Running in the Rockies

Quite a cold morning - 50 degrees at 9:30. Whoosh! Hello, autumn! The first half was a little sluggish. My feet had a hard time getting off the ground. The last half was much better. The only bummer about having to go so short a distance while I'm getting my body used to exercise is that by the time I'm finally warmed up, I'm almost done. Ha!

I ran in the evening today because of other appointments in the morning. I usually try to go around 9:00 when both my babies are asleep and while my husband is working downstairs; but Wednesdays will have to be PM runs since Cami has her therapies starting at 8:00 and getting all 3 girls ready and out the door by 7:30 is impressively busy, even with Mike's help. Mike's been getting up at 4:30 to go cycling lately (poor tired man!) and it's been in the 40's lately at that hour!

I went a little longer than my one mile per Sasha's suggestion. It was good. Still no pain in my hip or knees, so maybe I'm finally starting to warm up to being active again. I'll keep it slow and steady, though, and look forward to my 5K on October 20th. I asked the 2 marathoners in my book club if they wanted to run it with me, but one will have just run the Long Beach marathon the week before, and the other - St. George. Oh well. I think my husband is going to run it with me, if we can get someone to stay with our girls.

Does anyone else hate 1st grade!?!?! My sweet little 6 year old is struggling with her new Special Ed teacher. I'm going to look into other options because I hate seeing her disliking school more and more; and I'm getting phone calls from the teacher saying, "We're having a power struggle over doing math." Come on! This is special ed! Give her a break and try again in half an hour; don't make life miserable! Ugh.

I took the heart rate monitor today to figure out my max heart rate. Right before my steepest hill, I started running and had to convince my legs to keep trudging up the hill. I maxed out at about 194 and my running pace before the hill was 5:24. It's amazing that so many of the bloggers can maintain that pace! At the same time, there is something so liberating about a sprint like that - it's so different from a slow, bumpy jog. I'd love to be able to maintain a sprint for longer than 10 yards. ha, ha!!

That's awesome, Sarah and Sasha, that you homeschool!! What curriculum do you use? My sister-in-law uses Thomas Jefferson Education and has me almost convinced that I need to homeschool my children. I'm not sure that I can homeschool my oldest one with special needs because the school is able to offer so many extra services - therapies and specialists. But yesterday I did schedule her therapies (the ones outside of school) to be in the mornings so she can miss more of 1st grade. I don't know if that's much of a solution, but it gives her more time away from a teacher who doesn't seem to work well with her personality.

One quick question: my hip doesn't hurt while I run or even right after my run. But the first time I sit down for a long time after my run and then stand up, my hip feels AWFUL! I stretch after my run, but are there hip stretches that I should do? or ice it? or ibuprofen? or . . . I don't know! It's aggravating that my hip never seems to totally feel better. Even when I sleep at night, when I lay on my right hip it hurts a little. Any thoughts?