Blathering

School started a few weeks ago and we have yet to fall into a good routine. The girls were sick last week and that screwed things up. Chewie has been taking later naps, leaving me with very little time. She finally fell asleep at 2 (after taking her diaper off. Again. I don't even care if she wets the bed, I just need her to sleep.), I got the Princess up there shortly after and that leaves me with a grand total of 40 minutes. Yesterday we had gymnastics so she was tired enough to fall asleep at 12:30ish and slept a good 2 hours. I was able to run my intervals and shower, and they woke up just as I got SkyWalker off the bus. I'm not sure what's better--to have more time to myself or to have them sleeping when he gets home. I think it's the former. And I think we're going to have to get up a wee bit earlier in the morning so naptime is earlier.

The Princess is ready for kindergarten. She's ready to go and I'm ready to send her. I'm going to have to request a teacher who is very patient with little girls who don't know how to stop talking. Because she can NOT STOP TALKING. My head is going to explode.

Chewie is talking much more and repeats everything and likes to tell me to be quiet and shhh and "top it." She's very rude. She's peeing on the potty again but not doing anything else. She likes to take her diaper off. And her clothes. Big surprise. I don't know why my children always like being naked. I would like to go cold turkey and potty train her, but I don't want to have to stay home. And I can't stay home because of preschool. I need a school break, but I don't want to do that over Thanksgiving or Christmas, so that leaves February. But that seems so far away and I am so very tired of wrestling her to get a diaper on her.

SkyWalker is doing well in school. He has a nice positive teacher so I think things will be good this year. He is getting tired of living in a house with so many girls and gives me guilt trips on a daily basis. He is definitely growing up. He used to be so grateful for anything and this birthday he complained about the books I got him, the legos I got him, everything. I intended on saying "I'm sorry your birthday has been so disappointing." but instead I said "I'm soSOBrry, your SOB birthday SOB has been so disappointing SOB!" (No, I cannot blame this on pregnancy hormones. I am still not pregnant.) He left the room. Vader followed him and I wasn't sure at the time whether or not he told him to be more grateful or not to worry because Mommy does that crap to him all the time too... but he did eventually thank me for everything and seemed to be genuinely happy with it all.

I've done very little. Dishes/laundry/sweep. That's pretty much it. And run. I stopped writing articles because the payback was so little compared to the stress of trying to write multiple articles a week. I generally just read the books I have to review for VOYA now.

Vader and I went to see Primus last night. I didn't recognize many of the songs, but it was a good show nonetheless.

Haze hurt her leg, the same way Isaac did years ago. Vader took her to the vet yesterday who confirmed that she should have surgery. He also said, however, that we could medicate her and keep her on the leash and make her comfortable. At first we both thought there's no point in that if she did completely tear her ACL. But then I came on here and looked up Isaac's SECOND injury and all we did was medicate him and keep him on the leash for months and then he was fine. It was when I was pregnant with Chewie and we really didn't want a second surgery. I would like Haze to be healed... but I don't really want to do another surgery. Besides the fact that it's another $3000 that won't go towards redoing our attic (if we ever redo our attic), I just don't want her to have to go through that. If she has to be in the crate for 2 months and won't be able to lay right next to me...  When Isaac hurt his first leg he couldn't even get up the deck stairs. I had to put a ramp out so he could get up. When Vader touched it, he didn't howl in pain, but he definitely yelped a bit. Haze has shown none of that. She'll still run if we let her (we've had her on the leash for over a week), she doesn't yelp or cry or seem in pain. She's just limping and walking funny. I'm kind of leaning towards giving her the medication, keeping her on the leash, and waiting it out. If she gets the surgery she has to be crated for months and then confined to a leash for more months. So we might as well wait and see.

I should have gone for that run

I've gotten into the habit of taking a week off after I run a race. It's not so much for recovery, but more so that I can theoretically get all the things done that I neglected in my pre-race frenzy. This doesn't usually happen, but I like to do things theoretically. What does happen is that by the time I do my first post-race run I am eager for it. I have been looking forward to today all week long.

It didn't happen.

My kids have gotten some strange quick moving virus. Skywalker started with a dry sore throat and then got a fever. The Princess followed with a fever and headache and a little vomiting yesterday morning. Chewie had a fever on Friday. They all have a cough but no other symptoms. I've been drinking emergen-C like crazy, but to no avail. Last night I succumbed and had a fever ALL night long. Literally all night long. Not just a fever but crazy head pain too. It was horrible. At 5ish I thought there's no way I'm running today. I got up around 8 and my fever had broken but my head still hurt and I was starting to cough and I was just wrecked from not getting any good sleep. Vader suggested I skip my run. I shouldn't have listened but I figured if he was suggesting it then there was a good reason not to run, it wasn't just me wimping out.

