I have been on a blog moratorium for the past several weeks. I've been finishing up the last baseball tournament director responsibilities, then we had my neice and nephew from Florida stay with us for a couple weeks and then K and I headed to FL with them for a week in the sun.
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| K at Honeymoon Island |
I have also been training for (not very well or very efficiently I must admit) the Ragnar Relay Great River race. Tomorrow I start an adventure... the Ragnar Relay Great River run begins for my team, Run Like A Mother! at 8:30am from Winona, MN heading to Boom Island in Minneapolis, MN. We've estimated it will take us 31:54:00 hours. We have 12 Mothers! and each of us will run 3 legs totalling somewhere between 14 and 21 miles each. I am the 4th runner in the leap frog order: leg 4 is 7.9 "Very Hard" miles at 10:30am, leg 16 is 6 "Moderate" miles at 11:00pm and my last leg is 28 which is 4.2 "Moderate" miles at 7:30am Saturday. I'll sleep (ha! I still have insomnia so who knows what trying to sleep in a van will do for me) when I can, eat what we can find and hopefully figure out the rest as we go.
I'll be posting when it's over... if I survive the madness.
After 5:45am bootcamp this morning I "sat down for just a minute" and woke up an hour and a half late for work! It got me thinking, what did I do this weekend that I'm so exhausted (aside from the normal 2-3 hours of sleep I get due to the gerbil wheel spinning in my head all night).
1. Dropped my iPhone on Thursday and shattered the screen
2. Used a few not so lady-like words, then did what any sane person would do and updated my status about it on Facebook. Thanks to my friend's husband, Dave, found a place to have it fixed for $65.
3. Spent some quality time with Colleen and Olive in the laundry room waiting for the sirens to go off from the tornado warning on Friday evening.
4. Emerging from the laundry room unscathed, headed out with B to dinner.
5. 2 hours and 3 restaurant scavenger hunts later, found a great take-out BBQ restaurant in MPLS: Ted Cooks 19th Hole BBQ . The first two places had closed down (thanks Google for keeping up to date information posted) and the 3rd had a really loud band playing. Not exactly dinner conversation music.
6. Had a "Truck-nic" while watching planes come in at MSP (can't say enough about how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE airports!!) Check out the cool looking sky
7. Saturday, I made these tasty treats after spending an hour on a blog post: The Pioneer Woman - Brownies and Bars along with Spicy Oven Fried Chicken and corn on the cob.
8. Ran in the horrid heat and humidity yesterday. Had a strange dizzy feeling a couple times during the run. Chalked it up to having too many layers on and decided to strip one off mid run on the trail. Yes I still had another one on and no it didn't make a difference. (are my hands dripping sweat??)
9. Mowed the lawn, still sans sports bra, and may have passed out momentarily from the heat.
10. Had a race pace walk with hills with B last night after having a "mediocre" meal at the former Mr. Q's Chinese restaurant in EP (keep in mind this was a stroll in the park for his long ass legs!)
11. Watched a few movies I can't really recommend.
12. Oh yeah, then had bootcamp at 6:00am this morning!
On tap this week: 2 more bootcamp sessions, 6 runs, 2 late nights with the Twi-moms (heading out to the midnight showing tomorrow - woke up this morning to my second "Twi-P'ing")
and a few bike rides mixed in somewhere along with my normal mom duties.
But even with all that, I still see the following and have to keep going - you never know what's just past the tunnel...
and that, my friends, is why I was late to work.
Training stats:
10min warmup
40 min circuit training
20 min core work
15.59 mile bike ride with a straight up and down hill (with bike hike)
For years the thought of running a marathon was a pipe dream. Though dream seems ridiculously strong of a word. It was more of a thought for someone else to do. But in 2006 I did Grandma's Marathon, even though I had pneumonia (not diagnosed until the day AFTER the race) and was dehydrated for 6 of the miles (thanks Jim, Wendy and Gini for staying with me to "get me through"), I finished. I'm not sure exactly if the motivation was to prove it to myself or to prove it to others that I could do it.
After years of hibernation of the marathon training I did it again and finished the 2009 Nike Women's Marathon last October. I wasn't fully prepared for the course and had some ankle issues and blisters that were killer,but I can say no DNF for me. I thought I was content when I crossed the finish line and received my sweet Tiffany's finishers medal
and then it hit me.... I'm not done. I'm currently training for 2010 Twin Cities Marathon.
But before that will happen I will need to make it through the 193 mile Ragnar Relay Great River run in August. Wow - what did I sign myself up for? I don't know if I've just got such an addictive personality that when I find something that brings me joy I cannot get enough, or if I'm looking for something. I'm always looking for something. Growing up I used to think there was someone missing at family events. I'd count. Mom, Dad, Michael, Kati, Colleen, Molly, the dogs... nope we're all here. I've always loved photos that depict looking out or up. Something's just around the corner or in the distance. Something about setting your sites on the unknown and looking for it fascinates me. 193 miles with 11 teammates ... I'm excited to meet new people, to experience something many people will never experience, and to look down the road for something.
I'm sure I'll find it sometime during the race... and then I'll go home and look for something new.
