Week 6 of 24: Training for the Run Amok 50 miler

 After a lay off and brief illness, I was curious to see how jumping right back into training would go.  Plus, we are now in the real throes of a Kansas summer including 100% humidity at 4 am and 70 degree days, and I still honestly don't feel acclimated.  The real dog days of summer are upon us and the time that Stella can continue to run with me are dwindling till it cools off in the fall.  That's okay, that means I can hit up Konza more and more trails that have icky things that I don't want to expose her to. Everyone always asks me if I have a hard and fast number of a no go for stella and I really don't.  I don't like when the dew point is above 71 for her.  We have to have water availability for her to get in (I carry water for her) if it is between 66-71 or 71+, and it pretty much needs to be in the cover of darkness or on a super shady route.  I always carry water for her and if she needs to be picked up, I will stop and call my hubby if we are on one of normal running routes around our area for him to come and get her no matter what the time.  I am very aware of her breathing and foot fall at all times, as she likes to run behind me when off leash.  Anyway, enjoy my week back to training!

Monday:  Rest day.  Again, I was thinking big picture and chose to take one more rest day to get in bed early and sleep in before I jumped back on the training wagon.  I had a big PTO meeting scheduled Monday night, so couldn't go lift, and spent lunch and a few hours with my parents mid day in Manhattan getting ready for the 4th.  We are going to have a HUGE party at our house this year and I am getting SUPER excited!  Everyone went to the carnival post work while I was at my meeting and had tons of fun.  The carnival is a block away from our house and goes for 6 nights (lucky us NOT).  I don't mind going but I am not so good at lines + heat.  Glad my family was there to take him and stand in those long slow lines.

Tuesday:  Easy 7.  Robin and I both weren't feeling great, but we got it done.  I may or may not have had two beers at the PTO meeting (yes, we meet at the bar, isn't that cool?).  Start the whining about the humidity and heat even at 5 am.  It won't be long till we will be getting up at 4 am and 3:45 am to get runs done.  I do think my run walk intervals makes it way easier to get through this mess. I don't focus on the mileage, I just focus on getting through those 4 minutes till I get a walk break reward.  I did 6 miles with my BRF robin and then 1 mile with boom boom.

Wednesday:  Easy 7.  Robin wanted me to hold off on my speed work and I honestly I felt like one more day of easy would be a good idea.  Robin had other things to do, so I had to head out by myself.  I honestly just wanted to stay in bed, but we also had a million things to do and I also wanted to try and lift at some point.  It was humid and hot and I felt like I was dying but I got it finished with my walk/run intervals.  Convinced my hubby to go with me over my lunch break to lift.  Did some deadlifts at our little local gym with him watching my form.  Felt good other than the men's bar tearing up my hand.  I hate that thing!!!!

Thursday: 6 miles of speed work.  Happy 4th of July!!!!  We wanted to get up and get it done so we could enjoy the day.  Unfortunately, this is what we woke up to.

We quickly reset our alarms and said we would re convene at 7 am to see how things looked then.  At 7 am things looked worse, so we started trying to figure out what was going to work.  My treadmill was buried behind dog crates and stuff thanks to the upcoming party, and I really didn't want to do 6 on the mill while everyone was still in bed.  

We ended up going around 8:45 am, and we swore if we saw lightning, we would stop.  Well, we saw one bolt and heard one clap of thunder, but according to my app it was more than 25 miles away, so we just headed the other way and got 6 done.  It rained, it stormed, it was humid,  and it was icky but we got it done!

We did not do any speed work till the end really but I don't care, we got in our six.  Afterwards we cleaned up and got ready for the party.  We had several employees and their families over, plus several of my running buddies.  We ate, drank, partied, shot fire works, watched fire works, and shot more fireworks.  It was an amazing night and I can't wait for next year.  

 Best friends eating BBQ and chilling on the deck.

 Red white and blue cake plus home brewed beer.  You can't get more MERICA than that!

