Hazardous to Your Health?

Tonight I was chased by a mamma pit bull, a chihuahua named Coconut, who has tried to get me before, and geese and when I finished my run and was walking home some jerk, on a terrible sounding Harley wanna be motorcycle, revved his engine or hit the gas so loud right beside me that my left ear popped and I couldn't hear out of that side until after I got out of the shower. Seems like a lot to happen in four and a half miles. But it was still a good run. All things considered.

Also, in the time I've been a mom we have been blessed to never have serious sickness, never an ear infection or anything more serious than a cold or an occasional stomach bug. This past month has been wild. Parker got an ear infection after all the kids had a little cold. We took him to the Dr and got some terrible antibiotics that he hated, and I'm pretty sure they didn't work because when we took him to the Dr Monday for what turned out to be RSV, he had an ear infection in the same ear. Now that he's getting better Aarik, Konnor and Mckenzie are sick. Coughing mainly, nothing as bad as Parker's I thought. Until I got home from my run tonight and Mckenzie started throwing up, and continued to throw up until after the kids went to bed at 9:30. UGH. Poor kids get put through the ringer building their immune system. I'm praying that I continue to be blessed to not get sick so that I can take care of all these sick folks and that we haven't picked up an entirely different virus or stomach bug.

 Aarik has been getting in a few hours of over time the past two weeks and our days seem to get more and more chaotic. It makes me wonder when (or IF) family life ever slows down enough for you to really enjoy it and take it in. My guess is that it doesn't, and we need to start trying to make more opportunities to really spend time with our family. Our kids are so sweet and they are growing so fast. It's nuts how much of "young family" life is spent just trying to make it through the day, or the week, or month. Thinking things will slow down when we aren't sick anymore. No, when we get this job. No, when our schedule changes. It's almost like you are wishing days away without realizing it. I hope that we can find a way to slow down and appreciate our littles while they are still little. There will never be another blessing like them. How grateful I am for the sweet blessings in my life! Enjoy yours!

Running and Not Running

This last week I had to put myself on the "I think I'm injured list". My left foot, which has been broken twice now, has been really bothering me since late last Saturday night. I did a couple of miles on the treadmill Tuesday night and it felt fine until a few hours later. Then, pain for two days that went away for me to run Thursday. Thursday I decided to try to run outside for a couple of slow, easy miles. Note to self: if you haven't been running your normal mileage it is almost impossible to "take it easy" when you do get out again. I ran the fastest two miles I've run in a good long while. Maybe because I had only run two miles all week, or maybe because I ran with music for the first time since I broke my foot last time, or maybe just because; it didn't matter that it was hot and muggy either. It felt nice to finish with a good pace, but I worried I had overdone it. Luckily my foot never did hurt (until today).

Friday night Parker got pretty sick, the sickest he's been so far. What seemed to be teething mixed with allergies turned into something crazy in the middle of the night with a high fever, runny nose and coughing. Since I didn't get to sleep until 7:00 Saturday morning, when I was supposed to be running, I didn't run Saturday. Instead Aarik, sick Parker, and I  drove down to Concord to do packet pick up for Aarik's half marathon, while Konnor and Mckenzie spent the day with Nana at home. They only had one day pick up (kind of inconvenient for out of towners) and we had made plans to stay overnight with close friends who live close by. The same people that did our last half and the one I'm doing In May with my mom and a few girlfriends. Honestly, I was disappointed in their "expo" which consisted of maybe two vendors and a few tables from the other races they do. The race itself was an awesome idea, and the medal was enough to make me want to run it, but luckily I didn't sign up to run with my hubby this time because it just wouldn't have worked out. Since we had to bring our sick, angry baby back home last night Aarik drove back up to Concord at 5 am to do his race. With all of the insanity of the weekend, changed plans, sick folks and the fact that he got bored training half way through and hadn't done much since, he STILL managed to pull a 1:48:18! How he does it I'll never know, but he is my running hero.I'm so proud of him and SO grateful to be married to a man that doesn't think twice about changing his plans when something pops up with kids or family life. It may be a little silly, but things like this make me love and appreciate him more. He has decided to concentrate on 5k's for awhile, partly because he doesn't really care for longer distances regardless of the fact that he runs them well, and probably partly because I have a plate full of training until November.

