It goes without saying . . .

that it is a wonderful thing to share one of the things you love most with the people you love most.


Today, my family participated in the Girls on the Run 5K. As you likely know, I have been working hard to establish a GOTR program in my hometown. It is going great and the boys have been excited to help out. So we were thrilled to enter this race. It is a great race for kids too because most of the participants are kids!

Finding his competitive edge, James was also excited that they were mostly girls, which increased his chance of being a top boy. :)

The weather was perfect and we were all ready to go. I ran with James and John ran with Jakey. Jake is only 6 and a half, so we figured he'd do a lot of run / walking, but we knew he'd make it and have fun. James just wanted to be sure he beat his brother! :)

We took off and James was raring to go. It was crowded and he wanted to get ahead. I kept telling him to take it easy, but we were under a 9 minute mile. Fortunately (?) there were some decent hills early on that forced him to back off some. I was afraid he'd push too hard and blow up, but fortunately that never happened. He talked about stopping a couple of times during the hills, but never did. There were a lot of girls with their hair colored/designed and I told James we should do that next year. He said, "no mom, we should do that in our next 5K." :D

We took in the spectators and scenes, and whooped and hollered when we hit the 2 mile mark. I realized he could come in under 30 minutes (his goal for his first 5K) as long as we didn't slow down. I told him that, and of course he sped up. He saw a couple boys who were a bit older than him and instinctively started racing up a big hill. It was actually hilarious to me. As we got within .5 to the finish, he was tired, but ready to kick. So I told him to kick some. He said no, but sped up anyway. As we could see the finish, he kicked into another gear and finished in 28:5X. Awesome. Almost 3 minutes faster than his last race. He was absolutely thrilled.

We grabbed water and a bagel and then headed back to the finish to watch for Jake and Dad. Sure enough, they came through and looked GREAT and were having fun. Jake took it up a notch (see picture) and blazed into the finish at 33:xx!!!! Holy cow!

They were thrilled and we had fun taking in all of the people. We drank some hot chocolate and swapped race stories. On the way home, Jake told me the first thing he is going to tell people if they asked him about his weekend is that he ran a 5k. He was/is so proud. And I could burst with excitement and pride for both of them!!

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I did not run much at all this week. Not only have I still been sick (still!!!), but I have been crazy busy at work. My firm is handling a huge chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and my group was called in to file several adversary proceedings (complaints) and objections to administrative expense claims. This week we filed over 80 complaints and over 140 objections. Well over $18 million on the line. It was weekend work, early mornings and late nights. I loved it because it was high intensity, amazingly detail oriented and working closely with my team. It was a good feeling when we got everything done yesterday. It was even better when I learned today that our efforts likely saved over 1,500 jobs in the company (800-900 locally) because it helped secure a buyer for the distressed company. Wow. What a great feeling.

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I am going to take all of the above and float through this weekend.

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Update! Official Results are In!

James: 28:54 (9:18 pace)
Jake: 33:52 (10:54 pace)

James was the 1st kid/boy under 10 years old and Jake was the 2nd boy under 10! They are so excited! It is funny though because Jake has some sore legs today! :)

Quick Rant

1. My race yesterday sucked.

2. I am wicked sore today.

3. After working all day, I came home to my 6 year old, who was having a fit. He still is 1.5 hours later.

4. My husband accidentally washed my iPod.

Well this should be interesting . . .

In 2 short hours I will be lining up for the Tyranena Beer Run Half Marathon. The crazy part is that I have not run in a week. Not once. Monday was a planned rest day and Tuesday-Wednesday I had a nasty cold. My stomach hurt so bad, there was no way I could run (I tried on Wed). Thursday and Friday my husband was not there in the am so I couldn't go out. Oh yeah, and I was really busy with work and social events every night.

I think my body definitely needed the rest, and I really don't feel bad taking a whole week off (again). BUT, I am quite nervous about trying to race a half marathon after doing absolutely nothing!

