Unwritten Posts

Since I can't seem to be on here long enough to actually write a post, here are some of my post titles that are swirling around in my brain.

Remembering What's Important
Over or Under (I'm not talking toilet paper here)
Banned from the Treadmill
Hearts at Home 2014
I'm NOT sick
SICK
Mommy Matters
Taper Mode
What's Wrong?
Small Group PT
Mile Intervals

I think my list could go on and on about all the things I want to write about.  Hopefully soon I'll get some of it down.  Spring break is this next week.  Even though it means my 6pack will be around all week it frees us up a lot in terms of scheduling in our day and that translates into more flexibility to do what I want.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Craving the Sun

If you live in the North or Midwest I'm sure many of you feel this way.  I am desperately craving the sun!  A little warmth wouldn't hurt either.  I'm not asking for too much.  Warmth would be anything above 32 degrees.  I'm not hard to please.

We've had a few glimpses here and there.  Only to be dumped on by more ice, snow & cold.  I'm trying to be content with it all.  I truly believe in God being sovereign over all, including the weather.  But we all have our breaking point.  I think mine happened a long time ago.

I've joking mentioned more than once that I'm blaming my less than stellar running on the winter.  And, of course, I want SOMETHING to blame.  I reason and justify every aspect of my running.  Although it really does make sense.  The lack of sun.  The lack of warmth.  The excessive snow, ice & cold temperatures.  I posted a pictures a few weeks ago of a 5 a.m. run that completely sucked.  I remember during the run thinking "THIS IS NOT FUN ANYMORE!"  I wasn't referring to the run itself, I never tire of the run, but the conditions that I've consistently ran in.  Factor in my higher than usual treadmill use & my mind is beginning to entertain the thought of taking a break.  As in not running at all for awhile.  Those that know me, know that is real crazy talk!

Thankfully I always smack myself back to reality.  I remind myself that I'm much tougher than this.  Not that I'm issuing a challenge to the good Lord, but I can beat this.  It might be hard & rough, but I will overcome & it will get better!!  What doesn't kill me makes me stronger, right?  Haha, well, let's hope so!

With spring starting this week I'm extra hopeful!  I've managed a handful of sunny runs already.  Often times that means skipping my early morning run.  Which I really do like to have my run/workout done early and first thing in the morning.  But when it's 4 a.m. and all I can think about is it being 20+ degrees warmer with the SUN shinning later that day, I tend to hop back in bed and head out later.  On occasion that backfires and I don't quite get the run like I wanted, but it's still a run.  In the sun.  With some warmth.  I'll survive.  And the extra sleep is not hurting me.

I'm hopeful to see a rebound in many areas.  My legs feel different being able to run on the actual pavement & not a coat of snow & ice.  My pace is a little quicker.  I'm hoping my skin will improve.  I mean, no offense to you "white" peeps, but God gave me that little extra melanin for a reason....to be tan & darker skinned.  Even my finger nails have turned all thin & brittle....ugh!  While I'm no doctor or scientist, I'm linking it all to my lack of sun.  If not, then I'll just stay in my little bubble of blissful ignorance.  Sometimes just having an answer, or a theory at best, even if a wrong one, is better than nothing and just keeps me going.

What about you....

Are you craving the sun?

Any unusual signs/symptoms that you are thinking is due to this hard winter?

February Rewind

Well, hello there, Bloggy friends!  How nice to see you!!  You know the drill....busy, busy....yada, yada.  If it makes you feel any better I think about you, probably on a daily basis.  I'm just not too great at taking the time to check in.  Before time really gets away from me I better give you a wrap up of February.

Typically February is this little bitty month that nothing very exciting happens.  Winter is wrapping up, signs of spring are on it's way.  This year, at least, the first statement is true.  Nothing exciting happened.  The other part though....not really happening.  Spring?  What is that?  I fear it will NEVER come.  EVER!  Ok, ok....quit being dramatic.  But really, this sure has been a trying winter in terms of running conditions.  Ugh!  We'll save that vent for another post (if I can get on here and actually post it!!).

