Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

It's back to work I go.

I've been back to work for three weeks (two part-time and one full-time) and it has been pretty uneventful.  There was a ton of stressing out in the days leading up to my first day back, which generally caused me to be grumpy with everyone all the time.  Once I actually entered the office, it just seemed as it was before.  No big deal.  I worked Wednesday and Thursday only and was home with the kids again on Friday the first week I went back.  It wasn't until Friday that I cried.  I just couldn't help it!  Dean was all smiles Friday morning and I lost it.  Those precious little smiles were what I was missing out on while I was at work and it made me really sad.  Then he started to cry and I snapped out of it.

The best part of returning to work has been feeling like a full fledged adult again.  The worst part of returning to work has been all the pumping.  All day.  Every day.  Sore nipples.  Breast is best or that's what they say.  I will tell you that I was not completely against using formula to supplement when I went back to work.  I really thought it was going to be really tough to pump enough everyday to meet his needs and I wasn't about to kill myself trying to make it work.  And then I researched formulas that would accommodate a dairy and soy sensitivity....and I renewed my commitment to exclusively breast feeding my son.

Well, that's pretty much all I have to say about going back to work for now.  It hasn't been a whole month yet so I'm not completely overridden with guilt but I'm sure that will come in good time.

See the crazy that these kids have put in my eyes?

What's the hardest thing you have done for the ones you love?

Maternity Leave

I feel like people have always touted the government as having great benefits.  There are a lot of great benefits, however, there are NO maternity benefits.  None.  You can use your vacation and your sick leave but there is no disability benefits or paid maternity time off.  The state of Virginia does not provide any disability pay either.  I have been very fortunate that my family and I have been prepared to allow me to be home with my sweet boy for over three months.

Before Dean came, I had grand ideas of what I was going to accomplish while on maternity leave.  I thought he would sleep for hours at a time and I would be able to organize the garage, organize my craft room, and do some scrapbooking and sewing too.  The last time I had an infant was over seven years ago and clearly, my memory does not serve me correctly.  It's an accomplishment if I shower these days.  This kid needs to eat, be changed, or held ALL the time.  

I have been able to get a workout in every now and again.  Mostly, we go for walks around the neighborhood.  I can't tell if he likes it or not but at least he's quiet.  I also do the Post-natal Boot Camp and it looks a little like this:

The joys of a sleeping baby!

Sadly enough, my time at home is coming to a close.  I'm going back to work a couple days this week and then a couple days next week.  After that, I'm back full time :(  Dean and I were playing after a diaper change and he gave me a couple of giggles.  He has only giggled once before and doesn't really know that he is doing it but it made me cry.  All I wanted was for him to laugh for me before I went to work and he did it.  It made me the happiest mommy and saddest mommy all at once!

It's not all sad this week though because after five weeks with her father, Julia is coming home!!!

Life is a little crazier with both of them demanding my attention but I love them and I'm going back to work so it won't be that bad!

Dean's Birth Story

With this pregnancy, I had low platelet levels and I feared that I would not be able to get an epidural when it came time to deliver as I had with my daughter.  So I researched natural childbirth so I could be prepared in case I couldn't get the drugs.  After researching it (and going a bit insane), I decided it was something I could do and was best for me and my baby.  I also chose to not go to a hospital but rather deliver at a birth center (Birth Care in Alexandria, VA) so that I would have the most supportive environment possible to help me achieve the goal of a natural childbirth.

To complicate things further, I had gestational diabetes so I had to deliver by my due date in order to be able to deliver at the birth center.  If not, I was going to have to go to the hospital to be medically-induced.  I was medically-induced with my daughter Julia (also due to GD) and I feared that medical interventions would greatly reduce my ability to have a natural childbirth and bring on a domino effect of other unnecessary medical interventions.

At my 39-week appointment, the midwives attempted to do a stretch and sweep to get things going, but my cervix was tilted too far back to reach.  The following Monday, I went in for another attempt at a stretch and sweep.  Again, my cervix was too far back to reach and they couldn't do it.  I went home from that appointment 1cm dilated and with two  bottles of castor oil to take at lunch and then again before dinner.  