 This is Kenny.  He is one of our best service guys and he is SO good with the kids.  He got them tons of candy in the parade and got them soaked when people came by with water balloons or super soakers.

I was pretty excited to see the Chick Fil A cow and for a Chick Fil A coupon, the kids were not.  Don't have candy, you aren't cool LOL!!!

We sat in the donor section again, which was right behind the fireworks.  It was amazing and we loved it.  30 straight minutes of a finale that rivals DC and some of the big cities.  I didn't take many pictures this year because I just wanted to enjoy it, but I did get one of the purple rain feature.  

Prince plus fire works equals amazing!!!!!  We headed back to the house full of joy, smoke, bug bites, and food.  We shot our fire works off till midnight and then slept in the next day till 9 am!!!!

Friday:  Day off and boy did i need it.  I had maybe 4 or 5 beers spaced out from 5 pm till midnight with lots of hydration in between, but I was still wiped.  I never stay up that late or I should say since I started running I don't stay up that late so it hit me hard!  Pre-running I was a horrible insomniac and would be up till 2 and 3 in the morning, so I will take this life over that life any day!

Saturday:  Long run day.  I had 16-18 on my calendar.  It had stormed all night and I had shifted my plans based on what the radar was saying at 3 am during one of the storms.  Radar looked like the storms would be through around 6 am so I slept in till 5 am and prepared to go out around 6 ish.  When I got up it was 70 degrees and 94% humidity.  YUCK!  The dew point was already at 70 which meant stella was only going to get one loop at best with me before the sun would be up and making it even more icky outside.  I had hoped to drive to Lawrence to do a Snake 10 miler preview but opted to stay local since I didn't know if they had gotten the rain we had the past few days.  I finally hit my normal route around 6:10 and got an out and back in before hitting the house to re fuel.  I had a cooler with my tail wind bottles, some stuff I could chew, and more water for Stella just in case I could get her back out.  I also went inside the house to load up on ice for boob ice and for ice in my buff.  I really do need to make or invest in an ice bandanna.  The buff does a good job but I think the the ice bandanna would do better.  Anyway, I had about 10 miles in when I got back to the house.  I needed at least 6-7 more so I headed back out into full sun and high humidity.  

I had my hubby meet me out on my out and back road with fresh ice and he got there right when I was suffering.  The ice didn't last as long but it was such a welcome respite from the heat.  I  ended up with close to 18 miles and a pure amount of hatred for summer running.  I have NO clue how I am going to get through some of these super long runs unless I get up at 3 am to run.  I have done it in the past but I am not looking forward to it.  Can we just fast forward to the fall NOW????

I left her for the last 8ish miles at the house.  When I got home, she would not leave my side.  I had to sit for a bit and cool down on the porch and she kept giving me the stink eye.  I am glad that I left her though, the sun was a bit much.  We have to get more of our runs done in the cover of darkness for sure, which is going to absolutely mean getting back up at 4 am no matter what.  

Sunday: 1 hour 20 minute run.   I was not looking forward to this run at all after the slog through the heat the day before.  The only good thing is that with a shorter run, I just get up and go so can get out earlier.  Robin joined me again and we got it done.  On our way back, a cop pulled up to us and asked if we had seen a suspect they were looking for sigh.  No wonder Stella was on super high alert when we ran through the neighborhood!   I got around 6.4 miles and Robin finished off at 7.  Post running we had track clean up at the race track and came home and chilled.  

Glad to be back in the saddle and no worse for wear.  I have another trail race scheduled for next weekend that I am hoping nothing makes me miss because I want that mug, plus my custom made medal holder is traveling from Oklahoma.  Going to be a weird week though since we had a night race again and I need to get my long run done either Friday on my usual rest day or super duper early Saturday morning before I have to travel and before the race.  Oh well, buckle up, it's going to be a crazy no matter what I do!

Week 5 of 24: Training for Run Amok 50 mile

Started out the week with no hot water or showers thanks to our basement flooding.  Ended the week with family, racing, races, and fun!

