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.

Wiped Out

Today was my first 4 mile run, and it looks like I'll really be feeling it tomorrow, if I have right now as any indicator. After my 3 mile I felt pretty good. It's 7:30 and I'm ready for bed.

I figured that if I was bored on my 3 mile run last week, I would die of boredom before I finished today's run if I did it on the treadmill. After Perry got back from his run, I took the car and ran for the first time on the Alpharetta Greenway. It was really beautiful, and I learned that when I'm thirsty, grabbing a blackberry off the trail isn't the best thing to do (my salivary glands HURT with that anticipation of tartness). Even though it was later in the morning (11), the greenway was pretty well shaded and not too hot. It wasn't too crowded and I didn't feel like a complete beginner way out of my comfort zone. I learned that The Mighty Mighty Bosstones will last 2 miles and Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat will last me longer.

I was a little disappointed in my run, in that there was more walking involved than I would have liked in the first 3 miles. My fourth mile I kind of expected a bit of walking, but not so much in the first 3 miles (okay, maybe the amount I walked in the 3rd mile was kind of expected, but I couldn't even go half a mile without walking in the first 2 miles).

That being said, timewise I rocked. I felt like I was going way slower than what I do on the treadmill, so I was really worried at every mile. I was very pleasantly surprised:

Last Week This Week
Mile 1 13:22 11:14
Mile 2 13:22 12:42
Mile 3 13:22 13:04
Mile 4 --- 13:40
Total 40:06 50:40
Avg Pace 13:22 12:40

The pace I ran at today felt more like the 4.0 (15:00 mile) pace on the treadmill, so hopefully I'm gaining cardio and stamina faster than I'm sacrificing my times to an inaccurate treadmill.

I'm more than a little scared for next week's 5 mile run- I'm going to have to do it on Friday, since we're leaving for Myrtle Beach on Saturday, which means the treadmill : ( and the length worries me, too.

Gaining Confidence

Well, Perry interrupted me with a phone call just as I finished my warmup and was about to kick up the speed on the treadmill to tell me that I am officially registered in my first race. I don't know if the motivation I needed or changing it up to run by music by a few favourite artists instead of watching it on TV, but I made it through my second 3 miler intact. I ran for 2 miles nonstop, stopped for some water and to change the album on the MP3 player, then ran for another 1/2 mile, water, and finished the last 1/2 mile, all on a 4.5. Saturday's 3 miler was a mile at 4.0, then up to 4.2 for about a half mile, then fluctuating between 4.2 and 4.5 till the end. Still looking at Saturday's 4 mile run warily, though.

Kidisms

I was in my room last week and Joshua comes up to me to tattle on his siblings. I guess Caleb and Mischa were fighting over something and Josh got in the middle of it to protect his sister, when Caleb kicked him in the "peanuts".

Last night before dinner, Perry asked Liesie to do something. It was very minor- I can't even remember what it was. She sits at the table and announces that her "heart is broken" because Perry and I are mad at her- I hadn't even talked to her during the request, and Perry politely asked her, so I have no idea where the mad part came in, but her pout when she told us was priceless.

A Little Better

I did my 2 miler for the week, and I've been having a goal of going just a little further everytime without stopping. On Thursday, it was 1.25 miles, and Saturday I went 1.35 miles. Today I went 1.5 miles, and I only stopped to grab some water because my mouth was turning into cotton.
I've also noticed that my first .25 mile is my hardest. It seems like my body fights the running really hard. Today it lasted almost a half mile, but at the 1 mile mark I was feeling a lot better than I ever had. When I stopped for water at 1.5 miles, I was still feeling great energy-wise. I kept a 13:16/mile pace. Now watch the 3 miler on Wednesday see me going only half a mile before dying, lol.

What Did I Sign Up For Again?

Yesterday was the first "big" change in my training schedule for my race- I ran 3 miles instead of my usual 2. I was nowhere near as impressive as Perry's 14 miler (I'm bopping along with Aunt Flo and Grandma Bessie, remember). I looked at my schedule for this week- Monday, 2 miles; Wednesday, 3 miles-whoa what happened to the 2 I've been running the past two weeks?; Saturday, 4 miles- WHOA! I scan the weeks ahead 2,3,5; 2,3,6; now they're throwing in extra days where I'm running faster! I guess I've just learned my lesson on reading the fine print, lol.

