Thanksgiving week 2021

 Highlights from the week:

My brand new shoes that are now grey thanks to the gravel dust

No school all week means no Girls on the Run.  Time for my banged up shin to heal maybe since I won't be on any hard surfaces?  My body is adjusting to my new shoes now and things are getting much better.  Not having heel slipping, but having some pain in my heel area and my outside tendons are a little tight.  Nothing horrible just odd. Shin felt much much better, even after back to back runs on the previous weekend.  Pubic bones were pretty sore post Sunday's run, but quickly seemed to get figured back out because by the next day, no soreness at all.  

There was a cold/stomach bug combo going around Andrew's school that was pretty nasty with high fevers, congestion, and lots of puking.  Andrew seemed to get it on Monday night/early Tuesday morning with an upset stomach, puking, and lots of congestion, and I knew it was a matter of time before the rest of the house got it.  No wrestling Tuesday night, which resulted in him feeling much better Wednesday.  Wednesday night I started with a headache that wouldn't go away no matter what and ended up in me puking my guts up and sitting up all night in pain.  Rockin Robin was hosting Thanksgiving at her house, but she had started throwing up the day before and wasn't getting much better either.  We decided it would be better to stay apart and all get better.  We didn't have a turkey at the house however, Tony was going to fix chicken and dressing and several sides for our gathering, and had ordered two pies from The Friendship house for dessert, so we had plenty of food.  

This was half of it. I wish I was a tenth of the cook my hubby is!

While we missed dining with our friends, we had fun watching the Macy's parade and eating ourselves silly and playing board games.  I have never been a fan of leftovers, but chicken and dressing and giblet gravy for a few days is amazing.  

A little Deuce update.  The ear is healing nicely.  He still doesn't really want to eat dog food, but will readily eat anything other than dog food, go figure.  He is having some loose stool thanks to his not wanting to eat dog food and that is causing some issues with his back end, specifically his butt, but I am shaving and cutting and trying to get his butt hair under control.  Having aussies and their fabulous pants is not for the faint of heart.  He is also drinking lots and lots of water causing lots and lots of peeing.  I hope it's the meds he is on and not a new thing.  He is up running around and looks to be in good spirits, but he still gets confused some times and forgets he can get up and move around and has little panic attacks.  

Got my PDF for the Joy to the Run Program through Another Mother Runner.  Was kind of bummed that the running days did not match up with my current schedule.  It's also only 3 days a week and I am trying to get back to 4, with the schedule having running on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.  Sigh.  I do like the work outs including speed work and yoga, and the fact that I will be forced to do strength training, something I love but just get out of the habit of doing very, very quickly when we have stuff going on at night.  My weights are right next to my desk at work and they look at me mockingly every day, especially the brand new kettle bell I just bought right before I fell off of the weight training wagon.  Hoping this change in routine will help me get back to where I need to be with cross training and strength.  Now if I could just get Santa to slip a Peleton in my stocking.  

I will end this week with some pictures of our little local pumpkin patch that has morphed into a Christmas tree farm/fun place.  I am so glad they came up with this concept and incorporated many of their pumpkin patch fun things into the Christmas experience.  We had spiced wine, smores, peppermint hot chocolate, and lots of fun plus we got our tree so no Charlie brown tree this year!

Have a great week y'all!  Hope your Thanksgiving was a peaceful and enjoyable day!

Birthday Week! 44 trips around the sun

 Highlights from the week:

I've always wanted to do one of the programs that Another Mother Runner puts out, but they never fit into what I was training for at the time. Plus, they usually don't like folks like me that use races as training and not races.  Joy to the Run was free with a donation to one of their charity programs and I had a whole month of just running for fun planned, so why not?  It's a win:win in my book.  You can still sign up today, so go do it!  I think the link is on their FB page and their website.  

I also signed up for my spring 50K for Boom and I.  Rockin Robin is signing up and I think a few more of our friends may do so as well. I am excited!  It will be a flat beautiful rail trail with shade and the wonderful sites of spring in Kansas. What more could a non mountain goat like me ask for?

