5/20

Holy cow!  This was one exhausting day.  I sat down to nurse, to eat dinner (ate breakfast in the car this morning and lunch racing around the kitchen), and to write thank-you notes for a few minutes in the afternoon.  Seriously insane.  I finally got Nathan settled at 9:50 PM and that was the first time I had a chance to run!

Stopped to massage a cramp out of the arch of my foot at 3.1 miles; ran at a pretty good clip most of the time but boy am I exhausted--lots of different parts of me were aching.  Rolled my IT bands with the foam roller afterwards; hopefully that will help.  And now to shower before Nathan wakes up again.

4 miles; 9:26/mile + 1 mile walking to cool down

5/18

5 miles tonight over the hills with the Garmin.  I ran one of my usual routes--through heavy woods--and it kept losing the GPS signal, so sometimes it would say I was running 7:07/mile and then the next time I looked down it would say 16:38/mile.  And then on the way back it started going backwards--the first time I looked it said 3.68 miles and then the next time it said 3.65, then 3.64, etc.  I ran an out-and-back route and it took about .12 off the mileage on the way back.  Overall, I really liked running with the Garmin (first time! finally!) but I think I may have to just not plan on using it in the woods.  I was SO glad to get out and run today--I was tired and had a stomachache that's lasted for 24 hours, and I was tired enough that I tripped over a few roots, but it was so so so so good to get away from the crazy.

Stopped at 4.7 miles when I ran into Juliet's friend's mom, with whom I wanted to talk about running.  Ran the last .3 miles at 7:30 because I was worried about getting home in time to feed Nathan; I think most of the rest of the run was around 10/mile or less (until it started going backwards on the mileage I was about 9:40/mile going by time & accumulated distance).

5 miles, lots of hills

5/17

Ran in the morning rather than the afternoon, since I wanted to spend some one-on-one time with Isaac this afternoon (Jules is staying at kindergarten all day for a party).  Had to stop at .65 miles to get Luker an apple and then at 2 miles to get him some water and change the laundry over to the dryer.

But even with the treadmill time stops, I still managed to cut off a few more seconds from my time on Wednesday--I averaged 9:27/mile (or 9:20 if I take out the stop times).  Getting better!

4 miles; 9:27/mile

Another 4 on the treadmill; I'd really love to be running at 6 am again outside.  I'm trying to find a running partner, but everyone I used to run with has moved, so it's hard.

Had to stop at 1 and 3.3 to take care of Nathan, who kept waking up and needed a pacifier insertion.  Very similar run to Monday--started at 10/mile and worked up to 8:34 at the end.

4 miles; 9:32/mile

5/13

Ran Friday but I forgot the details--I was really dizzy and nauseated before, during, and after the run, plus I had to feed Nathan immediately afterwards.  4 miles & slower than Wednesday.

Started today at 10/mile and worked up to 8:49 at the end.  Had to stop at 2.2 and 3.1 to tell the kids to be quieter so they wouldn't wake up the two littles napping.

4 miles, average pace (including treadmill speed-up times) 9:33.

5/8

Treadmill tonight; started out at 10/mile, ran that for 3 minutes, dropped down to 10:54/mile for 2 minutes, then back up to 10/mile, gradually worked up to 9:05/mile, then back down to end at 9:31/mile.  Overall pace was 9:33/mile, including the speed-up time from a quick water break at the 5K mark.  I'm a little worried that the treadmill is under-estimating the mileage by a few seconds per mile.

4 miles; 9:33 avg pace
.5 walking to cool down at 20/mile

On the road again

Neil & I took advantage of my mom's presence here yesterday during naptime and walked 3 miles through the blossomy sweet-smelling woods yesterday after church.  It was so lovely that I wanted to recreate it again tonight.  He got home from work just in time to kiss the kids goodnight and then we headed out into the dusk and ran 4 miles over my favorite route.  It's been so long since I've run this and it was a gorgeous, perfect, wonderful run.  I felt like myself for the first time in so long as I was running down the center line of a deserted road headed for the horizon.