I Probably Should Make My Blog Public again

Didn't run much last week while I was at my parents.  I hope to get in some sort of groove starting this week.  I STILL have a cold.  It just keeps traveling around.  At least I'm not coughing anymore.

 Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Wore a new pair of shoes today and an old pair of socks (time to do laundry).  Realized at 2.25 miles that my heels were bleeding because the socks weren't high enough.  Ran .25 barefoot then called it a day.

Yesterday we went to buy the boys new shoes.  When I was helping Eli, I saw that he was wearing a pair of my socks.  And they weren't that big on him.  That's kinda scary.  He's not even 5 and I have big feet.

Then later I found the socks in my shower.  He told me that when he was done pooping and was putting his clothes back on (yes, he's that weird kid who takes off all of his clothes to go #2), he accidentally put his foot in the toilet.  Don't know how that happened.

I think I overdid it on Saturday.  Felt some sciatic pain.  Rested a couple days and then took it easy (or easier, since nothing I'm doing is too strenuous anyway.

I'm hoping my problem late last week was because I was running differently to stop my heels from bleeding again (they were really sore and the backs of my shoes are now permanently bloody.  And these were new shoes, sigh). 

I felt a few twinges during this run, but now that my heels aren't bloody, I think my form is normal.  I felt sore when I slept, but feel good now a day later.

Wednesday we had our ultrasound.  I brought the boys along because they wanted to know if they were having a baby brother or sister.  Caleb was intrigued at first, but lost interest when the tech went looking for things like the kidney and the gallbladder.  Eli was interested for about 3 minutes. I hoped that when the tech went searching between the legs, their interest would return.

But all we know right now is that the baby has a beautiful set of feet.  They prevented the tech from being able to see the goods.  Stubborn baby. 

I'm indifferent, but it would have been nice to know.  To compound the hilarity of this, one of the two classes that I'm still teaching was so into this that one of them baked cupcakes (in pink and blue) and another made one pink and one blue bracelet for me to wear into class so they could know.  I was supposed to reach for the right colored cupcake with the hand wearing the bracelet.   I milked it as long as I could to compound their outrage.  They, I think, were more disappointed than I was.

This is my first run in more than a week.  I was fighting walking pneumonia and/or bronchitis.  Now I'm feeling better, though I still have this stupid cough.  I hope whatever I had is gone.

My pace was exceptionally slow, never even breaking 11 minutes per mile.  Just testing the waters.

Didn't mean to blog about how I was sick and then not blog for a week.  I'm doing much better.  Still a little cough, but it's almost gone.

I felt pretty good after this run, but my changing stride is leaving me with a little soreness in my lower back. 

I did not feel like starting this run, and originally told myself I could quit after a mile.  But after a mile I felt good enough to continue.

I can't seem to find my new shoes.  I haven't looked very hard, but I'll have to find them soon. 

I felt pretty good after this run was over.  I'm slowing down a lot, but I'm happy that I'm still putting in a few miles a week.  Now if I could just get rid of this cough...

I found my shoes.  They were in the trunk of the car.  It took me a few days to bring them inside, but I finally wore them.  I felt good through most of this run, but tired at the end.

Whoops.  Accidentally deleted my entry about Charlotte's birth when I moved this entry to the right date.

Short version for posterity's sake:

 Charlotte was born on May 25.  She was 7 lbs. 13 oz.  She's been great so far!

An a.m. run before stopping into work for a meeting (brought Charlotte,

though).  Then it was off to Michigan to spend time with my brothers and

sister and their families.

Whoops.  Just realized I posted my earlier posts on the wrong week.  Another run/walk.  I'm just posting the running part.

I've been run/walking on the treadmill and trying to increase the amount running versus walking.  I would like to run/walk a 5K on Saturday with the boys and Charlotte.

A few weeks before Charlotte was born, I took the boys down for a 5K at school (in honor of a wonderful graduate who was killed along with her mother and father in a plane crash last summer).  I wanted to walk it, and the boys wanted to run it.  Neither one really had a concept of the distance, but I talked to both of them about not going out too fast and stopping to walk if they needed to. 

