A day for the record books

It didn't start out bad, and I'm not sure I can pinpoint where I lost control. Lets just say the day ended with a lot of poop, an exploding toilet and the husband leaving work early after a very pathetic phone call from home. All I wanted was to melt under the bed and forget today ever happened. Too bad it was only 4pm and both kids were wide awake. So what do we do? Hit the pavement. We loaded up and started to run. My son spent some time trying to negotiate ending the run almost as soon as we started, "you look tired Momma, lets go back to the car". Once that approach didn't work, he sprinkled the road with goldfish. And I wonder why we have to buy the extra large $8.99 container every week. At least we'd easily be able to retrace our steps. Just as I hoped, with every step I could feel my body relaxing. I was able to laugh at my son and forget about the power struggles that almost did us in earlier in the day. I was serenaded by the ABC's sung at the top of his lungs and received some interesting looks from other's on the Blvd. Little do they know it's all about preventing the meltdown and if screaming the ABC's at the top of his lungs while turned around facing me in the jogger means we get to go a little further...by all means sing away my friend. 4 miles passed relatively quickly and I had one more hill between us and the car. A perfect time to let him loose and avoid the hill. We spent the next quarter of a mile running side by side. He was Speedy Spencer and the babe and I played the role of Thomas and we chuffed right along pretending to be on the island of Sodor where toilets don't explode and Mom's don't seriously consider running away. Ran 4 miles today.

Scott Gorham 5k

If you haven't figured it out yet, commitment is not our strongest skill set. Today had been penciled in as the Newport 10 Miler, in fact I believe we were responsible for at least 2 other registrations. The race never happened. I'll give it to Joe, he made a good faith effort in the training dept. Lets be real, an.8am.start.an.hour.away.with.2.kids.in.40.degree.weather.same.day.as.nieces.birthday.party is a terrible awful idea. So we settled on a local 5k instead. We settled on this Saturday night, again we are commitment-phobes lately. This was the first race post baby and I was feeling pretty bad ass about it. There was some debate about which parent was going to get stuck behind the beast. Joe was adamant that he would fall on the sword so I could run hard, I think he just didn't want to deal with my ego when I beat him with the beast. I haven't been training and runs have all been pretty slow up to this point so I had no idea what to expect. Oh, forgot to mention, this was a TINY race. Itty bitty, meaning there was a real chance we could claim last place. Gun goes off and away we go. Rumor was it was a flat course and thankfully this was true. I started to run and decided to just go hard and ignore the heart rate. Kept glimpsing at my garmin and noticed pace was in the 8:30's. Too fast but went with it. First mile was 8:51. As you can guess I slowed down and paid dearly for going out too hard. Two reasons I didn't slow to a walk: 1. Husband is behind me with both kids and the beast. If he passes me I cannot go home. 2. I'm running with a dad and what looks to be his 9 year old son. If the kid can do it so can I. Miles 2 and 3 were in the 9:20's. And I likely could have pushed a bit harder on mile 3 but at that point wasn't really thinking about much. Unofficial finish time was 28:53 a 9:11 pace. I'll take it with little complaints. If I can stay injury free this summer I think I can make a run at my 5k PR this fall. And as for this race, I'd totally run it again. Very cute community based race. Family and stroller friendly and pleasant enough course through quiet neighborhoods. Ran 5k today.

