Chug-along-chica!

The morning dragged me out for my first run in years.  The weather was SOOOO perfect.  Cool, with a slight breeze.  I remembered how much I used to love running, and how much I miss the awesomeness of the FRB and the wonderful maniacs on it.  I ran and walked intermittently for about 30 min.  Felt good! (Even though I started breathing super hard after like 10 steps.) 

That's right.  That's MILEAGE up there.  Anything over 1 mile is mileage, at least to me. I rounded up to 1.32.  Actually, it was only 1.31.  heh.  Anyway, I'm pretty proud of myself for not walking (although what I DID do was definitely not running, but not wogging...I was chugging, I guess.)

Today was not quite as fun as yesterday because I was SORE.  Super sore.  The kind of sore that takes an extra few seconds to sit down, and with a soundtrack that goes "UHGhhhh!" Plus my neck was all totally messed up.  Just before my run we got some sweet new cabinets for the garage, so that explains the neck.  Ha! What do cabinets have to do with my neck?  No, I was not moving them.  I actually got so excited when they arrived that I sprained my neck out of pure joy.  I was like: YAY!  THEY'RE HERE!!!! And then, "ACK! My neck!"  That's some serious joy right there, people.  I had to jog looking left and slightly up the whole way.

Today was the Phoenix Marathon...that's right, the PHOENIX DANG MARATHON!!!  Innaugural year.  It's perfect: it's flat, it's cool, it's on a Saturday, it starts on a dang mountain and mostly goes down, it's not too freaking big, and it's dang LOCAL!!!!  It's like the running gods are toying with me.  That is all.

Day of rest.  Fasted.  Sunday is a very special day at our house.  I am always explaining it to my boys: we don't shop, we don't go to the park--we mostly just hang around and fight with our brothers.  Kidding kidding (mostly).  Good day to read and obsess over all the awesomeness on Pinterest after being spiritually fed at church.

I purposely ran past my house a little bit just so this would be a little longer than my last run.  I've got to see progress, I am telling you.

I ran with this really hot guy from my neighborhood.  Man, was I checking him out. Nice turn-over, Babe.  Couple running requires adjustment on both sides.  I was a min. per mile faster than on Saturday, which made me breathe nice and hard.  And you should have seen James taking these itty bitty steps, like he was tip-toeing in the attic.  Very noble of him to protect me from the perpetrators lurking in the shadows.  James is a necessity for night running, I've decided.

It was windy but pleasantly cool.  James came again.  The highlight was that we ran really close to the Great Blue Heron that sometimes graces our little lakes.  We made it fly away 3 times, poor thing.  We were close enough to it that I wondered if it could seriously injure me with it's tremendous beak, haha.

Happy Super Tuesday!  This election is dragging.  Let's be done with this already.  This is what I think: primaries (NOT caucuses) 1 week apart for 3 weeks, then SHAZAM!  You have a nominee.  3 major debates (not 87.5), winner-take-all for every state. 

Every night I run a little (teeeeeeny bit) farther, and quite a bit faster.  The first night I was going at "holy crap I can not believe I am actually doing this, lemme try it at a quarter impulse speed."  Tonight was on average 45 seconds per mile faster than last night, which was a full minute per mile faster than the day before it.  So that's good.

Three things I remembered about running tonight:

1.  Even if you feel really crappy right before your run, it doesn't mean you are going to have a crappy run.

2.  Running makes you feel happier.

3.  The inside temp of the house always feels super hot after a run.

4.  It is possible to hold hands while running if you go really slow.

Ok, that was four things.  It must be bonus night.

So, another record for distance, hehe, as well as 50 seconds per mile faster than last night.  Not that I am trying to go faster, but I am remembering how to run, instead of literally dragging my feet through a sorry mile.  Tonight was the first time I felt a little bit of a runner's high, complete with goosebumps.  (Although to be fair, it was rather chilly.  But still.)  I feel good and I'm very happy to be running again.

