to get woken up only to look over and see your spouse peacefully, deeply, soundly asleep. 

But because he gets frustrated that he always has to pull night duty he sometimes wakes me up to do it.  That sounds fair and reasonable, right? 

Except most the time he can’t go back to sleep. 

So neither one of us gets any sleep.  Which is the story of last night, although I did get a few more hours than he did…and when you haven’t had enough sleep a few hours are like gold.

And waking up all night was a good reminder to me of the reality of having a newborn.  Which I needed because I’ve been kinda struggling with the fact that M2 will be our last baby.  I was reorganizing my Kitchen on Monday and I found all her sippy cups, which we haven’t used in about a year but I just couldn’t get rid of them…I just couldn’t.  It made me too sad.  So I just moved them up and out of the way.

Then I set up her big girl bed.  Her crib is convertible so she’s been using it as a daybed but I actually set up her real, twin size, grown up bed.  And as I was packing her crib bedding away I just started crying.  Nothing dramatic or hysterical – just a few little tears at the sadness of knowing that part is over for us.

And then we get a night like last night to help me remember to be grateful for exactly what we’ve got and where we’re at…