Wrestling started this week as well.  We grow our kid's club every single year and it's so awesome to see so many new girls joining!  Back to three nights a week practicing but it's so oh so good for my little red, even if we don't go to a bunch of tournaments.    

Also, got my new Saucony triumphs just in time for Girls on the Run to be done LOL!!!!  I ran in the Triumphs for a long time before they "upgraded" their model and that "upgrade" gave me the worst case of plantar fasciitis ever.  My shoe guru swears they are back to their original greatness and I really hope he is right.  First run in them wasn't the best, lots of heal slippage and soreness in places I haven't had soreness in for a while,  but I want to get a few more runs in them before I judge.  

Saw this quote this week.  So true.  Lots of drama in my life and I am the worst at saying yes just to keep the peace.  Here is to using my voice and holding my boundaries in place.  Had a great talk with several amazing women who take up space and use their voices and I am in awe of their peace and power.  

Girls on the Run is winding down and I am so excited to see what these girls are going to accomplish in life.  Their goal was to write how they support others and their list made me cry.  They are all awesome super stars in my book.  They chose for their service project to impact ALL adults in the building including teachers, staff, and support staff by making holiday themed cards and small ornaments.  

Saw the NEW Ghostbusters movie with my 80s loving child.  Yes, I cried at the end, like big old break down ugly cry.  This movie was seriously one of my most favorite movies from my childhood and while I enjoyed the women's remake, this one was super special to me and I just loved it so much.  

We watched it in the regular theater but may go back and see it in the IMAX theater.  It's that good.  

Came home to some carnage on Friday.  Usually Boom goes to the shop with me during the day, but since we are doing some work with some business analysts in three piece suits, I have been leaving him at home.  I try to hop to the house anytime I can to make sure Boom gets out to pee since he goes so many times a day.  I went home and they were fine.  Tony went home 15 minutes later and there was blood everywhere and Deuce was laying on the floor stress panting covered in blood.  Lucky for us and Deuce it was just an ear injury, but he had to be sedated to have it cleaned and checked out.  He really struggled coming out of sedation and had horrible stomach issues.  As of writing this he is still very weak and wobbly on his feet and not eating well.  At 12.5 any big vet procedure is going to hit them hard and I pray this doesn't hit him too hard.

Got some weekend miles with the kiddos.  Still only getting 3-4 short runs in, but that is okay.  Will make a priority to get in 4-5 in December.  Long runs are anywhere from 6-10 miles right now with shorter runs being 4-6.  

Sunday was my birthday.  Here is to 44!!!!  I ran 4.4 miles to celebrate and then the family and I went out and ate some good food and good beers at the Tap House and Manhattan Brewing Company.  I had bought my birthday presents in advance when a friend had a Zyia clothing party (kind of an addict now with their joggers) and the boys had me coffee and pastries for breakfast and stout cake at lunch.  My mom also had gotten me a gift card to Manhattan Running Company at which I spent waayyyy more than the gift card on stuff I really didn't need, but hey, I am helping the local economy so there is that.  One can never have enough running clothes right?

Have a great holiday week y'all!!!!!  Little man has a whole week off from school, but work continues and so does running and life.  Have some turkey for me!

Fall running! YES!

 Hey Y'all!

Still not running super regularly but getting a few runs in a week. I love this pic that Lindsey got of us before our 10K last weekend, even if I look like I just woke up!  Doing a race really motivated me to get out there and train and maybe do a few more races this fall/winter.  Clinton lake is so beautiful this time a year and there are no bugs or snakes right now so BONUS.

This week has seriously made me want to loose my mind on so many levels.  First, we had business analysts at the shop all week. It's kind of hard to give someone 8 hours of my attention when I have 12 hours of work to do.  Many light nights occurred and many early mornings.  I know it will help us in the long run, even if it means paying a chunk of money to the analysts that we do make.  As we continue to grow, we need to focus on working capital, incentives for workers, and building out management and crews.  It's all very exciting but very scary at the same time.

