Healing Up

Guess who went for a 25 minute run without her foot hurting today!

Me! Yay! I SO wanted to run more, but I made myself stop (after one more time around the block) because I didn't want to push it. In the past it hasn't started hurting until after I stop running so I stopped to walk a couple times just to make sure. Then I was worried it would start hurting later today, but it never did! I'm so excited! I might just be able to do Echo still. I will see how next week goes, and maybe I'll switch to sprint if I don't feel like I can do 6 miles.

In other news, I missed my recovery swim on Monday, but I gave blood then walked around Wheeler farm for 3 hours with the kids so I'm ok with that.

Tuesday I was going to make-up that swim, but ended up skipping it again because I was worried about George. He had woken up at 3am and was just so sad, but he wouldn't eat. Not only that but when I put him in nursing position, he would scream like it was hurting him. We finally got him back to sleep at around 4, and I said, "I have to wake up in an hour. Fun." But then Pete talked me out of it. Mostly I was just worried about what George would do. I didn't want to wake him up and try to feed him again after the fiasco we just went through, but I didn't know if he would make it until I got home from swimming at 7:30 if I didn't feed him. So, I just didn't go. Turns out he did sleep until 7:30 so I could have gone, but there was no way to know that.

I made a doctor's appointment for him, then hurried and did my 45 minute trainer ride before it was time to go.

They weighed him when we got there, and he's 19 pounds! He's not even 6 months yet!

Anyway, turns out he did have an ear infection and the rash on his cheek, that was just an extension of his cradle cap, had turned into impetigo which is also an infection so I got prescriptions for 2 kind of antibiotics. One is to take orally and the other one is an ointment. The doctor said that impetigo is really itchy and I know how bad ear infections are so I'm amazed he wasn't more fussy than he was! I tried just putting the ointment on, but he scratches his cheek like crazy when I'm not looking so for the past few days George has had a huge bandaid on his cheek.




It hurts him to take it off, but it's better than having him scratch his cheek all up and get blood all over. It's already looking much better, and I'm pretty sure his ears feel better too. He's been much happier the past few days! Yay, I'm so happy to have my happy baby back!

Tuesday night I also got the kids new shoes and they wanted to go for a bike ride on Wednesday to try them out so we rode our bikes to the Gateway (2 miles away) and they played in the fountain (Well, the girls did, Ethan snuck off to the Apple store...).

It was a really fun day and I was actually sore that evening from the ride! Maybe because I was pulling an extra 50 pounds or so?

Today George woke up at the perfect time for me to feed him, put him back to bed and get ready to leave by 6 to do my brick, and it was such a beautiful morning! I rode for a little over an hour (17.4 miles) and ran for half an hour (2.6 miles). I was so happy that my foot didn't hurt and that I was able to have a fun, good workout this morning. It really made my day. Other than that, I did some laundry:



George had fun playing "Match the Socks" with me, only to him it was more like "Roll Around On The Bed and Eat Socks." But that's ok.




He's back to eating really good, and just being so good and happy in general. Did I mention how good of a baby he is?


He's scratched himself on the other cheek too. Poor little guy!


Mindy and I are onto the 5th and final Percy Jackson book. It's a fun series and It's Mindy's new favorite. (gasp, I should say second favorite to Harry Potter) I like it too, but don't have as much time to read as her so she's finishing it much faster than me! That girl sure can read.



We rented the movie yesterday and I was very disappointed by how Hollywood-ized it was. It's frustrating that they take a kids book that doesn't have any bad language in it, make it a movie and add that in. Oh, and they also had to make the kids like 17 instead of 12 so it was a lot more adult. Maybe they didn't want to look like they were copying Harry Potter? Anyway, my point is, read the books, but go ahead and skip the movie. The story's much better in the books anyway.

And, I think that's about it for now. I must get to bed so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow!

Always go

I rode my bike for 2:30 this morning and covered 41 miles.

That's one more mile than last week! I almost didn't go.

