Go AWAY Summer!

 Let's go sentence per picture because I am super behind right now in life in general.

First week of pads and helmets.  Still doesn't really like tackling, but will block all day.  Go figure.

Lot of nights spent at the practice field for the next few months and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Only two runs this week and no real long run like I had hoped.  I am SOOOOOO over summer heat and humidity.  Just looking ahead to my race weekend, 90s and high humidity.  Sigh.  When I wake up early and it's 70s with 96 percent humidity, my lack of desire to push myself hits an all time high.

Spent most of the day Saturday working on cars.  We want to end the season on a high note, but finding the time to do so is proving to be difficult.  

Okay this is more than a sentence so forgive me.  I am so dang proud of Andrew.  We have had 0 time to practice or work on cars, so we are really flying by the seat of our pants.  At the last race his brakes went out in his red car and he won a heat race in his white car so a tale of a high and a low.  This week we had multiple heats again and Andrew drew pole in his white car.  Well, he held on as long as he could before 2 very fast kids caught up to him.  I will take a 3rd place in heat one because that means inside row P5 for the feature.  In both cars changes were made that didn't help in the feature, so he ended up next to last in animal and 7 out of 9 in Senior Honda thanks to two mistakes that got him shuffled back after battling for a 3rd place spot early on.  Again, broken record, as long as he is trying and not giving up and wanting to be out there, I will take it.  He even told me at bed time he wanted to focus on racing and not do any other sports.  I love it, but I feel like he needs at least one other sport to help him stay balanced.  Yes, racing season is super long and encompasses two sports seasons, but I do feel he can at least do both racing and football in the fall. In the spring I wouldn't mind focusing on solely racing and forgetting about baseball.  It kills me to write that, but I feel like he could have a future in football in middle school/high school (not so much in baseball).  

Next week is the race and I am woefully unprepared.  I am sure we will be fine as my body has completed many half marathons.  The weather reports don't look great, highs in the 90s so Boom may be a no go.  Sigh. I hate summer.  I wish it would go AWAY!

Firsts

First week of school and first week of football.  Stick a fork in me, I am done and I am not the one doing either of these things!  Andrew is pretty much sleeping and eating like a boss, so I am sure much growing is happening. We are slowly getting into a groove, but I am sure as homework and projects are added in, we are going to have a lot of fun with this year.  I am dreading him leaving his current elementary school and heading to middle school as all of the transitions and new challenges middle school brings.  Time can you please slow down a bit?

First day of 5th grade in Mrs. Townsend's class and last year at West Elementary. 

2nd year of playing tackle football.  Taking snaps with the A team on offense and defense.  He will have to battle for both spots as neither is a given, but I think he is up to the task this year.  

He had a super group of kids in his class this year.  Here is to great friendships and lots of learning!

I also had a first this week.  My first pair of bifocals.  Yeah for aging!  So glad that racing has shown me that my eyes are going bad.  I couldn't score cars at all at the last race because I couldn't see far and my eyes were shot.  Now I shouldn't have any issues, even if my kiddo says I don't look like his mommy anymore (small sob).

I did 3 runs and a bike session this week.  Two runs were post football and a long run of 10 miles on Saturday.  I detect the slightest hint of fall.  On my bike ride, the gentle north breeze felt like heaven.  

We also took a couple of day trips to visit breweries in nearby cities.  We headed down to Council Grove to River Bank Brewery to try out their selection of beers.  While they didn't have the beers listed on their FB page (booo), they still had a very nice Mexican lager that was yummy and salty and a light porter.  We explored the town as well and had to recreate a photo from a 5 K I did when Andrew was a year old.  I can't quite get him on my hip anymore but I tried!

My ultimate dream would be to open a place like this in Wamego.  Sigh.  I girl can hope.  

I didn't get many pictures from our Sunday trip to Lawrence Brewing Company because my phone died.  The Labontes, a racing family met us in Lawrence a little off of the main drag for beer and really good food.  I loved the space, the food, and the selection of beers. I also loved the history of the building and how they were taking an older run down section of the city and revitalizing it.  

We will be back as there are several more breweries to try in Lawrence.  I bought a book in Council Grove with all of the craft beer breweries around and I am making it my mission to hit as many as we can as .  

Have a great week y'all!  I am looking forward to full pads football practice, cooler temps, and getting into the grit of school!

Last free week!

Four runs and one bike ride this week, but it is what it is.  Heat was horrible, we were super busy with back to school stuff and football, and work has been crazy, which are all good things.

Monday night sunset run post football.  Cool and nice, just like I like it.  Come on fall, we are ready!

Quick run Tuesday before work.  