Monday:  Rest day!  Another day of sleeping in.  I needed it for sure.  This week is going to be crazy again with baseball, racing, and a night trail race for me.  Plus my parents are coming into town as well as my in laws to celebrate a week of 4th of July in Wamego.  Our town has a HUGE week long celebration culminating in the largest hand fired fireworks show in the country.  It's crazy that every year out town goes from about 4 K people to 60 K!!!!!

Tuesday:  Easy 7.  I broke it up into an easy 6 with Stella and then 1 with boom.  Boom got to experience sprinklers for the first time and loved them.  I need to start inching his mileage up slowly.  He is ready for more than a mile at a time and I just need to figure it out with my current training.  It's not the best time to get him up to speed but we will find a way.

We finished the day with baseball in our very first tournament.  We were the number 15 seed out of 16 playing the number 2 seed.  We had no expectations of winning, just wanted to continue our path of improvements and hits.  We had success on both fronts but they out hit and out fielded us and that is okay.  I wrote a long sappy post on my FB page but the gist of it is that we had a great group of coaches, parents, and kiddos. They tried hard, they had fun, and learned a ton.  We had fun coaching them and are already looking forward to next year.

I love seeing hill repeats on my garmin map.  So cute!

Wednesday:  Hill repeats.  We had 5 miles of hill repeats on our schedule.  Again I did a 1 mile warm up with miles 2 and 3 being full of repeats and mile 3-5 being a cool down.  My running partner has joined me all week and our dogs raced each other on the last repeat which made us finish strong.  May bump it up to 10 next time.  The plan allows for anything hills so it an be repeats or just a super hilly run.  We may experiment with both.

Boom was very worried that I was in bed the majority of the day

Thursday: Let's back up.  Wednesday night I started feeling like I had a stiff neck.  On a whim, I took my temp and it was 99.3.  Then throughout the night it spiked higher and higher.  Finally got up to 102.  I spent most of the day sleeping and sweating.  Fever would spike and come down, spike and come down.  I also had a really bad headache and my stomach was not settled at all.  I finally got some pudding down and some 7 up from when Andrew was sick.  Finally had to take some advil for the headache and that seemed to help bring the fever down to the 99s.  Spent most of the day in bed either sleeping or watching Yellowstone.  Missed my work out obviously.  The goal was to rest and beat this mess.  I don't have time to be in bed.  Of course my hubby was also gone this entire week during most of the day and afternoon at training in Topeka so I had to find rides for my kiddo to camp and rides home for my kiddo and the others I was playing mom taxi for.  Thank god one of my BRFs was a counselor and could help out because honestly I could NOT drive with the fever being so high.

I even missed the boy's end of baseball party at Widgets but all of the moms took pictures and sent them to me to cheer me up.  I just LOVE these boys!!!!!

Friday:  Rest day.  Yeah for rest days!  My fever was still bouncing around so I headed to the dr's office to rule out strep or West Nile.  While West Nile is a virus and is self limiting, I wanted reporting done to indicate it was in our area if it were West Nile.  Dr wasn't concerned with WN so we swabbed for strep and when lab test came back negative, we sent in for type and culture just in case.  He offered antibiotics but I refused.  There is no point in taking antibiotics for viral mess.  I still had some sort of glimmer of hope that I would be magically cured by Saturday and could still run my trail race.  I did ask IF I was fever free could I go to see Andrew's inventor's showcase and he gave me the green light as long as I wasn't coughing (i wasn't) and I wasn't planning on kissing anyone or licking them.  I said I could do that :)  My fever was staying down and was gone by the time of the showcase and I was SO excited to see all of the creations my little dude invented.  The above is his robot that completed many tasks in a robot challenge.

Here is his boat that he made for a competition where they floated boats and completed deep seas tasks.  That's captain fluffy on the helm.

Here is his farm complete with hello kitty weather vane and windmill :)  I love Camp Invention with this being our fourth year of doing it.  I hope he continues to love STEM because I surely did not love it as a kiddo and didn't get near the opportunities he is getting to explore all areas of STEM.  