I actually turned my alarm clock off during the night because I felt like I was getting sick and wasn't sleeping well. But George slept all night until just before 5:30 which was when I wanted to leave. So I fed him then figured I might as well go since I was up. I knew I wouldn't regret it even if I wasn't feeling 100%. I figured I could take it easy if I wanted to, or cut it short if I started feeling sick. Turns out I felt great and had a really nice ride. I'm so glad I went.

Thank you George!

Moral of this story: always go for your workout (unless you really are sick or hurt), even if you don't want to. You won't regret it.

Sore Foot Again

I've been trying to recover from the half marathon this last week, which was harder than I planned on it being. My foot wasn't really hurting, or at least I didn't notice it hurting because my hip, knees and calves were hurting. I did a 6 miles run on Friday and really it was just my calves that were hurting really bad after that. Today I did another short run. Just 30 minutes, and now my foot is hurting pretty badly again!

It's so frustrating. My run this morning was really fun too, and it didn't really hurt while I was running. It makes it that much harder to stop running, but that's what I'm going to have to do. Echo is in 2 1/2 weeks. I'd really love to be able to run for that, but I'm probably going to stop running until then. This means I have to resign myself to a super slow run. That's ok, though. I'd rather have a slow run at Echo if it give my foot time to heal so I can run at Utah Half. I hate it, but that's the plan. I'm going to work really hard on my swim and bike for the next few weeks.

Be Careful Out There!

I've had this post in my head for a while now, but recent events have made me want to write it even more.

Last week a girl was riding her bike down a street a few miles from my house when someone hit her from behind and left her there to die. She had been riding with a group, but fallen behind. She was wearing a helmet and had lights on her bike. She was 24 years old. Here's the article if you want to read more.

Today, I drove past the site and saw that they had placed a bike there on the corner. It was painted completely white with flowers laid all around, and had an inscription that said, "Memorial to Fallen Cyclists." It made me want to cry as I sat there at the red light. A beautiful reminder of the beautiful life that was lost because someone wasn't paying attention for a second while they were driving. It is such a terrible tragedy that never should have happened.

Respect on the road may save lives

Whether you're in a car or on a bike, it all comes down to being careful and courteous when you're out there on the road.

Cyclists, you need to follow traffic laws and pay attention. I don't know if it's just my neighborhood or if it's everywhere, but I see people riding bikes on the wrong side of the road all the time! Also they just ride on the sidewalks and will shoot across the street unexpectedly. (These people are usually the ones not wearing helmets too). I came across this interesting (read: scary) video of an intersection in NYC that points out all the wrong places/times people ride/drive.

I can kind of see the logic of riding on the wrong side because you can see the cars coming so that makes you feel safer. What these people may not realize is that cars are not expecting someone to be coming towards them in their lane like that! They aren't looking for someone coming from the right when turning or crossing an intersection. The same goes with riding on the sidewalks, cars aren't watching for someone to come shooting across the street from a sidewalk.

If cyclists don't follow the traffic rules, it just makes drivers dislike them that much more, and doesn't help when we're trying to share the road with them.

Drivers, just calm the heck down! Is it really going to hurt you that much to slow down when you see someone on a bike in front of you? And heaven forbid you move over into the other lane! Is it really necessary to honk at us like we're just out there to be rude and get in your way? Seriously, I can't believe the amount of cars that will just zoom past me, nice and close, when there's even another lane they could move over into. It's the law (at least here in Utah) that a car should to be at least 3 feet away from a cyclist when passing them. If there's room to move over, then move over. If there's not, then just slow down until there is room. It's really not going to make you that much more late if you slow down for a minute. Really. You might think it will ruin your day to have to slow down for a cyclist, but think about how it would ruin your life if you hit someone. We're literally risking our lives when we're out there. All of us.

