Summertime!

Summertime has not been good for my relationship with exercise! I can't blame my children for this lack of exercise because my gym has a daycare. I can't blame the Georgia heat either, because I belong to a gym. So why have I not exercised? Sadly, it is because I am lazy!

It is also because I would rather be chilling with my children at the pool or traveling somewhere cool. I have had the most amazing summer of my life! Both of my children are at a very fun age, albeit an exhausting age, fun no less. No matter what we do it is an adventure in one way or another.

Our first adventure of the summer was to Savannah with my friend Brandy and her daughter Kiley. The first night on River Street my son Drew decided to run out of the restaurant and take off down the sidewalk. I ran after him and noticed a lot of people snickering at me. I was thinking, "How rude, who would laugh about a little two year old running down the sidewalk?" Then Caroline ran up behind me and yelled, "Mommy, you have toilet paper on your shoes!" I looked down and I had 3 foot long streamers of toilet paper stuck to both of my shoes! OMG! This situation would ONLY happen to me! The rest of the "vacation" was spent at the beach, visiting my family in Effingham County and spending an evening with some girlfriends from home.

My next trip was the annual high school girlfriends trip to Lake Sinclair. My friends from high school and I get together every year for drunken hilarity. Needless to say, this year was so funny that the pictures have been banned from posting! I will say that I have some very beautiful friends both on the inside and the outside. We are coming up on our 10 year reunion from high school and among the six of us we have 6 husbands, 6 children and a boob job (which I am jealous is not mine) and somehow we look better than we did when we graduated!

St. Simon's Island was the stage of our next adventure! Andy's firm had thier Regional trip to the King and Prince Resort and it was a family trip so the kids got to come along. Bless my heart, both of my children almost drown in the ocean then proceeded to cover themselves in sand/mud from the beach. Of course, this was while their daddy was in meetings, so when he got out and was ready to hang, I was ready for a mommy time-out! He took them to the beach and pool and claimed they were "perfect" for him! How does that happen? He always says they are much worse when I am around! What's up with that?!?!

We drove 11 hours to small town Illinois to visit my family for July 4th. I love the way the mid-westerners do Independence Day: a big parade, carnival and fireworks. Simple but charming! I got to meet my new niece Allyson Marie. She is beautiful and sweet, just perfect! I am in love with her! Everything was going great in Illinois and we were planning on taking the kids to the St. Louis Arch and the Zoo when I was struck by a killer stomach bug! Why do these things always happen to me? I felt like I could possibly die that day, but I wanted to make it happen for the kids, so I sucked it up and packed 5 children into my car and me and my sister had our own reality show "Amy and Amanda Plus 5". We took them to McDonald's where they got kicked off the playground for not wearing socks and my nephew, Bradyn, stole everybodies' chicken nuggets! Everytime I stood up straight I had stabbing cramps in my stomach and the zoo trip was cancelled. The kids didn't even notice! I was so sick I couldn't even function for two days.

The most exciting thing about the trip was Andy rescued a sweet little kitten from a farm and brought it home to me. I fell in love immediately with that little orange furball! We started brainstorming names: Liberty but call him "Bert" for short; Honkey Cat, a tribute to Elton John; Puddy Two Shoes. We settled on Lucy Belle because we thought we had a girl, but after a trip to the vet we figured out that she was a he so we renamed him Oliver Smokin' Oakin! (Like on Hannah Montana... I have a 5 year old!) Oliver had to be fed kitty formula with a bottle and lay on a heating pad because he was a sick kitty. He is our new baby love!

I am realizing after writing this blog that I am not lazy...I am totally exhausted! I think it is going to take me going back to work in order to get some rest! Here's hoping to get back on track in August!

On the road to recovery!

I finally was able to see the Bone and Joint specialist on Wednesday and get the diagnosis for my ankle injury: posterior tibial tendonitis. The diagnosis comes with a huge aircast BOOT and a prescription for 2-3 days of physical therapy for 4-6 weeks. My dreams of running the Music City Marathon in Nashville on April 25th are over for this year. I am so disappointed and sad. I feel like I am a balloon that has been deflated...I'm a little out of whack without my stress reliever and energy booster. :(
My advice to my fellow runners is listen to your body, no pain, no gain is not always necessarily true. It was my mantra, but not anymore!

