Weekend Wrap Up part 1: Twenty the third

You know it was an epic weekend when it takes multiple posts.

Saturday started out with the third-and final-twenty miler for this marathon training cycle.  Three weeks till marathon.  Third twenty mile run that went fabulously.

I set out right at 6am, the nearly full moon lighting the sky that was starting to creep from nearly black to that awesome purpley blue of the early morning.
It was chilly, so I threw on one of Aaron's big shirts knowing that I would be seeing him in a couple of miles.  He worked overnight on Friday and was headed home on schedule to cross my path about 3 miles in.  Best "aid station" ever; dropping off the extra clothing layer and getting a kiss from my hubby who I hadn't see for two days.  Great way to start a run!
And this was the view behind me after I sent him on his way:

This is where I live.  Awesome.
It was a beautiful morning.  It's always a treat to have the pleasure of watching the moon set and the sun rise, especially as the sun starts to creep over my little valley and light the day.

 I get to run here.  ALL the time!  So blessed.


The purple flowering weeds are filling up the fields, which is one of my favorite little stretches of time out here in the spring.  Being surrounded by this makes long runs feel not so long.

And I got to run with some deer.  I was a little slow getting the phone out to snap a pic, so you get to play spot the deer.  I could have drawn an arrow on there, but you know you wanted to play search and find.  There are only two in this shot, just to the left of the center.

OK, so the whole deer thing was cooler in real life than hidden in a picture.

I felt great the whole run.  Slight tightness in one knee around mile 18, but it was short lived and felt fine by the time I finished.  Fueling was perfect.  Hydration was perfect.  A few new tunes on the ipod kept things interesting.  Great run.

And now, it's taper time!

Truth be told I'm a little nervous for just how well things have been going this time around.

I am physically very ready for taper.  Mentally....well now there will be even more time for me to sit and digest my hopes and plans.  A, B and C goals are set.  I am VERY excitedly looking forward to May 18th.

Does your face hurt?

Anyone else remember that joyous little bit from back in the day?
Does your face hurt?  It's killing me.

It came up a couple of weeks ago here.  Not sure how.  And then it came up again and again.
We have a lot of rambunctious kids, a lot of head bonks happen.

Little did I know it would be applying to me.

My poor face.

On Saturday I had it waxed.  Yes my whole face.  No, I'm not kidding.
Ok, not my whole face, my forehead and nose don't need it.

I was happy to be over the sting of that when my super grace and agility showed itself on Sunday night.

I was shutting the car door, stepping back as I did so.  My foot kind of slipped off the edge of the driveway onto the grass, at which point-in attempt to keep my balance-I leaned forward.
My thoughts were as follows:
-Ow.
-Is my foot ok?!  Thank goodness I didn't roll my ankle!
-Oh my word, did I really just hit myself in the head with the car door?

Yes, I hit my face with the corner of the door as I was shutting it.
I'm awesome like that.
The center of my left cheek just below my eye all the way over to my nose are still not happy with me.   I genuinely wondered for a minute if I had broken my own nose.

Then came Monday.  Two and a half hours of dental work.  Yes that is a long time.  One of my teeth broke, the one next to that had a filling that broke...it was ugly.  Aaron actually stopped by our dentist's office on the way home to check on me.  I freely admit that I hate dental work, but I'm not that bad.  His timing was impeccable-he got to see everything all ground down and prepped for the partial crowns that now reside in my mouth.  He took a picture.  I will spare you.  You're welcome.

I am happy to report that the dental work was the opposite side from the car door incident.

Bruised and tender left cheek/nose, swollen and sore right jaw.

But hey, at least I get one more week till I have the cavity on the left side filled.
And my face is super smooth.

Although, I highly suggest not hitting yourself in the head with the car door.

Earth Day 10k

Last minute races are good to me!  It was an awesome, awesome, and did I mention AWESOME? race.

But first let's cover the most important thing that happened today; Aaron ran his first 10k!  Even more last minute than me!
In addition to Aaron's regular job, he also works overnight nursing shifts a couple of days a week.  This week than meant working 6-3:30 on Thursday, sleeping for a few hours in the afternoon before reporting to the nursing job at 9:00pm.  He works there until 6:30am and goes straight back to the regular job, wash, rinse, repeat.  So this morning a few minutes before 9am when I was getting ready to head out the door and he had only been sleeping for two hours, I felt absolutely awful when I realized I had woken him up.  Imagine my surprise when he said "Do they have day of registration?  Can I come?"

Uh, what?

I genuinely wondered if he was not completely awake.