New stove.  I don't even cook and I am smitten!

Saturday:  Race day.  DNS.   While I woke up fever free, I was super fatigued.  We had a million things to get done prior to my parents and tony's mom getting to KS, and I decided to focus on getting as much of that done as I could and forget the race.  I am so glad I did because with the heat advisory, there was NO way I could have struggled through this tough, but super fun trail race at night.  I have no FOMO because there was just no way my virus riddled body could have coped with it.  I wanted to be well enough to watch Andrew race and be able to get back to training next week.  We worked on all the calamity that has happened in the house this week including replacing our stove that died, defrosting our freezer that died that we hoped we could save, helping our dying hot water heater that is newish, and also get ready for our house to be re-roofed and new skylights to be put in.  Yes, all of this happened in a span of a week half of which I was sick for.  Go figure.  Even being in the AC all day, I was super wiped.  The boys had yet another end of baseball party thrown by one of the moms and while I had planned on staying home and getting to bed, I had to sub in at the last minute.  I was still fever free but I was SO tired.   We made it through and the boys had TONS of fun.  We had over 300 water balloons for the boys to play with and they had a ball.  

Sunday:  Race day!  Another hot one but we got it done!  Two heat races and a main and not a ton of people.  I had high hopes this would be the day that Andrew finally got his first checkered flag.  He and daddy had practiced the night before and the car was in tiptop shape.  Except daddy decided to change a whole bunch of things post practice.  Then all of the problems started.  His car would start going, he kept saying he was in the gas, but nothing was happening.  He ended up second position outside in his first heat race and he managed to just say ahead of everyone and win.  Then his second heat race, he was put at the back since he won the previous race, and he just hung out there.  He claims it was the car, we are still not so sure.  The car was doing odd things, but Tony figured out one of the problems before the feature and fixed it.  Andrew was 4 out of 5 and inside which is not his strong suit.  Again, he let everyone pass and got lapped and refused to try and pass anyone.  The jury is still out, yes we made changes, not sure if that is what made him not be able to pass or if it was mental.  It was SUPER hot and they had the longest race EVER right before his feature in which he had to sit in his car for at least 45 minutes fully dressed and strapped in.  I am not going to over analyze, he is a kid but we have time now at night to go to the race track and practice and practice we shall!  I just wish he could have gotten his first checkered when his grand parents were present.  Oh well!

What a crazy and busted week!!!!  Monday is another rest day and I am intending to take it before hitting my running schedule hard.  Can't make up missed work outs but I needed those rest days to recover from this mess and glad I took them.  I'll be back Night Hawk 2020!!!!

Week 4 of 24: Training for Run Amok 50 miler

Two more weeks of baseball and I am sure when it is over I will miss it dearly!  We have tournaments coming up, but single elimination and we will play the best team in the league so let's just be real, it will be one and done. In other news CUT BACK WEEK #1!!!!  YAAAAASSSSS!!!!

Monday:  Rest day and baseball.  No lifting, just couldn't fit it into my schedule and yes that is a big fat excuse.  I worked at both jobs, plus Andrew started KSU baseball camp.  The above picture is him at check in.  Sometimes I look at him and wonder where in the heck my little boy went!  He didn't even want a hug or kiss post check in, just gave me a head nod and headed in ALL BY HIS SELF!  How did we get from the kindergartner that had to be walked in, to the kiddo that doesn't even say bye mom???   Post baseball daddy picked him up and they hit up the lazy river water feature and had McDonalds.  Then we had baseball that night.

We played a team that had many young players too and it was a super fun game. Our boys got some hits and still got beat, but it wasn't such a painful ass whooping.  Both sides did some great things offensively and defensively.  Andrew knocked down a ball at third and saved the runner from getting an extra base, and had a nice clean catch that he could have attempted to throw to first, but instead he threw to the pitcher.  Oh well, they are learning and that was his first time on third base.  