The castor oil seemingly accomplished nothing but sending me to the bathroom all the time.  So the next plan of action was Cervadil.  Cervadil is a medication that is inserted into cervix that promotes dilation of the cervix and sometimes starts contractions and hopefully puts you into labor also.  I went in Tuesday morning to have the first round inserted and again that night for another round of Cervadil and also a Foley Catheter.  The Foley Catheter is a balloon that they inflate in your cervix to manually dilate it up to four centimeters.  Sounds fun, huh?  The Foley Catheter was soo uncomfortable but it did succeed in getting me dilated to 4cm   

Later that day the next day after pulling the catheter out, I used some essential oils (clary sage oil and geranium oil) to massage on my belly.  I was skeptical of the oils but at this point I was willing to try anything!  Placebo effect or not, I started getting regular contractions about seven minutes apart.  Unfortunately, I went to sleep that night and they stopped.  

The next day (my due date-April 10) I went into the birth center for a third and final round of Cervadil.  The midwife confirmed that I was dilated to a four.  She tried to do a stretch and sweep, however, my cervix was still too far back and slippery for her to do a proper one.  Later that day, my husband and I did the essential oils on my belly again and I started to contract every four minutes.  We called the midwife and she told us to go ahead and come in.  Although I was contracting, they weren't strong enough to truly be in labor and my midwife thought that it was probably because of the size of my baby and the amount of amniotic fluid that was causing the contractions to be ineffective.  So she suggested that we break my water in order to get rid of some of the amniotic fluid and hopefully the contractions would be more effective and we would have a baby!

We got to the birth center and took a walk while we waited for our birth assistant to get there.  Our midwife needed her to be able to push the baby down while she broke the water so we could avoid  a cord prolapse.  Once our birth assistant got there and we broke my water, things started progressing.  I went from being able to talk through my contractions to needing to hang from my husband's neck and sway through them.  

In preparation for my birthing time, I used Hypnobabies.  Hypnobabies really helped me in remaining calm and alleviating a lot of the fear I had around giving birth, however, I did not practice my light switch enough and so that part really didn't work for me.  I did use the birthing day affirmations while I was laboring and during a contraction I would moan "Open" or "Relax" to try and keep everything open and relaxed (duh).  I felt like this was really helpful.

I started laboring on a bed on my side.  I stayed here for a while mainly because I was freezing!  My poor husband tried as much as he could to help by draping his coat and our beach towels (brought for the birthing tub) over me to try to warm me.  Thank god the midwife came in and showed him where the blankets were kept and turned on a space heater for me!  After I warmed up, I asked (read: begged) to get into the Jacuzzi tub.  The tub didn't end up being as magical as I thought it would be, but I was able to spend some time in the tub with both Alex and Julia.  I was a wonderful moment for our family.  Just the three of us one last time.

After a while I got too hot and got out of the tub and thus began my hours of laboring on the toilet.  I tried other positions but nothing else really seemed tolerable.  I remember the midwife asking once if I wanted to be checked but I declined by whimpering "No, I don't want to be disappointed."  Somehow they convinced me to move to the bed and shortly after my body decided it was time to push.  This was a feeling like I have never felt before.  There is no way I could have stopped my body from pushing even if I had tried.  After starting to grunt and push, my midwife asked me what I was feeling and my only response was "I don't know."  I didn't want to tell anyone I was pushing for fear they would tell me to stop because it wasn't time yet.  Afterwards I told my husband that and he laughed at me, "We all knew you were pushing."  

Since the midwives were not fooled by my answers and knew that it was time to deliver the baby, they asked if I wanted to move to the toilet or a birthing stool to push.  I chose the birthing stool since they could bring that to me instead of me walking across the room to the bathroom.  Plus I feel better saying that I delivered my son on a birth stool rather than a toilet.  I mean, c'mon!  Twenty-two minutes of pushing and Dean Alexander was born.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to have my magical new baby moment as I was bleeding too much and had to get a shot of Pitocin and deliver my placenta quickly.  Alex got lots of skin to skin time with Dean while they gave me more clotting medications, an IV and had to clean out my uterus.  It was very scary but somehow I've managed to make peace with it all and can amazingly say I will someday be pregnant again and deliver med-free ....someday....

Enjoy the pics!

New baby!

I left you and made another blog that was more private.  It  was a flop.  Not only did people not want to sign up with their emails to read it but I stopped posting.  It was a lose/lose situation.  So here I am again.  I am making a new effort to write and I am giving you another opportunity to stalk me in the privacy of your own homes!