Check out my new sweet sweet long term goal <-----------over there.  That's right!  I'm going to be one of those marathon running geezers!  The oldest woman to complete a marathon right now was 92, but she walked it (cheater).  So it will take 59 years for me to beat her, but rest assured, she is going down. 

Wow, that sounds so incredibly cruel!!  Who wants to take down a little old lady?  Let's just say the RECORD is going down.  And I've got a lot of time to work on my strategy. *Evil snicker*  Can't wait.  : D

I was thinking that after the age of 70 I shouldn't dress up like a ninja anymore for marathons.  It detracts.  After that I'll go with a house coat and curlers.  I'll be known as the "marathon granny" and people will get T-shirts that either say "I beat the marathon granny" or "The marathon granny kicked my trash."  Hahahahahahaha....I might be tired.  Side note: isn't it interesting that I don't have to be drunk to come up with ideas like that?  Like seriously, if you were me, you wouldn't see the point of alcohol either.

10 Two syllable facts about tonight.

I ran

Was cold

Went slow

Breathed hard

James came

I'm bushed

I blogged

It's late

Good night

I'm done

I would have made a great caveman, er, cave-chica. 

Cave NINJA!!!!

(Boy, that almost makes me want to do an illustration....must...go...to...bed...)

Blogging from New Mexico...the great "Land of Enchantment".  Also the land of mostly scraggly weeds, but awesome sunsets.  I love New Mexico.  I love the people, I love the rich culture.  Remind me to tell you all about the awesomeness of New Mexico someday.

We got in this evening, so it was night running, which is not unusual for me, but it IS unusual for me to run at night without James.  He stayed home to finish his master's thesis. I took our beloved distractions away for spring break with Grandma and Grandpa, who are most dear to me.

My parents live in a rural area and have a small farm, kind of like a petting zoo.  So for safety sake (there are a lot of feral dogs and stuff out here) I decided to run around their fields.  It turns out that it is exactly .25 miles around their field.  Crazy convenient, no?  They have two docile cows out there, who delighted in staring at me and intimidating me while I ran. Cows are not intrinsically scary unless you are really close to them.  They are soooo huge!  They are the brontosaurus of the farming world.  They look like they could accidentally inhale you if you were too close.  Overall, nice run, nice and cool, slight benefit of a little bit of rain to make the breathing feel good, but not enough to be annoying.

I was feeling a little bit uninspired today..  I spent the day walking around a museum with my kiddos and my dad.  It got me all tired and I was feeling kind of like just not running.  SOOOO I got on the blog and started reading some of the entries for some of the from-the-start bloggers.  Paul, Cody, Jon, and DANG Kory Wheatley!  Have you seen his blog?  He's all "yeah, so I broke my elbow, but as long as I didn't move my arm too far, I could still run." !!!!!!!  That's some serious dedication for you, right there.  Seriously, that guy has running in his SOUL.  So of course after reading that I absolutely could not keep from dragging my sorry hiney out the door. This is what I admire most about runners.  People who run tend to be awesome. They have a level of self-mastery that is rare, I think.  That is really what I want.

Speaking of awesomeness, did you know that Mitt Romney runs 3 miles every day? You may not think that is a lot, but please remember that he is 65 years old (seriously!) and fairly (I would say) busy. And please also remember that it has been said the man has absolutely no athletic ability, so it is the excellence of his mind that is getting him out there every day.  President Obama runs too, I think, and he is fairly awesome, too.  Not as a president, of course, but as a public speaker and general public figure.  I wonder who would win in a footrace?  I think Obama is much younger, but I think Mitt is tougher mentally.

Maidenly run in the evening at my parent's house. I am starting to miss James! 

Tonight the kids all had a fun time painting in their bath.  It was so cute.  You take a muffin tin (6), fill up the containers with white shaving cream, put in a couple of drops of food coloring, and stir it up.  Then they get a paintbrush and go to town on the bathtub wall.  I got the idea off of Pinterest, of course.  Everything awesome for kids is on Pinterest.  It's the sum of all awesome motherly knowledge.