breaking up with my scale

Warning, this post is likely to read as very shallow and self absorbed. Just move on if you want, I won't be offended. As most new Mom's I hit the sweet spot where life is moving along, I'm preparing to my return to work and even though we are all sleeping, I still have a problem. My clothes don't fit. I'm a good 17lbs away from pre-baby weight and starting to get cranky about it. My wardrobe consists of leggings, sweat pants, 1 pair of jeans with a button and a pair of maternity jeans. My boobs are too big for most of my shirts and my hips are very wide. Nothing fits. All of that bitching aside, I'm working out as hard as can be tolerated. My diet is rich with real whole foods and is primarily based in grains, veggies, and beans. We are only 10 weeks out so there is plenty of time, but I'm sick and tired reading about these Mom's who loose the weight in 6 weeks or less. Cheers to you, I'm jealous. It's not going to happen over here, so I need to stop reading about your successes. It's not you, it's me. With my son at the same spot I had 35+lbs to loose so I'm ahead of the game. Getting on the scale daily or even weekly is not helping my cause. Because of breastfeeding the weight is coming off slowly. Nothing defeats me more than a week filled with strong workouts and good meals and then I step on the scale to see that nothing has changed or even worse I'm up a half lb from last week. And yes, I checked and my giant rack accounts for 6lbs of the additional weight and that was after a nursing session. Don't ask, it was a moment of desperation. Why do I let it get to me so much? So I'm taking a month off. No more weigh in's. I have enough to stress about like pooping on the potty, nap training, mastering the logistics of getting the double jogger in and out of my trunk with smashing my shin every.god.damned.time. I'm also becoming curious about heart rate training....more on that later. So goodbye old friend, I'll see you in a few weeks and here's hoping that you get on board and can be more supportive with your electronic feedback. Ran 5.3 miles today.

Green light!

Saw the Chiropractor today and got the "all clear" on the running front! Totally psyched at this news and even more so that these visits have made a noticeable improvement in my level of discomfort. He wasn't stupid when he cleared me and included the lecture about not doing to much too soon. The goal is to strain the joint a bit and see how it holds up. Fine by me, any running is more than I had been doing. That and spring finally arrived in little Rhody so to be out in the fresh air is so nice after the never ending winter. In celebration I hit the Blvd with a friend and the babe's and we just ran. After comparing who got the most sleep the night before and whose husband is more annoying with not getting up at night we started to discuss real business. See, she's moving. Really moving, not like our false alarm last summer. I don't want to talk about it. Good running partners are hard to come by and good friends are even harder to find. So what do you do when your running partner is moving to the deep south? You find a marathon near her new house and plan a trip! Details are yet to be worked out, but we have the spring/summer to return to a respectable fitness base and fall will be the start of training. Now we've already established that I have the shit end of this stick as I'll be running solo in the nastiness that is winter in New England as she braves temps that likely won't go below 50. But that's ok, remotely we'll keep each other accountable and we'll both keep running and be forced to stay in touch! A win all around. Now I need to find a new partner. They need to be kid friendly as I often run with the beast, or bail at the last minute b/c someone (could be either of them) has been up all night. Ask her why she swam solo this morning. We have to match on pace both with the stroller and without. It helps that we are both finding our feet after having babies. Sarcasm is a must. She's nicer than me, as most of my friends are, so my new partner just has to be able to put up with me. Flexibility for timing of runs is required. Last minute flexibility is preferable, like can you run right now between dirty diapers, tantrums and feeding schedules?? If you know of anyone fitting this posting I'll be interviewing in June. Ran 3.2 miles today

34/22/29

Those are my new numbers, the number of pounds I run behind with the double jogger. 85lbs of baby, toddler, stroller and car seat. This thing is a beast, barely fits in the back of my SUV and a bit like pushing a micro loft on wheels. Roomy and spacious for both kids, enough for each to sit without touching each other and yet the toddler was on his knees poking the baby in the face for most of the ride. "I don't want her to miss seeing the squirrels" was the excuse when I asked him to back away. Clearly allowing a baby to sleep is a foreign concept to an almost 3 year old, but we were running so almost anything was going to be allowed if it meant the run could continue. It's been just shy of a month since my last run so today was needed. (Don't ask, I haven't been cleared to return to running, this was a non-sanctioned event.) Life with 2 has been a challenge and not much of my life today looks or feels like my life with even just 1 kid never mind no kids. I'm at the point where I'm striving for normalcy, a routine, something to feel familiar. With all the miles the kid and I logged with our single jogger I could close my eyes for a moment and find a bit of that familiar feeling. Yes, I had to open goldfish, stop and pick up a train that went overboard and sing ABC's at the top of my lungs but we were out there. Before starting I had some apprehension, driving to the Blvd I started to talk myself out of it. Lets be honest, is anyone jazzed about pushing 85lbs on a run 8 weeks post partum? It was one of those things that I knew needed to get done. Check it off, first run with the beast complete. Move on. Next time it'll be easier, well not likely but you know we'll be out there over and over again. Won't be long til we find some speed and begin to pick of other runner's and mess with their self esteem. I can speak from experience, a little part of you wants to die when you are passed by a jogging stroller. It's time to re-establish a running base so I can move into training again. Training will give me something other than sleep schedules to obsess over. Ran 3 miles today.