When it started, Caleb went out at a reasonable speed.  Eli shot out and was in front for about .10 of a mile.  I knew he would flag, but I just kept walking behind, thinking I would catch up eventually.  The next time I saw him (the course looped around our school), he was running with a man, holding his hand.  I wasn't worried about the strange man since this was a small 5K, runners all connected to our school or the family, but I felt bad because I knew Eli was holding him back.

I cut around the course eventually to make sure he knew he didn't have to stay with Eli, and the man turned out to be a second cousin of Chuck's, Chris, that I didn't recognize from a distance.  Apparently, after "the big boys" started passing Eli, he started yelling "Help!  Someone help me!  I want to win!"  Chris stopped to help and explain that he would win if he finished!

Chris walked and ran with him (and then eventually Caleb, who had wandered onto the track looking for me, crying because he was hot and couldn't figure out where I was) the whole rest of the race.  They held hands and talked the entire time. 

It was the sweetest thing to watch. 

Another of the same.  running interspersed with walking.  Trying to increase running and decrease walking.  This time the longest I ran consecutively was 1.25 miles.  I was planning on run/walking a 5K this weekend, but it's going to be around 90 degrees.  No thanks.  I will run/walk one by my parents' house on the 4th.

Still working on my quest to run more.  This time my walking was only .1 mi at a time.  I'm also trying to keep my pace under 10 mm.  Doing well at that, but I've been running on the treadmill, so it's easy to control pace.  Don't know how I'll do once I start running outside, but that won't be for a while.  Too hot and I'm at the mercy of Charlotte.  If I was smart, I would get out of bed when she wakes up at 5, but I'm usually too tired/lazy.  I need to get to bed earlier...

But I will brag about her:  she's been sleeping for a 7 hour stretch (or more) since she was almost 3 weeks old. 

Ran a 5K with my brothers.  Started out knowing that I would be upset if my older brother beat me.  Was initially planning on a run/walk, but I changed my mind part way, thinking that if I couldn't beat him, I would have to run the whole thing.  So I did.

Then it turned out that he was behind me anyway.  He said I was in front of him from the beginning. 

My time was 30:21.  Considering I had abdominal surgery 6 weeks ago, that's all right.  The only bad thing is that now I can't in good conscience continue to run/walk...but 3 miles will be my "long" run for the time being.

After a nice 2 hour nap this afternoon, I ran on the treadmill.  I walked .25 miles after, but am not including that in the mileage.

I got a nice surprise this morning when I checked my checking account this morning.  Chuck took a new position this year (it's going to be an interesting year with all the changes to our lives, but that's another story) and his contract year started July 1.  So he got paid today on his new contract, but also got paid on his old contract.  Yay for money I wasn't anticipating!

Just a bit of news on my job:  I'm going to be the assistant principal this school year (no teaching), but right now we still don't have a principal.  I hope we get one soon so I don't have to do both jobs for any period of time.

2 easy treadmill miles with Charlotte dreaming nearby.  The boys all took a turn too.  Spence and Caleb ran .25 miles and Eli ran .33.  

Running is getting easier and a little faster.  I get bored just going one speed on the treadmill, so I started at 10 mm pace and increased the speed every 2 minutes until I got up to 6.7.  Then I decreased my speed every minute till I was finished.

Just thinking I should probably start running in the morning...

Another treadmill run.  I did change up my strategy and ran in the morning instead of putting it off till late afternoon.

It cooled off here a little, so hopefully I can actually run outside this weekend.  

Another morning run.  Charlotte was watching me from the floor.  I bet she can't wait to figure out how her legs work so she can do that too.

She started to smile for real this morning.  Gotta love that.

Just a quick test run.  My incision started bleeding a bit at the end of last week, so I cooled it for a bit.  But next week we're going on vacation (Michigan) and I want to make sure I'm ready for the flurry of activity...

Treadmill.