Night running in New Mexico in the cow field.  Seriously.  I think I burned a few extra calories jumping over the forensic evidence of a couple of cows that must be preparing for a colonoscopy.  But it was a calm, quiet jog, punctuated only once by a bouquet alla skunk that had me quite alarmed.  I thought, Lybi. this is no time to freak out.  All great runners are attacked by skunks at some point.  Hahaha.  But isn't it true?  Have YOU ever had a skunk incident?

Nice, cool run.  Yummy.  I am starting to feel the enjoyment of running...how it wakes you up and gets you to really breathe for pretty much the only time all day.  I am really savoring the cool because I know full well what is coming in the next few months in Mesa, AZ:  90 degrees. Even at 5 am!  Oh, well....90 degrees is a great temperature for the cultivation of self mastery, no doubt.

I smelled the skunk again tonight, in a different place.  I think I've got a dang skunk stalker!  A skulker! Tomorrow will be our last encounter, Saturday we go home.

James flew in to New Mexico tonight.  Never was a husband greeted more enthusiastically.  My enthusiasm-meter goes higher than most people, I'd wager.

We went for a late night jog, but James' calf was bugging him, so he walked.  I had to slow down a little to be with him, but not that much, 'cause his legs are like twice as long as mine.  I was a little sad to see that I was running so slow that he could keep up walking, but then I thought, well, I'm putting in enough effort to make my nose all runny, so it COUNTS.

The stars were really bright & pretty.

2 weeks since I started running again, and I didn't miss a single day...*muffled cheers*  

We drove home tonight, so it was kind of a long day that went like this: wake up, pack, drive drive drive, break up fight, drive drive, unpack, get kids down, feed assorted small pets, plop down on the couch and watch "Star Trek" with James, and then LATE run.

The first half of our run there was a strong wind from the South, and wouldn't you know it, there are pig farms 10 miles south of us.  But it smelled like they were across the street.  I actually began to wonder if there was as much oxygen in the foul air.  Nasty.

The second half of our run, the wind shifted and the air was crystal clear and cool.  BUT there was a lot of noise, like when there's a big football game and people are all cheering in stereo from many different houses.  Except there was no football.  It was just St. Patrick's Day and there were a bunch of drunk loud people.  And many of them were out of the house, being ridiculous and loud AT US as we passed.  I am so grateful I wasn't alone.  Then I thought, man, I should have been grateful for the pig smell that was driving them indoors.  Then I thought, wow, I actually prefer pig stench to drunk people.  How weird is that?  Then I thought, hmm, if every time someone wanted a drink they reached for pig stench first......eventually they would stop craving alcohol.  Do you guys think about weird stuff like that on your runs? 

I was tired tonight before starting my run. 

I could've been OCD about running a little more to get to 2, but I decided to be OCD about not running past my house instead.  : ) 

I slowed waaaay down the last half mile or so.

Wow, what a boring entry.  Here's a couple little fun facts that are interesting but also kind of disturbing (sorry, I've been reading CNN):

1.  Yesterday my 2 year old pulled off the tail of my leopard gecko that I LOVE and I was so upset about it (she's not even allowed in that room) that I couldn't sleep last night.  : (  Poor Vixo!

2.  I have a dentist appointment today and I am seriously considering going in my pajamas just because I'm tired.  I figure at least the dentist is getting paid...

Yummy evening run with James...please notice the mileSSSS I ran...new distance record this training cycle (hehe).  I felt much better than last night.  My left hip was niggling just a little when I first started, but it went away relatively quickly.  Felt that delicious runner's high around .75 and then again at the end.  It's like "I'm ALLLLLIIIIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEE!" and fully awake.  Nice.

