Struggle bus

I know I wrote about it in my last post, but dang it, still having issues with my new shoes.  I am having significant pain in my calves and Achilles at the start of the week running in them and then as the week goes by it gets a little better each run.  I hate to give up on a 160 dollar pair of shoes, but I am not sure what else to do.  I am also not sure what shoe to try next. I  feel like I have tried all of them.  My favorites continue to be my Altras, but I just couldn't handle the 0 drop and the pains that they caused.  I am such a weirdo when it comes to shoes!!!!!  I need something with a big wide toe box, neutral, and a 5-10 mm drop.  Sigh.  Any suggestions?

It's been a long week of school ending (FINALLY) and baseball + racing stuff.  Andrew had his state diorama presentation and end of school.  I picked him up on Wednesday thinking he would be super duper excited to have his summer begin and instead he was absolutely beside himself with tears that he wouldn't be seeing his teacher again.  Apparently he wasn't the only one in the class to be distraught, but I seriously didn't know what to do with him as he sobbed hysterically on our drive home.  Just the week before he was all about I HATE SCHOOL, so to see that shift was a little weird and kind of funny.  I just hugged him and told him that he would see her in the hallway and that even though she was to be married and change her last name, she still would be the same person.   

This shot came up on my memories.  11 years ago this week I ran my first 5K.  I was SUPER nervous before this race and had on cotton upon cotton upon cotton.  The shoes I was wearing I had bought because they were cute and the yoga pants because they were comfortable.  The race went through the campgrounds at Tuttle creek and I still remember the smell of bacon and campfires as people were waking up and cheering us on.  That was the day that I had a lady tell me "real runners run a 5K in less than 30 minutes".  Challenge accepted and then some lady!

I did get 4 short runs in this week.  I am still not getting up early, meaning my runs are usually hot leading to shorter mileage.  I am still trying to acclimate Boom and I.  I was going to do a long run, but ran out of time and had to cut it short in order to get to my massage on Saturday.  Again, since I am not training for anything yet, not too terribly worried about it.  We had a TON of rain last week and the newly planted corn was underwater in some spots.  

Was having some pretty significant knee pain on my right knee.  From experience I know that pain in the knee is usually but not always pain somewhere else.  I had been stretching and trying to figure out what was going on, but not getting anywhere.  I had just gone to every other week for my chiro, so had to suffer a bit before I got in with Dr. Kelli.  With the help of her adjustment and fascia blasting and then Melissa my massage therapists cupping and deep tissue massage, I felt 1000 times better.  I just look like a giant octopus grabbed me with his tentacles.  Plus, she did one big one on my neck which looks like a giant hickey, but my tight neck and shoulders feel so much better now.  

I wasn't sure how this summer would go with Andrew being old enough to want to stay by himself at the house some.  We have a one week STEM camp planned and several 1 and 2 day sports camps planned, but that is about it.  I may have to take off some afternoons to take him to the pool as I am not comfortable with him walking by himself and or swimming by himself yet.  It could be worse I guess :)

We already had an impromptu meeting up at the coffee shop for Uno and mom time, so hoping to do more stuff like this.  

We also spent Sunday in Topeka.  No races meant we could go play BINGO!  We are calling it Bingo with Bitches and inviting any and all track moms to come play on off weekends.  Andrew won a card on any 12 numbers and picked out a jump rope, why I have no clue when they had fuzzy corgi socks as a prize.  After Bingo we headed to the track to help with the rest of the new wall set up since we had not had time to go over at night any this week.  After a little bit of work (most of the work was done before we got there) we had some beers with friends and then headed over to eat dinner together.  We are all planning a trip to a track this summer, maybe Minnesota so we can do more than just race.  

Have a great week y'all!  I am NOT looking forward to morning runs, but with 4 baseball games this week and lots of rain in the forecast as of typing this, I may not have a choice.   

3 Runs Then Fun

It was a 3 run week with short runs but I will take it. I am having a heck of a time getting my new Saucony Triumphs broken in. I am really not sure why.  They are the same make and model of my old Triumphs, so not sure what gives.  I am having horrible heel pain on one foot and back and IT band issues on the other.  Makes running not so much fun but the more I run in them the better it gets.  I guess I just need to suffer through a little bit longer?