BIG drumroll please....

Miles Ran:  100

If you were to say:  What?!?!  That's it?!?!  I'd totally agree and be all like, I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!  How crazy lame is that?!?!?!  However, I don't think most normal people would say that.  Just me & my crazy expectations of myself.  Honestly, I do feel super lame right now.  I mean I call myself a runner, right?  Sure doesn't look like it to me!

What can I do though?  I said I'd cut back & I did.  Even more crazy though is that I'm having a ton more aches & pains running less miles than I did when I was pumping out 200+ miles a month.  That almost seems easy in hindsight.  This "only" 100 miles stuff is hard.  Mentally & physically.

Still not sure what to do about it.  I just take it as it is.  Everything has a season...yada yada.  I don't let it get me down too much.  I just carry on with life & see where my next run takes me.  Looking bigger picture though my race season will be upon be faster than butter melting on warm out of the oven bread.  Yikes!!  I'm trying to not let it all stress me, but I will admit it is a teeny widdle bit.  1 month until The Lincoln Presidential half marathon.  Oh, I have no doubt that I'll complete the race, but remember those big racing goals I set for myself?  Yeah, super perfectionist over-achiever, finding my worth in my finishing times, is starting to stress that's it's not even going to come close to happening.  Because based on the here & now, it's not looking pretty at all!

Siiiiigh!  Ok, enough.  Let's try it over:

Miles Ran: 100

WHAT?!?!  WOW!  FREAKING AMAZING!  YOU GO GIRL!!  WOOT!  WOOT!

Ok, yeah....I'm not feeling it either.  I just can't win today, can I?

In other news I continued my streak of running every day.  That takes me up to 642 days of streaking!  Well, I at least did one thing right this month.


How was your February?
Ever feel like no matter what you do it's not enough?

Yummy Yummm

I love to bake & cook.  More cooking than baking, but it's all food so it's all good to me!  Actually what I'm inpatient with is cookies.  Every 10-12 minutes of going to the oven, taking them off the pan, loading up new ones, etc.  I'm far too impatient for that.  I want to spend time prepping then letting it cook for a chunk of time.  But I do love cookies so I usually break down & make them from time to time.  To compromise I will often make them into cookie bars and call it good for the day.

I looooove making anything that has hidden/secret and/or unusual ingredients in it.  I make it, feed it to people, listen to them marvel at how yummy it is, then watch their face when I tell them what's really in it.  Years ago my mom had this recipe book that was from Campbell Soup that included some sort of soup in each of their recipes.  There was a particular recipe that was tomato soup cookies & it was always a hit when my mom made it.  So naturally when I was all grown up my mom passed that recipe down & I make it quite frequently as well.  It's SO YUMMY and moist, it's amazing.  And you can make it in either a chocolate chip or raisin variety.  I'm craving them now, just thinking about them!  Anyway......

Recently I came across a cookie recipe from a local dietitian that included avocado.  Not only that, but it has no flour or sugar (it uses honey to sweeten it) in it so it comes out to a nice healthy cookie recipe.  Based on my recent obsession with avocados I couldn't pass this one up.  I've made it for several people and it's been a hit, especially with my kids!

Guess I forgot to take a picture of the finished product.  They just look like regular cookies, unless you don't mix/mash the avocado well enough, then you see little green chunks in there.  Personally I think the peanut butter is strong enough that you don't taste the avocado.  Not one person guessed that is what was in there and they all raved about how yummy they were.  Anyway, here is the recipe:


Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
2  - ripe avocado, halved, seeded, peeled & mashed
3 - eggs
2 C. peanut butter
1/2 C. honey
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 1/4 C. oatmeal
1 bag chocolate chips

Combine avocado, peanut butter, egg & honey until well mixed.  Mix in oatmeal and baking powder.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Bake at 350 degree for 12-14 minutes (for cookies) or 30 minutes (for cookie bars).

Enjoy!!

Do you have a favorite recipe (of any kind) that has a surprise, unusual, secret ingredient?  Share, please!