Tuesday:  4 easy.  I am telling you right now, cut back weeks are the BEST!  It's so nice after having some hard weeks to see only 4 miles on your schedule and NO speed work for the entire week.  Of course we had 90% humidity at 5 am, but details.  We headed out with one of my BRFs and her dog Ebby and talked ghost stories and got it done.

when you can't go swimming because it's storming, just swim in the gym in the rain water that comes under the door

Later post picking up Andrew from camp, we went and got lunch and then headed over to the gym, so I could work on my heavy rep of 8.  I didn't want to do this without a person around watching me and helping me get to that heavy 8.  Coach showed me a new way to grip and position the bar on my back for more comfort during back squats, and we slowly worked up to a set of 8 at 75%.  I could have gone one more set, but I decided to stop where I was and be good with what I got. 

Wednesday:  Easy 3.  I decided to take Boom for the entire run and see how he did.  Yes, this goes against everything I preach, but the majority of his run would be on soft dirt/gravel, and we would be run walking with my hubby on stand by if he needed to be picked up.   It was cool, but the humidity was high, and he immediately wanted to pull and catch up to Ebby.  He has to figure out pacing and not moving so much side to side, but overall he did GREAT!  He got to play in the puddles from the rain storm the day before, and he learned how wonderful walk breaks are.  I was SUPER proud of him and how he adjusted, but he has a lot to learn to be a distance doggy.  Oh well, we have lots of time :)

Baseball was LOADS of fun!  We had a team of similar skill level with lots of young kiddos and we both had our ups and downs.  For a while it was 5-4 with them barely winning, but we had runs and hits so who cares!!!!  The pitching machine has kicked our asses this year and we are finally mastering it!  Andrew even got a little dink of a hit and got a single and advanced on a throwing error.  He had a couple of good stops at 2nd base and even caught a few balls thrown to him!  I am super proud we are ending this season on a high note!

Thursday:  Easy 5.  I couldn't sleep the night before, not for any one reason, just couldn't get my brain to shut off, so when my alarm went off, I surely just wanted to go back to sleep.  Had both of my BRFs waiting on me, so I had to drag my tired and sore butt out there.  One BRF couldn't make it so the other BRF and her dog Ebby and Stella and I got it done.  Wow, the humidity has been high lately, but the cooler temps have made it tolerable.  I was cool, but wet with sweat that wouldn't evaporate.

Later on I headed in to Manhattan to do my dead lift series on some sore and tired legs.  Coach Erin had given me some dead lifts series to work on a while back and I am still working through them.  70% on some deficit dead lifts, 75% of my max on 4 x 4 regular dead lifts.  I finished up with 2 x 10 on Romanian dead lifts at 45% of my max.  I took my time, focused on form, and had great conversation with Coach while we both were lifting.  Then it was back to Wamego for our last batting practice of the season.  We did some batting drills, worked on hitting off of the Ts, and then did a fly ball competition for sno cones.  Of course they all got sno cones because they all got a catch and worked hard. I hate that the season is ending because it has been so much fun working with the boys that come to every practice and every game and hustle and try hard.  They want to learn and Tony has a lot to teach them.  His passion is baseball and I think he has found his niche in coaching, and I love seeing that!

at the ice cream shop.  so nice and it made andrew's day too!

Friday:  Rest day!!!!  I needed a day to do nothing!  I had hoped for some extra sleep, but the dogs had us all up at 6 am due to thunderstorms moving through.  We had a super busy day at the shop and then post work we headed to target.  Why is that place SO magical?  I could seriously walk up and down every single aisle.  Andrew had saved up his money and wanted a Woody doll and was delighted to find that with the money he saved, he could get a woody and a buzz light year.  We can't wait to go see Toy Story 4!!!!!