What have I been up to?  Well, at least one thing.  Having a baby!  I am now the mother of two.  One boy and one girl.  Dean is a serious little boy that has been demanding things of me all day for the past three months.  Julia has been a great help to me.  She is such a little mommy and loves giving her little brother kisses.  It's so wonderful to see the two of them together.  It makes me feel like I've done something right in my life.

The above picture was taken the morning Dean was born.  That is why Julia's hair looks like something out of the 80's.  That crazy girl stayed up almost until three in the morning waiting for her little brother to arrive before she finally passed out.  Of course, he decided to come at 3:47 a.m.  She just missed it!  I gave birth at a birth center in Alexandria, VA, which I will fill you in on those details in another post.  In short, my pregnancy was pretty uneventful, for the most part the delivery was also, and in the end, I had a handsome little boy to take home.

I have attempted to get back into being active since he was born but it's been a struggle.  Shocking, I know.  At three weeks postpartum, I ran my first 5k.  I have also been going for walks with Dean, occasional runs by myself and have recently started doing Lindsay Brin's Post-Natal Boot Camp.

I am following the twelve week program and so far, I hurt!  I know it's been a long time since I have done a crunch but oh my!  I can't move at all without feeling my ab muscles scream.  I'll be posting later some beginning stats and pictures so I can keep track of whether the program worked for me or not.

That's it!  Just a quick check-in and teaser of blog posts to come!  Here's a couple pics of my little guy to truly make it worth your while:

NEW blog

I'm moving the blog....email me at andrea(dot)beth(dot)munoz@gmail.com if you want to be added as a reader

Bucket List and Babies

Well, hello.  It looks like my last blog post was about four months ago.  Wedding preparation got a little crazy at the end and forget about blogging, there were moments I couldn't remember my name.  Even though I was married over a month ago (shocking, I know), it's taken me a while to get my bearings straight.  I didn't think I was a princess bride that made her life all about the wedding but oh my, after the wedding I couldn't remember how to function.  The lack of DIY projects for the wedding left me wondering how to fill all of my new found free time.

Relax.  I found something to do.  Eating is fun :)  So I've been married for forty-one days and I have gained approximately fifteen pounds.  Let's just call it comfort weight and take it as a blessing on the marriage.  Even though I'm all fat and happy now, I'm eager to devote my time to something other than being a complete fatty.  People who know me would logically assume that I would start filling my time with trying to have a baby.  For some reason before the wedding it seemed like a much better idea because I couldn't have it but I loved to see Alex squirm.  Now that we are married and he's told me January 2013 we could "try," it just isn't as appealing. 

My good friend Jenny just recently had her son and before she got pregnant she wanted to complete a full triathalon.  That kind of event takes a lot of time for training and babies are a huge time suck. It makes perfect sense to cross that off your bucket list before having a baby.  I have casually talked about running a marathon at some point.  Casual talking has now become an official item on my bucket list and I plan to cross it off before I get pregnant. 

Why Vermont?  I don't know.  I googled "easy marathon" and this was one of them listed.  Yes, I googled "easy marathon."  I'm sure running 26.2 miles can be a piece of cake, right?  May 26th is the big day.  A short six months to go.....what was I thinking????

Wedding Wednesday Woes

Time is seriously ticking away to the big day and I'm totally stressing out.  I felt like I had all the time in the world to get things done until we hit that three month mark.  Ever since then, I feel like time is slipping away much too quickly.  Alex has been an angel in helping me with all my wedding endeavors.  He personally bedazzled each of our invitations.

oh cell phone....

Over the weekend, I went for a trail run with my dad at Bull Run Marina.  I don't do much trail running and to be honest, my idea of a great trail run is Burke Lake with it's gentle rolling hills.  This was not Burke Lake.  This was hiking at a running pace.  My calves and quads were burning.  We ran just shy of four miles and I was exhausted.  I will never bad mouth running on a treadmill ever again. 

There was no weight loss this week.  I'm still holding steady at 176 pounds.  In an attempt to keep myself motivated in my efforts, I decided to see if there were any changes in my measurements.

June 13, 2012     August 1, 2012

187 lbs                176 lbs

39.5" bust           40.5" bust

41" waist            39.5" waist

45.5" hips           43.5" hips

Slow progress is still progress, right?

The Bean Diet

Dieting ain't just for me anymore...

