Sentence Per Picture

Let's try something different.  How about a sentence per picture (or two) instead of a weekly recap?

Monday:  4 easy miles social distancing with friend and dogs. We stay 6 feet apart, but they like to draft off of each other.

Tuesday:  Two pictures gets two sentences.  Baseball practice first with me and daddy getting to both bat and andrew working on swings and fielding at 3rd and 2nd.  Camping in the side yard second to try and see some meteors that we never saw, but had fun anyway.

Wednesday:  A muddy 5 with stella ella that started out good and ended in a downpour.  

Thursday:  Zoom meeting with his class that included drawing tutorials. 

Friday:  Dog nose to the eyeball = emergency visit to the eye doctor.  All is good, no abrasions, just some irritation to the eye and one very cool pirate patch.  

Saturday:  Social distancing 7.  Our local state park was FULL of people camping and their kids and loose dogs which made our run not as fun :(  To the trails we go when they aren't as muddy at least.

Sunday:  Slept late, got out the door late, heat acclimation run followed by a short bike ride with the family.  

Have a great week!  One more week of taking it easy before my new plan starts and hopefully my next 50 miler.  

Conjunction junction, what's your function?

Our beautiful city park in full bloom

How's your week going in quarantine day number one billion forty two?  MK from Fitness protection program had a great info graphic she sent out via email and I had to share it!

The writing is tiny but I love the thoughts and points that this brings up.  My favorite paragraph for sure is brain freeze! I remember when this all first started several of my friends had color coded charts and time blocks for each activity for their kids.  They are amazing and i really hope they are sticking to these schedules but I am leaning more towards less is more.  I am not sure how you are handling things but we have our ups and downs over here. I am homeschooling my child (7 going on 13) who probably has un-diagnosed ADD and or some executive functioning disorders.  Having me to himself 110% is great for him and his learning needs, however he is still sometimes very taxing for me as I am NOT a trained teacher. Yes, we have slowed down at work, so I have more free time, but dear lord some days I just want to run screaming and or start drinking at 10 am.  And yes, that is totally okay to feel those things and I am letting myself.  I am trying to start up some zoom virtual happy hours for anyone who wants to join to just sit and talk and of course drink, outside of working hours of course LOL!!!!

Running continues to improve. I have good runs and bad runs nevertheless, I had those before this stupid injury.  I really can not slack off on my PT exercises and that is main point that i am trying to keep in my brain.  I have been doing this 100 rep challenge (Check out Phys Ed Kansas City)  where a fellow local trail runner who is a running coach and has her own gym, posts an exercise every day to do. I am loving it because it makes me get up and do something every 30 minutes or so at work to complete the reps for the day.  I am honestly not great about getting up and moving around throughout the day, so this forces me to.  I have several work out classes I also want to do, but honestly have been a little lazy about.  I have done 2 yoga classes, which challenged me intensely and I would like to do some barre classes and or some HIIT classes.  There is SO much variety out there right now of online free or low cost classes!  I do NOT want to miss out and I like helping local gym owners for sure.  

  

We did two runs with our plan of half of a mile of a power walk and 4.5 miles of run/walk. We also headed to the trails for some dirt and hills.  I really didn't know if my hammy would like hitting hills again, but I thought the trails would make for at least a more forgiving surface.  News flash, it did not like the hills however I feel like we are at a point where once a week I need hills or at least trails.   I forgot every year how rocky and rooty Fancy Creek is until I am out there. Here are some pictures for our run.

Lots of water crossings that aren't usually there and not really sure why.  We haven't had a particularly wet spring.  Stella loved it though and got nice and muddy and I didn't have to stop and pour her water in her bowl.  A note here, I only let her drink from water that is moving and clear.  Nothing cloudy or murky for drinking.    

Can't forget all the cool rocks you climb up and over.  I honestly don't know how bikers ride on this?  My watch is always super variable on this trail. I have had as many as 6.7 miles come up and as little as 5.7 miles.  The trail does have many sections that are tree covered so probably the reason why the variation.  Plus it appeared that they had done a work around one section of the trail that probably cut some mileage off.  Since we had been running for 2 hours at that point, I didn't care, my legs were done.  