Supposedly part of my running route is going to open up, but then a major part to get to the gravel is going to close.  I am so ready for all of this road work to be done and there to be 0 traffic again on the gravel.  I will have to take a route through neighborhoods and that means lose dogs.  Sigh.  Oh well, it shouldn't be for too long I hope.  It will also effect my driving path into town and to our house meaning we will have to once again go out on the main highway which I hate.  There have been SO many wrecks lately on Highway 24 that it makes me super nervous to even drive on it in Wamego.  

The week started out super hot again with highs in the 90s, but no heat indexes in the 100s.  Whew.  Boom was not allowed on one of my runs due to heat, but he got to come on the others where it was a tiny bit cooler.  We really need to start getting up but the dang humidity is so high at 4 and 5 am that it's worse than the heat for both boom and I.  

Stella also got to come with on one run after we had a significant cool down.  She had her monthly chiro appointment and was very ouchy from not running, so I have to get her back in somehow for short runs.  I feel ya girl, right now I am doing super low mileage and I feel like I am falling the F apart.  

I made a couple of Tik Toks.  Don't judge me LOL!  It was fun. I follow a lot of aussie owners and they do these all of the time so why not. In fact the hashtag I created #runyouraussoff has quite the following on TT!

The weekend was taken up with a 2 race.  It was so refreshing to have fun, eat and relax with friends and have a great race experience.  We were missing a couple of families that usually race due to national races coming up which made for smaller races but still we had 7 or 8 kids in every class and new rookies starting.  The ginger racer started off a little slow but managed a 4th place finish in Sr Honda and a 5th place finish in Sr Animal with some smoking times and some great confidence.  We boarded the boy dogs and brought Stella with us and she was amazing all weekend.

Have a great week y'all!

Summer time?

Kansas conveniently forgot spring again this year.  We launched straight from winter to summer in one week.  Highs in the upper 90s with heat indexes of over 100 dominated the week and I was not heat acclimated at all.  I was also not ready to start getting up at 4 am to try and beat some of the heat and the dreaded sun that I so love in the winter.  I did set my alarm on numerous days hoping to get up to cool temps and woke up to 80 degrees with humidity almost at 100 percent.  That's a big nope.  With nothing specific to train for till mid June when I will start preparing for my half marathon in September, I have no reason to subject myself to this mess.  Instead I tried heat acclimation by staying outside and doing other things in the heat.  I mowed and worked in the yard one night.  I groomed dogs and cleaned up our deck for the upcoming summer months on another.  I sat outside at baseball practice and then a game and talked with parents.  

We did have a jam packed week.  Andrew had his class field trip to the 4-H camp in Junction City.  He spent much of the day sitting on the sidelines working on a tooth that was lose. Sigh.  I loved the team building exercises that his class went through, minus little red.  

It was incredibly hot but his class ended their rotations doing a stream study, in which his entire class got in to the stream to catch a variety of bugs, fish, and frogs.  I am sure some parents were a bit surprised to get muddy wet kids home with drenched shoes, but if they could have seen the joy on these kid's faces, they would realize it was worth it.  

Tuesday was a field day type day.  All of the fourth grade classes headed down to city park to compete at different games.  This was one of my favorites, team tic tac toe with bean bags.  Again, it was blazing hot, so any stations with water games were greatly appreciated by the kids.  

The rest of the week was a blur of heat and practices.  I coached track club twice in the heat, Tony coached baseball twice, and we sweltered at the shop with no AC.  

Stella got the all clear for her stitches to come out, but I found out they were dissolvable (i thought that was what he told me pre surgery), so now we just wait for them to fall out.  

I did get a run in on Saturday morning.  It was  little cooler, however the humidity was still pretty high.  We took it easy, used our walk breaks as always, and took several water breaks.  I let Boom off of the leash most of the run so if he needed to set his pace or stop he could.  I have brushed his undercoat out and he is ready for summer. I just need a new pair of clippers for belly shaves.  

We decided to have a Wamego day post running.  We visited my favorite coffee shop The Brew for a dirty chai, we walked around downtown thrift and antique shops, had a couple of beers and sandwiches at Barleycorns, and finished the night with wine and live music at the winery.  

Sunday was all about storms and bingo.  I had mentioned to one of my track moms that Bingo at Happy Bassett was so much fun on Sunday, and she messaged me Sunday morning and said she would meet me there later.  I actually got a Bingo this time!!!  I picked out suckers for the boys to share as my prize and I got a free beer.

I did get 3 miles in post Bingo.  I told boom if he would pull me, we could go and he did great.  Andrew was worn out from a late night the night before and storms that rolled through around 6:30 in the morning.