My poor Leo went to the vet to get his shots updated and to add insult to injury, came home with orders to lose fifteen pounds.  I'm so glad that the vet didn't try to convince me that I would need some special diet dog food because that stuff is expensive!  Instead he told me that I can continue to feed him his regular food in the morning and for his evening meal, just give him a can of beans.  As I'm sure you can guess, he's really, really excited about it.

But I love this stuff...

Yesterday morning, I wanted to get a workout in and since Leo has some extra pounds to shed too, I decided to take him for a long walk.  We went around our neighborhood and he seemed like he still had energy so I decided to keep walking.  I think I may have overdone it a little because at the end of the walk, he had really, really slowed down.  Our walk ended up being 3.75 miles and while I didn't feel like I had a great workout, Leo was exhausted.



Why me?

I did weigh myself yesterday and was very pleased with the results.  I have lost another two pounds woo!  I may need a new belt soon :)

Happy Friday!

87 days!

It's official!  Alex and I have less than three months until we get married.  I felt like I had all the time in the world to plan the wedding but now it's definitely crunch time.  I have waaaaay too many ideas of things that I am going make or do for the wedding that I may need to start prioritizing and nixing some things.

Anyway, thank goodness it has finally cooled off a bit.  I actually went out for a run this morning and the weather was absolutely glorious!  I can't say my actual run went as well as I had hoped but that's what I get for not running more often.  My good friend Jenny gave me a visor for my birthday and I finally tried it out.  Perhaps it's the placebo effect but I felt cooler running with the visor than with my normal hat. 

I look cool, right?  ;)

The past week was good in terms of healthy eating.  I always do so much better in the summer because of all the delicious fruits that are available.  Currently, I'm in love with peaches.  Just about every night, I cut up a peach, put some cinnamon and sugar on it and pop it in the microwave for thirty seconds.  So good!  Another jewel of the summer that I discovered at the local farmer's market:  yellow watermelon!

It really doesn't taste much different than the regular red stuff but it's still kind of cool.  So with the healthy eating and getting my lazy butt out and running, it's no surprise that I lost some weight.  Currently, I'm weighing in at 176 :)

What's your favorite summer treat?

I suck at Blogging

Clearly this blog has not even come close to being on my priority list.  Clearly.  I have still been trying to be more active and have been tracking what I eat so yay for at least something.  I have actually made the switch to tracking my food on My Fitness Pal (MFP) and have really liked it. 

I like that I know people on MFP.  It definitely makes logging in every day more interesting.  You can check out what other people are eating on a daily basis and they can check yours and let you know when I am being a fat cow. 

I have been running a few times but mostly on a treadmill.  I should at least throw some incline on while I run because I went out with the Lake Ridge Ridge Runners and even the smallest hills were feeling like mountains.  I'm just a baby when it comes to the heat and humidity.  I don't like running in it.

So just a quick update, I am officially down to 178 pounds!  I got down to 178 before the Fourth of July and over-indulged to the tune of 182 but now I'm back down.  I'm trying to be wise in my food choices and logging some more miles so hopefully I will have more of a loss to report on Wednesday!

What quickly gets pushed off of your priority list?

I'm late!

It's not surprising that I am late on this post.  Only three posts into Wedding Wednesdays and I'm late.  I have had lots going on and I've also been under the weather.  Wah-wah-wah. 

This past weekend was full of parties and lots and lots of eating.  I did not exercise AT ALL and quite frankly, gave myself a free pass to eat whatever I wanted.  On Saturday, I threw a hula party for my daughter and her friends.  Clearly it was a ton of fun...

Hula Dancing is exercise, right?

There was pizza, macaroons, fruit and chocolate cake and I made sure to sample everything (several times).  Plus, that evening, Alex and I headed up to National Harbor to celebrate my 30th birthday with some of my friends.  We went to a dueling piano bar and ate bar food and indulged in some liquid calories.

I wonder why Julia never smiles normally in pics...

On Sunday, we went to the pool and went to the movies and saw Brave.  I am not afraid to admit that I had an entire box of mozzarella sticks while at the movies and did not share with anyone.  They were delicious.  It has been nearly a million years since I had mozzarella sticks and I forgot how delightful they are.

Anyway, despite the indulgences of the weekend, I am down to 182.0 lbs!  Now I just need to get over this nasty cold and start running again :)  Five pounds down!  The goal for this week is to exercise three times and hopefully break the 180 barrier.