The weather is beautiful (60s), which is a welcome break. Should be fun. Hopefully I won't embarass myself too much. :)

Update: Okay, that was not so much embarassing (it probably *should* have been though) as it was painful. Despite my better judgment, I decided to run it hard (what a shock?!). By mile 2 I wished I could stop. That is not good in a half marathon. By 6 I knew the wheels were falling off so I stopped to borrow a cell phone to call John and the boys and tell them not to come to the finish or they'd be late to their football game. I then saw Donovan and another runner, and it was nice to run with others. I felt crappy though and walked and then ran into a couple more friends. Cool! But I just felt crappy and let them go and did the walk/run thing. It was hot and I was starting to feel dizzy. Not sure why - maybe my head cold? Maybe just not my day? I finished in 2:05:xx (I think). Slowest race to date. But it actually was really fun as I had run into so many friends. Truthfully, had I not invited a bunch of friends to join me today at it and my husband's gig tonight on Facebook, I probably wouldn't have gone. But I am glad I did, not matter how ugly. :) Now I am going to grab some food, churn out some work and then get ready to hang with some friends.

Happy Saturday!

Last week versus this week

Last week.


















This week... And I graduated from headaches to full blown yuckiness this week. Pleasant. So no running today. Tomorrow we'll see.

It was very windy this weekend and suddenly all the fall colors (and leaves) are gone. It is cold and barren. Winter is here. Resistance is futile, but I will resist anyway.... I have tried to enjoy shuffling through the big piles of leaves though. :)

Have been trying to get my GOTR stuff together, but have gotten MAJOR pushback as far as reserving facilities goes. And it really makes me mad. I have gotten full support until this point and now they won't provide easy access to the facilities unless I get some sponsor (like a principal or PTO, all of whom have said no - they love the idea, but don't sponsor individual groups or it would be hard to draw the line with others). Red tape. There are actually PLENTY of facilities in the school district, I just need help finding appropriate rooms on appropriate dates that are consistent for 10 weeks. But the lady in charge wasn't all too keen on that so I am sifting through the district's calendar, school by school, room by room, week by week. Unfortunately, there is no community center here I could use and I really don't want to ask one of the churches. And the crazy thing is we won't use the gyms unless it is really bad weather. It is all for backup. But necessary nonetheless. This IS Wisconsin. So.... Sorting it is. I'll figure it out.

It doesn't help that the kids have been on a rip this week. If they aren't flipping out about one thing, it is another. The good news is that our first nanny interview went well. We are taking her for a test drive on Thursday and will have another interview when our lives settle down (Monday?). We have things planned every night this week.

Work has been busy, which is a good thing. Lots of typical IP stuff, but I am also throwing down with some municipalities (constitutional law issues) and am gearing up to file over 100 adversarial proceedings in a bankruptcy case next week. It is amazing it is how expensive it is to go broke. But alas, you must do it right if you want to continue doing business (or sell the business).

Happy November 3.

Okay, so the winds have been a blowing the last few days and suddenly it is barren here. Winter. Ugh.

Good news? Halloween was amazing! We had so much fun! And I unabashedly scared lots of kids, which is kind of awful but very funny. Doesn't look too scary when I am smiling, but we had a full blood trail to the doorway. Poor kids! My kids are into the scary stuff, so we went with it. But I felt bad for all of the Cinderellas and Cowgirls/Cowboys that looked horrified.

30 some miles for me this week.

The Plan? Yeah, that didn't happen. This week I have been a bit under the weather. Nothing atrocious, just a head cold. No serious nasal congestion, just massive head congestion and I have had a headache for 6 days. Ack! I rarely get headaches so it was yucky. And it was weird because while I didn't really feel that sick, I completely felt uncomfortable + no equilibrium. Not cool. Plus, when I did run, my HR was crazy out of control. Great. So I have just been winging it and taking it easy. I also have a crazy "bump" on the outside of my little toe. It doesn't hurt running, but drives me nuts at work. Definitely residue of Chicago - what is it?!?!!

