Sunday, September 6, 2020

BACK TO SCHOOL (Yes I am yelling and crying)


 Can you be utterly excited and terrified all at the same time about the same thing?  That is honestly where I am at right now.  I want my kiddo to have some sort of regular routine again, but at the same time I am terrified of an outbreak and what that means to the students and the teachers/staff.  We are watching the numbers spike in Manhattan (college town about 12 miles away) and wondering just how long they will be in school thanks to the college kids acting like well, college kids.  Our school system is starting off all in, so honestly, I think it is just a matter of time before we are at hybrid or all remote.  Sigh.  It really is a no win situation for either the parents or the school system/admins.  I am trying to stay positive, pray a lot for both students and staff/teachers, and run my stress off.


Running is about to get interesting.  My running partner is a teacher and she has to take temps, which means she will have to be at the school super early.  This means morning running during the week may not happen unless it's cool enough for me to take the dogs and go by myself.  I was an afternoon night runner for many years, so this isn't something new to me.  I just over the years I have converted to a morning runner and it's quite convenient, even though I really don't like getting up super early AT ALL to do anything.  We went through a brief cool off, but now are back to hot temps and high humidity.  Tuesday's run was horrible and hot and for whatever reason I brought Stella with me to suffer together.  We had had a good rain the day before, so lots of puddles and water for her to get into, and we stopped a lot to look at bugs and flowers and the soybeans when I felt like we both were getting too hot.    


Wednesday run was a bit warmer, but the humidity was much less.  Decided to do a no pups run and listen to a running podcast about a guy who ran under a 4 minute mile in college and now runs 100 milers.  It was super good (Look up Ben and Barry's Podcast for some good ones) and it kept me motivated to get 5 miles done instead of turning around at the 1.5 or 2 mile mark. 
 

First day of school FINALLY on Thursday after the longest spring break EVER! Again, nervous, excited, scared, terrified, ready (and that was both of us:).  Since we didn't have back to school night like normal, he had to lug in all of his supplies, which meant a kind of stressful morning getting everything labeled and ready to go.  Plus, this year he has a locker!  Who has lockers in 3rd grade????  They don't lock them thank goodness, just use them as a cubby outside of their class, but still.  I am SUPER glad we got there SUPER early and were the second in line for temp checks because the pictures of the drop off lines I saw on FB later were crazy long.  Hopefully we can keep up with getting there early every day and avoid the mess.  Picking him up later in the day was fun, again long lines but I got there early.  He came out with a HUGE smile on his face.  Best part of the day?  The new super cool playground, go figure.


Robin and I headed out for a quick 3 and then grabbed our bikes and got in close to 12 miles on the gravel with our tour guide Jamie.  Even thought it was still warm out, you could feel just a hint of fall in the air and I for one LOVE it.  We did mostly flat gravel with a  few small hills thrown in.  Kansas is SO beautiful this time of year with the sunflowers blooming.  We did decide to start going out a little earlier on Thursdays to not be in the dark so much, although soon it will be a moot point anyway, no matter how early we head out post work. 
 

Robin and I headed out for a longish run.  We are excited to hit some trails once it cools a bit and we don't have to get up at 4 am to head that way.  We actually went out a little later than normal and still caught a beautiful sunrise.  The temps were still manageable, but the humidity was horrible at 93%.  ICK.  It kind of hit me during our run, we should have been doing the Hawk today.  This summer has honestly beat me up and spit me out training wise.  I will more than likely not do any more early fall/late summer ultras unless it's a 50K or less.  I am still pretty sad as I don't know if Stella or I have another 50 miler in us.  I am going to try next April and then I think my desire to train for these big races is done :)  Stay tuned. 


Got up Sunday to hot and blustery so tried to get a quick bike ride in before we went to the track to practice.  I got 12 miles in on the gravel and in the industrial park and only felt like I was pedaling and not going anywhere a few times.  Tony has been working super hard on the cars as we are entering the final stretch of the season.  We now have fun because Andrew is pushing the car, working hard on the correct lines, and making our job easier as he can give feedback on whether the car is better or worse post tweaks.  

Have a great week y'all!  I am loving biking more and running less and think I will hang out at 4 runs a week and at least 2 bike rides.  I love having new biking friends that are always up for bike rides whenever on our abundant Kansas gravel roads.  I am not sure how next week will go with the snow and rain and yucky on the way.  At least I am not in a training cycle so I can just go with the flow!

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