Second, Andrew started puking up his meds again.  We made it three days on the liquid before the puking started.  Sigh. I kind of had a little breakdown and honestly said some not so nice things, but I am so frustrated right now with both my child's body and my child's doctor. I told him this would happen and he didn't listen and I wasted $115 bucks on a liquid that now I can't do anything with.  He prescribed the patch finally and we got two days of it in our system.  So far we haven't seen the effects we had hoped for, but still working on placement and timing.  The patch has to go on 2 hours before school starts which means a 6 am wake up call for me.  Thank goodness I am a runner and use to early mornings and thank goodness he is a super heavy sleeper.  

Third, we completed our practice 5K.  We have two very full teams of girls this year and we had a ton of running buddies show up for the practice which is always exciting.  We ran down to the sports complex bathrooms and back to the school, which meant several massive hills the girls had to tackle.  Most if not all girls were done in under 40 minutes with some taking a little longer, but even the mainly walkers were done in less than a hour.  I am so excited to start on the community project and see what the girls are thinking of accomplishing.

Fourth.  I did get a few runs in with the dogs.  They kind of suffer during GOTR season since I can't really bring them in the school so they can run with me and girls and it's just cumbersome anyway since we run on sidewalks.  They got to run with me on the weekend and fall running is the absolute best.  Still no eagles but keeping my fingers crossed it will be soon!

Lastly, we had our TKQMA banquet last night. I am not going to lie and say this season was amazing for little red because well frankly it wasn't.  This was his last year in the Junior classes and we had hoped it would be a break out year for him.  Lots of early season wrecks and Covid  derailed us very quickly for any hopes of a good points finish.  We had tons of good practices, learned a ton as a team, but dealt with several big wrecks and a whole lot of club drama which lead to me having many, many sleepless nights.  While I have enjoyed my board positions and being useful,  I have really lost respect for many people in our club.  The really bad thing is that I have another year in my term of secretary and while treasurer is being broken off from my duties, I fear this upcoming year won't be much better as we battle over new by laws, voting out members that have been members for years and basically built our track, and various other issues that have been issues for years but suddenly are tantamount for this board and president to deal with.  I am exhausted by it all and very glad to be done with the actual season, but now the real work happens as we build a new schedule for the upcoming year and get a budget put together based on some good firm numbers thanks to our new accounting system.    Say a little prayer for me as I am going to need it.  I use to love race day and love being with my friends, but now honestly I could walk away and never look back and that makes me so very sad.  

Trying to live by this right now and rise above.  

Have a great week y'all!  There was a new race just announced for our area in April and it has a 50K so maybe, just maybe we might have found a spring race to try?

Race Week! Sanders Saunter 10k

Instead of a weekly recap of my non existent running thanks to meetings almost every night this past week, I bring to you a race recap. 

What, another race?  Yes, another race.  I am all about racing to help with accountability even if I am not technically racing.  Racing to me for the last few years has been about having fun, learning, and trying new things, not about a time or a PR.  I love not having to do the work it takes to constantly be chasing a PR.  I love to just run and not worry about the numbers on my watch.  I love not worrying about hitting specific marks in my weekly running. I have enough stress in my life to add time goals.  Anyway, I had decided to sign up for a local trail race and see how things went.  I was on a wait list initially,  but almost a day later, I was moved to the actual list of runners.  Stella and I have run this race before as a 25K in 2018, but I was NOT in 25K on technical trail shape this time so opted for the 10K instead.  

Picture from 2018 from Mile 90 photos

It was super cold the first year we did it.  We were blessed with perfect running temps this year and I will take either since I am #teamwinter here.  I know these trails well, even though they regularly kick my ass. I have run many races out at Clinton Lake and have enjoyed the challenge of each one.

For the 10 K we were to head out up sanders mound, come back down, travel on white to Lake Henry, and then come back on the sort of gentler blue before we head back up Sanders.  It's a little more than a 6.2 but that is okay, trail math is a little different than road math.  Packet pick up was the morning of with three distances heading out, a 50K first, then the 25K, and lastly the 10K.  I should mention this is a charity race that raises funds for a charity that is voted on each year by the trail hawks.  This year the charity was ICT SOS, an organization that is trying to put a stop to human trafficking and also to educate about human trafficking.  I gave an extra donation with my entry fee for some good trail juju.  