Wedding Wednesday #2

This past weekend, I went down to South Carolina to visit my sister.  It's always a lot of fun going down there because there is always beach action involved.  I have been pretty lazy about the pics so now I will overload you.

I guess I should have taken my mom's camera and downloaded some pics from it, then maybe I would have pictures of myself to post.  Or maybe I should be saying you're welcome!

While I was in South Carolina, my dad and I managed to get out for a run one morning.  South Carolina is sooo much different than northern Virginia.  I have plenty of hill training when I run near my home but in South Carolina it's all flat and easy running.  We only went four miles though since my feet have been bothering me ever since the half marathon I ran a couple weeks ago.

This morning, I took it easy and went to a sunrise yoga session in celebration of the summer solstice.   It has been a long time since I last did yoga, but it was wonderful!  I really love yoga and should try to do it more often.  When I came home, I made myself a delicious breakfast.  I made some eggs and was looking for some veggies to throw in when I found a bag of chopped up zucchini, tomatoes and onions and decided to throw them in.  Once I tossed them in, I realized they also had slices of cucumber...

I was very concerned that I had ruined my breakfast but it actually wasn't that bad (read:  I ate every single bite).

Anyway, I have been tracking my calories (with more resolve than before) and I was pleasantly surprised this morning :)  I was very good and didn't peek at the scale all week.  This morning I weighed in at 184.6 pounds.  Almost five pounds.....Good Start!

Do you have to rely on others to include you in pictures or are you master of the FB shot?

Welcome to Wedding Wednesdays

You probably heard me say once or twice that I am getting married this year.  Even though I am trying to focus on being more active and making healthier choices in what I eat, I still know that I have a lot of weight to lose and will get smaller as time goes on.  With that in mind, I bought a wedding dress in a couple sizes smaller than I currently am....

With only 17 weeks left until the big day, I need to start getting SERIOUS!  I have no idea what that means yet but it's going to start with a workout bright and early tomorrow morning :) 

Each Wednesday I will check in with my progress towards the goal.  I have the horrible habit of weighing myself every day so I will cut it down to just Wednesdays to weigh myself.  I know it's not all about the number on the scale but as of right now, it's still a good indicator of moving in the right direction.  I will also keep you up to date on my some of my measurements too.

Starting Stats
 187 lbs
41.5" bust
41" waist
45.5" hips

On your mark.  Get set.  GO!

A for Effort??

Oh, the New Year Resolution.  How quickly you are made and even more quickly forgotten.   Since we are halfway into the year, I thought it would be a great time to revisit my goals and my lack of progress on them.

My 2012 goals (as of January 2012)

• Run, walk, and/or crawl 1000 miles (approximately 20 miles a week)
• Walk 100 miles with Julia (approximately 2 miles a week)
• Get married!
• Run a half marathon under 2:22:00
• Bring my bowling average up to 120 (haha, baby steps)
• Prepare meatless dinners on Mondays
• Continue to decrease body fat (down to 22%)
• Stay positive by writing in five things I am thankful for every day

So let's take a look...For the first half of 2012, I have run 140 miles.  That leaves me with 29 weeks to run 860 miles.  It's only thirty miles a week or 4.3 miles a day :)  Well geez, if I wasn't having issues with running twenty miles a week then thirty should be cake : /  Julia and I are at ten miles for our goal of 100.  It's probably not as far as we should be but I think this goal is still manageable. 

Get married?  Still in the works...130 days left to go....

haha, I love these

Half marathon under 2:22:00?  CHECK!

My bowling average sadly did not improve much and in fact, I'm not even sure what it was when the league ended.  My best guess would be somewhere near 114.  Oh well.



What is that girl doing?

Meatless Mondays can be filed away under failed goals, however, it's because I have not been successful in this goal that I am still getting married in October.  Let's face it, Alex is a strict carnivore.  There will be no revision of this goal, it will simply be tossed out.

Body fat down to 22%  Fail.  I'm pretty sure being on track for running 1000 miles in a year would have helped me achieve this goal as well.  Did I mention that I still have a wedding dress that doesn't fit?  Yep.

Writing my five things a day that I am grateful for has been semi-successful.  I will admit that it doesn't happen every day but I have certainly tried.  I do love the idea of focusing on the good in life rather than the negative.  It's tough to do but it's worth the effort.

I'm going to adjust my running goal to 500 miles for the year so I will have to run 17.3 miles a week for the rest of the year.  I'm also going to keep writing five things that I am thankful for each day.  The goal I would like to add is fitting into my wedding dress....

