Triathlon Training - Reacclimatizing to Swimming!

I can't remember if I ever touched on this before, but I used to swim.  I did swim team as a kid for several years consecutively and then, in the height of my eating disorder, I swam every single day for at least an hour (often longer).  

I signed up for a triathlon.  Am I crazy?  Probably!  It's on July 31st, 2016.  So this morning, in order to being proper training for it, I went to the pool.  15 min of freestyle later, I was pooped!  So I did another 15 minutes of breast stroke and called it a day.  Man.  Swimming is going to take some getting used to!

At first, when I arrived, I felt like I was going to be triggered.  But I told myself I was there for a completely different reason in a completely different headspace and that it was going to be fine.  And it was!  I didn't feel triggered at all, which was a relief!

I am planning to do that at least every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and perhaps one day on the weekend as well.  Biking and running are not going to be the hard parts of this triathlon, that's for sure.  The hard part is going to be swimming in a LAKE with who knows what wildlife swimming around in there too.  YIKES!  Thankfully the swim part of tris are usually first so I'll get it over and done with.

This morning was a very productive morning for me.  After I swam, I took a shower, ate breakfast, got Mara off to preschool, cleaned the kitchen, unloaded/reloaded the dishwasher, tidied the whole main floor, vacuumed the upstairs and the main floor (including the stairs which are a pain in the ass to vacuum!), did tons of laundry and studied my coursework for my personal trainer cert.  Picked up Mara at 12:30pm, got her down for a nap and had lunch.  Now I'm going to feed Frank and work on folding laundry.

Speaking of Frank, he has kennel cough.  Lovely. He coughed all night long and kept Corky and me up.  Sigh!  We just cannot catch a break.

Tomorrow is JUNE! YAY!

Memorial Day

YAY! IT'S ALMOST JUNE!  

The weather is improving (finally!) and it's a long weekend.  I don't have to teach my regular Zumba class today because it's memorial day.

Thank you to all who serve, who have served, who have lost their lives serving or who have lost a loved one serving.  Because of you, we are free.  Thank you!

Baby Love

I love her. 

More Struggles

I've been having horrendous body image lately.  But this happens from time to time.  I hate it, it sucks!  I just feel like my body is covered in flab.  Particularly my middle area.

This week is pretty busy.  

Tuesday (today) - Mara preschool.  Sustained pace increase training.  Vacuum/mop. Pick up Mara.  Mara nap.  Laundry.  Walk Frank. Sub Zumba at 4:00pm.  Corky home. Dinner.  Mara bath.  Bedtime.  Add to that, keeping an eye on Frank all day.

Wednesday - Sustained pace increase training.  Teach Aqua Fit at 9:00am.  Home.  Mara snack.  Walk Frank.  Mara lunch.  Mara nap.  Clean garage.  Corky home.  Dinner.  Mara bath.  Bedtime.  Walk Frank again (weather permitting).

Thursday - Interval pacing.  Teach Zumba 8:30am.  (Corky takes Mara to preschool). Home.  Walk Frank.  Vacuum/mop.  Pick up Mara.  Mara nap.  Grocery shopping.  Dinner at my parents' house with company from out of town.  Mara bedtime.  

Friday - Cross train.  Teach Zumba at 10am.  Home.  Mara lunch.  Mara nap.  Laundry/chores.  Walk Frank.  Sub Zumba at 4:00pm.  Corky home.  Dinner.  Mara bath.  Mara bedtime.  

Saturday - Meet with friend who I will be dog-sitting for in June.

Sunday - Distance training (run/bike).  Meet a friend at 1:00pm to hang out so she can meet Frank.  

Whew.  I'm tired already.

Frank Pics

It's 3:15am and I can't sleep so I thought I'd give you some cute pictures to look at! 

Frank had a bath and he was mad about it! 

Sweet baby boy all tuckered out.

Sleeping with eyes open and tongue out! Just like Jax used to do! 

"Mom stop kissing me!"

Crazy Abby has poor little Frankie pinned to the couch! Lol

For some reason Frank thinks he needs caffeine. Yeah right! Lol. 