He was awake, and he was serious.  Yee-haw!

We took off, and sure enough, they were good with him registering today.

We haven't had race pics together for a long time.  Love that we have a couple again. 

You should know that in addition to the fact that he was (literally) running on almost zero sleep, he has not been running regularly.  The longest he has run in I don't know how many years (maybe ever?), is 4 miles which happened about a month ago.  I don't think he has run at all since that day.

He did it.  And he did it faster than he expected.  Awesome.  I am so excited for him!  Not to mention seriously impressed that he pulled it off.  He is amazing.

As for me, I registered on Thursday night.
I hadn't planned on a race this weekend, but in asking some fabulous Mother Runners last week about figuring out a marathon goal for Ogden, it was suggested that I race a 10k if I had time to squeeze one in and see how I performed in that.  Since Wednesday brought the fabulous news that Nuun also needs a 10k time for me and I don't have any recent races to go off (because I raced pregnant and then shortly after last year), I had enough reason to splurge on a race.

Props to inexpensive local races.

The South Jordan Earth Day 10k it was!

I looked up finish times from last year, and since this year it was happening on the same day as the Salt Lake Marathon/Half Marathon meaning that a number of runners would be occupied otherwise, I thought that maybe, just maaaaybe I might be able to pull of an Age Group placing.

The course was a tad hilly, but I was hopeful that I could pull off a new PR too.

It was a perfect morning for a race, overcast, mid 40s, a little bit of rain.  The course wound along the Jordan River Parkway before heading up (really up for a bit!) into the neighborhoods, then up a little more, then just a little more before wrapping back around to the park alongside the river.  Plus I had Boston tribute toes, which I think helped.

(after 4yrs of running, I now have achieved a callous on that second toe.  dang.)

It was a small crowd, 80ish people is all.  I love small races sometimes!

There were only three women ahead of me at the start and one right beside me.  I let her pace me out for the almost the first mile, but she started slipping back at that point.  I continued to watch the three ahead of me but they were far enough ahead that I thought I would just watch them and hope to get close to them toward the end of the race.  I knew I could make up some ground on the first big hill unless they were strong hill runners, so I waited for that.
I did get closer to them, and got the pleasure of chicking one guy as well.

I lost about 5 seconds at the first street crossing thanks to a car that was completely oblivious to the cop in the middle of the intersection who actually got to the point of waving both arms in front of the car to finally get the driver's attention.  Apparently the stopped traffic, cop car with flashing lights and runners on the road weren't noticeable to said driver.  Nice.  I was ticked to have had to come to a dead stop, but better stopped than dead.

I was able to close a little more distance not too long after that on another uphill, but had to have a conversation with myself about saving the legs for a little longer.  I was still feeling great and wanted to keep some in the tank for the last mile.

That was when I finally passed the lady that I had been chasing.  She didn't want to let me around her on the sidewalk, so I finally just had to turn things up a notch and blow by.  She tried to stay on me which made me glad I had run easy for so long so I had plenty in me to keep it going.

At that point I really didn't think I would have enough to overtake the next woman, but figured I would give it what I had.  About 1/4mi from the finish she realized I was trying to close in on her and she kicked it up and took off.  I was close enough to the end that I figured I would pour it on and see what I had left.

I big fat puffy heart my legs today!

As I got right up behind her she gave it one more kick, so of course I had to do the same.  We ended up in a full on sprint to the finish line.  It was so dang fun.  I actually laughed out loud-I think she may have thought I was laughing at catching up to her, but honestly I was just enjoying the actual racing part of the race so much I couldn't hold it in!  I'm not that fast of a runner and I've certainly never been gunning for an actual finish place, so the novelty of it was just so great!

I did it.  I outgunned her in the final yards and crossed the finish line just a hair before she did!

(Dear Camille Bay, if somehow you end up ever reading this, thank you for a great finish.  It was superfantastic.  I was glad to see that you are so young so you hit 1st in your AG too.  You rock.  We have the same initials too.  Just thought I'd point that out.)

Good enough for first place in Age Group (31-40, I told you it was a small race), and second female overall!  I actually won a medal.  This was totally new territory for me so I am entirely too excited about that part!  It also may be the one and only time it ever happens for me, but I am ok with that.

When Aaron crossed the finish line I was so excited that he finished and the first thing he said, after "I did it!" was "hey wait-you're wearing a medal!"  Good times.

Official finish time of 48:10.  Over 3 1/2min faster than my previous 10k PR.