What goals have you accomplished so far this year?

Karma Got Me

So it really served me right when I showed up in my purple shirt hoping to blend in with the Team in Training runners....

And everyone else at the run was wearing orange for Team Challenge.

They were not running for Team in Training

Hi, Team Challenge!  I see you like to wear orange shirts...

Instead of blending in with the masses of purple that I expected to see, I stood out like a sore thumb in the sea of orange that ruled this race.  I have to admit that this serves me right for pretending to be a part of a charitable group in hopes of hearing a few people cheering me on. 

Despite my foiled wardrobe plan, I had a really great race.....once the race actually started....  Apparently there were transportation problems with shuttles from the hotels so the race actually started about 40 minutes late.  I'm pretty surprised that it started so late since last year they had the same problem.  I guess the race organizers didn't learn anything from their inaugural race and I wouldn't hold my breath for the problem being solved next year either.

Once we actually started running, the run felt really good.  My dad and I ran the first two miles together and then I told him he could go ahead without me.  The weather was a perfect fifty something degrees with an occasional breeze.  The course also had a significant portion that was shaded with trees, which made the run even more enjoyable. 

Me and My Favorite Running Partner

I finished the race in 2:17:04 chip time, which would have been faster had I known that the race was going to start 40 minutes late because I would have used the port-o-potty one last time and would have eliminated the bathroom break at mile two.  I paused my Garmin for the potty break and my finish time was 2:15:03.  I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon in the running community but I don't care.  In case you don't remember, my goal for this race was 2:22:00 so I beat that time by a five minutes!

I'm pretty proud of myself!  In comparison to my first half marathon time of 3:22:27, I have improved by over an hour :)  To top of my elation, I got some pretty nice finishers gifts as well.

Riedell Wine Glass.  Fancy!

I love getting a technical shirt instead of the regular cotton ones but I have to admit, this one is pretty ugly.  What $100 for this shirt.  I also really like the medal that we received.  It is a bottle stopper AND has a corkscrew on it!!  My one complaint is the medal weighed about fifty pounds and while walking around with my nice wine glass, it hit the glass once or twice and I was pretty sure the glass was done for.  Thankfully, the glass held up to the beating but maybe the race organizers should rethink that combo.

What has been your favorite race swag?

My Body Hates Summer

I did it!  I went out for a nine mile run on Saturday.  Yes, I know I promised you the thrills of a double digit run but it just didn't happen.  Let's just say that I didn't get myself out of the house to run until 10:30am and at that point it was starting to warm up.  I felt like the sun was beating down on me with every step I took.
Not only that but I've been pretty awesomely bad about doing laundry so I was stuck running in black socks...

I'm pretty sure it was psychosomatic but I was convinced that my feet were melting inside of my shoes.  Not only that but the soles of my feet were hurting from lack of cushioning too.  (I hope you stopped by for a healthy dose of whining because that is what you are getting today!)

So anyway, I nearly died of heat on my run and then decided to head off to the Healthy Kid Expo at the Pnats Stadium.  For the next three hours we walked around in the sizzling sun.  It was actually only in the mid-80's and I'm pretty sure I will spontaneously combust once July rolls around.....I really wish my body would adjust to these hotter temperatures already!

On the plus side, Kara gave me a great idea for the VA Wine half marathon and the Team in Training predicament:  Wear a purple shirt!  So simple and yet so genius.  I picked up a purple tech shirt at the thrift store a couple weeks ago so I think that's what I will wear.  It's a long sleeved shirt so I will need to bust out my Sally  Seamstress skills but let's hope it pays off in fan adoration and extra water along the course ;)

Are you more whiny in the winter or the summer?

Two weeks until 13.1 miles

So it just dawned on me that I only have two weeks left until the VA Wine Country Half Marathon (eek!).  I have been running but I haven't been doing much in the way of distance.  I have mapped out a lovely little route for today that will be a nice ten miles under my belt.  Isn't planning half the battle?

Even though I have been signed up for this race for months, I have only recently started researching it.  It turns out that not only will I be getting a medal for finishing BUT that medal will also double as a wine stopper!  Literally, this is the best news of my day :)

source

Finally, I medal that I can actually use!  For next year's race, I think they should have it double as a wine holster.

