Tagged by Candy...

Five things I was doing 10 years ago:

1. Freshman in college
2. Drinking too many alcoholic beverages
3. Living in Virginia
4. Dreaming of getting to see my boyfriend Justin again
5. Sticking my nose in a book trying to learn something

Five things on my "to do list" today:

1. Call Chase and see why my auto pay is not working properly
2. Sign up for my next 5K
3. Wash laundry
4. Fax out offer on the property behind us
5. Go to the park

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:


1. Sleep in
2. Stay home with my babies
3. Hire a house keeper
4. Invest
5. Charity work, volunteer

Five things I will never wear again:


1. Tappered jeans
2. Neon
3. Leggings
4. Head band
5. Body suit

My 5 favorite Toys:

1. Camera
2. Nike+
3. Photoshop
4. My kids!
5. Computer

Five people to tag:

Uh...I think everyone I know has already been tagged!

The Race Part 2

There I was with only one way out of this mess, run, the faster I go the sooner I could get away from all these people.

A person counts down and yells "START!" (Honestly I went when the people in front of me started, I don’t know exactly what the front of the line heard), and we were off, runners pouring out onto the road ahead. As I started running, my thoughts kept flipping between, "I feel great! This is fun! Faster! I like running! I can get used to this! Faster!" to "Oh my god, what was I thinking, I'm not going to make it, I'm going to get trounced by kids less than half my age, and marathoners over three times my age, and DIE."

But I kept going, tried to find my groove, and finally checked out the runners around me. Apparently, at my pace, I was surrounded by... people who appeared to be a lot less taxed than me. The ladies just ahead of me were holding an entire conversation while I was huffing and puffing my way through this thing.

I look ahead, and I see the water station and the one mile mark. The guy was calling out the time every two seconds. "Nine forty-eight. Nine fifty. Nine fifty-two..."

...Wait, what? I did a complete double-take and had to think hard for a few seconds to make sure that I'd parsed his sentence correctly. I'd actually hit the one mile mark in under 10 min? Was he bloody kidding me? I expected the first mile to be slow, and 9:52... Wasn’t slow.

I did a quick self-assessment to determine if I started out too fast and needed to slow down. I was surprised to find that I felt fine, not inordinately taxed at all. I was putting in a heavy effort and breathing harder than I would be on a training run, but nothing that I couldn't maintain.

Then my inner voice started to haunt me, “You’ve gone too fast, slow down, you’ll never make it.” As much as I tried to ignore that voice, my legs were slower and not nearly as fast as I had started then I started to feel taxed.

I pressed on. At the second mile marker, the time was 20:20. So that was a 10:28 split for the second mile. At this point I was tired and getting quite cranky. Mostly cranky with the ladies who would sprint and then walk but somehow I couldn’t shake them from my pace and since I was tired I wanted to walk so, so bad but I had made only two goals for this race and not walking was one of those goals, so walking wasn’t an option. At one point, rounding out toward mile marker 3 I actually had to hold my hand up to block myself from seeing THE WALKERS.

Suddenly, like an angel from heaven, a lady passes me, coaching her daughter, all of 10, she lets her know that the remainder of the race ahead of us was all of a lap, in a different situation I may have made out with her but I had a race to finish. I perked up at this wonderful news because a quarter of a mile was nothing, at most 3 minutes, and I could finally see the end in sight and although I wanted to die, I wasn’t dead.

Coming into this race I had anticipated I would be able to see end and kick it into high gear, however, this was not the case, and I was in overdrive already and wanted nothing more than a bucket to catch my vomit.

Crossing the finish line was a blur I just wanted to make it over all of the chip readers before stopping. Upon completion I was disoriented, crying (yes, I wept, mostly because I have never been so happy to have something end in my entire life) and in need of water because I had a bad case of cotton mouth.

In the midst of my emotional break down a volunteer was trying to tell me he wanted my chip, seriously until he bent over I thought he was speaking another language. I finally got a grip but not before I started shaking like a leaf, apparently my body didn’t like the abuse or maybe next time I’ll eat something before the race.

I survived and it turns out I didn’t do too shabby either.

So, an overview of my goals...
1. Finish the race -- check.
2. Do not walk -- check.
3. Try for a sub-35:00 -- check!!

