My NEW blog!

I am really excited.  I have been thinking about redesigning my blogs and after being contacted a few times about using my blogs for other things and for advertising, I have finally decided to make the jump.  The first step was to come up with a catchy name and possibly a logo.  I am unique in that I run with my kiddo and my dogs. You will commonly see me pushing a stroller with two red aussie attached to my side.  So we are working on a logo that incorporates that.  My new name will be Running with Reds and you can find my blog at http://runningwithreds.blogspot.com/  I hope having a more streamlined blog will help with the new endevors I am trying to pursue.  No, I am not a writer, I write what is in my head, what is going on in my life and what training I am doing both dog and running for future reference.  The fact that any one else reads other than my mom (hi mom), is a bonus.  I love reading blogs that are written from the heart and mine is no different.  So, this will be the end to the three blogs I have had about miller, deuce, my new life as a mom and my random ramblings.  I will have one blog but will keep the other three for me to go back and check out on occasion. Check out my new blog and let me know what you think?  I will be adding the logo as soon as it is done!  Remember I will still blog about dogs, running, dog agility and raising a crazy red headed kiddo.

infectious

I have had the most sickly year of my life.  I totally blame andrew and the germs he brings home to me.  On one hand, I know that he is building up the most awesome immune system ever but on the other hand, I am tired of being sick.  This has cut almost a whole week out of my running schedule and it is going to keep me from running the midnight run.  Not sure if I blogged about this last year but the midnight run is a race run out in the middle of no where Kansas in the pitch black dark on gravel on some of the toughest hills.  Last year was my first time doing it and I came in dead last.  Not only did I come in dead last, I had to write my time on a big chart while everyone watched, because they were low tech like that.  Very embarrassing.  While part of me didn't want anything to do with this race ever again, the other part of me was so ready to beat some people this year and show that i had become a stronger runner (last year I had just started serious training round about this time).  Plus this year it was a four miler versus the five miler we did last year and the moon was suppose to be stunning tonight.

I started feeling sick on thursday of this week.  Back up a few days, I had gone to a foam rolling clinic put on by our local bike shop.  It was taught by a chiropractor and I had picked up some awesome tips on foam rolling.  Truth be told, I am horrible about rolling it out as it is always really painful and I like to avoid pain.

my foam roller feeling the love lately

She told us that we should be rolling at least 3 times a day, which I just don't have time to do but I had decided to at least try once a day, every day.  After two straight days of rolling, I was sore.  Like hit by a bus sore.  I kept thinking it would be like running after a long break, you would be sore after the first few runs and then you wouldn't be.  Well, I kept getting more and more sore.  I ran on tuesday morning and did a pace run of four miles with a 9:59-10 minute pace.  I had planned on running again thursday but was going to have to shift my running to night as my hubby was working in topeka and I draw the line at getting up any earlier than 4:30 to run.  When i was once again sore on thursday, I just figured it was typical foam rolling sore.  I had learned a new way to roll out my upper back and I am notorious for getting knots in my upper back so I had been dutifully rolling my upper back and lower neck.  I started getting the chills right before I headed home from work which told me that this was more than muscle soreness.  Boo.  Fever was already at 101 when I got home and quickly rose to 102.5-103 throughout the night.  I had to take friday off. I hate taking days off because we have such a flow going now on sample prep but my trusty student was able to step up and take care of things while I was gone.  I mainly laid on the couch and watched mindless TV most of the day.  Since the only symptom was fever, I really didn't think going to the dr was going to accomplish anything.  I do today have a sore throat but it isn't horrible.  I did call my dr's nurse and she said that there was a viral thing going around right now that was rather nasty and just had a fever as the only symptom.  My fever finally broke yesterday with the help of meds, which previously hadn't been working.  I had hope that maybe, just maybe i could run today.

Woke up feeling good today so headed to town to pick some stuff up from my favorite place in the whole wide world, Target.  Decided to stop at the farmer's market to get some fresh veggies.  After walking around the FM twice (we have a really tiny FM) and around target getting the essentials, I had to lay down.  Fever came back and I have felt like poop ever since.  I am still not use to be a good patient and my hubby has been working tons of overtime so on his day off, all he wants to do is rest meaning i get the kiddlet no matter how crappy I feel.  The race is no longer even a thought and now I am thinking there is no way I am going to be able to run at all tomorrow either.  I had thought maybe I could get some sort of long run in but I think that is going to be just a dream.  I am bummed but I learned the hard way this spring that when you are sick, the best thing you can do is NOT run and recover or you will be recovering for much longer and not running for longer.  I had just gotten my newest running schedule with tons of new challenges and was really, really excited to start so I am bummed about that.  I had done my first double ever this week too.  I need to increase my weekly miles and this is an easy way to do so.  I am going to try and do at least two doubles a week. I would like to get my mileage closer to 30 miles a week if at all possible.