1 hour 58 minutes

Some days are better than others....this is true with life and with running, also. There have been days when I have loved running, thought it was the very best choice that I have ever made. Then, there have been days that I thought that if I had to take one more step, I might die! Today, my race was a mixture of both of these feelings, the beginning of the race was ecstasy, the second half was agony.
The morning began overcast and warm for February. We were clustered along Ronald Reagan Parkway in Snellville, Georgia. To my right I could see the hospital where my precious Baby Drew was born only 2 years ago. I would have never guessed then that I would be running along that busy highway. There were far fewer people running this race than the Thanksgiving race since this is a smaller "home-town" sort of race. When the starting gun fired I was immediately off and running and my legs felt amazing. I was trucking it, with a custom made playlist ringing in my ears...it was just me, my music and my miles. It didn't take me long to catch my pace. Around mile 1 I looked to the left and my family had come up to the road and my children and husband were waving and cheering. Baby Drew was in the middle of the road with his little hand waving at the runners. Caroline was in awe...she has decided that when she grows up, she wants to be a runner like her mommy! Imagine my pride in that statement! Everything was going great, I made it to the half-way mark in 55 minutes, 6.55 miles, a pretty impressive first half for a 2nd time racer like myself. I was on track to make my goal time of 1 hour and 50 minutes. This was the ecstasy part of the race because as soon as I made that turn around the agony began.
I am not sure what happened. I had nursed my ankle Thursday and Friday, with just a little twinge of pain every now and then. I thought it was just sore and needed iced, so I did that. I guess that was not enough and the combination of the miles ran and the pitch of the road made my ankle begin to ache. Okay, I thought, just get through this. I began imagining myself as a PacMan, gobbling each mile and trying to ignore the pain that shot through my ankle and calf with more intensity each time my foot struck the ground. I tried to reserve some energy for the last 2 miles, then I could kick it into high gear, but that was not going to be the case for me today. At mile 12, my little family came into view again. Cheering for their struggling mommy, they gave me strength to get to the end. Waiting at the end were my friends Brandy, JC and little Kiley. Brandy, my running partner, came to cheer me on! I was joined at the finish by my great friend, Cathy, and her two children. I felt so thankful for their support and belief in me. I have amazing friends and family! My time: 1:58. I wanted to beat 2 hours and I achieved that! Yay me!
I stopped running and the endorphins began to fizzle out and what I felt was pain, PAIN, PAIN!!! Limping and struggling to walk has been the name of my game all afternoon...I am very worried. Ice, ibuprofen and rest has not helped at all and I am praying that when I wake up tomorrow this will all be a bad dream!
Agony and Ecstasy: that is what running is all about.

Sidelined!

I guess you have to know when to sit one out! The Teck Family has been attacked by the Killer Bug (aka: stomach virus). Drew had it, I got it from him, Andy got it from me and now Caroline has been hit. So much for training! I guess this is a good time to rest and regroup, who knows maybe I'll be faster when I get out there again, all this resting might be good for my muscles! We'll see!

Breakthroughs

I read about a phenomenon known as breakthroughs this weekend and I realized that I had one of these this week without really knowing what to call it. On Wednesday, we had an 8 mile run after work. To be honest, I was dreading it. I had hit a point where I was getting a little burnt out. Brandy was excited about the run, even though she had gone to the ER with a cut on her finger from the paper cutter at school (yikes!). I trudged out to Bay Creek thinking it was going to be a routine work out that we would hammer out and get on home, 8 miles in about 80 minutes, our normal 10 minute mile pace. This turned out to completely untrue. On Wednesday we both had a breakthrough and all of the hard work that we have been putting in and the strength that we have accumulated paid off and we elevated to 9 minute mile pace! It was amazing, like running with God! I was on an adrenaline high all night and I wanted to call every person that I knew and tell them that I could now sustain 9 minute per mile pace for 8 miles! I refrained from doing so because, honestly, there aren't THAT many people out there that would really care. So many people are so much faster than me! For me, though, it was a huge accomplishment!
Today we embarked on uncharted territory, now things are getting really serious. We went for our first run that is longer than a 1/2 marathon: 14 miles. I could barely sleep last night, anticipating the distance and the pain that it was going to bring. To be honest, it wasn't that bad. Again, accumulated strength I guess. Oh and we just had to pick the hilliest terrain around here! Hills Kill! I HATE them! Everytime I see one I get angry, which is probably the only way that I get up them. We are now into these huge long runs: 16 miles next week and it just gets bigger from there. Wish me luck!
I am excited for the short runs this week, I'm ready to run with God again!