The good news was I woke up at 5:00 am today and felt great. No run at that time b/c I wanted to get into work early as I am thankfully busy with some very interesting work. Well, that didn't work either. My 8 year old was saying he didn't want to bring his Halloween costume for his party (at day care) for the strangest reasons. And he seemed really down in general. Alright, what's up? So he had his old costume and some parts fell off. I fixed them and assured it wouldn't happen again. To no avail. New costume, looks bad (full detail on how). Ack. Welcome to third grade. So we work out a reluctant compromise and I get to day care where they ask me if James told me about "what happened" yesterday. Nope. Apparently a couple of his closest buds really started picking on him. All kids had to be separated (FYI - this doesn't happen often in school age day care unless there is some seriously ridiculous behavior). Apparently they were okay at the end of the day, but James was very sad. And apparently this is becoming a real, ongoing problem. Not a one-time thing.

I knew he'd be just devastated that his teacher was saying all of this to me, but was so thankful. How else would I have known?! These 2 kids have been James' friends for a long time and with great ups and downs. I pulled him aside as we walked into the hallway and he was embarrassed and did not want to talk about it. He looked crushed. I tried to reassure him, gave him a kiss, and got in my car. But the world was just not right.

Got to work, and decided this was just not going to work. I couldn't focus on anything but how to make sure he can handle this crap and keep a healthy self-esteem. I went back and picked him up. We decided to spend the morning together to talk, get a cool journal to do together (he has been into books like that) and a Halloween costume he loved and felt comfortable in. We had a great time! And he found a costume that fit and he loved it. We talked lots about what happened with his friends (but not too much), and while he clearly told me he didn't want to talk about it, he did. And I felt like I did the best I could to reassure him and tell him how to handle it (and how to differentiate the behavior from his other good friends who never treat him like that - and why that just illustrates why it is so important to be nice). It is all his choices, but I try to give him the tools. Crap shoot on how it affects him/reaches him.

We got back to day care in time for the party and the kids that had made fun of him were now there. Surprise! He didn't want to put on his costume and looked embarrassed. I gave him a big hug, worked at home, and picked them both up just after noon. The good news was he had the courage to put on his new costume despite the pressure. And tonight when I asked him about it, he finally said he put it on because he wanted to and tried to encourage his friends to put theirs on. They didn't, but he felt it was their loss. I told him I was proud and he said, "why, because I stood up for myself and did it because I wanted to?" Bingo. :)

Long story shorter, this has been culminating for a while with both boys. My husband and I have recently decided that while day care was PERFECT when I went back to work 2 years ago, now it is not working. These kids go 100% from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm. School, day care, sport, then rush home to do homework, reading and shower. THEY HAVE NO DOWN TIME. And that is a crappy thing to do to your kids. Mix in some serious peer pressure and negative behaviors and.....Well, it is not working. SO, I am in the market for a part-time nanny. That way they can come home after school and chill some. Not have all the extra stuff. Plus she can help do dinner, get homework started, etc., so we can have more time together on the just plain "how are you today" stuff. Fingers crossed. And 2 interviews lined up.

Lesson Learned: Today I was crazy busy and did NOT have time to skip the day at work. But my kid's self esteem is way more important than anything else.

Lesson 2: Doing something nice for someone you care about it is one of the most fulfilling actions in the world.

Lesson 3: While the particulars of parenting are ever-changing, the challenges strike deeper and deeper in the heart as time goes on. It makes sense as kids get older and you recall your own challenges and can relate with their stresses. Sadly, my colleague is burying his 17 year old daughter tomorrow after a year long battle with cancer. It is incredibly heartbreaking, and it reminds me of how thankful I actually am for my challenges.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE: I ran 6 easy this evening. Wicked windy, but first "snap" these legs have felt in weeks. New goal is to lose the 4-5 lbs I already gained since Chicago (seriously!) and enjoy my half next weekend!

Happy Halloween!

The Plan

For the next 2 weeks:

M: rest
T: 5 w/ 8 striders
W: 13 easy
R: 5 recovery
F: rest
Sa: 11 w/3 at half pace
Su: 5 easy

Total: 39

M: rest
T: 6 recovery
W: 7 w/ 2 @ half pace
R: rest
F: 5 easy with 6 striders
Sa: Half Marathon
Su: rest

Total: 31 (18 pre-race)

Any thoughts/suggested changes? I thought about adding in some more speed work, but thought my 5K yesterday would be good. I might switch the half pace run next W to a tempo or interval workout. Not sure. Kind of making it up as I go along.