Also, be courteous with what you put in the street. I hate it when I'm out riding and there's broken glass or other debris on the side of the road. It's even worse when things are put in the designated bike lane! The kids and I ride bikes to school a lot and there are usually cars parked in the bike lane to go around, and I hate when it's garbage day because there are garbage cans all out in the way. Ethan actually ran into a garbage can the last time and hurt his wrist. Sometimes the kids ride on the sidewalk, but that makes me nervous too because of the steep hills you have to go up/down to get on/off the street when crossing and there are some places where cars can't even see you if you're on the sidewalk and about to cross the street. I'd rather have them be seen.

On a lighter note, here's a funny video of the guy in NYC who made a video to make a point about how riding in the bike lane isn't always safe. (Too bad Ethan's not as good at crash landing as this guy!)

I'm going to ride my bike outside tomorrow, and I pray, like I do every time I ride, that I will return to my family safe and sound.

Utah Valley Half Marathon

This race was so close to not happening for me. Again. But my prayers were answered and I was able to go!

I know it's kind of a silly thing to pray for, but this was something important to me. I prayed that I would feel better so that I could go to the race and be able to enjoy it, or that I would be able to handle it if I had to pull out. I went to bed at 8:30, and texted Katie, "I have a bit of a fever. If it's not gone tomorrow, I won't be able to run :(." She said, "What! Get better now!" I told her I was trying my hardest to.

But I could not fall asleep. I was feeling hot and cold and my nose was totally stuffed up. Pete came in at around 10 and said I felt really hot, and I felt pretty terrible. I figured there was no way I would be better by 2:00 when I needed to get up. I started feeling really bad about not going because I was planning on brining some GU and a watch for Katie. I knew she wouldn't have as good as an experience if she didn't have enough nutrition, and they were only going to have GU at one of the aid stations. I also just wanted to be there with her since I got her into the whole thing, and I hated the thought of her not having anyone to cheer for her at the finish line!

I had 4 hours left to sleep and I just felt like I was getting worse. I talked to Pete for little while and just felt like crying. He was worried about me and told me not to go if I was still feeling sick. I just felt so sad about having to miss out on this race again. It was frustrating that I thought it would be off because of my foot, but then it got better so it was back on and now it looked like it was back off again. So frustrating! Pete told me we'd sign me up for Rock Cliff tri instead. It's in 2 weeks, and I had wanted to do it, but it was too close to all my other races. Taking this half marathon out would change things. I was ok with this (I mean, one more tri would be awesome right?) and just resigned myself to missing it, but I still wasn't happy.

I think at around midnight I started to feel better and was able to sleep a tiny bit. I dreamt that I woke up at 3:00 instead of 2:00 and didn't know what to do because I was supposed to meet Katie at 3:30 an hour away. Luckily, when I woke up, it was not quite 2:00 and I made myself stay in bed until my alarm went off.

Then I was up! I felt so much better! I took my temperature with 3 different thermometers to make sure my fever really was really gone, and it was! I got dressed, fed George, grabbed my stuff and headed out. It was weird that I wasn't really tired at all considering I had hardly slept, and I didn't really feel sick anymore either. How is that even possible? Then I was driving down the almost deserted I-15, listening to techno and getting really excited!

I met Katie and we got on a bus which proceeded to take the scenic route to the race start. It was kind of frustrating that they had us get there so early because we ended up standing around in the cold for an hour and a half before the race started. At least they had fires going so we were able to stay pretty warm.

While we were standing by the fire, my friend from high school, Shannon, who I hadn't seen in forever, suddenly appeared! It was so great to see her and hang out with her while we waited for the start. I didn't even know she was going to be there so I'm glad she spotted me! When the race started, she took off way ahead of us and finished in like 1:37! Great job, Shannon!

I got a twitter message from Sam that said, "good luck colleen! I'm pacing 3:40 for the full ... do NOT let me pass you!" I was like, "You better not!" Of course, I would have to go really slow for him to pass me, but it was kind of funny and something to think about.

There were a couple of really good downhills towards the beginning, and it was really fun! I felt great and was just flying. I had my Garmin hooked onto my belt so it wasn't very easy to look at, but whenever I did look at it, I was surprised how fast I was going. Even when I felt like I was slowing down it would be like 9:15 and I would just smile because I felt like I could keep that pace up forever. My ipod died after about 3 miles, but I was fine with that because I hadn't really planned on using it anyway. It was nice to just enjoy the pretty scenery and the other runners, even though most of them had headphones in.

