this will be quick, i promise

I never run shirtless.  I don't like my buddha belly showing to the world but it was super humid on monday when we went for a long run.  You' re welcome for excluding the belly from the selfie.  

Run Nerds Rock posted this on his FB page the other day so I shared it so I could  reference it.  

While the temp was nice and cool, the humidity was at 93% which made the dew point through the roof.  So I guess I shouldn't feel guilty for seeing 11s on my watch.  It was a tough run from start to finish and we left at 7:30.  Sigh.  I guess that means on long runs we will have to get up super early and run too.  I dread having to carb load at 3 am.  I guess I need to master getting up, eating and going back to sleep.  Kind of excited because I am suppose to go to a self defense class for runners tonight.  Even though I seem to have caught andrew's cold and would desperately like some sleep, I am ready to kick someone in the balls:)  Doesn't that sound like a fun stress reliever?

Triune Memorial day show

It's been a long time since I posted a purely agility type blog.  I haven't had much great stuff to post about really.  I always try to get out to joc's house once a week but the last two weeks have been bad.  One week andrew had the stomach flu so that was out and then the next week, tony had a union meeting so that was out.  I had 0 expectations and just wanted to have fun with my friends and play with my pup.  To minimize the time away from work and from andrew, I had just entered saturday and sunday.  I had to get up at 4:30 to get ready to leave to make it to the show site.  Only for my addictions will i get up that early and be happy about it.  This was what the drive up looked like:

Why yes, Deuce did take that picture.  He is pretty good with a camera phone isn't he?  I had blinding rain the first hour or so and it was dark so I white knuckled it at 55 mph for most of that time.  It finally stopped near KC but look at those crazy clouds!

As my agility trainer said, there must have been horrible turbulence up there! Luckily when I got to the show site, it hadn't started raining yet so I got set up and all of my crap inside before the bottom dropped out.  Surprisingly, we just got rain, no storming.  I had entered three runs a day, T2B and jww and standard.  I love using T2B as a warm up and we had a great first run.  A bar because i think my FC was late.  Nice way to start the weekend out though!  Jumpers was a super fun run but I got way ahead of deuce and actually in the wrong position as he was coming out of the tunnel, causing him some confusion and causing him to miss his weaves.  The rest was beautiful so I don't care.  Standard was a lovely course as well under one of my most favorite judges from TN.  We are FB friends and i LOVE her courses.  Helps that she is from just down the road in TN and we can talk about home.  We had a very tricky serpentine on the course that I didn't handle correctly so he missed the second part of it but again, the rest of the run was amazing!  It is so nice to feel like we are FINALLY back to where we were before I had andrew.  Yes, it has taken almost two years and one very important surgery (bye bye balls) and some growing up but we are finally headed in the right direction.  

Saturday night I stayed with a good friend and her aussie and BC.  We had pizza and beer and girl talk and I loved it.  We even got some shopping in and I found a new shirt and shorts for running.  Please don't ever let a Kohls open up in manhattan.  I will be in big trouble if it does.  LOL I see Boo her BC in the background smiling too.  Didn't notice that when I posted to FB.  I had three runs again and started off the day with a smoking T2B run.  He missed a very tough weave pole entry but I got him back in and finished.  Jumpers was very interesting.  The beginning required a very long lead out which is not a problem for him at all but I watched dog after dog break their stay. I am not kidding, 6 dogs that I know of that have very solid stays broke.  I was a little nervous about this fact so when I came to the line, I gave him a VERY stern, you wait.  I think that was my undoing.  That and i miss handled a very crucial part that set him up to miss a few jumps because of the line I set.  The rest of the course was kind of mess but we finished.  I take full credit for the mess that it was, just like the jumpers run the day before.  Standard was once again a very nice smoking run.  His time was the same as a super fast golden that kills courses in our area.  Yeah, we had some moving contacts that will bite me in the ass in the very near future.  He had one bar.  One stinky little bar that made no sense but that is the story of our life.  It was amazing and together and took my breath away.  That should be what it is all about anyway.  I sure do love this dog!