Odd thought, I have noticed something kind of strange since I started running again: I seem to need to spit a lot more than I remember doing in the past when I ran.  Weird, huh?  I was thinking that maybe it is because this training cycle I've been almost always going with James, and James and I talk the whole way. And apparently talking a lot combined with pumping those lungs somehow equals a bunch of frothy bubbles in my mouth that I don't want to swallow. Talking a lot while running mimics rabies....a little.  Real, or not real?

I felt really good tonight.  My time was faster than usual without more effort.  I wonder if it is because I had juice for dinner (vegetable juice mixed with protein powder).

Have you ever seen the documentary "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead"?  It's kind of like "Supersize Me," except backwards.  He starts out fat and gets skinny.  It is very motivational.  And darned if it doesn't make you REALLY want to buy a juicer and start juicing.

2 miles with James in the PM.  We were so giddy tonight.  We kept laughing and horsing around.  Actually, James was the one horsing around and I was just laughing.  He teases me about my perception of the many "uphill" portions (I think I can tell if it's uphill, even when most scientific instruments probably are not sensitive enough to detect them.  I'm amazing that way. *snort*).  And I pester him about trying to crush my spirit by tending to run just 2 feet in front of me.  It's like he's an old fashioned hubby who wants his wife to walk behind him and only look at the ground and stuff.  That's why I have to occasionally attack him on our run, to assert myself...you understand, I'm sure.

You know what? I think I am quite measurablely happier since I started running again.  : ))))  But then again, really good things keep happening.  James just finished his master's thesis tonight.  Yea!  Only the verbal defense left, which is nothing by comparison.  PLUS today I got like 900 square feet of free laminate flooring.  It is really light wood, ash, I think...soooo pretty.  I am very excited to use it to replace the carpet in the bedrooms.  It should make it much nicer for my asthmatic children--fewer allergens, you know.  Not to mention how much easier it is to clean up in the middle of the night in case the kids ralph on it.  (No one can ever accuse me of not being practical!)  But I digress...

My thesis statement for this day is that it was AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWESOME!!!  Hope you having a great day too, dear reader.

Wow, dear reader, if only you could smell the citrus trees in bloom in Mesa tonight.  It is a scent so powerful and so warm and sweet; it could end war, inducing everyone to sit, just quietly, and smell the flowers. (2 pts. if you can identify the quote.)  Unfortunately, my son is allergic to orange blossom, and he has breathing issues, so it's a mixed blessing for us. 

This morning was the TR5K for Values, which is a 5K fundraiser for the youth group at our church, where I volunteer (Mormonspeak=YW calling).  I was in charge of timing, and I was a real stress case yesterday, trying to figure out the computer program (racetimer.org) and prepare for any crazy situations, but everything went well.  Actually, it was so inspiring.  I almost cried, like I've been missing running so much all this time. 

Most of the people who ran the 5K were really just trying to support our young women (so sweet--dads running with their kids and so forth.)  Kids  were free. We did draw one elite couple, though, which totally made my day.  It was the lady's first race after having a baby and she pulled out a 19:22, which was good enough for 1st overall.  Now, if you had asked me yesterday what would make the race 3 thousand times more wonderful for me to watch, I would've said "for a chica to win 1st overall"  so I was super excited.  Her name is Dannika Braun, does anyone know her?  Her husband is super elite, spondered by Adidas and everything.  He didn't officially run, but he ran the course as a tempo run, and, I KID YOU NOT, he did the full 3.1 in 13:XX.  He is doing the Olympic trials (in 5K?).  They were a really nice couple from Flagstaff and all the runners from our church were super inspired to have them there.  Several people said that they want to do it again next year and maybe even take up running, which was very gratifying.  I'm so glad we did this instead of a dessert auction or something yucky like that. Overall, the race went off without a hitch, and it was a great experience to be involved.  I wish I could've run it.

BTW James won his age division with a 23:11 (which is just mostly jogging for him--he had to take it kind of easy because of his calf problem).  He came in 4th overall. 