Ah, how deceiving downhills are, though. Once it flattened out, I really started to hurt and slowed way down. Guess I couldn't keep that pace up forever...

1. 9:53
2. 8:56
3. 9:35
4. 9:22
5. 8:55
6. 9:18
7. 9:31
8. 9:37
9. 10:04
10. 10:30
11. 12:20 (bathroom break)
12. 10:44
13. 11:13
14. 9:39 (0.23 mi)

I made it all the way to mile 10 before I stopped at a port-a-potty which was really good for me! Maybe I'll start having chicken noodles soup the night before races from now on! I probably didn't really need to stop here either, but my knee and hip were hurting pretty badly and for some reason I thought it would be nice to take a little break so I could feel refreshed. I don't know if it even helped. It felt like IT band pain which I think was from not running or stretching for 2 weeks before this. Lesson learned.

When I came out of the port-a-potty I heard a guy call my name and I immediately thought of Sam and was like, "No!" But it wasn't. It was another guy, Zach, who I also know from twitter. He was running with his wife and they were so cute in their matching shirts. It was her first half marathon so I was happy to see them doing well. He told me I was "smokin' it!" and said, 'You weren't planning on 9:30/miles were you?"

I told him, "No, especially since I had a fever last night!" This made me feel good and I pulled ahead of them for a little while. But then, I stopped to try and stretch my hip (which didn't really help), and they passed me. I wasn't able to catch back up.

I started to get worried about George being hungry when I had 2-3 miles left so I tried calling Pete, but he didn't answer. I tried not to worry about it because there was nothing I could do other than try to hurry so that's what I did, but it was hard. When I saw Pete and the kids near the finish line, though, George was just as happy as can be! It was so great to see them cheering for me, and I sprinted into the finish!

I finished in 2:12 exactly, and according to my Garmin, I actually ran 13.23 miles. I was shooting for 2:10 so I was really close!

It turned out that George was just the perfect angle (was there ever really any doubt?). He didn't drink the bottle they made for him, but he was still just fine. After walking around and getting some food and drinks, I tried to nurse him, but he wasn't even interested in drinking! I don't know if it was because there was so much going on or what, but he was just nice and calm. We put him in his stroller and he just went to sleep while we waited for Katie to come in. What a good little baby! I ended up not even needing to feed him until we were heading home at like 11:00!

Katie finished 20 minutes faster than her last half marathon so she was happy with her time. It's kind of funny that we were both 2 minutes over what we were shooting for, which isn't bad.

Here's my little cheering squad. They liked this statue.

We went to breakfast at Kneeders afterwards before heading home. Then, when we got home, I started feeling really sick again and my temperature got back up to 101.2 degrees. Dang it! I really had thought I was better because I felt so good before and during the race! I spent the rest of the day icing my really sore knee and laying in bed feeling crappy. Pete is taking good care of me, and George took a nice 3 hour nap so I got a little sleep too. I'm trying to rest up and keep drinking a lot. Hopefully I'll be better for real tomorrow.

I think this is a case of "Be careful what you pray for" because maybe it would have been better for me to still have the fever when it was time to go so that I would have stayed in bed instead of running. But, even though it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, I'm glad I went. It was so much fun, and beautiful! It was also really fun to see Shannon and I'm glad I could be there for Katie.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is the Utah Valley Half Marathon. I have to be to Provo (half an hour away) to meet Katie and get on the bus by 3:30.

The good (wonderful, awesome!) news: My foot feels 100% better!

It's weird because it actually felt better after running on it on Wednesday. I'm not complaining though. Yesterday I was just feeling super excited for this race, and for the whole tri season. I did a 1000 yard time trial in 18:33! That beats my time from 2 months ago by 2:29! That was a great feeling! Then I did an hour on the trainer, and Pete sold his old wetsuit so I had triathlon on the brain even more than usual.