I honestly don't have another show planned yet.  The two june shows conflict with either my half marathon or my vacation to TN so june is out.  There is USDAA in July but it is 6 hours away and that is a bit much for me.  I wasn't planning on doing regionals because I don't have any Qs and I don't have a team but may need to re think that.  I should take advantage of a show so close.  The premium isn't out yet but will have to check it out when it does come out.  I do need to keep up my one a month shows as I think it is good for both of us!  

A warning

I did something stupid yesterday.  I ran when it was way too hot.  I thought my body was ready for the heat but we had a record high that day that was more than I could handle.  I had a pace run scheduled and as I looked at the temp and the dew point, I just thought I would be okay.  I also took stella which was not a good idea either.  She doesn't have much under coat at all and is very lightly coated period (is lightly the right word?).  Anyway, I usually head out around 6 pm when traffic has died down and did so yesterday.  My plan was to warm up for 5 minutes, pace for 45 minutes and then cool down for 5 minutes.  I noticed right away, as I was warming up that I was struggling to even get in the 10s.  That was red flag number 1.  I haven't run that slow unless my legs are super tired from a race, in a long time.  I also seemed to have trouble breathing deeply.  This is common for me for the first half mile of the run but this was much more severe than normal.  The next red flag hit me about 15 minutes in.  I was not hitting pace and couldn't push it any harder.  I had started cold sweating already and feeling faintly nauseous.  At this time, miss stella literally felt like a heavy weight that i was pulling instead of her normal either being right beside me or in front of me.  I immediately stopped, doused her and I with water that my hubby had insisted I take with.  I had my cell phone ready and was evaluating stella for heat stroke but she seemed good as far as color and she wasn't panting too hard like she was in distress.  I decided right then to turn around (we were about a mile out) and head back.  At least I could dump her off and finish my run at the current pace, even if it wasn't my ideal pace for this run.  As I got closer to home, my pace kept slipping and the cold sweats started again.  I decided at that point to walk and to take water again and douse stella again.  Once we got home, I immediately fixed a huge ice water for me and stella.  We both seemed to recover quickly with no ill effects but it wasn't a smart idea from the get go.

It was right then when I decided the time had come to switch back over to morning running.  I will admit, it isn't my favorite thing to get up super duper early to run but I can't endanger stella or I.  It's only a matter of time before the temps stay in the 90s for good. 

This was today's forcast at 7 am so I am sure it was cooler than that when I ran.  I do like the quiet stillness of the town at 5 am.  No one else is stirring other than other town runners.  We get to see the sun rise in all of it's glory and usually no wind or unbearable heat and if you are in digestive distress, no one will notice:)  I have three weeks till my last half of the first part of the year.  This one will be super tough so need to get good training in and morning running is the way to do it.  When i trained for my first half, my BRF and I ran exclusively in the morning and my body got use to it so here is to my body getting use to it and early bed times for a certain red headed toddler.  

Photo dump sunday

Friday night I wanted to live life on the edge.  As in edge, I mean digestive edge.  This was just calling my name:

Pre- Andrew this was our little ritual.  We have  little local bar that has the BEST sandwiches.  We would go have a summer beer or two, this queso blanco and some yummy sandwiches.  I guess I was feeling nostalgic because even though I had 8 miles planned for saturday and andrew was pitching lots of fits that night, we went anyway.  Andrew made it almost the whole meal and we both got to enjoy one beer.  

Woke up to this. It actually got colder as the sun rose.  It's FREAKING MAY.  I had to dig out my winter running clothes.  While I do think I prefer to run when it is cold, my body has gotten in the hot weather running habit so this was a bit of a shock.  

It was a wee bit foggy.  Am i the only one who can't breath when they run in fog?  Kind of like the air is think even though it isn't.  It ended up being the perfect run, cool, no wind and no traffic, although we tried to stay off main roads till this burnt off.  

