T Minus 15 Days

Just over 2 weeks until my first race. Now it's getting to be crunch time into training my body to do what it needs (I want it) to do. My main goals are being able to go 1 mile before I get water and to do this under 35 minutes. It's hard to judge running on the treadmill where I'm at speedwise. I did a 3k today in 38:17. The last quarter mile was almost a sprint. My training log says I averaged 12:21 a mile. When I did my 4 mile run last Saturday, I averaged 11:24 with no sprinting. My 3 mile time was 34:00, and that last .1 mile did not take 4:17 today, lol, so I think if I keep up this pace, I should be safely under the 35 minute goal I've set for myself.
The water thing is going to be a little harder. I think I do okay when I'm outside going a mile without water. Inside it's another story. It might be because it's way hotter in the house, or it might be because I'm going faster than I am outside, but I can rarely get to half a mile without stopping for water. Today my goal was 1 mile, and I made it through my warm up jog mile (yay!). After that break, I kicked the speed up a touch, and made it through that mile (it was a little harder, though). The 3rd mile kicked me. I willed myself to get to the half mile mark. I'm scheduled for 7 miles this Saturday (ha ha ha). The thought of my running almost 2 hours straight has never, ever, ever crossed my mind. A little disheartening thought is that the men's Olympic marathon winner ran 26 miles in 2 hours 6:32. And they didn't even get a water station until 3 miles in.

Whew!

In the past three weeks, I've:

Been to the beach at Ocean Isle, North Carolina (thanks Dave and family!)

Seen Caleb get his Purple belt

Been the playmate for a superhero

Sent children off to school

Josh really wasn't sad about going to school- his leg hurt after sleeping on the couch

This so didnt look blurry to me when I took it- welcome to my mornings

2/3 of my kids came home that day- hey, it's more than half, right?

School was so fun he wanted to go back the next day

Baking up a storm

Where the Wild Things Are cakes for a boy's 2nd birthday. The above cake was his personal smash cake and would have a cutout of Max and his boat on it.

A baby shower cake

A House of Blues birthday cake

A friend's birthday cake

• I've also been really busy with PTA (this time of year I gather all of the volunteer interest sheets the parents bring in and I put them into a spreadsheet to send out to all of the chairs of activities). Good thing I love data entry!
• I'm also lead Room Mom for Joshua's class and co-Room Mom for Mischa.
• For Cubs I haven't done too much except for a planning meeting. We're Webelos this year, so I've got to get on that! Caleb is on track to finish his Bear in this week.
• Girl Scouts has kept me hopping! Tons of training (at least one a month), getting our troop calendar organized and getting ready for a camping trip next month, stepping up as a co-Service Unit director (I'm the middle man between the troops in our area and our Council), and troop organizer for our school (we gather the interested girls' names (did I mention how much I love data entry?) and try to get troops started from that).

Over the year, these things ought to spread out some and be easy to keep up with, but the start up and organizing all at one time is quite crazy. I think I'll join Liesie for a little nap-

Tradition

I've got quite a few things to blog about, but they all involve downloading pictures from the camera- so it might be this weekend by the time I get around to it.

One thing I don't need pictures for is Mischa's first day of school tradition. In first grade, she fell asleep on the bus ride home and was found after the last drop off. Last year, she fell asleep again (Caleb had gotten sick the first day and went home early) and wasn't found until the bus was to start its middle school drop off run. This year, my friend joked about how many kids would be getting off of the bus. Josh ran off, all smiles. Caleb ran up and gave me a hug. And....no Mischa. One of the girls at the stop ran back on to see if she was asleep. Nope. I came back inside expecting a message from the school saying she had missed the bus. Nope. What I did get was a message from my Brownie co-leader that she had her. An assistant had put the wrong bus sticker on her. Luckily my co-leader is the last stop and her girls know Mischa. The poor girl was in tears for thirty more minutes after she got home. It's almost become funny to us, but Mischa sure wouldn't mind it if this year was the last for this tradition.