The bad (sucky, annoying) news: Remember that nasty cold Pete had last weekend? Yeah, I got it.

Like I said, I was feeling great yesterday morning, but this cold (flu?) hit me like a train last night. I went to bed early, but didn't get the good night's sleep I was hoping for. I don't feel well at all today, but I met my sister in Provo to pick up our packets, then have a picnic at a park with the kids. It was a beautiful day, but it was hard to enjoy it. I had to run into the bathroom several time to blow my nose. Ug!

We got bags that say 26.2 on them, and Katie said, "Doesn't this make you wish we were doing the full?" I have to say that I didn't really think that. I really just hope I can finish the half now! But I'm excited she thought that, maybe we will do a full together someday.

Other than that I've just been drinking a lot of fluids, taking a lot of Vitamin C and trying to rest as much as possible with a 4-month-old. I do have a slight fever so if that doesn't go away by morning, I probably should not run. I'll be fine if it's just a head cold, but I've heard that if you have a fever or anything below your neck, not to run. Let's hope my little antibodies are as strong as I think they are and can kick this thing before 3am tomorrow!

Recovery

This week is a recovery week on my half ironman training plan, and a taper week on my half marathon training plan. It's kind of feels like my second week of recovery since last week was a very swim heavy week, I only rode my bike once and didn't run at all because of my hurt foot.

I was supposed to do a reverse tri on Saturday, but Pete ended up coming down with a really nasty cold Friday night and I just couldn't leave him to take care of the kids feeling like that. Plus we didn't want George to get sick by being around him so I just stayed home and took care of everyone.

It was probably good that I didn't try to fit my workout in because it was also the day of Mindy's big ballet performance so I had to get her all ready for that.

Here she is when I dropped her off at the dressing room at 1 (6.5 hours before the show started!)

It was really neat because they got to perform in a real theater and she had her own mirror in the dressing room. She also had one of the company members as a mentor since they were dancing with them in the last scene. She signed her pointe shoes and gave them to Mindy after the show. Mindy was really excited about that and kept trying to wear them when we got home even though it was 10:30, she was very tired and they're several sizes too big. She's excited for when she gets to start doing pointe in a couple years.

She did a beautiful job in her performance, and you can tell she's really getting stronger at ballet! Her teachers are also very impressed with her and would love her to come back for the summer intensive classes, but she wants a break so we're not going to push her into it. I'm also excited to not have to run kids around for a while and to just stay close to home (the pool, library, store and several parks are all in bike riding distance) most of the summer.

Monday I just did a really hard 1 hour bike ride which was fun. I tried to keep my speed around 19mph, but it was pretty windy so it ended up being 20+ on the way out, and as low as 14 on the way back. It was a good hard effort, though, and I was sore the next day! Then I went and had a spa day with my sister-in-law. We got facials and massages. I had to bring George because it was going to be for longer than he can go without eating, so it wasn't as relaxing as it could have been, but I figure it was still a great start to my recovery week!

Yesterday I did a short recovery swim and 30 minutes of easy spinning on the trainer. Then I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the rest of the day. I just had so much stuff I wanted to get done, and I kept wanting to do all of it at once! I finally broke down and made a list. Then what do I end up doing? Cleaning out the Jeep, which was not on the list! Hahaha, so I added it at the bottom so I could mark it off anyway. I did end up getting a lot done which felt really good. I think when I have a light training day I just have more time end energy to notice all the things around the house that need to get done. Anyone else get like that?

Today I tried running for the first time in a week and a half, and (drumroll please...) it wasn't too bad! I just ran 2 slow miles. My foot was hurting kind of bad for almost the first mile, and I was thinking I was not going to be able to do the half marathon. But I thought maybe I just needed to warm up a bit because it was a different kind of pain. It kind of felt more like my foot was stiff from limping around on it for so long. Like I needed to remind it how to run. I'm hoping that's what it was anyway, it doesn't feel worse now so I take that as a good sign. Two more days!