Last night, we got invited to a tree house party.  Another runner I know was breaking in their awesome tree house by having a party with hot dogs, burgers and brownie sundaes.  It was great for andrew to be around so many kiddos.  Here are some pics from the night.

Tony and I were pretty exhausted afterwards.  Unfortunately he wanted to do EVERYTHING the big kids did, include climb the very steep ladder into the tree house and swing on the rope swing.  We were constantly trying to keep him out of trouble and off of the ladder which he could climb quite handily.   We had to deal with several toddler meltdowns because he couldn't do some of the things the big kids did.   We didn't get much adult time with the other adults which was a little disappointing because i would like to get to know more wamego parents.  It won't be long though till we don't have to hover over him constantly so I am not going to wish this time away at all.  I thought he would crash soon as we got home but the little crazy red head stayed up till 10:30.  This seems to be the new norm, even when we do not give him anything sugary at night.  I guess I am blessed with the only toddler who does not go to bed at 8:00 pm.  

Ran three today with my hubby and andrew.  I took my time since I had the stroller and a very sustained 15 mph south, south eastern wind.  Afterwards we took a nice long walk around wamego and had coffee at the local coffee shop.  I have to admit, I LOVE lazy weekends:)

Recovery Week number three

It's been another quiet week of recovery. I scheduled a body work session on monday to be proactive.  I call it body work rather than massage because massage has a nice sound to it and this is anything but nice.  It is nice in that I feel wonderful a few days afterwards but during?  Well during I am in a ton of pain and I am usually crying or swearing.  It's definitely part of the process though if you want to run.  I have been relatively injury free for almost a year now (KNOCKING ON A HUGE PIECE OF WOOD) and I attribute it to be very proactive in recovery.  I have one more half marathon this spring/summer, a few 10 ks and then a big fall/winter planned with at least one big race a month.  This week has been quiet with regards to running but not quiet for this little guy.

In the wee hours of wednesday morning, he woke up crying hysterically.  He has been known to have night terrors so we thought that was all it was.  Then we heard it.  And smelt it.  He had horrible diarrhea pouring out of his diaper.  I quickly changed him (and myself) and got him comfortable again only to be woken up again 45 or so minutes later to round two.  Hubby took the duty this time.  When they didn't come up after a little while and I heard no crying, I figured they were sleeping downstairs and went back to sleep.  When I woke up again at 5 am to check on them, they were up watching Disney channel.  I guess after sleeping for a little while, he woke up vomiting. Poor little guy.  It is such a helpless feeling to see someone who doesn't understand what is going on have something like this happen.  This is truly our first bout with the true stomach bug.  I am really, really glad that it only lasted about 6 hours total.  

Daddy headed off to work while I stayed home with the little man. He slept for about three hours and then woke up like nothing had happened.  So crazy how these viruses work.  He was even hungry and thirsty so we let him eat some saltines and drink some Gatorade.  He was not a fan at all of the Pedialyte.  He managed to keep down the crackers and some lunch and then ate a full dinner of three scrambled eggs. I guess he gets this from me.  I can puke and an hour later be starving to death and eat.  He went back to preschool the next day and has been fine since then.  Tony and I washed and I cleaned like crazy so we hope we are past the infectious stage.  I missed out on agility class that night just in case I was contagious.  

I just had to add this pic of stella.  This shows how intense she is all of the time.  She is a BC in an aussie suit.  She is part crazy and a whole lot of energy.  I am really glad she is fourth aussie and not my first.  She is ready to run her first marathon for sure!