Stella was very happy to be out on the trail after taking it easy all week.  On Monday at the shop she came up three legged lame chasing boom and then protected that leg for a few days so she stayed on the injured reserve this week while Boom got a some run time.  I wish I could run with both of them but they race and pull on me HARD and my hammy can't handle that pulling strain. 

We also did a family bike ride this week which I am SO excited about.  I took my bike in to get a good check up and a new front tire and Tony bequeathed his BMX bike to Andrew and started riding his older hybrid bike, and now we can go for family rides.  We loaded up to our local state park where I have been doing lots of running since it is mostly flat and road on all of the roads.  We did have to stop and take breaks, but overall Andrew did AMAZING!  Now I just need to get him to ride with me out on the gravel!

my new gypsy runner sweatshirt that is sure fire way to cheer me up.  Bright colors and comfortable?  YES!

Hope you have an amazing week!  I am still trying to figure out how to get 4 days a running back on the schedule without doing some back to backs.  We can try M, W, F but then Saturday would be a back to back or we would have Sunday backing into Monday.  I just want to be smart about all of this and not get to the point where I can't run again.  I had a little pain during my trail run and it wasn't bad, just a reminder that I haven't done hills since this whole thing began.  Unfortunately to train for this upcoming race, I will HAVE to be on technical trail and or hills.  I am just going to ease into it slowly and surely and not go overboard with back to back long runs yet.  See y'all next week!

Chugging along

Another week down and another week in quarantine.  I am still blessed that I get to get out of the house and go to the shop every day, but that might change soon if we have to keep all of the guys at the shop.  So far the commercial projects are full speed ahead, but unfortunately, it only takes one person being irresponsible to stop the whole job site.  Two of our big industrial clients are still shuttered to us which means one of our guys is drawing unemployment nevertheless, we applied for and got the PPP loan this week, so he should be off of unemployment this week YIPEEEE!!!!

corona bunny

Andrew seems fine with the continual education plans, which are pretty easy thus far for me to implement. He has a choice board with multiple options and he gets to chose 2-3 activities a day.  We try and always do 3 activities with math always being one of the options.   He is getting MUCH better at doing work on his own, including math his nemesis, but there are very few distractions at the shop currently.  The above picture is Andrew's Easter bunny suit for this year for one of his art projects.  I love that he labeled the gloves, but not the googles, suit, or gas mask!  The egg of course is a giant corona virus.  I am glad he is finding a lot of humor in everything and not having any issues with depression or anxiety as many of his classmates are struggling.  Andrew is more like his daddy who is a big homebody, meaning I really don't think he minds at all being restricted in where he goes or what he does.  This trait usually bothers me because I am doer, but right now, I am thankful.

hopscotch for all

We had a couple of good days where we could all be outside, which was really good for all of our souls.  Even daddy got in on the PE bingo action one of the days.  Of course Kansas always likes to say "Hold my beer", so we had some freezing cold weather mixed in this week as well.  I had most of my hostas coming up and my one lone tulip had a bloom, so hoping the cold snap won't kill all of my plants that make me so happy spring and summer.  

helping her boy draw his favorite character

I did get three runs in again this week.  I did two runs where we walked half a mile, ran/walked 4 miles and then cooled down with a half a mile walk for a total of 5 miles.  My final run of the week was a "long run" of 6 total miles with the aforementioned strategy used.  We went out super early to avoid most people and avoid the "heat" that really isn't that hot yet, but still hot to us as we build our tolerance.  We tried the trail that gets us from what part of Tuttle creek to the other thinking we were out earlier enough to avoid people, but we were wrong.  We used our buffs as masks just in case.  It's just so funny that this is my new long run now when last year I was easily doing 20 and 22 miles on my weekend long run.  I am very grateful though that I am getting to run again no matter what.  