Aimless Post

Just feeling the desire to write just for the sake of getting thoughts out of my head.  Not too sure the direction that this post will take, so I apologize in advance for the tangential nature of it.

Life is generally pretty good right now but there are definitely some aspects of it that are challenging.  Parenting Mara is tough at times.  She's very smart, very verbal and very strong-willed.  She has a mind of her own and it's very hard to get her to come away from an idea when she's fixated on it.  Unfortunately, this shows itself in behaviors that are often dangerous, such as running into the parking lot, trying to climb down cement stairs on her own or investigating the dogs' buttholes while they're eating.  (It's a bad idea to investigate dogs' buttholes at any time, but it's an even worse idea when they're eating!)

She also has a TON of energy.  Which is great, because that can be really fun.  But sometimes when I'm tired and just not feeling good, I just want her to take a NAP ALREADY.  And some days, like yesterday and today for example, she just won't.  And that's really hard because for one thing, I get zero mental or physical breaks when she doesn't nap (on the days when she's not at preschool that is) and for another thing, when she doesn't nap she turns into a SuperCrab.  So that's fun. 

Not.

As I mentioned before, she's very verbal for a child her age.  And this can present in some really humorous ways.  Case in point, yesterday I was on the phone with my mom and Mara and the dogs were running around doing stuff.  I had just had Frank (new puppy, almost 9 weeks old) outside for nearly 10 minutes trying to get him to potty and he just would not.  So I brought him back in where he was gallivanting around the house with Mara and Abby, having a grand old time.
 After a minute, Mara came running up to me saying, "oh god, oh god, oh god.  Wipes.  Wipes."  
"What's wrong?" I asked her.
"Wipes, wipes," she said again, pointing to the living room... where Frank had peed.

LOL!  I had to laugh about that one.

Speaking of Frank, bless his little heart, he is the cutest thing ever.  He is just so clumsy!  He's got these giant paws that he trips over, these huge ears that flap all over the place when he runs, and a little tail about 2 inches long that wags like crazy when he's excited, which is basically all the time.  I love him!  He's doing okay with the potty training.  He's not as quick a study as Abby was, but he's a bit faster than Jax.  Bless Jax.. I miss that goofy guy.

Mara has a cold... again.  Swear to God... I cannot even handle this.  When she's sick she sleeps like shit, which means we ALL sleep like shit.  And we were already sleeping like shit because Frank has to go out to potty twice in the night and I always have to get up by 6:00am in order to get everything squared away before my classes in the morning.  And speaking of classes, I've taught 7 classes in 5 days this past week.  Plus running base miles 2 of the 5 days.  And that's after teaching 8 classes in 7 days last week.  I am POOPED.

Busy Bee

So busy.  New puppy.  Toddler.  Work.  Other stuff.  

The new puppy, Frank, is ADORABLE!!!! Currently he and Abby are playing at the other end of the couch.  The first day, he didn't show a lot of interest in playing with her.  I'll admit I was worried they weren't going to get along.  But now they're besties.  Oops! Frank just fell off the couch.  Lol.

Mara is doing well.  She's off at preschool right now.  She's in a picky phase and won't eat anything but macaroni and cheese, bananas, fruit/veggie pouches, chicken nuggets and string cheese.  Oh well.  At least she's eating!

I'm going to be working toward my personal trainer certification soon.  Also, Corky's boss's wife just gave me her old triathlon bike and Corky's boss is giving him his so we can do tris now too!  yay!!!

Gotta go. Frank is chewing on something......

Frank McGee

Well... we did it.  We went out of our minds and got a new puppy.  

Frank McGee, an 8 week old Boxer puppy came home on May 15th!  WE LOVE HIM!  He is the cutest little guy!

On the way home from the airport

Mara loves him.

Fresh Start

I don't know why, but lately the idea of abandoning this blog and starting over again has been creeping into my mind.  I've had this blog going since December of 2012!  That's 3 1/2 years now.  So much has changed.  So very much.  