I really really wish I had mile splits, but my Garmin didn't like the rain (despite my turning it under my arm to try and keep it sheltered a bit), so I only have splits for the first three mile.  Oh well, it happens.
I did great not looking at the Garmin other than in the first mile to make sure I wasn't going out too fast.  I really wanted to run by feel and it worked out quite well I'd say!

Two thumbs up for the race, one I would love to do again.
Super excited for the hubs and his accomplishment today!
A little bit excited for me too.

Run On

Watching people run on to fly in the face of what happened on Monday has been awesome.
Hearing the stories of service and sacrifice, especially from those who ran to those in need at the blast site have been completely amazing.

There truly is so much good in this world!

Though I didn't run with a group on Tuesday, I did run.  It's probably cheesy, but it seemed appropriate to stop my Garmin at 2.62...and then run on.
Because as has been proven in huge numbers by runners not just across the nation, but around the world, we will always run on!

And now (though I feel a little guilty for celebrating something in regards to running), I get to share news that allows me to run on in an amazing opportunity.

I made the Nuun Hood to Coast team!

So. Dang. Excited.

Apparently this did the trick!
(I give credit to my nine Nuun kids and my amazing husband!  And I do have to clarify-again-that the bit at the end about convincing Aaron that he can do all of the kids 24/7 was a joke.  He is so great and totally encouraged me to apply!)

I really am so excited and so grateful for this chance!  There were so many amazing women who applied for this, it is a privilege to be among those chosen.  I can't wait to meet all of the other incredible ladies who will be there in August and already have the countdown going until I head to Seattle!  

Have you run Hood to Coast?  Any suggestions on which legs to request?

I am running Ragnar Wasatch Back in June, so that will be a nice dress rehearsal for HTC, figuring out what to pack and all that good stuff.

I am looking forward to stalking all the other team members in every spare minute of the next few days!  

I am a runner

It was only a matter of days ago when I did some math and realized that it actually might be possible for me to qualify for Boston.  I'm not quite there, but it crossed my mind as realistic for the first time.

I watched with excitement as the elite men and women raced that historic course this morning.
My 2yr old and 4yr old ventured in and out, finally snuggling up with me to watch.  Sam kept saying one of his favorite things; "They running Mommy!  They running!"
I was filled with amazement as I watched the leaders cross the finish line and thought of all of those who worked so hard to be there.

Like every runner, my thoughts were on Boston today.

I was going to post today about my long run this past weekend.  That just seems silly now.

Because my thoughts are still on Boston.

As everyone else is, I am sickened by what happened today.  The finish line of a marathon is such an incredible place.  Watching other peoples' finish lines always makes me emotional.  As Katherine Switzer said, "If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon".   Stories of struggle and triumph, of work and of hope, of heart and courage all play out right there.  Which makes what happened today cut that much deeper, especially in the running community.

My kids all said the same thing as they came home and found me watching streaming coverage from Boston.  Who in the world would do such a thing?  Why?
I don't know.  I'll never understand why.  It makes my heart hurt and my stomach turn.  The only answer I could give them was "the same kind of people who would fly planes into a building, or would walk into a classroom and shoot children."

There is great evil in this world.  But there is also great good.

So many people who run struggle with calling themselves runners in the beginning.  They wonder when they've run enough.  Is it a certain mileage or pace?  A race distance or number of races?  "When did you feel like you could call yourself a runner?" is a common question.  Today I have no doubt that anyone who runs calls themselves a runner and feels a part of the great community that was struck so tragically today.

Horrible things happened today.
An event that symbolized people running toward their dreams will now also be remembered for those who will never walk again.  But there will be a great rally of support and the good will come together in a very big way.  Runners are an amazing group...a family.
And while the bad in this world is getting worse, the good is getting better.  Good will overcome.

Thousands of runners run with Boston in their mind each day.  Now thousands will run with Boston in their heart forever.

If you haven't seen the suggestion yet, as a show of solidarity and support wear a race shirt tomorrow in honor of Boston.  If you don't have a race shirt, wear the blue and yellow of Boston.  Pray for Boston.

Still laughing

(If you're looking for the Nuun Hood to Coast application video, check HERE!) 

You know when you see something that is so dumb it's funny, and the more you think about it the funnier it is?

A friend of mine shared this yesterday morning.  I am still cracking up over it.



I have encountered one person who didn't laugh.  I think either a-he's lying or b-living over in Europe has ruined him.  Or he just needs to watch it again.  And again.  Andrew, if you read this, I vote you keep watching.
Maybe it's like Napolean Dynamite where the more you watch it the funnier it gets.
Now I want to watch Napolean Dynamite.