Waiting in the car after picking up our goodies

I was really debating on which dog should go.  I felt like Stella could handle it, even if it was only a 10K, but it would probably take me 2 hours to complete.  I also would have loved to get Boom on single track technical trail, but maybe not in a race setting where he is all keyed up.  Towards the end of the week, someone (ehem solid red dogs) got the bag of cat food out of the laundry room and started chowing down.  I am not sure how much was consumed as the bag as almost empty anyway, but by the farts I was smelling it was a group effort between Boom and Stella.  Stella has pretty much an iron gut, so no matter what she eats, not much comes back out ,but Boom was a literally a diarrhea fountain.  Easy decision then, I didn't want to have to bury diarrhea on the trail or carry it.  Stella was very happy to go and to see her friends.  We got our packets easily and headed back to the car to stay warm. It wasn't very cold in Wamego, so I had chosen a long sleeved tech T and my new running vest from Brooks with my mizuno tights.  I didn't bring my hydration vest since my new running vest has such huge pockets and I didn't bring my gloves. I kept telling myself while it was much colder there on the lake, I would warm up quickly (and boy did I ever).  

Love this race T!  It's super soft and it has a cuff at the bottom that gives it some shape

We got the most awesome shirt that is a t shirt material, but it's a hoody and it even has a cuff at the bottom which I dearly love.  The last year I did the race they had long sleeved t shirts that were made of the softest material I have ever felt.  

It wasn't long before we were lining up to start.  Each distance had it's own start time and the numbers were limited for each, making it a nice manageable number of runners on the single track.  I honestly am thinking about doing this race as my fall race next year and attempting the 50K IF I can manage the cut offs.  That would put my longer long runs more into the fall and less into the heat of the summer, which was what I think made me successful at my 50 miler last year.  

Anyway, it wasn't long till the horn went off and we were headed out.  There were several dog runners there this year, which was a treat because it use to be only Cindy and I at most of the races.  Of course Stella was the comic relief barking and pulling and acting like a nut.  

We dropped onto white and then headed up Sanders Mound.  Of course the trail isn't very wide at spots going out and coming back down, so while Stella really doesn't care about other dogs on trail runs, she was intrigued by dogs running right at us and several times I just had to stop and hold her close to let them get by.  After going up and coming back down, we settled on white.  I don't have many pictures on white because if you are looking up, you are going down thanks to the rocks and roots.  

Right away Lindsey and I settled in together. She is much better at running on rocks and roots, so we tucked in behind her and let her lead.  It was perfect temps even if I was a tad bit over dressed. Let's just say that the running vest is very very good and holding in warmth.  We visited one aid station at Lake Henry where we took in some coke and Stella got some clean fresh water in her bowl.  There were several places on the trail that there was running water she could drink and partake in.

Since we were running/talking/power walking, the hours flew by.  Before we knew it, we were going back out to Sander's Mound.  

We tried to pick off a few of the people ahead of us but neither of us was in true "Racing" form so we decided our goal should be to run in under 2 hours.  

Of course Stella had to take another poop break which ate some of our time and made me have to run with a poop bag in my hand.  Silly stella.  

Honestly, she did amazing the whole race.  At times she was ahead pulling, but most of the time she tucked in and stayed behind me.  

Before we knew it we were coming out of the woods and heading towards the finish.  She heard cowbells and cheers and started pulling like crazy.  I found a garbage can to put the poop bag in before I headed to the start finish arch.  Can't have finish line photos with poop in your hand!

Stella has literally grown up in Mile 90s lens.  They were at her first trail race and have documented her races over the years.  While I keep saying this is her last race, she is not ready to stop.  I do feel like long distances are not great for her, but I think shorter distances will work, especially on trail.   She is going to continue to train with me, mostly shorter distances and no long runs of more than 10 miles for sure.  She has perked up now that the temps have dipped and I will let her run at least 3 times a week.  I love this race for so many reasons and will gladly do it again next year.  The later in the fall date avoids football and racing and a 10K is something I can do slightly undertrained.  Will have to think on the 50K more as I don't know if I could avoid the cutoff of first loop under 4.5 hours (a loop is a 25k).  Plus, I am not wanting to do any major training during football/racing so we shall see.  

As always onwards and upwards!  See y'all next week!