Heartland Series 39.3 Wrap up

It's Tuesday and I am still riding pretty high from this weekend's PR.  I have opened the Wicked marathon sign up i don't know how many times now debating.  I think i am ready to take that leap.  The only thing that is stopping me is of course the fees associated and the fact that it is two weeks before the first half of the Heartland Series for next year.  I do want to do better on my time for all of them but especially Rock the Parkway.  I am hoping the fact that it was super hot and I was coming off of being sick caused my poor time.  Also tony and andrew were at the first one and I didn't get great sleep the night before because of my hubby being sick.  I also want to improve my time for the Garmin half as well and I think barring any storms, that is doable as well.  I would like to enjoy the second half of the course as much as I enjoyed the first half.  It seemed to be very pretty but I had my head ducked and was praying to not get struck by lightening or drown!!!!  My coach asked me about a brief synopsis of the courses so here it is:

Rock the Parkway:  Great pre-race including tons of porta potties with short lines, live entertainment, and a nice big area for all of the runners to gather in.  The parking was good for both us and tony who came later.  The crowd support was great throughout the course and the course was nice.  Probably the flatest of the three races but at the time felt hilly.  There really was only one long hill that I can remember but races are kind of like labor, you forget the hills and pain after its done LOL.  The crowd of runners was big but the whole road was shut down so i never felt too crowded, although I was put in a slower corral because i was basing my time off of my first half and I have slowly become faster.  I spent quite a bit of time weaving in and out and trying to catch up with the 2:10 pacer that wave started 2 minutes before us.  The weather was a little hotter than what I had been training in so I am sure that played a big part in being slower, but spring weather in KS is so unpredictable.  The crowd support at the finish was nice and they had free pics taken that were downloadable which was really nice.  The finisher's village was huge but it was super crowded and we had to be somewhere right after so didn't really get to fully enjoy it but I was ready to get the heck out of dodge anyway.  I did like that they were doing medal engraving and wished I had done that with my medal.  I really like the medal, probably the biggest of the three we received and I like the technical shirt we got for running as well.  Kicking myself for not getting a t-shirt at the expo to wear to work.

Garmin: This was a much smaller race than RTPW so not as great crowd support or potties.  I had some digestive issues going into this race but I think the weather was what got me down and of course, we can't control that.  I was with the 2:10 pacer till mile 8 and then lost her but the weather defeated me.  No corrals this time so you could line up with the pacers but there was no organization at the start so hard to even get to the pacers.  I have learned to be pushy.  The roads were not totally closed so sometimes we were compressed down by cones and that got a little tricky.  When we went into the forest, it was beautiful but again I was dealing with the storm at that time.  There were quite a few streams, tunnels and bridges but I just couldn't enjoy it due to weather and trying not to drown in the quickly flooding streets.  Afterwards there was beer and sandwiches but I didn't get any because I was too cold and wet.  We basically took pics with our medals and left.  The crowd support at the end was nice but they ran out of many essential items like chocolate milk and the blankets for us cold drowned rats.  I wonder because I finished before all of the marathon runners so did they not get any of the essentials either?  Overall, it was a nice race minus the weather.  The course was a little bit hilly, maybe more than RTPW but less than RWTC.

Running with the Cows: This was about the same size of the Garmin marathon but the atmosphere was the best of the three.  The FB page was constantly updated which kept me excited.  They made a cute music video that they released about a week before that got me super duper excited.  The swag and merch alone was enough to get me ready to go and spend some money.  The course was probably the hardest of the three with some massive hills.  They did have a 5K but it started later so no conflict there.  No corrals but it was organized by pace and it was very easy to stay with the pacer due to the fact that we had the whole road to run in.  The scenery was nice the whole time and the crowd on the course and volunteers were amazing.  The snack stations were super fun and if I could eat mid run, I would have.  The weather was perfect with a cool morning start and then a gradual warm up.  Didn't get hot till the end and then the last few miles were into a pretty nice headwind yet it cooled us down.  It would be a perfect first half for someone if it weren't for the hills.  After the race was amazing!!!!  The food spread took up a whole cafeteria and I wished that I could eat post race because the food looked delicious.  They had merch to buy at packet pick up and after the race.  Believe me, If I had run with my debit card, I would have spent some moolah post race.  The medals were the best with the cows and the cow bells were cute.  I had heard that they ran out of medals and cow bells which is unfortunate and some of the comments on their FB and website have been pretty harsh about that.  The heartland series booth was there as well so we got our medal and there were tons of pic opportunities.  My favorite of the three hands down.