Stuff

Spring break was awesome.  I hate that the kids had to go back to school yesterday.  As much as I hate that it snowed again today.  But I am grateful it was warm last week and that there are less than 8wks left of school!

I am grateful for the treadmill today.  I got 5mi of resistance training in the National Weather Service warning freak winds yesterday, so I was totally ok making it happen inside today.  No desire left to run in snow and bitterly cold wind at this point.

I am grateful that my calf that was quite cranky at the end of last week felt decent yesterday and better today.  I should have known when I was all excited about feeling superfantastic I was jinxing myself by actually talking about it.

I am also grateful for fabulous moments where the kids take care of each other.
Taylor dropped his canister of air soft pellets.  Thousands of pellets.  Out in the fields.  He scooped up shovels full of dirt and filled a bucket and brought it home, totally upset that he either had to sift through and sort them out or lose a lot of ammo.  These fabulous people jumped in to help.

Made my heart happy.

This also makes my heart happy:

These two on the left clash a lot.  The moments when they get along are wonderful.  Often those moments come at dinner where somehow sitting next to each other doesn't cause problems.  Dinner time is magic.  I am so glad that we have dinner together as a family almost every single night.

Jacob turned 10 last weekend.  TEN.

Where the heck does the time go?

Houdini didn't feel like napping yesterday.  So she tried to take off her clothes instead.

What 10 month old does that? This one.

The one that has decided she wants to be Charlotte's sidekick.

They are adorable.
And typically when they are holding hands Emily is not bonking her head as often.  She has decided that walking as fast as possible is a must.  Which is creating a lot of missteps and a lot of falls, which means lots of head bumps.  Like the scabbing over carpet scrub you see in the pics of her above.  Nice.

Taylor left the house the other day looking like this:

He was just at the park flying a remote control plane, but still.  Really?  Boys.
Upon his return when I said "did you actually leave the house looking like that?!" Aaron's follow up was "you didn't even comb your hair!" That was the biggest problem with this picture?

I love finding pictures like this from Sam on my phone.

I was being sarcastic, I don't really.  Ok, maybe I kind of do a teeny tiny bit.  Because in the back of my  mind there is a thought that always lurks; "he wasn't supposed to be here to take pictures like this" or "he wasn't supposed to be able to do things like take pictures" and so I smile and download them to the computer because there is still a part of me that is terrified that one day he won't wake up.

I had this fabulous conversation with Malia the other day.

My favorite part was her concern over the fact that I might be trying to watch Netflix at night.  But let's face it, she was right.  I should have been going to sleep.

I have perfected the art of filling a grocery cart.  I am also an uptight dishwasher loader.  I blame Tetris.  But back to the grocery cart.  I took advantage of the opportunity to do my Costco trip for the month without kids.  Much easier to stack the cart without having to accommodate little bodies.  The lady at Costco obviously does not have my Tetris skills.

Before going through checkout I had everything in the cart.  And I could easily see over it.  Getting this sucker out to the car was fun.  Although once I got to the van I was able to restack it nicely so that it was neat and secure for the ride home.  Then all was right with the world again.
Hey, I have so little order in my life, you can't blame me for clinging to stacking groceries neatly in the van.

Has anyone tried Kona Kase yet?  I came upon it last week, LOVE the idea.  So many nutritional/fueling/healthier snacky things I would love to try but rarely do, this way they can surprise me with some and I can find some new loves.  And check out this fabulousness-if you want to give it a shot you can do so with this code for 50% off! (through April 15th)

And last but not least, I *finally* changed the header.  Actually that would be I finally took the picture so Aaron could make me a new header.  Photoshop is not my friend, even if it is only a couple of layers to do some lettering.   It only took me until Emily was 10 months old to change it from 8 kids.  Whoops. My friend joked the other day that 9 kids really did make me busier.  She was right.  But it's a good busy.

Dreaming of Nuun HTC

I hit send.
I officially threw my hat in the ring!
I applied to be one of the bloggers running with Nuun!

Two years ago I wanted to but didn't dare.
Last year I was slightly occupied with this fabulousness.
Third time's the charm, right?

Oh I hope so!!

The fabulous folks at Nuun are putting together teams for Hood to Coast again this year.  I would LOVE to be one of the bloggers picked to run with them!

I'm married to the most awesome guy ever (have I mentioned that?), who was willing to indulge me and do some filming this week and spend last night making sure my video application was edited nicely, so now I sit back and cross all of my fingers and toes and hope and pray that I get chosen.