Two for Tuesday's Tunes

Per usual when I disappear it's for a good reason that is best & easiest summed up with I've been very busy!  Things at work hit the fan or maybe the fan was always going, but someone switched it to high for several days!  I'm actually getting really good at not whittling my time away.  I'm having a lot of good productive days!  So, sorry if I neglected le blog, but thanks for being here patiently waiting.

Over the weekend I signed up for my two big spring races.  First up will be the Lincoln Presidential Half Marathon.  I love this race & have done it the past 3 years.  It's mostly flat, but has a few hills tucked in there.  One of the things I love, other than it being a well organized & run event, is the historical markers that you run by.  There are numerous ones.  I wouldn't say I'm a history buff, but running where Lincoln once lived is pretty cool to me.  

Typically the finishers medal is the big giant penny (as seen below) along with the Lincoln statues for the age group winners.

Lincoln & Mary Todd are always on hand afterwords for pictures too!

This year they are celebrating 50 years of holding the race so they are changing things up with a different medal:

It was noted that it's the actual size of a dollar bill.  Some people are bummed about not having the big penny.  Since I have 3 already I'm ok with something different.

My other big race is the Illinois Marathon.  This will also be my 4th running of this race.  It's very flat & another well run event.  Even though I am not an Illini fan I love finishing on the field.  Actually I'm signed up for the full I-Challenge where I run the 5k on Friday night then the full marathon on Saturday.

So this means it's time to get busy & start training.  Which is another post for another day.  Since I need to get ready to go into work, I'll leave you with my playlist from today's run & call it a blogging day!

Do Re Mi - Sound of Music Soundtrack

Every Rose Has It's Thorn - Rock of Ages Soundtrack

What Dreams are Made Of - Hillary Duff

Everything I Do, I Do It For You - Bryan Adams

Miss Independent - Kelly Clarkson

My Jesus I Love Thee - Instrumental

Will You Still Love Me - Chicago

No Good Thing - The Wilds

Tomorrow - Annie Soundtrack

Beauty & The Beast - Celine Dion & Peabo Bryson

Olympic Fanfare - Instrumental

Beautiful - Christina Agullaria

Celebration - Kool & the Gang

This Kiss - Faith Hill

Was It a Morning Like This - Sandi Patti

Rejoice in the Lord - Ron Hamilton

GI Joe - TV Tunes

It's Your Love - Faith Hill & Tim McGraw

Try Melon Tri - Race Recap

Ok.  Fine.  I'm here.  On ANOTHER snow day with school cancelled.  Ugggggh!  That's a whole other post, so I'll just stop there & do what I know you're all dying to hear about.  My race recap.

This year was the 20th annual Try Melon Tri.  An indoor triathlon that takes place in my hometown of Muscatine, IA.  As stated in my pre-race post this would be my 14th year competing in this race.

On a scale of 1 to 10 on how well I was trained for this race, I'd say I was at about a 7.  Maybe that's too generous.  So 6ish (?)  Yes, I put some training into it, but I can't say I took it that seriously.  It didn't help that the weeks leading up to the race were the same weeks that I had decided to take a huge step back from my running.  Which should have left plenty of room for biking, swimming, etc.  Unfortunately I tend to be an all or nothing person so since I was leaning toward a lot less it often left me struggling on the nothing end of things.  Of course, nothing doesn't seem to be possible for me.  That means it left me on the very little spectrum of things.  Not to mention that I don't necessarily look forward to or enjoy biking or swimming.  I tolerate it.  Use it when I need to.  But it's so boring and just not my thing.  I haven't found that key to making the magic happen with those 2 sports so it tends to lack in my training.