I think the main reason why I've been contemplating stopping this blog is because of a few really awful comments I've received.  Not even about recent posts, necessarily, but the comments were received recently.  Some of them are really terrible.  Some I've deleted, some I haven't.  I can delete them if I choose to, because this is MY blog and I govern what is allowed to be written here.  But I believe everyone is entitled to their opinions, as am I, and so I do leave some of the comments.

But I feel as though this blog as it originally was started does not pertain to my life anymore. Which is probably all the more reason I should keep it, just to repeatedly show myself and anyone who cares to look just how far I've come in a fairly short space of time.

I am really not sure where this start-over desire is coming from.  I guess I'll have to think about it.

Missing this face today.

Article

An article from Scary Mommy came across my Facebook newsfeed this morning.  It was called "Parenting When You Have A Short-Temper."

After a difficult few days (more like weeks, actually) there was never a better time for this article to come into my life.  It talks about taking breaks, caring for yourself, meeting YOUR  needs as well as your child's needs while still remembering that your child HAS needs of their own.  They're not giving you a hard time, they're having a hard time.  And, as many of the articles from Scary Mommy do, it addressed this oftentimes difficult issue with dry humor and an ever-present sense of validation.  It was really a good read.

Click HERE to read the article.

Happy Thursday everyone! :) xo

Mother's Day 2016

I'll write a more in-depth post later (I hope, although it was a pretty low-key day so there actually isn't much to say) but right now I have to get ready and run out the door to sub a class. 

I've got a child with paws and a child with feet and let me tell you, they are both wonderful!  I hope everyone's Mother's Day was fantastic, regardless of the species of your kids! 

Cinco De Mayo - 10k

Olé!  Yesterday, on May 1st, Corky and I ran our second 10k - the Cinco De Mayo run/walk!  The first was the Run Like Hell last October.  

This one started at 8:30am.  Unlike our previous races, we had Mara with us for this one, all tucked into the jogging stroller.  We knew parking had the potential to be impossible since there was not only a race but a giant Cinco De Mayo festival going on as well.  With this knowledge, we opted to take the light rail train, called the MAX (Metropolitan Area Express) into downtown.  Since the race started (and ended) at Pioneer Courthouse Square, it made it very convenient as there is a PCS stop on the MAX.

Getting out the door at ten minutes to 8 in the morning is tough enough, to say nothing of doing this with a toddler.  Add to that the fact that said toddler didn't go to bed until after 10 pm the night before and you've got a very difficult morning.  We were running late, of course, and didn't even get on the train until about 8:15am.

As we pulled up to PCS we could see the mob of runners at the starting line.  Just as the train was stopping, the runners were starting.  We watched as they all ran through the starting arc.  The doors opened and we ran right off the MAX, across the street and right through the arc into the race.  No time to use the bathroom or anything!  This also meant we started dead last.

I discovered very quickly that the dynamics of running in a race with a jogging stroller and running in a race by yourself are very different.  I generally keep a pretty decent pace (between 8 and 8 1/2 minutes per mile, even with a stroller) and therefore, the first few miles were spent passing people who keep slower paces.  This happens to me nearly every race.  But this time it was different.

I don't know if people thought, because I had a stroller and was passing them, that I was trying to show off or what.  But I got some undeniably mean looks from people.  But not everyone was unpleasant about it.  "Wow!" I heard a few times.  And, "well.. no more excuses!" was another thing I heard.  I wasn't running this race with a jogging stroller because I had something to prove to people.  I was running this race with a jogging stroller because 1) I had nobody to watch my kid and 2) I had something to prove to myself.  

Mara, for the most part, did great.  She waved at everyone, sang to herself and played with an empty dixie cup for most of the race.  It was only a 10k so at least she didn't have to be in the stroller for such a long time.  Around mile 5 she started asking to nurse.  Lol!  No time for that!

In the end, Mara and I finished 61st out of 488.  5th in my age bracket and 1st in the stroller category! (No, that's not a real category, but I wish! Haha.)  My splits were all under 8:30:00 and my time was 52:21:08.  I'll take it!