Saturday:  10 miles.  Woke up to storms at 5 am that didn't look like they would be out of the area till around 9 am, so opted to go back to sleep.  The dogs weren't happy, usually once they are up, they are up, but they were nice and went back to sleep with me.  Got back up at 7.  Looked like the storms would be gone around 8:30 am, so I fueled and got ready to run.  This is the first run that I feel like Stella was back to her normal self.  She wasn't dragging, was jumping back up to go when my watch would signal the walk interval was over, and just had a smile on her face pretty much the whole run.  It was hot, but there were TONS of lakes left over from the storms, and a nice breeze was blowing.  The gravel was a bit soft in some places, but not too bad.  I am sure the trails are still under water and will be for some time with all of the rain we continue to get.  As I was heading back to my house, I saw hubby and Andrew leaving and whistled out and got their attention.  They were headed to brunch, so I really quickly  dropped Stella off and headed to where they were eating.  Post brunch I mowed and then we headed to town to watch Toy Story 4.

If you haven't seen it or want to see it, GO see Toy Story 4.  I was skeptical that it would be good since it's the 4th one, but it did not disappoint.  

Sunday:  My schedule called for active rest.  She said we could bike, swim, or elliptical, or even take it is a full rest day.  We went to bed to storms and woke up to storms.  Our back yard was a lake and our basement flooded.  Active rest quickly moved to just rest, which is also allowed and probably needed.  I think house cleaning counts as active rest anyway right?

I really had hoped to get more rest this week, but instead lifted twice and spent most of the week sore, but feeling happy that I got back in the gym.  Got a little more sleep, which was needed and even slept in one day till 8:30 am, WAHOOOO!!!!  Tournament week of baseball is up next and obviously since we play the #2 team, we will be one and done unless some crazy miracle happens.  I also have a race coming up at night on the trail, and my mom, mom in law, and step dad are traveling up to celebrate the 4th with us early to watch Andrew race his car.  Busy week, but my heart will be happy and full!

Week 3 of 24: Training for Run Amok 50 mile

As I alluded to last week, this week would be a true challenge to me.  Mileage goes up as it does, 3 nights of baseball games, and one super long day at the track for midget cars.  I wouldn't want it any other way:) Please pray for my sanity and my ability to sleep and or recover.

Monday:  Should have been a Cross fit day, but once again getting up at 4 am in the morning just didn't sound in the cards for me.  I needed some sleep badly and I chose sleep over working out.  Balance right?  I had hoped to go do open gym and at least get my back squats in before I headed back to Wamego to work at the shop and it just didn't happen. I had to get back, we had a lot to do at the shop before baseball, and I chose to make this a total rest day instead.

We had baseball later on and we played the first team with very, very intense and LOUD coaches.  We have had differing opinions on dead ball rules and things got a little heated as the umps didn't want to seem to call dead ball when they were suppose to, so they were advancing their runners too many bases at a time (according to our interpretation of the rules, which could be wrong but who the heck knows).  We would have lost anyway, they had some amazing hits, but the score wouldn't have been quite so bad, and we could have finished the game instead of it being called.  I really didn't know why we were viewed as a threat to their win. I look at it this way, you can bat 5 players and let them score and get in the park homers OR you can let each kid get a double or a single and bat more of your entire team more times.  Your players get more offensive time and our players get more defensive playing time.  Oh well, some people play like this league is the step below the majors and some don't.  We view it as a learning experience and a way to develop players and give them the confidence to move on to the next level. I am learning to let go of things i can't control, but it's hard for me, and I will be the first to admit it and this game really bothered me.  Andrew had a great catch and throw to first base and would have had the runner out but our first baseman took his foot of of the bag.  Oh well, we celebrated like it was an out anyway!  Our players are getting so much better with defense and I am SUPER proud of them.  Our bats were super quiet again, so no runs, but we will figure it out eventually.

