Drink Water

Celebrating Wear Red Day for
Congential Heart Defect Warriors

This week was painful for everyone involved. It was a hectic week to begin with. Not a lot of appointments, but I had some big work meetings and some other work nonsense that sort of popped up over the weekend and snowballed into what made for an even crazier Monday than usual.

James had been hit with the stomach bug Saturday night and well lets just say Dan and I have yet to avoid it once it hits James. A week later I have finished somewhere in the realm of 40 loads of laundry, learned how to remove grape juice puke stains from couches, cleaned out nook and crannie of the house I never even knew existed, and cloroxed everything that could possibly be touched by human hands. I doubt my house has ever been this clean. 

a beautiful day to play outside

Its a wonder I managed to get in as many miles as I did, but I guess 4:00 am wake-up calls help with that. So my training seemed to stagnate as I approached my first race of the season. I had no idea what to expect in such a short race and now I really had no idea how I would even hold up to attempting to run fast. Plus I also had to do something to salvage my weekly miles which meant getting decent runs on Friday and Saturday before the race. 

First race as a PI Champion Team member

Sunday blew in with a gust...literally. Dan turned in bed and asked "Is something moving in? that's really windy." I tried my best to ignore it and just kept thinking well maybe in Arvada it won't be as bad. Wrong. The first 8 miles were a total struggle just to stay upright. I started off running strong but into my third mile I knew it just wasn't going to be my day, so I backed off and just tried to enjoy the race. Even with the 40 mph headwinds it wasn't that bad...until miles 6-8. I swear it felt like I was running on a treadmill and I wasn't sure I would ever make it out of the tunnel. I nearly stumbled a couple of times when I got blasted with even stronger gusts. I couldn't look up to enjoy the view, I couldn't look around to see where I was, all I could do was stare at the bike path beneath my feet. Which by the way I probably need a new pair of shoes. After staring at them for so many miles I'm pretty certain I know every single thread that is pulling apart. Finally on the big 'climb' we hit one switchback with the wind at our backs. It was like a little bit of heaven. I didn't even need the wind not to be pushing me uphill, I mean I wasn't going to complain, but not having it blast your face was an amazing feeling. I finally started cruising again and my running felt like what it should. It was still too late to salvage a good race, but at least I could finish feeling decent about it. But seriously that race will probably rank as one of the most painful races ever...and that includes 100. I swore to myself this year I would not complain about the last 6 miles at Run Rabbit if it wasn't this windy. So the first race of the year is in the books and I'm pretty sure I only have up to go from this one. 

a Toddler 2 tantrum...

This week James also moved up to Toddler 2! Its a transition room for preschool so I've been excited about it but also nervous to see how he would do. They would finally start working on potty training with him. Which I knew he would need a week or so to adjust to going at school, but I guess I just wasn't ready to hear he wouldn't go at all. It's just frustrating. I also knew it would be a rough week since he was still getting over being sick and would have to adjust to a new room and new teachers. Granted he knew all these teachers and had been sneaking into the T2 room lately, but still it's different being a part of it. Overall though James did great. He sat at the table to eat (this is a big deal because in Toddler 1 they had to corner him into the table to make sure he would stay there), he went on walks and learned about groundhogs day, gravity and ice. Well at least according to the sheet I got at the end of the week that's what they learned. Its tougher dropping him off in this room though when the other kids all call him by name and come up to me to tell me about their day. They're all twice the size of him and eat with forks and just so many things I feel like James isn't doing yet. He'll get there I know. I feel like that's my mantra these days. But with every room we move up the distance between James and his peers seems to grow. And so we had some growing pains this week. One of Liza Howard's posts rang true with me this week as she talked about pain as well. And so I'll drink water and keep running so that I can keep moving forward.

When my life disintegrated over a decade ago, I wrote a group of NOLS friends for comfort.  One of them, an African from Tanzania, told me to make sure to drink water.  Reading his email, I almost smiled.  What a useless thing to advise someone in my situation.  And yet, in retrospect, it’s as good advice as any.  Words don’t fix anything.  They don’t soothe a loss.  There is nothing that can be said and nothing that can be done.

You simply keep living, and you try to make peace with the pain.

Drink water.

Breathe.

 The only real use of running ultramarathons is that they allow us to practice endurance.  They ask us to tolerate adversity and uncertainty.  We keep moving forward despite physical and emotional pain.  And we hope the exercise gives us the grace and fortitude to do the same through life’s actual trials. - Liza Howard

Week Feb 2 - 8

Miles Running: 41.7

Hours Hiking and Running: 6.25

Monday: OFF

Tuesday: 7 miles early early AM; warmup, hill sprints  30 sec, 1 min, 2 min, 1 min, 30 sec, x2, cool down

Wednesday:  6 miles early early AM

Thursday: OFF

Friday: 8 miles easy

Saturday: 7 miles moderate, feeling better

Sunday: 13.4 miles; Ralston Creek Half Marathon

4:00 am is never too early to run

Leadville videos...how we handle the stomach flu

I swear it's like spring...more beautiful days in Colorado