Running Update

I had planned to write a running update post weeks ago. But life got in the way recently, stuff I choose not to discuss on the Internet. Rest assured everyone is safe and sound but I needed the last week or so to regroup. We’ll just say when one door closes…I’m hoping to find that door that is opening real soon. In the meantime I’ll be pulling up my Big Girl Pants a bit more.

I feel like I left everyone hanging in suspense way back at the end of March when I said I would be running an April Fool’s Day half marathon. Truthfully, many of you (what few readers I have) probably forgot all about it. I’m sure keeping up with my running habits are at the top of your priorities. But just in case you didn’t forget…I aim to please.

The half marathon was a success! I shaved four minutes off my previous time (2:33 to 2:29) and overall I felt stronger than I did last November. Only the last mile was really tough…my legs were burning the whole mile and if it weren’t for my cousin Alyson pushing us along to the finish, I probably would have walked in.

Two days after the marathon was not that much of a success. I woke up around midnight with incredible stomach pain. At first I assumed that I was about to lose my dinner but after some one-on-one time with the toilet and no results I realized it wasn’t my stomach that was hurting but rather my upper back and abdominals. It was so bad that I could barely stand up or speak. I weighed my options for a good 20 minutes before calling my parents (literally, I used my cell phone to call my parents on the house phone and was only able to moan that they needed to come downstairs right now). Thirty minutes later I was sitting in an exam room at the Noble Hospital ER getting pain meds and IV fluids. I have been struggling with pain off and on in the area for well over a year now. Add that existing condition to my lack of fluid intake after the race and you’re looking at a $600 ER bill. Lesson learned.

Which, as a brief aside, can you believe that Noble Hospital had record in their computers of me being there in 1989?!?! I must have gone there for some blood work or something, near as we can figure. Who keeps records that long?? Not only that, then the intake lady goes… “wait, what was your maiden name?... Does your dad work at the high school? I know who you are!” So much for flying under the radar…

After that little incident I took a good week off before my next run…and naturally started back in slowly. I’m still dealing with back pain occasionally but I’ve added Pilates, regular professional massages (it’s medically necessary, right?) and more fluid intake into the mix and that seems to help.

What’s funny is a year after starting this whole running thing, when I couldn’t even make it a mile, I can’t imagine giving it up. Ted and I live very hectic, scheduled lives. To have an hour or two each weekend to yourself that you can get outside and think…well… it’s heaven, even if I’m sweating like a pig. And you’re telling me I get to listen to whatever music I want???? NO Disney or toddler tunes???? Well now. I really do use the time to regroup, think about goings on in the last week and think about what’s happening in the week to come. If it’s one of my short weekday runs, it’s my chance to get out of the office or regroup before the bedtime routine starts.

Did I also mention that it is also a relatively cheap and easy way to stay in shape? Ok, yes, there is the cost of a pair of good running shoes, but even those you can score on sale if you’re diligent. And the cost of them stretched out over the course of a year is WAY cheaper than any gym membership. I’d like to add here that running has also enabled me to keep eating whatever I want without gaining weight but that isn’t entirely true. I’ve found that diet is even more important now to full those tough miles. And a 30 minute run does not cancel out a Sonic milkshake. Darn. After the half marathon, Aly and I treated ourselves to Five Guys burgers. I am sure that we consumed the entire amount of calories that we had burned mere hours before. I hate simple math.

So what’s next? Ted and I (and the kids of course) will be heading up to Massachusetts at the beginning of August. While we’re there, we’ll be running the Bridge of Flowers 10k up in Shelbourne Falls. After a half marathon, a 10k (6.2 miles) may not seem like all that much but there’s a catch here. For a good 1 to 1.5 miles we’ll be running up a hill which I think is comparable to the side of a mountain. No joke, I’ve seen the pictures. I’m up to the challenge but I expect that my legs will be quivering by the time we’re at the top. It will be a good challenge to take up as I begin the training plan for the Raleigh half marathon in November.

I’m also looking forward to cooler temperatures. Trying to fit a run in on a 100 degree day is tough. Humidity that feels like pea soup is even tougher. I keep telling myself training in these types of conditions will make things easier in the fall.

And there is nothing like running on a crisp fall afternoon…

Our Little Fish

Katherine has spent the last almost two weeks up in Massachusetts.  A good part of her time was spent perfecting her swimming skills, look at this!

She starts her way home tomorrow morning with a stop at Hershey Park.  I haven't posted much about her trip because the kid hasn't wanted to talk with us one bit.  She's been having too much fun. My mom has been giving us frequent updates but I can't wait to hear all about it from her perspective.  And don't think her travel schedule is over for the summer!  At the end of the month she'll be spending a week up at Fawn Lake with Papa and Gram Coberly to try her hand at tennis for the first time.

Kind of makes you wish you still had summer vacation, doesn't it?

Pictures

As usual I am woefully behind on pictures.  I feel like I have been behind for a good year or more, probably back to when Teddy was born.  At first thought it was the second child syndrome, that we just haven't taken as many pictures of Teddy as we did of Katherine.  Then I realized it was less about that and more about technology.

Believe it or not just six short years ago when Katherine was born smartphone were not commonplace.  I know, I'm scratching my head too...how did I even get along without my iPhone?  Right before Miss K was born Ted and I purchased a very nice HP digital camera.  Part of my insistence for purchasing that little camera was because it came with a dock for the computer.  Simply plug the camera into the dock and viola! the pictures were automatically uploaded and placed in a fold by month taken.  Simple and easy.  It made doing monthly picture albums out to friends and family a breeze.