Foot News & Lots of Swimming

Great news about my foot! I went to the doctor yesterday and he said that it is just bruised. His main recommendation was for me to wear comfortable shoes with inserts for extra cushioning, and to not run on it while it hurts because that will just make it take longer to get better. It was one of those doctor visits where you're like, "duh," but it was just really good to not hear him say, "Stress fracture," or anything like that. He did say it could take a couple weeks to get better (which is better than 6!), and that he wouldn't recommend I run the half marathon if it's still hurting.

Well, I wore my old, comfy, cushiony running shoes yesterday and today, and it is feeling significantly better! I'm kind of still limping today, but I think that's more of a precaution than anything, and I'm actually tempted to try my easy 30 minute run tomorrow. We'll see how it feels, if there's any pain at all, I will wait. I'm confidant that if I take care of it, I'll still be able to run The Utah Valley Half Marathon next Saturday! I still have a week to baby it if I need to, and I already got my longest long run done. My sister ran 12 miles yesterday and it went much better than her last long run so she's feeling more confident too! I'm excited!

It's been weird to go from running 24.8 miles last week to 0 miles this week. But I've also gone from swimming 2.3 miles last week to 6.2 miles this week so far so I haven't just been sitting around!

I was really feeling the burn out from swimming 5 days in a row this morning. I considered skipping it and going back to bed, but I reminded myself that I didn't want to miss any so I made myself go. I started off really slow, and my arms were feeling tired and sore. After my first set of 750, I felt better. It really does just take me a while to get warmed up, and I need to remember that on race day. Here's what I did:

S: race-specific

wu: 4 x 75, last 25 in each is backstroke.

main: 3 x 750, all at RPE 4-5

1 - 15:08

2 - 14:48

3 - 14:02!! (This fast guy got in the lane next to me during this one and I think that helped me go faster and made it feel more like a race simulation where everyone is going so much faster than me!)

cd: 3 x 50 easy (swim, kick, swim)

I was actually supposed to do 4 x 750, but that would have taken me an hour, not counting the warmup, cool down and locker room time so I just decided to do the 3 so I could make it back in time to feed George if he was awake/hungry (He woke up at like 6:15 yesterday so I was worried about it the whole time today since Pete was up late last night, but he was just laying in his crib happy when I got home today! Whew!) and get the kids to school. Only 3 more days of school! It worked out great, and I felt like it was a long enough, "race specific" workout.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to do a reverse tri, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fit that into my day since the pool doesn't open until 8 on Saturdays. We'll see.

I ♥ Peanut Butter - No Bakes

I know it's not Tuesday, but I missed yesterday and last Tuesday so I'll give you a quick recipe for a quick treat tonight.

Last night I got my swimming things and my running things ready to go for this morning. My foot was still a little sore, but I was hopeful that it would be ok in the morning so I could still do my 3 miles. Unfortunately, it seemed even more sore in the morning, but I still brought my running clothes to the gym for some reason.

I did speed work in the pool: 16 x 50.

By the time I got done, it was time to get home and get the kids to school. I went home, with my sore foot, still thinking I might try to run. Then I just took a few running steps, and knew it wasn't possible. It's weird because my foot's ok standing around, and not too bad walking, but it's when I take that running step onto the ball of my foot, it really hurts!

So I made a doctor appointment to get it looked at tomorrow. I really, really, really hope he just tells me it's bruised or something and that it will be ok to run on by next Saturday. I've been feeling pretty depressed about all day. I know it's not a big deal, but it's frustrating that I missed this race last year, and now I might have to miss it this year. Arg!

So, this evening I took a nap instead of making dinner, then sat and read while Mindy was at ballet, and had to make a treat when I got home.

No Bakes

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup milk

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup peanut butter

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

Combine sugar, butter, milk and cocoa in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Boil for 1 minute then remove from heat and add salt, vanilla, peanut butter and oatmeal.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and chill for at least 1 hour.

Enjoy.

Send me good vibes that my doctor's appointment will go well tomorrow!