Beautiful sunrise

Tuesday:  Couldn't sleep all night.  Got maybe an hour, hour and a half all said in done, but I was wide awake at 5 am and got my 6 miles in, 5 with deuce and 1 with boom and Stella.  Stella has been a little off in her gait, so I wanted to be able to see her run from behind.  When I run with her and Boom, she races him and really strides out, so I could get a clear picture.  I still can't figure out what is going on, she isn't clearly lame, but she isn't 100%, so I will keep her mileage low for the week and rest her and watch her like a hawk.  Ran with one of my BRFs Robin and we talked through a lot.  God bless my friends because I can get verbal diarrhea and they take it and help me process.  Andrew woke up with a low grade fever so he headed to the shop with daddy while I headed to the lab to process samples.

he may be 7 but he is still my baby!

When I got to the shop, I could tell Andrew wasn't feeling very well at all.  His fever was creeping into the 100s and he just wanted to sleep.  I had a PTO meeting to get to so he and daddy headed home to get some rest and chill.  All was fine till about 10:30 when Andrew, who of course was in our bed, puked ALL over tony and the bed.  Stripped the bed, got everyone cleaned up and back to sleep to be woken up again around 11:30 with him thinking he might puke again.  Got him up and downstairs to the couch.  Daddy took the night shift as he knew I was exhausted from no sleep previously.  By the morning his fever was down in the 99s again, but he was still feeling pretty weak.  Thank goodness I can pretty much work from wherever as long as I have a computer. 

helping me groom the dogs 

Wednesday:  I decided to hit the treadmill and do my speed work versus waiting till tony got home or post baseball.  I had 5 miles of speed on the plan for the day, so did a one mile warm up and then I did 30 second strides for three miles before getting a cool down mile.  My watch and my treadmill didn't agree or anything, pace nor mileage, but I didn't care, I knew I worked hard and that is all that matters.  I tried to stay around 4.6-4.7 mph for easy and 6.5-6.7 for my strides.  

Baseball game number 2 for the week.  One of the best team in the league and lots of my friends and their kiddos on the other team.  I felt like I was fighting off fatigue and possibly whatever Andrew had, but the show must go on. We got run ruled again, BUT the coaches were SUPER nice and held their runners when they could have clearly gotten in the park homers every hit.  SO nice to play coaches that know that this age group is for teaching and NOT a step under the majors.  We had a few hits, but not many, and the boys had a few offensive outs and are starting to figure this whole thing out slowly.  I can't wait to see what next year brings for our Wamego Royals!!!!

Thursday:  7 miles and yet another baseball game.  We had another late night with Andrew getting sick yet again same time same way.  At least this time we made it to the bathroom and not in the bed.  Unfortunately, it was in the bath tub instead of the toilet, but details.    We all got to bed fairly quickly post puke, but I didn't want to wake them by getting up at 5 am, so I slept in till 7 and then went out and did a lunch run.   I took Stella and watched her like a hawk and other than some cross firing when she was on the pavement, she ran fine.   Andrew's fever broke some time in the night, but we kept him home anyway.  We had promised him a trip to target to get some Legos with his birthday money and a lunch date, and while I couldn't go due to being in the office all day, it was fun to see what he picked out.

Again baseball was a run ruled situation, but the other team was SUPER nice and held their runners, so more of their batters got to bat and our kids got more fielding practice.  It was a huge win win for both teams.  The opposing coach came post game and had a long talk with Tony about keep with it and see the fruits of developing young players. It was super nice and above board.  We know the future is bright, and we are trying to make this season all about learning and fun and I think we are doing so.

at least we have birthday legos to keep us busy!

Friday:  Rest day.  Another sick day.  URGH!!!!  After a day of being fever free, I had hoped we could all go back to normal.  This stupid viral thing reared it's ugly head and once again Andrew had a low grade fever and felt like poop.  At this point I am trying to keep him quiet and resting because I don't want him to miss baseball camp next week.  I am not sure if he will be well enough to race.

at the top of the stairs.  See the trail way below?  I did that hill x 2!!!!

Saturday:  Long run day!  I had another range of mileage and wanted to hit 15 miles for sure.  I had three options, my normal route, hit up Clinton lake for a preview of the Night Hawk's alternative trail, or hit up Konza minus Stella. When I got up at 5:00 am, there were storms all around us and it looked like Clinton Lake was getting rain.  I checked in with one of my trail hawks friends and she said that the trails would be muddy so they were canceling the preview.  Off to Konza I headed!

