Saturday musings

I have started several blogs this week and then never finished them.  Bad me.  Still super busy at work, although I did have one morning off to take poor baby D to the vet.  I had been dealing with his allergies this spring with essential oils and his antihistamine, and while it was working for a while, the flare up got the best of him and it was time to see a professional.  I HATE having to put him on any steroids, but the decision was made to put him on a super low dose, and try and get that down to the minimum number of days on that super low dose.  We also are investigating some new skin products for dogs to increase his skin barrier to keep allergens out.  The good news is that my vet truly thinks we are only dealing with seasonal allergies, since all symptoms were gone this fall and winter.  I am also going to incorporate some fish oil back into deuce's diet to help from the inside out.  I like having a strategy, even if does include some very low dose steroids.  So far we haven't seen any of the crazy steroid symptoms we usually see, and he does seem a bit happier about his ear now. That is the part i hate the most, the gunky ear.  We all thought the gunky ear was truly a sign of a food allergy, but nope, it seems seasonal as well.  We both do think he for sure had a food component as well, probably an allergy to chicken, but, this time  around, all symptoms point to seasonal.  I just want my baby feeling 100 % again:(

My runs have been pretty good and even keeled lately.  The heat has been pretty bad this week, but we got a reprieve on Tuesday, so i moved my speed work to that day instead of wednesday and did back to back runs.  Wednesday was suppose to be back in the 100s, and while I can do high temps slowly (or hit the mill), I prefer speed work to be done at the prescribed pace.  I had no issues hitting my paces, but it was different doing marathon pace instead of 10 k or even half pace.  I had a one mile warm up followed by 4 miles of alternating 5 minutes at marathon pace (targeting 10-10:20) followed by 5 minutes of recovery, then one mile of cool down.  I LOVE doing speed work during longer runs, because it makes the miles fly by.  I know it is going to be hard not to start out racing at my half pace, because it was hard to stay in that 10-10:20 range just for a few miles.  I am so glad Chicago has pace groups because I am going to need it!

Saturday morning was long run morning.  I love this pic of stella post long run.  Caught her with her tongue out.  This was just a magical perfect long run. I headed out on Military trail, which is pretty hilly, yet shaded.  I left at the same time I left last weekend, even though I got up earlier.  It took me that long to down my cran-raz UCAN.  Still having problems getting it down, and it is taking at least 10 or more minutes of me constantly drinking and trying not to gag to get it down.  I LOVE it though, and love the way it makes my body feel.  I didn't fuel until mile 7 this week, and probably could have gone longer.  I did feel the need to refuel at around mile 12, but made myself hold off and keep going.  Other than having to find a nice tall bit of grass to squat behind, this run was just one that leaves you smiling for hours.  Well, until I walked into the house and found that my chocolate milk, specifically for after work outs had been consumed.  We had an over night visitor and my guess is he assumed he could drink the rest.  We WILL be having a discussion about this as soon as I see him again.  Totally uncool dude, totally uncool.  

To put me in a better mood, we headed to Manhattan post run to get doughnuts and chocolate milk.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone right?  Andrew finally is eating and loving the doughnuts.  He specifically asked for a cookie monster doughnut (the blue berry one) and ate it's eyes off.  We also headed to our used book store to get some books for daddy with his book credit.  Andrew and I made out like a bandit with me getting two running books and him getting four train books.  Daddy ended up with one book and no more credit:)  Got to love it!

it says Love is Love but it kind of looks like Love is Lever LOL!

I wanted to end my blog with a non running item.  Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down a decision to make gay marriage legal.  I am very, very happy for all of my friends in same sex relationships.  They deserve every right that tony and I get in a marriage.  I hope this is the beginning of great things for our country.  It does bother me that we have to  have labels though.  I am hoping some day our labels can just be human or dog or cat versus gay, straight, transgendered.  We are all people and the Lord loves us all just as we are.  Congrats to all of my friends who will be getting married soon or got married yesterday!