Enter the smartphone. Right around the time we announced that Teddy was on his way I got my iPhone.  And wow, picture taking got all that much easier.  No need to carry the camera around, just whip out the phone.  Unfortunately picture uploading was not as easy.  Not that it's hard but no more automatic filing by month taken.  And there's three different cameras to upload from, two iPhone and one digital camera (at some point we upgraded from the HP camera but we don't use it nearly as often as the phones).  The end result is hodgepodge folder on the computer titled "iPhone" photos that needs to be manually sorted.  Say it with me now...ugh.  I don't even want to think about the 600+ pictures that are still on my phone.  You better believe I've been procrastinating on this task...for a whole year.  I've been procrastinating on this blog post to explain myself for probably the same amount of time.  I even hesitated to take a few pictures because I knew it would be one more to add to the pile of ones I hadn't dealt with yet.

I'm figuring with all this new upgraded technology, I'm missing something right?  There has to be an automatic setting that I just have turned on that would make this job easier?  There's no way that the technology got better and the ease of use got worse.  All you people who are more tech savvy than me, help a girl out.

The bright light in all of this?  I just read that Shutterfly (where we have our picture site) bought out Kodak Gallery (where we used to upload and create albums).  Supposedly they are in the process of transferring all of the pictures over and they will notify users when they will be available through Shutterfly.  So at least there's one task that will be taken care of for me, right?

Carolina Beach

Our first official family vacation is in the books.  Yes, we have traveled a lot but this was the first time a trip did not involve a visit with relatives.  Ted and I wanted to start a yearly family vacation tradition.  We thought a couple of days at the beach, the kids first time seeing the ocean, would be a low key way to begin.  We headed down to Carolina Beach on Sunday morning, an easy two and a half hour drive from our house.  The trip was just the right speed for the kids.  Here's some memories that I'll keep tucked away in my mind for years to come:

• Katherine singing along to Adele's Rolling in the Deep in the car on the way down.  She's begun to sing along to songs that she recognizes.  Right now she doesn't care that there's other people in the car listening to her.  She belts it right out.  I hope this innocence stays around for a while.
• Both kids laughing as the waves rolled over them.  Overall, they both preferred the hotel pool to the beach but they did spend a good hour each day in the sand.  Hopefully as they get older they'll enjoy the ocean more.
• How good they were.  We had no expectations for this trip, if anything I thought it would be exhausting chasing the both of them around.  But save for the minor mishap here or there they were great.
• The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.  They LOVED it.  They saw fish, alligators, sharks, stingrays and turtles.  Teddy got all excited over the "shaaaaahhhhks!" Apparently, his New England roots run deep.

A few pictures:

Happy Birthday Ted!

It's the big three five for Ted today! Unfortunately when I looked on my phone for a recent picture, this is all I got (compared to about 600+ pics of the kids that I need to sort through).

Happy Birthday!

Jump a rope

Remember the little girl who would break down in tears when trying to "jump a rope"? What a difference a month or two makes.

Pondering

I have been pondering about this blog post for a better part of a week or more.  Working through different sentences in my head.  Not that that's going to make this any better of a piece of literature.  But then, if you came here for great literature, proper grammar or good spelling you're about to be horribly dissappointed.

Hey there!  Long time no see.  As I'm sitting here typing this, I'm also staring at the "Wake County Public School System 2011-2012 Traditional Calendar" which is pinned on the board next to my monitor. It's about to go in the trash because this year is done. We dropped Katherine off this morning for her last day of Kindergarten.  Let me repeat..last day of KINDERGARTEN.  This is hitting me today.  For some reason if you say your child is a kindergartener is makes you feel like you still have a bit of your baby there.  We're only one year removed from preschool, they don't even sit in rows of desks yet.  But as of this afternoon, we'll have a budding first grader in our house.  That doesn't sound babyish at all.  And honestly, she's not, she's a little girl.  But wow, where did this school year go?  I'm not sure I'm settled into the whole elementary school routine yet and here she is finishing the first year of it.  About time I start getting with the program.

I took this picture this morning on our way out to the car...I didn't realize she blinked.  I wanted to get a shot of her heading off to her last day of school just like we have photos of her first day.  She has grown!  Katherine now has quite an opinion on her fashion choices and these days she seems to be preferring skirts over shorts.  Which is why she went "hiking" with us over the weekend wearing this:

That is her favorite outfit right now.  Top and skirt don't match one bit but she doesn't care. I let her wear it on the weekends because really, how many years of your life do you have to truly wear whatever you want no matter if it matches or not?  That's right.  And just look at that cuteness happily standing next to his big sister!  Those little legs kept up with her the whole day.

We're getting more words little by little.  I wouldn't describe him as a talker just yet but he is able to get his point across about what he wants fairly easily.  A man of few words, if you will.  Ask him a yes or no question and he'll response with a high pitched "uh HUH!"  What does he put his "oose" in?  A "up"  (that's juice and cup).  We've got "Daaeee" and "Mama", "Katherine" is challenging him.  And we even have "paweee" (potty) and he will sit on it.  He's been successful in that effort twice, one at school and once at home, although we all pretty sure we caught him at the right time.  Right now he's getting the order of things out of whack, meaning he goes in his diaper, walks in to the bathroom, flushes and then sits down but we're pretty sure he'll figure it out all in due time...afterall the kid's not going to kindergarten his diapers is he?