I make no bones about it, I have a love hate relationship with Konza.  They don't allow dogs, and for a VERY good reason, it's a research station first and foremost.  Also, there is little to no shade and if the sun is out, you are at it's mercy the entire way.  The love part?  The views, the wildlife, the challenge, and the beautiful wildflowers that are blooming at this time of year.  

I got lucky.  The sun stayed behind the clouds most of my run and a cool breeze blew.  I was able to get 2 of the big loops done (~6 miles per loop) and feel really, really good including two trips up the big hill and stairs.  I didn't listen to music or podcasts, just listened to the sounds of nature.  I used my car at the trail head as an aid station, so every six miles I refueled my tailwind bottles with ice cold tailwind.  By my third loop, more and more hikers were out, so I opted to do an out and back on the bottom half of the big loop.

Post running I headed back to Wamego for some yummy brunch and some work time/car time/andrew time.

After getting some much needed in office work time, I headed to the house while the boys headed to the track to practice.  I cleaned the house, did some laundry, and just sat around and rested. I actually watched a movie on TV and read a book during the commercials!!!!  Who am I?  

Sunday:  1 hour 10 minute run plus track day!  Once again I made a tough choice to get some sleep and run post track time versus getting up super early and getting my run done.  It was a bold decision since being at the track all day in the heat might not at all be conducive to me running, but I felt pretty wiped post my trail 15 miler and I felt like that was a better decision for my body.

Andrew was fever free and excited to race, so to the track we went! This week was the qualifying, heat race, main schedule.  I was SUPER excited to see what would happen after his success last week.  Right after Andrew got on the track to practice, one of his friends decided to pit as andrew was turning, and this caused Andrew to hit the wall and flip onto his side.  It was SUPER hard for me NOT to climb the fence and go straight to him, but Tony was right there and I could see his face and he was not crying.  After getting him right side up and checking him out for injuries, he went back out on the track and finished practice.  I could tell he was hesitant to pass once again, so I knew the day would be a crap shoot.  Qualifying went well and he captured the fastest time for junior novice for the first time.  We had heat race next, which meant other cars on the track, including 2 new drivers, one that it was his first race ever.  We had 7 cars total and Andrew ended up in 4th overall, due to not wanting to pass.  Oh well, the fact that he was going out there period made me happy.  Then we started the main.  Andrew started in 5th as they put the faster cars in the back from qualifying and heat.  It was a super long race as double file starts always are super hard for the novice kids, so it took forever to get them started.  Then a couple of kids were struggling with spinning out and or going through the infield, so we kept having to re start at 25 laps which meant more double file restarts.  My phone actually got too hot standing in the stands doing live FB videos and shut itself down.  I had to put my cup of ice tea on the back of my phone to cool it off enough to get started videoing again!!!!  I can't even imagine how hot it was for our kids in those cars in full gear.  We finally had a big long green flag stretch and Andrew slowly moved up to 3rd place where he stayed.  Except for some reason instead of crossing the finish under the checkered he immediately after white flag went to the  pits.  They gave him third, for what reason I do not know since he left the track and didn't cross the finish, other than he had lapped the field several times along with his first and second place drivers.  We celebrated like it was official, since I thought for SURE he would be done post wreck.  

After stopping for our normal celebratory ice cream and getting dinner, laundry, and dishes started, I headed out to get my 1 hour 10 minute run in.  It was hard because I was exhausted, but I managed it and I think I got around 5.5 miles again.  My watch threatened to die at 30 minutes in, so to be safe, I switched to letting strava track me, but strava had a hiccup and didn't record correctly, so I had to guess mileage once again.  

Week 3 in the books!  Week 4 brings 2 baseball games, a cut back week in training, and hopefully some more quality trail time and lifting.  Have a great week!