6 foot distancing

We have decided to stick to our 3 runs a week for a few weeks and increase our mileage on long run day.  Then if we are both tolerating that, we want to get back to 4 runs a week.  I think for this upcoming training cycle, I will have to stick to a 4 day a week running schedule.  I know it isn't ideal for ultra training, but I am hoping to be back to lifting soon to help me be strong enough to be a little behind on mileage.  

Stella and I laying out

Everyone, have a safe and wonderful week!  Hopefully we are all flattening the curve so we can get back out to some sort of normal soon whatever that is.

What day is it again?

Andrew's emoji check in.  I feel ya son!

I am so confused at this point.  I love that meme going around about needing underwear with the day on again because I really do need it!  I've been doing lots of random FB live videos.  Y'all, it was hard enough to go from my lab in a large building of other labs and lots of people to an office in an industrial complex where I see 1-3 people maybe a day. I  am a HUGE extrovert making the move itself painful.  This is as well, but I am doing my part and staying away from the people.  In fact my hubby wants me to start working out of the house and not even coming into the office, but I am afraid that not getting that little bit of outside-ness a day may really drive me over the edge.

graduation to a big boy bike!  Hand brakes, have mercy on us :)

Several people have asked me about our business.  The state deems us essential, but we are not doing service calls unless it is extreme emergency or the homeowners can somehow prove to us they are not sick or they can be out of the home while we work.  We haven't really had that many calls for service anyway, which is good, I haven't had to turn too many people down.  My service guys do NOT feel comfortable going in strange people's homes and we do not feel comfortable sending them from house to house not knowing who is sick and who isn't.  They all have families to go home to and we all have to stay safe.  I know there are other electricians still doing service work and to each his own.  We don't think it is worth the risk to our customers or to our service technicians.  We have applied for the PPP loan to try and keep all of our electricians on our payroll.  We don't want to loose anyone, we want all that want to work to get a paycheck.  Our main industrial client has shuttered it's doors to outside contractors, so we are taking a huge hit not having them to service.  We do have several commercial projects due to start next week, which will take all that want to work. Two of the projects are due to go all spring and summer.  Fingers crossed that the job sites stay free of Corona virus and that we can keep our guys safe with PPE.   The general contractors are going to have strict rules and our guys will do their part to stick to these rules.   These guys are our family and I just want them to be safe, even if we all just have to hunker down at the shop for a few months.

Running was still 3 days a week with our general plan of walk one, run 3 with our 4:1 intervals, and finish with a walk.  I still have pain every now and again but as long as i pay attention to my cadence and take short steps and do ALL of my exercises.  Robin and I are still running together but we stay 6 feet apart at all times and we are doing some video chats in between, so we don't have to be so close to talk.  The Kansas spring wind kind of takes care of talking anyway. I am also trying to do yoga a few days a week since I am only running 3 days a week.  Those classes kick my ASS in such a good way.  I am still hoping to get to a few virtual barre classes and or find a good BOSU class since I have a BOSU ball that is just being used for PT right now.  I use to take BOSU classes when I was in grad school and LOVED them.  SO HARD! 

Home schooling is going well.  We got choice boards from the school this week with the requirement being to do 2-3 tasks a day.  The state wants our 2nd graders to be "in" school for no more than 1 hour a day.  We usually do a little more than that, but I always leave it totally up to him as to what he wants to do.  We do math pages every day and then he chooses usually handwriting or sentence practices or reading.  I am also letting him add a creative side to things since he LOVES to create.  He had to write a story the other day and I let him illustrate his story.  He was also suppose to take a picture of his work space and write about it, and since he is just working next to me on the big break table, I let him draw a picture of where he would LIKE to work.

He LOVED this and of course with his sponge bob Lego creation he had to draw a picture of him studying in bikini bottoms.  Honestly I always knew he would do well in a single homeschooling situation and he really is loving it as am I to a point. I am still trying to work so when I am working I need him to be independent and we are still a work in progress. We try to play at least one board game a day that incorporates math and reading to bring it all back to fun. 

Have a happy week y'all!  We got in 15 run/walk miles this week and I am so excited to be sort of back!  I am jealous of those long running but I know soon I will be back at it!  Have a great week and stay safe.