I should have run.

Not just today, but all week. Perhaps I could have avoided even getting this if I had been running all week! I definitely should have run today. Even if all I could do was a mile or so, it would have been better than the moping I've done all day. Although I am pretty achy right now and I laid down TWICE which is something I never do. I would go out right now and run but the boys are fishing and I am home alone with the girls. One of which is coughing on me right now. And the other has just woken up from her nap.

So I guess I just have to look forward to next week. I'll try to get out at some point during the week and I may have to resort to the treadmill, but it's Sunday's run that I always get to do outside and look forward to.

I've been wrong before

So. Yeah. About that race?

I smiled a lot:

I ran hard:

And I gave it my all:

Yes, I'm still heel striking.
It happens when I run fast and overstride when I see the finish line.
I'm okay with that.

And I made it in 27:35 (official time), 8:53 avg pace, 24/54 people, first in my age group of 4 people (yeah, 4 people) earning me my first and most likely only medal. I thanked every single volunteer I saw and enjoyed the race from start to finish.

It must have been the shoes.

Another month, another race

I'm running another 5K tomorrow. It was the second race that I ran last year and I remember it very clearly and swear I just did it yesterday. I swear someone is messing up my time/space continuum.

I haven't done any regular consistent speedwork since June so I have no expectations that I will beat my last PR. All that I have focused on is transitioning to the Merrell Pace Gloves so I could run the race in them and not my Mizunos. I'm glad to say I got up to 3 miles (and a little more) in them so that's what I'll be wearing tomorrow morning. Even though I don't intend on beating my PR, I'm looking at this race as an automatic PR for me. These shoes are so different from traditional cushioned racing shoes that it's like I'm starting all over again... so my PR should too!

I don't have any real goals for this race. Whatever happens, happens. All of my friends are running the 10 mile instead of the 5K, so I'm kind of solo for this one. I'm just hoping to run fast enough to make it back home to watch them all run by since the 10 mile goes past my house.

Why I can't run long distances

It has nothing to do with the actual distance. Or my tendency to get diarrhea afterwards. But let me back up.

Last night we had our monthly girls night out. I made dinner for the family and when I finished eating I got in the shower and then left. The dishwasher had been running when I left but it doesn't take more than a couple of hours. When I got home, more than a couple of hours later, the dishes in the dishwasher were clean, but they were the same dishes I left. All of the dinner dishes were piled up next to the sink. I suppose I should be grateful they made it to the sink and weren't left on the table. Bedtime is always before 8 so there was plenty of time for someone to unload and reload the dishes.

Before last Sunday's run I had thought about doing a different route--one that was much hillier--but when I drove down that road I remembered that there is no shoulder at all and every time a car comes from the other direction I always think there's going to be a collision. I mentioned the road to Vader who confirmed that it would be a bad idea. He thought I just wanted a different route (I want to work on more hills) so he suggested I run to the state park 5 minutes from our house. I figured, why not? So I ran to the state park. I knew it would be farther and longer than usual. I figured I'd run to the park, pee, and run back. When I got to mile 2 and I hadn't made it there yet I could have turned around but by that point I needed to stop and pee. So I kept going. It was mile 3 when I made it to the bathroom. It was wicked hot and while most of the way was nice and flat, there were some pretty nice hills too. I didn't want to go from running 4 miles for my long run right up to 6, in the heat, because I was pretty sure I'd be in the bathroom the rest of the day. So I took a few walking breaks. I probably ran 5 out of the 6 miles. I got back home more than an hour after I left. What did I come home to? Can you guess? A sink full of dishes! And Vader on the computer, not even pretending to interact with the children. I had to shower and I had brunch to make so I wound up with an even bigger pile of dishes.

There is nothing more frustrating than coming home from a fun experience and being hit with what your absence meant, especially so visually... It almost feels like a punishment. Like, sure you can go out and run for an hour and I'll keep the house from burning down and the kids from escaping, but you'll still have to do all the drudge work only now you'll have much less time to do it. I'm sure that this is not intentional on his part, but this is the message that I get, the feeling that I get, and all of the positive feelings I have from running or being at girls night fly out the window.

