Back to Business

Whew, it has been a crazy few weeks. I gave myself a break from blogging because we had so much going on, but really work has been kicking my behind. I am not out of the woods yet, but can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I am been working hard to ramp back up on my exercise and *thinking* about getting my eating back on track.

Can I boast about my kids for a minute? They rock, but their activities are running me ragged! They do swim team in the morning and then head off to camp for the day. I usually have to pick them up by 4 pm. It makes for long days and short nights. Not exactly what I want in my quest to become a morning person!

I have been working to get back to running as the calendar is telling me I have a half marathon in 8 weeks! How did that happen? Not sure, but I am sure getting excited as it means my vacation time is getting closer. We will be heading to the beach for a week and then I will be taking the kids to my parents for a week before I run the Disneyland Half. Seriously getting that excited feeling in my tummy. However, it can't come too quickly as I have things to get done and summer to enjoy.

The washington area has been come storm central. We have hot days for sure, but the last two weeks seem to have storms forecast for every evening! What has been crazy is the humidity! I ran today and running in the rain would have been refreshing to the 95% humidity I swear we had. I managed to get 5 miles in, but was not feeling confident about my stamina at all due to the walking.

I have my first race in awhile on the 4th of July. Its a 5k at the local shopping area. I have run a few events there and it is a nice route with some hills, but not anything crazy. There is plenty of parking and the center plaza serves as a nice staging area. The race is giving away beach towels as the premium. Isn't that cute? Nice to have a change from the tshirt.

As today is the last day of the month, I spent some time today checking out some races in the future. Without having my race a month goal this year, I have kind of gotten out of the habit of checking out what is coming up. There were many races I couldn't fit into my schedule last year that I want to try out.

Any rate, don't want to bore you on my first day back, so hope you come back while I talk about running in the summer and lots of other fun stuff.

Back to the Beginning

So I think I mentioned I have been all over the place lately. Today was the last day of school. Yea, that means that all the papers that have been breeding in my kids desks and cubbies come home to roost. In all reality, this has been happening for about a week. My son's class has been in a quad trailer about the size of a small kitchen and I cannot imagine for the life of me how all this stuff x24 fit in that room! The good news is that nothing new can come home....from school anyways. Camp starts tomorrow and the paper fight starts all over again.

Due to my son's baseball schedule my daughter and I have been spending lots of time together. I need to do some thinking on how to make this time productive and fun. Otherwise the weeks are going to go by very slowly!

Proud of myself this week so far. Boot camp on Monday, 2.75 run/walk this evening.

Last night my daughter and I headed to a sorority meeting to help plan the calendar for next year. She has been to her fair share of meetings and is comfortable with everyone. Plus she loves the goodies we always have. There may have been some desserts. (Most were eaten by her!)

Today, I got home from work late, but since it was raining the boys weren't running off to baseball. My hubby took gym duty with my daughter and all of the sudden I had a free hour! The rain tapered off and I was off for a run. My legs were super tight. hrm, stretching might have been a good idea. I ran and walked around the neighborhood and covered close to 3 miles. Dinner was a turkey burger and some broccoli with sweet potato fries. And milk. It has been at least a week since I have had milk. yum.

We have a makeup bootcamp tomorrow, so if I can get myself to bed on time I will be headed to that direction. That way the daughter and I can maybe hit the pool tomorrow evening.

I really hope I can have a better day at work tomorrow and get back on an even keel to match my workout progress!

Summer has Arrived

well summer is here, but the spring activities and the weather didn't seem to get the message. Things continue to be very busy with work and home. Man these kids are hard to keep track of. Mine seem to be overloaded this time of year as the seasons overlap. We have managed to close the door on soccer, scouts x 2 (almost) and regular season baseball. School has 2 more days and swim team is in full swing.

In the meantime I have been trying to get back to a more consistent schedule. I said June would be my time to get back after a tiring and hectic May. Perhaps I have blocked out every other June from my mind? I have  tried to do a better job of getting up for bootcamp and running. I wanted to run more during the week, at least a few miles, but I have totally failed at that. Right now I am happy that I have gone out for about 5 miles the last 2 Sundays.

Today felt good. I got up at 9 and was going to head right out, but since it is Father's Day, I decided it would be much nicer to cook some chocolate scones up before I headed out. Kid 1 had a swim test for camp at 11 Dad was handling, so I headed out a a little after 10. Lots of cloud cover and a much lower humidity level then last week. I decided to see just where the run would take me and headed out on my favorite train. I ended up doing a similar loop as last week without the extra back and forth. I was proud of this run for two reasons. The first was I ran the first 25 minutes without stopping or feeling badly. I was SLOW, but my stamina has grown. The other was that I decided to take a path that I knew was hillier then my other options and I didn't shy away from it.

My weight has been all over the place and I am completely mystified. I eat horrible and it is down, I do my best to be better at eating and working out and it goes up. Completely driving me crazy.

Hope you are doing well!

Late for Bed

Sleep is the #1 thing to get in the way of my morning workouts. I am trying very hard to get in the morning habit because it suits the life with two active kids and a crazy schedule. 5:40 comes early for me though. (i.e. it is 10:45 PM now and I am having email conversations with 2 work people) I am dedicated to making June work for me. To do that I need to alter my evening schedule. Problem? My kids are staying up later then ever, squeezing what I am used to be able to accomplish at night into an increasingly shorter window. Plus the bad TV I would love to be able to enjoy.

June 4/Day 4 - made it to boot camp this morning and ran 2 miles this evening. So far I have run all 4 days this month. That may not sound like a lot (and it isn't - yesterday I ran 1 mile at a faster then usual pace to prove I could) but it has been hot here and any number of other excuses could have been at the ready. Even though I "already worked out" today, I still took the opportunity to run. I knew it would take me a little less then 30 minutes and I have bootcamp in the morning, so no one will care if I am sweaty tonight. This morning I ran a set of stadium stairs for the first time. Love going up, going down makes me all kids of awkward. What is up with that?



What are you doing to make this month different? Its not too late!

I am here

I haven't gone away, just struggling to get out of the hole my work has so kindly dug for me over the last 2 weeks or so. I took off about a week and a half in May to just focus on sleep. It wasn't a great decision, but it was what I needed at the moment. I didn't go crazy with food, tried to keep the stress eating in check. Memorial day weekend was pretty much a free for all, but in the end I came out weighing what I went in with. So all and all, not too bad.

June is going to be about me. (again) It is a crazy time of year with school ending, spring sports winding down and swim team ramping up FAST. So I am working hard to get back to the exercise habit. June will be about squeezing in what I can whenever I can. I have a bikini to feel sexy in (goal) and the pool is open damn it! (how did that happen btw?)

So I ran Saturday and Sunday to kick the month off right. Tonight I ran a fast mile on the mill, just to convince myself I can kick up the pace and then took a 2 mile or so walk after dinner. I am playing with joining a challenge to see if I can kick things up a notch and get through this plateau I have been at for months. I am not unhappy with my weight, but a goal of losing 6 pounds over the course of the year didn't seem that daunting until I got to the 6th month of the year with very little movement.

Anyways, just wanted to let you know I am here, working out and trying to figure out my next race.

Hope you are well.