Andrew came home with a "rash" from daycare.  It started out with just a small spot under the neck.  It quickly spread down his trunk and into his groin.  It was also all over his cheeks and fore head.  I was concerned but it didn't seem to hurt him or bother him at all.  We rubbed benedryl cream on it and of course dr. google claimed it was probably viral and would have to work itself through his system.  I had decided if we got up and it was worse or he was itchy that we would head to the dr.  It has actually faded to little to nothing although I did speak with the dr on call this morning just to make sure we shouldn't go to KSTAT or be looking for other symptoms.  Hand, foot and mouth has been tearing through all of the daycares locally and ours had had several cases the last few weeks.  This just doesn't seem like blisters though so I am pretty sure it isn't HFM.  He also has eaten and drank like normal and I hear that the blisters are the worst in the mouth and he has none.  I will be watching him to see if it gets worse and if it does, we will head to KSTAT.  My mom is already on the ready to drive to KS just in case because I can't take off if I am well with the amount of samples we have ready to process. Anyway, I feel like the house of Coleman is one big house of infection.  I still have a very distant hope I will magically feel cured so I can do some sort of run tomorrow.  Maybe I am just way to optimistic.  

Happy Fourth of July!

First of all, Happy Fourth of July!!!!  I started out my day with this.  I had planned on getting up, doing speed work, and heading to work.   I have a few hours of work to do (thus the blog) and I wanted to get it done quickly so I could head back to Wamego for the festivities.  Our town does it UP on the fourth.  I think I have heard that our town goes from 3,000 people to 40 thousand in one day.  We have the carnival, which has been going on the last few nights, the parade, and the biggest 4th of july fireworks show in Kansas. It is all hand fired and timed to music and it is AMAZING!  Seriously proud to live in a little town that does such an awesome job with this holiday.  I even shed tears during the parade because the patriotism is so touching.  I was really worried that this year would be the year andrew would freak out about the fireworks.  Not so, well, so far.  Last night, our neighbors set off a bunch of really fancy expensive waste of money in my opinion fireworks and we watched from their patio.   While he jumped a few times, he was not scared and would clap after the big loud ones, so I hope we are good to go tonight.  The best part is we can view the entire show from our house so we don't even have to leave, and can just go upstairs and watch from the window if we have to.  

I really do love running in our town.  We are blessed with an abundance of gravel country roads and beautiful morning views.  It was a perfect running morning.  Got 7 in for the day and feeling good.  Even did some hills in town to mix it up.  Just have speed work left for this week.  Ready to get a plan in action though!  I know I won't do hard speed work on my own:)

Stella and I barely broke a sweat this morning.  I wish summer could be like this the whole summer.  60 degrees at 6 am and no humidity.  This is the life.  Stella loves running in the big muddy puddles that the irrigation systems leave on the gravel roads.  She also loves running in the wet dew filled morning grass too so is a mess after our runs.  Thank goodness she dries quickly and brushes out easily.  

I leave you with a pic from last night.  We took andrew down to the carnival.  He still isn't really old enough to enjoy riding the rides and I am okay with that (holy crap, 22 bucks for a wrist band!!!).  I was tempted to try the carousel with him but after the last trip on a carousel at my first half marathon in St. Louis, i thought again.  He was content just watching the rides go and walking around the booths.  His uncle cayce and daddy played a few games and they won a blue dinosaur and a stuffed banana for him.  At 3-5 bucks a game, I thought two games was enough.  We did let andrew play the duck game.  That was always my favorite when I was a kid, even if it is rigged.  The food as always was delicious and all four of us split a funnel cake.  Yum.  Hoping I ran off those calories this morning:)

An easy week of running

Well, minus my long run, it has been a nice easy, get my body back use to running.  I was pretty sore after my three miler and felt really discombobulated, but as the week went on and I stretched more and did more yoga, things got better.  My four miler on friday was one of those dream runs, perfect pace, perfect cool wind blowing (not too hard but enough to cool me off) and perfect company.  I am long running tomorrow but still nothing crazy, just a six miler.  Going to try and get up and go around 6 am and see if we can avoid the humidity that has been brutal at 5 am.  I met up with my running coach this morning and did a grocery shopping trip with her to discuss good nutrition and started talking about plans.  I am really excited to start training for some PR runs in august for my two 10 Ks and then tackling Conquer the Konza.

I have been thinking a lot about agility lately.  Mainly because 99% of my friends are dog friends and they are constantly posting about their fabulous runs and shows but also because all of the fall shows are coming up and I need to enter.  Since I didn't teach this spring (I really don't know how I could have fitted it into my crazy schedule of running/dog shows), I have no extra monies for shows.  I am trying to figure out where the extra money is going to come from.  I really don't want to have to sit out till I can teach again.  I have been making it work so far just entering shows less than 3 hours away and only entering saturday/sundays thus far.  I may have to go back to camping out or start begging my friends to let me stay at their places to save some dough.  I have done it before so I can do it again.  Heck, I have slept in my car to save money.  So, thinking about how to do this.  Right now I want to do Triune's show over labor day weekend (maybe three days if I can swing it), Agility ability the next weekend, USDAA in october, the Kansas city Golden show in Lawrence in october, and I think that will be enough for the fall.    I also need to figure out how to fit classes into my schedule.  Anything on a week night is pretty hard for me to fit in, but I have to do this.  Deuce turned five this week and I think we are starting to see a brain so I can't give up now.