Only 2 runs this week, but I did get out and try and heat acclimate, even if it wasn't running per se.  This week should be better temperature wise, however we do have a 2 day race weekend, so maybe no long run.  Life is busy and that is the very reason I didn't want to train for a fall race, at least not seriously.  Have a great week y'all!

A return to running

FINALLY!  A week with some running!  Although I think boating might be a better sport with all of the rain we have had lately.  I am kind of getting sick of this constant gloom.  Here is how it all played out.

Finally got a haircut.  Why is it every time they cut his hair short he looks so dang grown up?

The day before her barkday, Stella got the surgery to remove the angry gland from her upper eye lid.  When I drove up to the clinic to pick her up she was already barking her head off.  I had brought one of those cloth cones to put on her and as soon as we got it on, she FREAKED OUT!  The vet thought maybe it was because she couldn't see us anymore.  We quickly got her out of the cone and back into a short plastic cone.  In the process she ripped open one of her toe nails and it was bleeding everywhere.  We got that stopped bleeding and got her home where I quickly gave her some CBD to try and get her to chill.  She ate dinner in small increments, peed several times, and overall had a good night. Not sure how 10-14 days in a cone is going to go, but we are here and we are ready.  

And then we celebrated her 11th barkday the next day.  I am not ready to see her age, but it's here and I am struggling.  She has recently started having what we think are loss of sight issues and that scares the hell out of me as we can't fix that.  She doesn't bark at me but she looks at me like she doesn't recognize me.  Like hey, i know your smell but I can't see your face.  I have had several dogs loose their hearing, but never their eye sight, so this is new one for me.  

I ran three times this week, a 3, a 4.7 because my running route is all screwed up, and a 6.  I had planned on getting up early for mother's day to run but that just didn't happen and that is okay.  Sometimes you just need extra sleep and it's almost time for me to start getting up at 4 am again to go run, so I will take any extra sleep.  I had encounters with skunks twice on my route which means I think they have a den right next to the road.  Sigh.  I was unable to pass both times since they were so close and I didn't want to tempt fate, plus they were out in daylight which kind of scares me since they are usually nocturnal.  I saw two different skunks on my runs, so maybe the mom and dad?  One was predominantly white and the other was more black with a little bit of white.

  

We started Mother's day off early with a trip to Manhattan Running Company for new shoes and socks and goodrs and a trip to the Wagyu beef store to pick up steaks.  They had sliders as samples  and Andrew LOVED them and ate all three samples.  Hubby had also picked up a cake from Bourbon and Baker.

It was very good other than the fact that it was full of raspberry seeds, which made it very oddly crunchy.  The steaks were melt in your mouth amazing.  If you haven't had wagyu yet, you need to try it!

Sunday was all about celebrating with a group of amazing women who are in my life right now for a reason and that reason is to lift me up. I made some posts on a few of their walls about what they mean to me and then met them in Topeka at The Happy Bassett barrel house for brunch, beers, and bingo. I had never played bingo before, so that was a whole new experience for me!

One of the many amazing beers I had that day.  

Stella wanted to get started in bingo immediately.  I told her we had to listen to the rules first!

It really was the perfect mother's day.  We just chilled, had great food and drink, and talked.  Our kids played nicely and left us alone for the most part, and Stella was mostly a little angel.  After the bar we headed over to one of the ladies houses for more beer and steak and nerf gun wars for the kids.  I will take a million of these days with friends over presents :)

Hope you had a great week!  We are heading into humidity and high heat already, pray for this #teamwinter girl!

Recovery Week 2

 Again, not much a noteworthy week and no running, so this is a tiny bit late.  Sentence-ish per picture shall we?

Finally got the track and practiced.  

Why does he look so grown up in this picture?

Won't be much longer till this won't happen because he will be too big!

Vet time to check some things out and schedule a minor surgery.

Finally things are starting to bloom!

Humidity = all the curls!

EF 1 Tornado that went south of town about 2 miles away from the house.  Prayers for Andover as they had major damage.  

Retail therapy to fight the gloom.  What a gloomy cold spring we are having.

Race track fun with his friends!

Not the day we wanted for Andrew.  Got caught up in two wrecks due to kids spinning out in front of him and him having no where to go.  I hope this doesn't completely ruin any ounce of confidence he had gained.  

I did also go to a new to me massage therapist who specializes in athletes and OMG I was in SO much pain, but now I feel like a million bucks.  I had to ask her to stop a few times because I was going to puke if she didn't, but the end result is I am ready to start running again!

Have a great week y'all!