Прогресс

I've been suffering lately with what I call Russian syndrome with my running. When I was in college, I needed a foreign language to graduate. I had had four years of French in high school and was bored with that, the Spanish labs took hours to get into for your oral tests so that was out of the question, so I decided to go more exotic. My first choice was Greek, since I had a Greek friend in high school and Greek food and I are having a torrid love affair, lol, but I was looking to start in the Spring and first semester Greek was only taught in the Fall. So I decided to go more family heritage and take German. No classes when I could take them. So I decided on Russian. I registered for the class, went to the bookstore to get my books, which were a sealed 3 pack. I was so excited when I got to my dorm that the package was open as soon as I walked into the door. I opened the first book. No English. At all. Hmmm. I opened the the second book. No English. Oh. Crud. I opened the third book. Look- English! But it was describing the rules of grammer, which are extensive in Russian, so it might as well have been in Russian, lol. My eyes filled with tears- I was going to fail this class and fail hard. I couldn't even read the alphabet to sound out the words. After a while, the sobs subsided enough that I could hear a little whisper of common sense- no one taking this class was going to know more than me at that first class. I decided to give it a try, and lo and behold, my little whispering voice knew what it was talking about! I ended up acing the four semesters I took, and would probably have taken further semesters if I had the time.

My running has been like this. I've been reading Perry's Runners magazine, which has been a mistake. I was reading an article about taking a beginner to a half marathon in 10 weeks. For her beginning, easy, runs, they had her running at a pace of 12:00-12:30 miles. I was instantly transported to that dorm room 15 years ago. I've been running a few weeks now three times a week, and I was pushing it to get to go 13:31/mile today, which is the best I've done. Perry says our treadmill is miscalibrated, but not a minute off to be close to comparing. I lost it. I've lost one pound since starting the running in June. I was dying and hopelessly slow. I'm going to be running in the back of the pack at my race with Aunt Bertha and Grandma Bessie, picking up knitting tips.

Then, while I was running, I started thinking (which I normally don't do, because I'm pretty boring inside my head). For fun, I decided to see if I could speed walk at 4.5 (14:30/mile). And I could! I didn't want to keep it up for a sustained period of time, but it made me think back to when I started walking. I warmed up at a 3.0 and booked it at a 3.5. I could get up to a 3.7, but a 4.0 was always at a jog. Now I'm warming up at 3.5, sometimes at 4.0 (at a walk), and a 4.5 is a jog. So while I'm not 100% convinced I'm not going to come out of this race with some new best friends and a new hobby, my voice is telling me there is a little glimmer of English in my pack of books, and even if I don't understand a thing it means, it's still English in a sea of Russian.

Day Camp Wonders

The little nest of birds on the light right above our site

A box turtle laying her eggs

A little cute tree frog

A cool tree trunk seen on our hike

Our Fourth of July

The Fourth of July has historically been fairly memorable for our family. Usually it's because it rains like crazy on us, although the year Mischa got sick minutes before the fireworks started gave us a little variety one year. Roswell has a really great show a few miles down the road from our house. We park some chairs on the grass by the road and watch the show. Anneliese was really excited about fireworks this year. She gave several standing ovations.

Everyone gave it two thumbs up:

Or fingers

Six Flags

While Mom was here, we all headed down to Six Flags. I hadn't been to an amusement park since our honeymoon almost 14 years ago and Perry has only been able to go on the rides the kids have been able to go on for the past two years. We all had a great time. Mom went on the Georgia Scorcher and Mindbender, Caleb was able to go on the Ninja and Cyclone, and Josh loved the Wile E. Coyote Canyon Blaster, but he wasn't too thrilled with the Mindbender. Liesie loved the boat swings and the train. The Hanson Cars were a HUGE hit with the kids. We were there all day and the crowds were really mild. I think there was a longer ride for the Canyon Blaster than for Thunder River. For the Cyclone, Caleb and I had to wait for two cars, but that was only because he wanted to sit in the very front. He and Perry went on the Ninja twice in a row while Mom and I did a couple of kiddie rides with the other three.

Grandma never turns down a hug from a man in tights

Couldn't leave Six Flags without this one (Tweety is my nickname)

Thomas Town was a mixed bag- Liesie liked the playground better than the ride on Thomas, who really couldn't compare with the real train

Caleb (in center of picture) realizes he's going straight for the waterfall

Truckers-in-training

Dad gets in on the action, too

All Aboard! Mom, Mischa, and I were in the car behind

Caleb and Liesie flying

The beloved boat swings

First sighting of the Ninja

We could not get Mischa out of this sprinkler