Speed and agility and conditioning was tough, but these two made it through week 1.

Pool with friends equals out by 7 pm.  School and football next week are going to rock his world, all in a good way.  I will be honest, I mostly let him be feral this year because next starts weights and summer football work outs during the day so this is really his last free summer. 

Another pre work run.  Going to have to start getting up much earlier to run and to get little red to school.  I'm not ready, especially since my ability to get to sleep has diminished again and I commonly see midnight or even 1 am before I am sleepy enough to go to sleep.  

Back to school night to take our supplies and meet our teacher was quick but fun.  I really didn't know any of the 5th grade teachers, even though I am a coach at Andrew's school for Girls on the Run.  I have heard such great praise for Andrew's teacher this year and she has even won a bunch of awards for her teaching. I am SUPER excited for this pivotal year before we head over to the middle school and for the mix of kids he has in his class.  

Kind of not ready for football 3 nights a week, home work, reading, early bedtimes and early wake up times.  Summer is so nice for me to relax on the frantic pace of life, even though we own our own business.  Oh well, back to the grind.

We participated in the annual football fundraiser night.  We had good drinks, won several silent auction items, and had amazing food and drinks.  Our Grid Iron club helps with not only the high school and middle school team, but also the Jr red raiders teams.  I kind of got a little carried away on the silent auction stuff thinking we wouldn't get ALL of the things we big on.  Whoops.  We did.  

We also won big on a 4 night stay at a lake house!  I am SUPER excited!  We may not get to take big vacations but heck, even a few nights a way would be worth it.  Now the problem begins of when in the heck we can get away LOL!

Saturday was super productive.  Equipment check out happened, brunch happened with andrew and his buddy, a 16 mile bike ride happened, lawn work happened, dog grooming happened, and house work happened.  Whew.  

I ended the week with a longish run.  I had planned on an early morning and 10 miles but spoiler alert, that did NOT happen.  I kept waking up, looking at the weather (96% humidity), and going back to sleep. I finally drug my butt out of bed at 6:30 am and got on the road at 7:30 am,  which meant we were in the sun and the humidity.  There was a coolish breeze from the east, so I decided to stay on the upland portion of my route, set up an aid station with water and a water bowl for boom, and did lots of out of backs.  We got in 7 miles before I called it good to head the mile back home.  We still have 2 weekends to get a 10 or 11 since we don't really need to taper for the half marathon anyway.  

Have a great week y'all!  A cool front is coming and I AM HERE FOR IT!

Return of the heat (as sung to the 90s tune Return of the Mack)

I feel like a huge broken record.  More 100 plus days, more humidity, and less desire to gut it out and run.  I did get 2 very short and to the point runs done and 2 nice bike rides including a 20 miler!  

We did have a HUGE vote in Kansas on Tuesday.  Somehow a vote that was major got snuck into a primary vote.  Funny how that happens, put something major on a ballot when most people don't vote so maybe your ideals get passed due to low turn out.  Anyway, for ONCE I am super proud of my state for letting the choice stay with the people not in the hands of a bunch of old white out of touch people.  My body, MY CHOICE!

I'm going to be super honest with you right now because well, that is what I do here.  Andrew is in a weird space right now where he is struggling with friendships.  He has several friends who he loves hanging out with that one on one are great but in the presence of other more cooler kids, Andrew is promptly dropped.  I had hoped with him doing more team sports that this behavior might stop since he is a teammate now and not just a random kid, but that hasn't been the case.  I am staying out of it and letting it settle itself for now, but it breaks my heart to hear my kiddo so sad to be dumped.  I am very thankful that the kid in the above picture is such a great friend to him and I hope their friendship gets stronger.  I am also seeing this behavior a lot at the track and that really breaks my heart as he has had in the past, very strong friendships with kids out there.  We got a hotel room specifically after the night race so we could stay and he could play and all he wanted to do was go back to the hotel post races.  I do think the meds he is taking now for his ADHD are mixing things up in his brain and that he is having bigger emotions right now as his body gets use to this new med, so hoping things clear up and settle down before fall sports and fall racing.

Oh night races. You can be amazing or you can be the worst thing for our club.  Most dirt races are at night, so it's kind of fun to get to race under the lights.  We had a full field and a packed grandstand.  Even with the heat everyone kept their cool and we had little to no issues.  I am SO proud of Andrew and his try this weekend!  He got his first heat race victory, passed some cars, and just showed me time and time again he was brave.  I am so excited about the changes we are seeing in him and want to ride that wave to the end of the season!

Have a great week y'all!  I am looking forward to maybe some lower temps at least for a couple of days, even if it means some rain too.