I woke up this morning and had a couple of doh! moments, realizing that I forgot to add a couple of fabulous pictures to my video, like this one:

 this one:

and I seriously can't believe I forgot the picture of my Nuun drawer!

Don't you have a Nuun drawer?  You should.
(You'd never guess grape and lemonade are my favorites, would you?  Kids faves are Tropical and Lemon Lime.  If you were wondering.)

But hopefully Nuun will see past that and be willing to give me a shot anyway based on this:



And hopefully having all nine *Nuun* kids crossing their fingers for me will help!

(I was totally kidding about convincing him to take care of the kids.  Because we all know the truth behind the story-that I wouldn't even be a runner had he not dared me into a tri a few years ago in the first place, and there is no way I could run without his support and encouragement!  I am one lucky lady!)  

20

It was SUCH a beautiful weekend.
Like I could not have asked for more perfect spring weather.  Last week I ran in fleece lined tights, gloves, a fleece headband, long sleeve shirt and jacket...through snow!  This week I was in a tank and skirt.  Heaven.  I love spring.

The first 20 miler for this marathon is in the books.  It was not perfect, but it was good.  Very good.
And it was mostly due to my amazing husband.

Aaron worked overnight Friday night again.  It's been a long week for the poor guy; 80hrs of work long.  My plan was for him to get home Saturday morning and go right to sleep, while I then took Taylor to BYU for a Merit Badge PowWow, come home to run some errands, get Lincoln to a birthday party and then head back to BYU to pick up Taylor and his friends.  Then I would somehow make time to run in the afternoon.

Aaron came home and sent me running.
How could I possibly have a more wonderful husband?

He headed down to BYU with Taylor and slept in the car.  I guess the one upside to that is that it is considerably more quiet to sleep in the car than it is to try and do so at home during the day.

Me heading out right then did mean I was on a tiny bit of a time crunch because I still needed to get Lincoln to his birthday party, but it was so nice to be able to head out right then instead of waiting till late in the afternoon.

My run ended up broken up a tad.  I did a little calculating and realized that I had just about 2 and a half hours to get miles in before I had to be home.  The training plan I am using has me running about half of my long run distance on Friday at marathon pace, so my legs are just a little worn out for long runs on Saturday. This is a good thing because it helps me keep those long runs nice and slow.  Not that I'm fast anyway, but if you've done this you know the drill.  This week thought I was hoping my legs would be kind to me after 9 on Friday and let me pick up the pace just a tad for Saturday to accommodate the schedule.  Even with the hills my legs cooperated.  Yay!

As I knocked out 17 before I had to be back, I fielded 5 phone calls from home, and had a ten minute chat with my mom while she was shopping.  I had some miles in that completely zen zone where all is right in the world and you can run forever.  I had a side stitch for over 4 miles.  I solved a few major problems, had some lightbulb moments and made plans for the rest of the day.  As is typical for me, at the end of the run I forgot the solutions, my lightbulbs burned out, and my well laid plans were totally gone.
But I was super impressed with myself that in the last mile of my run I had enough forethought to call home, have one of the kids get my purse, my water bottle, a tube of Nuun (lemonade is my new love.  If you haven't tried it you must), and Lincoln completely ready to go with gift wrapped so we could just hop in the car and head out.

I got him to his party only a couple of minutes late.  I was disgusting and sweaty and smelly, but oh well.  Then I drove back home to finish my run.  After going directly from running to driving and spending over 30 minutes in the car, my legs mocked me when I prodded them to return to running.
So I enlisted some help.

Alaina and Jacob came along with me to finish 3 more miles.
It was good for them.  It was great for me.  I love running with my kids, and it was just what I needed to get the legs going again.

Though the majority of the run had been long over, I decided to hit the ice bath anyway.
First ice bath of the season.  It was entirely too enjoyable.
Please note my super sexy running sock tan line.

Good stuff.
Why do my big toe knuckles look so dark?
Yes more ice went in, but I was afraid of dropping my phone in the bath as I zoned out with more ice.

This week is a drop back to a long run of only 12-13.  I love being able to say "only 12-13".
I love that this morning's 5 miler felt perfectly perfect and my legs (and everything else) feels great.  I loved that I took a different route today. I love that it rained overnight so everything smelled so wonderful.  I love that I had moments of complete clarity in my run today-those moments often get muddled in the every day crazy of my life.
I am so grateful that my body is responding so nicely this training cycle and that I'm not having the issues I ran into last time around.  47 days to marathon!