I've decided this week to start fresh with my training, take my mileage down and stick to a new training plan. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully we'll get some sleep tonight so that running this week will feel like something I love and not a chore. 10k is only 3 weeks away and then we'll be closing in on the half and registration and training for the main event! Any locals out there looking for a 5 or 10k soon should sign up for the Hospice Run in Winston. It definitely supports a good cause, is fairly small and was a fun event last time we ran it. This year it means a little more to me to support Hospice after seeing how well they treated my Grandma last year when she was dying and how great they were to the family after she had passed. I'm grateful there are organizations out there to ease the pain of a situation no one wants to go through but we all experience at some point.
Speaking of running for a cause, it's been a little while since we've seen any donations. The fundraising effort started out super strong and I'm so grateful to those who got us on track to meet our goal by the end of October. We purposely shared our fundraising efforts early on so that everyone could have time to find $5, or $15 or $50, and I feel like by Marathon day we will have exceeded our fundraising goal.  I LOVE running but would never take the time to share all of this with everyone in the world if it weren't going to be beneficial to someone else somehow. It's easy to share my training and little unimportant struggles along the way but, hopefully, the money we will raise will help people whose stories are of real struggles and aren't so easy to read about, or share. Spinal Muscular Atrophy is considered fairly rare, but it is far too common to be a disease that never has a happy ending. Please help me spread the word about Running for Callie and fighting SMA.

A Really Quick Note

This was a crazy busy week, Aarik's birthday, our anniversary, new job, time change, Aarik's last week of training before his race and the usual life stuff added to that. This morning is just as crazy but I wanted to quickly share two things: training with three small kids and crazy busy life is looking to be a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated. This is why I start training a few weeks before I'm supposed to so that when everything collides on a long run day (as happened this Saturday) I can try to make it up the next week. I did get in ten miles Saturday but it was 6.5 outside in the morning and then almost 4 on the treadmill Saturday night. That's the only way I could do it, and I'm hoping it was effective enough not to throw training off too bad. If I don't have to do that again I won't though, by the time I got off the treadmill I had a crazy pain in my right calf muscle and my left foot. Hopefully when I run again tonight they won't still hurt. Fingers crossed.

The other thing is I just wanted to share a link to the blog that Jennifer, Callie's grandma, started. Please check it out and let her know you are supporting her, we can see that you are reading our blog, but it can be tough when you get nothing but crickets in return. Callie has been blessed with amazing parents, two sets of wonderful Grandparents, not to mention aunts and uncles and extended family who ALL adore her and want the very best for her. They've all been very involved in her  life since before it began, they have all loved her and supported her before this trial even came to light.  Each of them are trying to find ways to participate in and contribute to Callie's life and, now, in her fight against Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

As a side note, we still can't register until June 1st and so I'm not going to make an announcement about which race exactly we are doing, but the date for the marathon that we are planning to do is set for October 27th. We are excited and picking training plans and gearing up for some serious time on our feet.

Today...

was one of those days where motherhood felt more like a life sentence than a life calling. I was glad it was my day to run (Aarik and I are alternating until after his race on the 25th). The one blessing of time change this week is that I've been able to get outside for all of my mileage  :). It felt great to run in the rain and it felt nice to finally be rid of the stitch in my side from last weekend. Speaking of which, all of their times and places were off. I'm not sure where exactly I placed or how my time and theirs is so different (wish theirs was right) but I ran the race and I finished it and for now, sad as it may be, the time I got was my 5k PR. My last several runs have gone well, the first mile sucks and then it gets progressively better and I get progressively faster with each mile. Sunday is Aarik and my 7 year anniversary so we are celebrating Saturday. We love to do long runs together but never get to anymore so we are excited to do at least ten miles on Saturday and grab a quick lunch. The kids are keeping us super busy and Aarik's schedule at work has changed and, from what we understand will be changing again sometime in the near future. Parker is such a cutie! He is running around the house in his walker and, for right now, screaming "mama" over and over all day long. Konnor is doing great with his math and keeping up his reading. He uses the reading corner on his own a lot. Mckenzie is starting to read some and we are very proud of her. I need to keep our camera handy so I can take pics to put with the few family blog updates I actually do. Right now life is school, kids, running, kids, cleaning, kids, church calling, kids. Hopefully by next family blog update there will be pictures!  