I'm pretty sure I could wear this
while running

Anyway, I read some reviews and it turns out this race starts out downhill and then continues to roll after that.  I guess my previous admission of wanting to do hill work should come to fruition if I want to be mildly successful in this race.  I also read that the participants in this race are largely Team in Training.  Some of the complaints were that the volunteers and spectators were blind to anyone not wearing a purple shirt.  I'll admit this won't encourage me during a race but I don't think it will kill me either.  Possible famous last words? 

If you could design a twofer medal, what would it double as?

Full moon at the May Day 5k

Or is it a new moon since it is covered in black spandex?



Let's just say, it's not the most flattering picture of me.  Well, I managed to run the May Day 5k, win third place AND make a new PR for myself.  Woo!  Official time was 28:28.  I'm pretty sure I have never ran a 5k in under thirty minutes so I am pretty excited about my time.  Winning third place in this race was actually a sweeter victory than third place at the Turkey Trot 10k because there were ten people in my age group as opposed to four.

I really enjoyed the May Day 5k.  It's a smaller race, I believe we had about two hundred people running it, and the running group that hosts the race is awesome!  My parent's music studio was one of the sponsors for the race so my dad played the harp for the national anthem before the race began.  Seriously, what other race kicks off with a harp performance??

Anyway, I grew up on the street that the race started on but that didn't make the course any easier.  Within the first mile of the course, we had to climb a ridiculous hill and then three quarters into the race there was another killer hill. Ashamedly, I walked a good portion of the second hill.  Doing hill sprints is always something that I think I would like to do in theory because it would help increase my speed and potentially make me less fearful of hills but is something I never really get around to doing.  Shocking, I know.

Any embarrassing pictures of you out in cyberspace for all time and eternity?

What should you do but don't?

Apple Blossom 10k

This past Saturday, I made Alex and Julia wake up at the crack of dawn so that they could watch me huff and puff 6.2 miles and then enjoy a day of carnival food and fun.  I really don't love driving more than an hour to a race the morning of but we had some serious bowling to do the night before so that's what we ended up doing.

The race took place in Winchester, VA and the drive out there was beautiful.  It really reminded me of my drives back and forth to JMU through the mountains of VA.  Anyway, not many people were out on the roads at six so the drive was quick and painless.  Once we got to Winchester, it was pretty easy to find some parking although we paid $10 for the day.  I have heard of the Apple Blossom Festival from an old roommate in college that was from Winchester but I didn't realize the magnitude of the event.  There were hundreds of chairs lining the streets along the parade route that you had to pay certain groups for the privilege of sitting there in a folding chair.  Whatever, I guess it was worth it because AC Slater was the grand marshall.

The race only had race day packet pickup which had me concerned but the process was actually seamless and enjoyable.  It took me five minutes to stop at one tent for my packet and another tent for my t-shirt.

Did I mention that the official colors for this festival are pink and green?  Seriously, We all stood out like sore thumbs since we were not pink and green clad from head to toe.  Anyway, after I got all my goodies, I walked fifty feet over to the start line.  The race is fairly small so there was no worry about getting in the right corral and there was hardly any congestion once we started. 

My favorite part was getting a
good luck hug and kiss from Julia

The course started off going downhill briefly and then turning uphill for almost the next mile.  There were lots of spectators along the course but I'm pretty confident that a lot of them were just holding their seats for the parade later that day as they weren't very encouraging.  I didn't love the course but I think that's because it was unusually hot and muggy and I felt like I was dying.  One thing I did enjoy was that we looped by the start/finish line three different times so my own personal cheerleaders were able to see me at the beginning, middle and end of the race, which I thought was really nice. 

I walked parts of the 10k because I felt like the heat was killing me and therefore, I only finished in 1:01:51.  This is only an approximation as I forgot to stop my Garmin when I crossed the finish line and they haven't posted the official race results yet.  Come on, it was chip timed.  Shouldn't it be pretty easy just to post those?

After the race, we continued on to the fair and paid enormous amounts of money for food.  I had a pretty delicious smoked turkey sandwich and topped it off with some chocolate covered bacon :) 

After eating, we decided to head out of town and get back home.  Our friend Tim was celebrating his 30th birthday at the House of Bounce and we didn't want to get stuck in Winchester since they were closing all the roads down for the parade. 

Luckily, we made it in time!

What is your favorite carnival food?

I'm turning 30 in a month and loved House of Bounce, do you have any other suggestions on how to celebrate?