Swim, 1/2 mile, 18 laps/36 lengths in the pool

I have not enjoyed swimming at all lately.  In theory I do, but once I'm in the pool I quickly lose interest and am just not motivated to do much.  I really should try a waterproof player of some sort, maybe that'll help pass the time.  Overall my training has felt sluggish for a loooong time.  Then part way through my race I struggled with my breathing and flip turns.  Luckily for me (because I"m horrible at keeping track) they provide counters that show you what lap  number you are on.  I have no clue why but when the number started showing 11-13-15, etc.  I was getting all excited thinking that was my lap  number and I was thinking "wow, that went amazingly fast, I must be do much better than I realized."  But then I actually realized that was my length number & that I had to get to 36.  Duuuuuh, it's not like I've raced this over a dozen times before.  Swim time:  16:53  I've had better & I've had worse.  I've never swam less than 16 and I'd like to get below that.  However I've come a looooong way from when I first started swimming 17 years ago.

T1:  (for those not triathletes that's getting from pool to bike, it counts as part of your overall time).  I don't have any tri specific gear.  I'd like to, but it's so expensive and since I don't do more than a few tris a year I just haven't taken the time to invest in anything good.  Technically I only have to dry off and put shoes on.  For comfort and modesty reasons that's not an option for me.  I threw on my new Tough Chik singlet (which I LOVE) and a pair of shorts.  They are not my normal shorts that I wear, but I wore them because they are easier to get on and honestly because it matched my top better than my usual black ones.  YES, that matters to me!!  Prior to actual race day I did a few mock run thrus and I tried getting my skirt on that I wanted to wear (and that matched), but that was a royal pain in the rear!  So I did sacrifice some of my own pleasure & desires & went without a skirt (that very rarely happens!!!!)  Socks was another "issue"  You should all know by now that I'm huge on knee high extremely crazy socks.  It's a huge part of 6packmomma/SheRunsEverywhere & my own special individualism that I chose a long time ago.  With the exception of heat (I have a point where I can't stand to wear them) I have my socks on 99.9% of the time.  Yes, the low cut extremely boring white socks would have been much more efficient on time, but I decided to take the extra 10 (?)-20 (?) seconds it would take to get on my knee highs that looked pretty awesome with my outfit.  You may not think that is much time, but trust me seconds is all is takes to keep you from 1st place.  T1 time: 2:17

Bike:  7 miles on a spin bike set as level 10 resistance (no clue how high the resistance goes up to.  it gives some resistance, but not an extreme amount).

From the get go my biking was an issue.  At first I thought it was my seat adjustment.  When you approach the bike you are responsible for setting the seat & handle bar height to your specifications. I knew going in exactly what that setting would be.  It was recommended, though not forbidden, to not move the seat front or back.  It was in a neutral position and messing with it was at your own risk.  I know that I like my forward, but when I got on I resisted spending that time to change it, but once I got cycling & was having major struggles, my first thought was to adjust the seat.  After a few minutes I hopped off and moved the seat.  Getting back on made a huge difference.  Oh yeah, that felt much better.  Ok, so I'm still shaking off the swim & transition waiting for my legs to kick into gear and start flying.  Except it never happened.  My entire bike portion ended up being a huge struggle.  And I knew it.  Ugggh!  Bike time: 21:22  I've done much faster than that in previous years.  Like several minutes faster.

T2:  This is going from bike to run, which doesn't take long at all.  Getting off the bike, running across the gym & on to the track.  T2 time:  18 seconds

Run: 2 1/2 miles/ 40 laps

Of course, I say every tri that I do, they saved the best for last.  Yes, those initial first few minutes are a doozy on your legs that feel like jello, but once I get going mine flow like they do any normal day run.  I'm horrible at knowing my pace & I easily lose track of what lap I'm on (again, thank goodness for the counters they provide) so I just run fast.  Not all out, but a good fast pace.  I let nature take over & I just go!  At one point a good song came on my iPod and I began to fly!  Normally I try not to give into getting caught up with the music, but for as crappy as I had felt for the first part of the race, things were FINALLY clicking and I just went with it.  The kids even told me that "mom, you were running fast, but all of a sudden you was like "zooooom, zoooooom" & going crazy fast".  I pushed hard & felt good the entire time.  Run time:  17:05.  This shocked me, I'd have to look for sure, but I'm sure this was by far my fastest time running the run portion of this race.  And considering how poor the rest of the race went I'm very pleased with this particular part.