Camille did this race too, which was GREAT!  Always fun to see her.  She was in Dannika's age group, dabnabitall.

My dear bloggees, this is the run I am most proud of since I starting running again.  Not because it was fast or awesome, no no noooo.  It is because I really really REALLY didn't want to go.  I was super exhausted because...well, it's all my fault.  I woke up earlier than usual to take my oldest son for a 40 min. walk before school (I hope eventually to gradually turn it into about a 2 mile jog). Then I overdid it at the gym this morning, which I am not used to.  Then I cleaned all day like a crazy woman,  because on Mondays the house is always a complete disaster, after, count 'em ONE day of taking it easy on Sunday *fist at the sky*.  Anyway, I was all fatigued so I thought it would be a great idea to eat a whole bag of these "Energy Sunflower Seeds"  (Zips, have you heard of them?) to give me a boost, which they did,  But then they wore off and I was dragging soooooooooo bad by the evening.  But I decided that if I only run when I "feel" like it and have tons of energy, I won't really get what I hope to achieve from running, which is, of course, self mastery.  It's like love, or being nice to people.  If you're only nice to people who are nice to you, then you are only half-way loving.  You have to be able to love (or be kind) even when it is difficult. 

Anyway, once I got out, I actually started feeling better.  The temperature was PERFECT and cool and I loved just hanging out with James and talking about our day.  So it worked.

Side note: for dinner I made Green Crepes, and my boys LOVED them.

• 2 C Milk
• 2 C Freshly groud white wheat flout
• 1 Pinch sea salt
• 8 Eggs
• 1/2 C melted coconut oil, or ghee, or butter
• 2-3 C fresh spinach

Blend it like crazy in the blender until you can't see any spinach pieces.  Fry up with butter. Serve with Fresh Lemon Juice and Powdered Sugar, or Splenda or whatever.

Spinach is so awesome.  Spinach follows the philosophy of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," except with flavor.  Like, if you can't taste good, at least have a really mild flavor that is almost undetectable.  Well, if you were to eat just a mouthful of plain spinach, you would definitely taste it and feel sorta sorry for yourself for having to swallow manatee food.  But you can mix it with ice cream and milk and have a great green milkshake, or in spaghetti sauce, or in any kind of soup etc.  Spinach rocks.

This mornig I woke up early and took my 11 year old for a "walk" before school (2nd time).  He was such a little stinker.  I expected him to be all drowsy and slow, and I'd have to be all encouraging.  But the truth is that he bolted off like a giggling greyhound, like, why on earth would you walk if you could run?  Then I had to lumber after him and I was NOT feeling it.  I was all (in my head)  "Hey, get back here, I'm not supposed to increase my mileage by more than 10% a week!!!!"  Reason was totally lost on him.  : )  Any fears that he will struggle to run with me in the morning have been assauaged. I'm not going to count this as mileage because it wasn't continuous running...more like spurts of joy, really.

Poor James.  This evening we "ran" our 2 miles together and I was pooped.  I was so pooped that I was dragging, literally, something was dragging and making a "swish swish swish" with every step. But I did it.  James gets the points for being supportive of my slog-fest, and for teasing me only minimally.  My mantra for the night: any mile is a good mile!

Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in and forgo the run with Sam.

Well, shoot!  I've suffered a slight setback in the way of a frozen bottle of pop falling out of the freezer and landing on my big toe.  Soooo painful!  I'm pretty sure the neighbors must have thought I was being tortured. I thought for sure the bone was broken into 10 billion bits, but the x-rays show that my bones are stronger than adamantium, apparently.  But there is a slight risk of compantmental syndrome because of all the swelling (it is quite swollen!).  When I am on my feet for too long my toe gets all tingly and kind of numb.  I would like to avoid having my toe sliced open, so I am going to have to keep off my feet for a few days...

But I did do the upside-down bicycle for 25 min.!  Does that count as cross training?!?

Enjoy running, my friends!  I'm not jealous. : (