This happened yesterday.  Andrew refused to nap.  Well, he napped in the car on the way home from the grocery store and it was too hot to leave him there so we had to bring him in the house.  He instantly woke up.  We attempted all day to get him to re-nap to no avail.  Yes, he is semi naked in the first pic.  We had decided to try the new Radina's bake house in town and it is right next to the splash pad.  Note to self, he if can see the splash pad, he will want to go to it and get in the water no matter what, be prepared.  I just stripped him down and put a new diaper on post splash pad.  Anyway, I had given him a sucker just to keep him semi-happy (he was tired and angry all afternoon and i was at wit's end) and I had put on his cartoons.  I sat down at the computer for a few minutes and he was instantly asleep (sans sucker).  He is still asleep now as I type (6 am) and was down for the count at 7 pm last night. Wow.  Not sure I want to deal with angry toddler again but early bedtime was kind of nice:)

I will never go on another vacation again...

....if it means coming back to this chaos!  Work has been non stop crazy and getting up early has been super tough.  But, it is wednesday and I am praying things will be better at work and that I at least get out to do some agility with mr deuce tonight as this is the last class of the session till fall.  I will say that the sunrise this morning was spectacular as I was doing my four miles and that really pumped up my runner's high.  I tried to take a picture but it really didn't do it justice.  The corn is as high as an elephants eye (LOL) and I sing Oh what a beautiful morning, the whole time I run.  

A little hugh jackman for your hump day:)

Vacation Plog part 3

I am going to attempt to blog from my phone (and it didn't so i had to wait and upload on the computer). This may or may not work.   Still trying to figure out how to get pictures to load. I am at that point where I don't want our vacation to end, yet I am ready to be home and back into a routine. Andrew and I have been sleeping till 9 am every morning so it is going to be tough to get back up at 5 am to run.

Well since I left off, we had a date night and got to eat at outback steak house on a gift card and go play putt putt golf at Casey Jones village.  We had a few friends join us on the course.  Yes, a mommy coon and her four babies helped us play and they were not pets.  It really was so nice to just get away by ourselves. We don't get that at all in Kansas with all of the grandmas being in Tennessee.  Andrew had a wonderful night with grandma and grandpa and even slept with Grammy.  We even got to go get a night cap at a local bar downtown that had live music with my cousin and one of my high school friends (who was in town too for the week). After another barre class the next day, we had lunch at the bakers rack, a cool new downtown restaurant and then headed out to Martin.  Andrew had another birthday party with the Coleman family at his great grandma Coleman's house. Andrew got some new trains and some new monster trucks.

While in Martin we visited the Discovery Center.  It is a really awesome interactive museum/exploration center complete with an earthquake simulator that simulates the reelfoot lake earthquake, a huge tall tower you can go up in that has glass floors (yes, I freaked out and wouldn't move), and several children's areas that tony and I had fun in too!  It is on 50 acres so there are many things to see an do outside including an entire settler's village, a tractor barn, an old church, fire house, state house, and pond/streams complete with ducks of all ages.  Andrew especially loved the ducks and really wanted to pet them so we had to work extra hard to keep him from doing so.  We had a great time and wisely bought two day passes so we could actually see it all.

 All in all it was too short and I loved seeing family.  The drive back was uneventful thanks to Deuce not eating any trash and andrew mostly sleeping.  Till next year Tennessee!

A vacation plog part two

Rather than write a bunch of words, here are the pictures from our trip so far! Andrew is train crazy so we knew he had to go to the train depot and the fire station to see the big trucks, as well as Casey Jones museum.  A little tip, the museum its self isn't that much but the gift shop is FULL of Thomas stuff so save your money and just go to the gift shop!

Driving the Snorkel One that my stepdad was a captain on.  He LOVED the fire trucks!

He got a hat and several badges and of course candy.  They also went to the train depot in downtown Jackson but the photos of that are on the hubby's phone.  

Had to go to Casey Jones museum.  Really cool old steam trains!

The gift shop was half thomas stuff and that is where we spent a ton of time.  They also had thomas episodes going on the tv.    Andrew LOVED it!

So much Thomas stuff!

Thomas overload!

After Thomas we had to go to the legendary Casey Jones soda fountain.  I use to go here as a kid and get milkshakes and hot fudge sundaes and of course lots of old fashioned candy.  He took a few bites of his ice cream and was pretty much done but he did sit still for a few minutes.  

This was actually from the night before.  We ate at this super cool place called Rock and Dough Pizza.  The pizza was so good and they brewed their own beer there too.  I did a flight and enjoyed pretty much all of them except the really hoppy IPA.  Andrew loves pizza and ate probably 2.5 slices.  Tonight, we get a date night, just Tony and I!  I am so pumped about a meal without a toddler!  YIPEEE for grandparents!