Last Night's Race

So last night was the 5k in Mount Airy. I've been waiting to get official results before I blogged about it, but I'm not sure when that will happen, so for now: I ran it in 26:35 (according to my Garmin) not super fast, but decent. From what I understand I placed first in my age division, which is exciting because that has never happened to me and probably never will again (my info came from a source very close to one of the directors).This only happened because it was a smallish race, but every little victory feels good. I had to leave as soon as I crossed the finish line to get home to Parker and make sure Aarik didn't miss his plans.   No, I didn't pee myself :) I did, however, have to take two quick walk breaks due to the crazy stitch I got in my side. Never had that experience before, and hope to never have it again. It was insanely painful and still hurts today. Not sure exactly what caused it but Runners World suggests this to fix it (for anyone out there who may have this experience in the future). So technically the 5k beat me again. What can ya do? Other than this dreadful pain in my side, the race was really fun. I got to run with a great friend who helped me run through the pain when she could have left me, the decorations on the course were super cute and it was fun to run at night. Callie's grandparents and aunts were there too. Some participating in the race, some taking pictures and some cheering. If I can get my hands on any pics (and don't look crazy in them) I'll post those and if and when official results are posted I'll update again. Please remember to pass on the fundraising page for SMA in honor of Callie. It's been exciting the past few weeks to see some of the advances in research. Just a reminder of how close they are to finding a treatment and how important it is that we continue to fund those doing the research. It would be great if those newly diagnosed with SMA never had to see the worst effects of this disease. My next race is a 10k on April 14th. OK, bedtime for the kids; we have all kinds of new schedules starting tomorrow!

The 5k and an update on our TEAM effort :)

My first race since having Parker is this coming Saturday, it's a 5k. 3.1 miles. The funny thing is that, for some reason, this distance continues to defeat me. No, seriously. It's not that I can't run 3.1 miles, I ran nine this past Sunday and five the Wednesday before that. I can't race it. I have raced two 10k's and two half marathons. I ran 14 miles every Saturday for several months before I got pregnant with Parker. Every 5k I have attempted has been a bust. The last one I attempted was especially bad though. The several that I had done before I wound up walking at some point (??)-frustrating, so the last one I signed up for was to be greatness. I had been running 8, 9, 10, 11 miles every Saturday building up to my first half. My shortest run during the week was four miles and I just knew I was going to kick this 5k to the curb. Well, it didn't happen that way. Aarik and I got to the race early, too early, and walked around for awhile, eventually sitting down to wait at the starting line. A little while before the race I decided I needed to pee and walked down to the port a potty's (ugh just typing the word makes me want to vomit), where we found probably a hundred people, if not more, waiting in line. Being the germ-a-phobe I am, and lacking the patience it would take to stand in a line that long, I decided "Hey, it's only three miles! I'll knock it out real quick then find a place to pee." Right. Let me give you some advice: it might "only be three miles" but you WILL NOT be knocking it out with a full bladder! Of course they started much later than the given start time, at which point I had been holding it for well over an hour. The gun went off and I took off, determined to get a great time and get to a toilet. That first half mile was amazing, it was the fastest I'd ever run, and then.... I peed myself. No, I'm not kidding. For real. In front of like 10,000 people. Who does that?!?! It brought me back to preschool days. Luckily it was very close to the one set of porta potty's on the course and I ducked into one and called my sister to pick me up on the closest street she could meet me at (moral of the story: ALWAYS run with your phone). Her, her boyfriend (now husband), and best friend left the finishing area, had a cop stop traffic (AND the race) because they had a "family emergency" and picked me up somewhere downtown with wet shorts and dropped me off where we had parked to wait on my husband. Talk about humiliation. I'm sharing this because if I fail at a much longer distance it won't be nearly as humiliating as telling everyone that cares to read about it this failure, at this mileage. Also to make you laugh because it's pretty funny. I'm hoping this Saturday I will be able to run the whole time and not pee myself. I don't even care what my time is.Well, not that much anyway...

Now that I have your attention, I wanted to give you a little update on the fundraising effort! Callie's Grandma, Jennifer, and Uncle David are also going to be training for the marathon that I'm doing. We are excited to be doing the fundraising as a small team effort this year in hopes to make it bigger by next year. It has been wonderful to see the outpouring of love through donations so far and we are really hoping to meet exceed our goal by the day of the marathon. Remember you can click on the "Donate" link on the side of my blog or just click here.  You can also keep up with the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation and all that they are doing to fight SMA. My little mileage ticker girl is on her way and I'll try to keep her up to date too. I'll let you know how Saturday goes when I get a chance. Hopefully it will be an uneventful night. ;)  Any runners out there feel free to share any of your "funny" running stories too!