How can I train for a 10K so that I can actually run all 6 miles at a decent pace? How could I train for a half-marathon?? It's not enough to have verbal support, it's not enough to say "yeah, go out for a run." I need someone to pick up the slack in my absence and not just watch TV with the kids.

The best birthday week ever

It started like this:

Something major has been brewing for a long time now but I've been too afraid of jinxing it to put it here. After 3 1/2 years, my BFF, Shinesalot, is back home. Not quite next door, not yet sure of where they will finally hang their hats, but they're back in the same area code and a hell of a lot closer than Texas. I can't quite put into words the enormity of this.

The day after they returned we celebrated the 4th of July with 2 parties. We had fun in the afternoon with sprinklers and friends and then in the evening we enjoyed some fireworks on the lake with Shinesalot & family. My kids were up later than they've ever been before.

Vader took Tuesday and Wednesday off from work, so we got to see him for 5 whole days. On Tuesday we took the kids to play some putt-putt and Chewie surprised me by not running off... too much. Then we went to Wal-Mart and bought a bike for me to ride. (I'm not giving up running, but I wanted to have a bike so I could encourage SkyWalker to ride his. A week before he actually got on his bike, sans training wheels, and learned how to ride! I may have misled him into thinking his BFF could already do this. But that's okay since today his BFF took his training wheels off and learned how to ride with his best buddy by his side in my driveway. All's well that ends well.). On Wednesday, my actual birthday, we went to Howe Caverns with the kids and they all did so well. No crying or complaining. It was great.

On Thursday I was planning to go to dinner with The Happy Runner, which would have been an awesome way to end my birthday week. Instead, she tricked me and I had dinner with all the girls, including Shinesalot! It was a lovely surprise (although I disappointed them by not actually registering any surprise. ) I brought my camera,  but forgot to take any pictures.

After years and years of suckitude surrounding my birthday (something always gets screwed up), it was so nice to have multiple days of good times. And to know that there are more ahead.

In which I come to my senses

Finding the time to blog is actually more difficult than finding the time to run. Funny, no?

I had been following a transitioning plan from a podiatrist on facebook who runs in Vibrams. It was very VERY slow. Increasing 1/4 mile every 2 weeks. But then... I read The Barefoot Running Book. It was a free download and I was able to read it on my iPad, which was cool. One of the things I really loved about the book was how very nonjudgemental it was. On most barefoot running sites (wow, I just typed breastfeeding. Ha!) it's either naked foot or you suck! But Jason Robillard just wants you to run better. Whether it be barefoot or in minimalist shoes or even in traditional cushioned shoes. That was really nice because over the past couple of weeks I've concluded that barefoot running--real barefoot running--is just not for me. I don't like pebbles in my heel. I do agree that we don't need the super cushioned shoes that running stores want to sell us, but I don't think that means we have to run completely barefoot. Which is why I love the Merrell Pace Gloves. It's a nice in between. If you want a shoe that will let you feel every rock and get the ultimate feedback, this isn't it. But if you want a shoe to protect the bottom of your feet with a zero heel raise so you can still feel the way your foot lands... then this is it. I'm glad I've concluded this because I would have been super pissed if I paid $90 for shoes and then wound up running barefoot.

Anyway, in this book he gives super tips on how to transition to a minimalist shoe or barefoot running. And that every one is different and has different abilities so there's no one size fits all plan. I've been walking around barefoot A LOT for a while now. I'm still relatively young. I haven't had any major injuries. And I run short and slow. So, rather than increasing 1/4 mile every 2 weeks I bumped it up to every 2 runs based on his suggestions. And then I bumped it up again. I made a plan for myself that had me running every day--alternating between the Pace Gloves and the Mizunos--and then I woke up. Was I that concerned with my "numbers" going down that I needed to do that? Not with 3 kids at home. So I dropped most of my Mizuno runs. I kept the long run on Sundays with the Mizunos. But then the rest of the week are all Pace Gloves and if I can only run a mile, so be it. The last run I did was supposed to be 3/4 mile but I bumped it up to 1 and I had no pain. So I think I'm doing okay. I should hopefully be all transitioned for my next race in August.

Yes, I know this blog has been all running for a while. It is NOT turning into a running blog, I swear. It's just that since Isaac died I've found myself not wanting to blog about anything. I will return to the antics of my children. Tomorrow I might even recap the best birthday week I've ever had...