The Mom Squad

In the past I tried to update this blog on the days I got a workout in, that format is no longer sustainable. With 2 kids my free time is close to non-exsistant so blogging isn't as easy to get too. This post for instance, I've tried get done 3 different times this week with no success. Most interruptions involve poop, not mine, and laundry. At this point everything is touch and go in my life. Sleep remains elusive at best and as a result days are all over the place. Workouts are happening but not like before. Granted it's only been 7 weeks but I can't plan on getting a workout done. If we get a good nights sleep I'm able to get up and get something done. No sleep = no workout, it's just that simple, we are still in survival mode over here. I'm thankful for workout friends who understand and don't care. When I show up they cheer and when I miss they remind me that it's ok to sleep when we can and to hang in there. In my head I refer to them as my Mom Squad, last Monday most of us were at the pool at 5:30am, I counted 7 of us all with small kids back at home. It was hysterical, I can only imagine what the other swimmer's thought. Even more twisted is that we all found time to escape our families and we end up at the pool at an ungodly hour waiting for the gym to open. What can I say? They are a great group of ladies and are a phenomenal support system during these blurry days. For me it has always been about finding a group to get me thought these times. I still see and love the ladies from pre-natal yoga 3 years ago. I'm rambling now, lets get back to business. Here's what I accomplished, along with changing about 500 diapers: Monday - 2000 yard swim with the Mom Squad Wed - Fitness in the Park Friday - Fitness in the Park Sat - 2200 yard swim I hate to even say that I have goals for this week because it doesn't really matter what I want to do, clearly I have little say in what gets done. But that said in an ideal world I'd like to get in 3 swims and 3 Fitness in the Park classes. The weather looks nice enough to break in our monster of a double jogger, but who knows.

No running, no sugar, no dairy, no gluten, no sleep, no fun

Hi, it's me. They haven't done me in yet; I assure you, they are trying. Throwing every curveball in their books at us, last night it was a tag team attempt and they took turns screaming at us from 1am-4am. The logical part of me knows that this will pass and we will sleep again. The delusional sleep deprived part of me wants to curl into a ball, waive the white flag and call it all as a bad idea. So here's the update, you were right. Too much too soon. I'm not superwoman and although felt great immediately post delivery I need to dial it back. The biggest concern in my pubic bone pain has returned and if this gets worse it leads down an ugly road I have no interest in. So no running, other activities as tolerated but listen to my body needs to be the motto. Also I need to make some dietary changes. Acupuncturist has recommended no dairy, no sugar, no gluten. As much as I hated to hear this and debated a bit with him this evening, he's yet to steer me wrong and we've been together several years now. I've cleaned up my eating in the past and even today do fairly well. My biggest crutch? Dairy free chocolate chips and goldfish. The hardest part in regards to eating with a toddler and infant is I don't have time to plan and execute. Shopping is a last.minute.oh.shit.the.cupboards.are.bare afterthought. Meals have been built around pasta. Why? It's quick and we will all eat it with the least amount of bickering. I also don't have time to eat during the day and then eat more than I should at dinner. Today my lunch taunted me across the room for a good 45 minutes while I dealt with the needs of an infant. Time to be more mindful, plan things out and prepare foods that I can grab and eat quickly. Good wake up calls all around. Once I figure out how to make this work on 5 hours of sleep and 2 kids to wrangle I'll share what has worked as well as what hasn't. Sean did reassure me that any improvements in diet are good and again perfection is not an obtainable goal. Also, the baby has started to smile which just makes it all a bit more tolerable. No workout today due to the 1-4am revolt that I lost. Plans for a swim tomorrow...fingers crossed.