I will do this series again and encourage others to do the same.  It was fun, my body tolerated it well (thanks coach sydney:) and I will cherish all four of the medals I recieved.  I am officially part of the half marathon fanatics club thanks to this series!!!!

Running with the Cows, Final half marathon of the Heartland Series

The boys are out enjoying a KSU baseball game so i am going to try and write till they get home.  I have so many emotions right now and so many cool pics.  Let's start out with this one.

Bib and outfit.  Ready to run with the cows.  Stayed with some friends in yet another really nice hotel.  It even had a keurig in the room.  Wow.  I was impressed.  They also had a huge container of fruit infused water in the lobby.  I may have overdosed on this water. 

It is now a tradition.  Prior to any race in KC, we have to go eat pasta and cheesecake at the cheesecake factory.  You have to have carbs right?

A race with super cute merch.  I limited myself to one piece.  They had a pink running jacket that was really wanting but I was a good girl:)

I wanted a 2:10.  I was actually able to line up next to my 2:10 pacer.  He was AMAZING.  I give him credit for keeping me slow when I wanted to be naughty and go fast and pushing me when I needed a push.  He also MADE me walk through most of the aid stations.  

It's called running with the cows because you are literally out in the middle of nowhere running amongst pastures.  I thought it was like heaven.  Minus the hills.  Those were tough.

Cool stuff to see.  Plus TONS of water/gatorade stations and snack stations.  Never have done a race with snack stations. While I did not partake, I thought it was a super cool idea.  

We ran out and back under these babies.  So awesome.  

This girl.  We didn't know each other prior to the race but we liked each other's pace so we hooked up and stayed together.  There were times I wanted to slow down and she wouldn't let me.  We made each other walk through the aid stations and we sprinted at the end.  I finished with a HUGE PR for me.  2:09:48.  Still riding the high from this one.  

The bling.  Such nice medals.  Want a close up?

My heartland series medal.  I will be back next year for the even bigger medal and  hopefully the  year after that for the super cool jacket.

More cows.  Love this medal too!

My traveling buddies.  So glad these ladies are in my life.  They kept me calm and cool before each race.  Can't wait to do Hospital Hill in a month with Amanda.  She has a bandit running with her in her belly like I did when i was preggers with andrew.  

And one more with another cow.  This is a super fun (although very hilly) race with an out and back format.  The food afterwards was AMAZING but I couldn't eat as I am usually sick to my stomach after a run.  This race was super organized, loved the merch and I will be back next year to do it again.  I can't believe I just got another PR on a fairly hilly course.  When I come down from cloud 9, I will probably do a Heartland series recap.  I will be back next year and can't wait to do HH in another month!

Taper week again (third times a charm)

Why hello third taper week.  This race has me so excited.  The swag looks awesome, the shirts look super fancy and the race course looks mostly flat!  I am so ready to try yet again for a 2:10!  The weather at this point looks perfect with highs in the 80s and lows in the upper 50s.  Perfect running weather for sure!  We had a wonderful short, long run this weekend.  The weather is starting to heat up but it wasn't too bad for our sunday morning run.  This is the course that the half/full runs on for the wicked marathon.  Lots of hills for sure, none too step, just lots of long climbs.  I can see why a lot of people hit the wall at mile 18.  That hill goes on forever.  It's fun to run down but never fun to run back up.  This weekend was also the Kansas Sampler Festival in our little town.  Can you believe we had almost 12,000 visitors to our tiny town this weekend?  We went both days.  Bascially it is tents and tents of stuff to do in Kansas.  The tents are divided up into sections of kansas and the individual cities have booths.  There were also tents full of Kansas made products.  Most of these tents had tons of samples for us to try and andrew and tony were in heaven.  Here are a few pictures from the fun we had.  So glad we only live a block away and don't have to worry about parking!   We only had one toddler melt down and it was pretty bad.  I think that was probably our first public meltdown.  He let a goat lick his sucker so I threw it away.  Logical right?  Not to a two year old.  Man oh man.  You would have thought I was skinning him.  I had to laugh because it was so freaking dramatic.  Ignore the behavior you don't like right?  Anyway, we had a ton of fun and we will be back next year when it is in the park again!  Here are some pics from the weekend, enjoy!