My final stats for this race were:
Mile one: 9:52
Mile two: 20:20 (10:28 split)
Finish time: 31:52
Pace: 10:16
Place: 407
Female: 219/461 (52 percentile)
Age Division: 16/36 (55 percentile)

For my first race after two months of training... I can live with that. In fact I can't wait to do it again!

Fortunately even I get bored of running…

I know I’ve missed you too.

I keep making promises to not be gone so long but, work, it’s tough right now and every ounce of energy is sapped out of me after the babies head into dreamland. I will make one last promise though, when I get back to the office, hopefully before I’m gray, I’ll be regular again and some days maybe even two times, I promise.

It should be noted a few weeks back, my baby turned three, and, um, the manual that came with him failed to mention the morph that would occur. My baby, my first born, the child that made me a mother is almost unrecognizable, sure he appears the same on the outside but something is so, so different, the kid, he has these meltdowns over, well, over everything and nothing all at the same time.

Bind Moggling!

Sure he acts the same, mostly, but he can be so difficult these days.
Growing pains I suppose, finding his voice, his likes and dislikes but can someone tell him throwing himself on the ground is really a bit over the top?

People warned me that three is worse, much worse than two and for us this seems to be true and really as bad as it is, its not that bad, just some days, some days make me wish they stayed 14 months old forever.

Aspen, she’s 14 months – she is signing like a champ and chatting everyone up. Her newest word is cracker, to me that word is huge and I love getting her to say it. She is such a girl – she likes to play along when I want to show off her baby tricks. She gives kisses, she blows kisses, she gives hugs and runs into her brother’s room when he gets into a timeout because she’s afraid she’ll miss something even though he just got done cracking her back or stealing a toy from her, she’s forgiving like that.

I love 14 months, even though Aspen probably averages more tantrums a day than Kyan, Kyan has the ability to articulate himself through words she does not, which make his tantrums all the more frustrating.

I love them both and, really, both are wonderful children, you could say I have just been blindsided by three.

The Race Part 1

What follows is the sordid saga of my first 5K race, the Salmon Days Rotary Run in Issaquah WA, on October 7th.

I thought about titling it, "How I learned to stop worrying and love the 5K", but I actually fell asleep during that movie, and so probably shouldn't attempt to cheekily reference it.

But I was worried about it.

We'll start with the fact that I just finished the C25K a few weeks ago, and ran a full 5K distance a grand total of zero times. I did, however, sneak a run in on Thursday evening sans babies and kept a 10 minute pace. After that I was confident that I could finish with a sub-35:00 on my first race.

…That is, until it hit me, I have never even run the entire distance of the race, couple that, with my competitive spirit, and I was sure I would die from exhaustion before mile marker 1.

I love me some tests, which, I suppose, is the real reason I set goals, because what would be the point of running if there weren’t a test to follow? But, tests make me nervous, the kind of nervous that makes you never want to be more than a few feet from a toilet.When I get nervous, I usually eat, Friday night was no different. My nerves had already started in so I headed to find comfort in some pizza, then I found my way to some popcorn, and I couldn’t just stop there, could I? No. I found me some frozen cookie dough.

What followed was some serious pain, cramping and hours of misery. So much misery Bob prayed my stomach would cooperate by Sunday because, he said, if I had an accident while racing he would not claim me at the finish line. What happened to those vows people?

I made it to Sunday morning in one piece, worse for wear, but feeling pretty strong, sans breakfast and most likely not needing a toilet for the next 12 years.

I finally made it to the race, and if you have never participated in one, I highly recommend it. There is an amazing energy surrounding the whole event, excitement mixed with nerves mixed with people doing really great things for themselves. To say it was empowering is an understatement.

After posing for pictures, pinning on our bibs, tying on ours chips, making sure we didn’t have to use the potty and basically after as much procrastination as possible, Ali and I joined the starting crowd. She was confident we were “middle of the packers”, and I believed her, I just didn’t agree with her where exactly the “middle of the pack” was. We finally agreed to start next to some people who seemed slower than us, I assured her passing people is more empowering than being passed, she agreed.

I took a deep breath, realizing this was only the beginning - I had to actually finish this race for it to mean anything. I started to get claustrophobic when the announcer told us there were 1600 competitors at today’s race, I looked forward and backward and all I could see for a quarter of a mile were people, lots and lots of people. I wanted out…

...to be continued...