Overall time:  58:55

Before I saw my time sheet & knew my time I knew that I did not have a PR.  I was bummed about this.  I am super competitive (even if only with myself & my previous times) and I know things did not click to beat my previous PR.  I felt a teeny bit better that I didn't go past 1:00:00.  So I do try & find the positive.  After talking with a friend & analyzing things I realized how I wasn't 100% fully trained for my absolute best and also seeing how great of a run I had I walked away feel pretty good about the whole event.

I ended up placing 1st in my age group.  The overall winner was a good friend who completely left everyone in the dust!  She did awesome & I couldn't be happier for her!!  Best of all, I got to spend the day surrounded by a lot of my Muscatine Running Friends.   Later, I was able to watch my son race and he placed 3rd in his age group against some boys/men who were twice his age (his age group was 25 & below).  Considering my son has even way less training than I do and most importantly just didn't give up & wasn't afraid to take this race on made me so proud!  Overall my race day ended up not being about how fast I did/didn't finish, but being surrounded by those that I love, doing something that we all love!!

My boy

I know....I KNOW....you're going to start calling me a liar.  While you're at it you might as well call me a bad mom too!  I sorta, kinda, completely blanked on the fact that today is my son John's 13th birthday!  I mean, I KNOW it's today, February 5.  A mother never forgets the day(s) that she gave birth on.  But in the everyday scheme of things I became focused on everyday things and the day started out like any other.  Since I was on a roll in my last post, I'll just blame it on this blasted winter weather!!  Yeah, let's just blame EVERYTHING on that!!  We did get our snow day as I suspected would happen.  We even received the call last night so the kids stayed up late & slept in late this morning.  This also meant that I was going to have more flexibility than usual with my morning routine.  I could sleep in (if you call 6:30 a.m. sleeping in) & go into the Y later on and not worry about getting kids to school, etc.  Anyway, I'm rambling....

Today is John's birthday!!  I can't ignore that & blog about some race last week.  Although I will share this photo with you that was taken at the end of the Try Melon Tri with  our medals from our age group.

So I'm not a complete liar.  I'm just not going to give you a complete race recap.  Don't let the picture fool you though, John is a ball of energy & always Mr. Funny Guy (gee, I wonder where he gets that.  Anyone that knows my husband knows that answer!!).  But being his punk pre-teen (in this pic he was that) self he loves to NOT smile when I "force" him to take pictures.  Yes, ladies & gentleman I'm a picture obsessive mother who torments subjects her children to capturing their lives via millions of pictures.  I'm just waiting for that golden moment when they realize how wonderful lucky they are that I did that for them.

Anyway, rewinding 13 years ago, John was our first born son.  He was a twin, but we lost that twin.  Not a birth, but prior to that within the first trimester.  It's called a vanishing twin.  Makes no difference that I never birthed that child or got to see him, it's still John's twin.  And I'll never forget the moment when they showed me on the ultrasound the 4 perfectly formed heart chambers.....that was no longer beating.  Having twins was a life long dream of mine and it left me broken hearted, yet I don't doubt God's wisdom in the situation.

Having not grown up with a brother it was extremely important that I have a son.  After 3 wonderful daughters I was ready for a boy too.  Some days (then & now)  I question that because in some ways I struggle with and don't identify with boys.  It's such a strange concept for me, one that I certainly don't understand.  And I have nothing to base this whole raise a son concept on.  So far, I'm sure I've done a pretty good job.  Don't think I've screwed him up too much yet.  It's still been an honor & complete joy to raise a son.

I wasn't planning on this being such a rambly post.  I just knew I wanted to blog about my son.  He's pretty darn special to me & I'm honored to be his mother.  He's a bit of an athlete (gee, wonder where he got that from.  ok, I'm taking credit for that one!), but not only with running, but many sports.  He's absolutely amazing.  And a teenager.  Wait.....what?!?!?   How did I get to have 4 teenagers!?!?!  *gasp* I better save that topic for another post.