Recovery Week

It's been a quiet running week.  I took a page from the recovery week from the last half and cut everything on my schedule by one mile or 2 repeats.  I am thinking though I will keep the three miler for today and the 8 miler for this weekend just to be selfish and have more time with my BRF.  Running with her is therapy and I need some right now LOL!  I was proactive this time and got a massage on tuesday versus waiting till things got bad.  I was told by the master of pain that my muscles felt way too good and that I needed to push harder.  He is such a task master!  I am still hoping for a 2:10 at this next race. I really think that I could have had it this last race had it not been for two stops at porta potties and the storm.  I know i wasted three minutes at least, possibly even more.  So for the next race, my A goal is 2:10 and my B goal is anything better than 2:13.  Bring on the good weather and a flat course!  Here is a video of the next half we are doing, the Running with the Cows Half Marathon .  If this doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will.  I kind of wish it was this weekend but my body does need two weeks I think to recover and get back into racing mode.  I am very tempted to enter the local 5 K this weekend too but we have so much going on this weekend that I'd better not.

I haven't updated lately about what is going on with Mr. Andrew.  So much is going on that it is overwhelming at times!  His vocabulary has grown in leaps and bounds lately and he can now answer simple questions like are you hungry or are you tired.  His favorite word is no, which he says a lot.  Unfortunately bath time, which use to be his favorite time is now a dreaded event. I had read that this commonly happens but I thought to myself, no way, he LOVES baths.  Nope.  Not so anymore.  He still loves puddles though:)  He also now has a girlfriend at preschool.  Awesome.  Guess he is starting super young.  They are said to hold hands and walk around together and they do everything together.  The other day when I went to pick him up, he was outside on the play ground riding the little tractor they have, pulling another little girl in the cart that it tows behind it.  Such a ladies man.  He has suddenly become infatuated with wooden puzzles, especially wooden puzzles with cars and also bubbles.  The train thing is still there but maybe waning a little now, although he asked if he could watch choo-choos  last night before bed.  He has also learned how to pick his nose.  His finger is permanently up his nose lately and we are trying to let him know that we do that in private, not in public, if needed.  I am sure this is another gem he picked up at preschool.  He also was written up yesterday for biting another kid but the kid had has fingers in andrew's mouth so I really don't blame him.

I should do a Deuce/agility update as well.  Can you tell it's a friday and I have long incubation times on my experiments?  We are still going to Joc's place once a week and calling it good.  This was the view wednesday night.  Gorgeous.  Joc and I are doing a booth at a local dog event.  While I am still undecided about teaching (but leaning towards not) I still love agility and still love getting the information out to the public.  Deuce has been running some with stella and I, but I like to keep his distances down around 5 or less miles and no speedwork.  Will probably take him out today if the traffic isn't too bad with the Kansas Sampler festival in town.  He is unfortunately suffering from seasonal allergies this year.  I routinely inspect his ears and am an ear nazi when I see him shaking his head so I was super surprised this week to see blood red ears on the inside though no shaking of the head or scratching.  I also noticed he had some spots on his back legs where he had chewed and then in class I noticed hair missing around his eye.  I haven't seen him chewing/digging/scratching  but he is alone for 9 hours a day while i work.  Anyway, I immediately started him on claritin but wasn't seeing the results I wanted so he went in yesterday for a steroid shot.  Hoping that helps us get it under control so the claritin can do it's job.  We have another show end of May, just two days but I am excited to see everyone and see how he does.  I missed the local UKI show and heard it was a blast, so I am hoping my fall races don't coincide with the next show she does.  We really are super lucky to have both more USDAA and UKI in our area now so we don't have just ACK to do (yes, I misspelled that on purpose).  WT try outs are this weekend so going to be cheering extra hard for our coach and everyone else out there competing.  So now you know what's going on in my world!