Boston Marathon

So, yes...there was this race I did back on April 20th. I've had some time to think about the race and write down some thoughts.

First, I had a fun weekend with my sister, niece, dad, Evelyn, EZ, Jenny, and meeting Jessica who stayed with us. We found an apt through AirBnB right at where the Citgo sign is on the course (mile 25) so we had a great location. I had lots of fun hanging out and going to the expo. Janji through a nice pasta dinner for all of us there on Saturday night, and it was great to finally meet the founders and some other ambassadors.

The weather was the talk of race Monday. Temperature was around 40 and it was projected to be windy and raining. We got up, ate, went to the buses, got right on, rode the bus for an hour, got to athletes village. We went to the bathroom and then they were calling our wave. There wasn't much standing around at all. It started to rain as we were waiting at the start line, and I actually wore a garbage bag the first few miles of the race. I can't even tell you how much it rained or didn't rain. Seemed like it didn't really matter, it was a hard rain at some points and light at others and then wasn't raining at some times.

I really felt off most of the day, just kind of blah. Krista kept asking how I was doing, and I would respond with, "Eh, ok". My legs felt tired and heavy the whole race, but I just kept chugging along. It was super crowded the first few miles, like couldn't really move at all and it showed with our first 5K around 27 min. But after that, we were super consistent, hovering right around 8/8:10 pace for the entire rest of the race.

The crowd support was awesome at Boston, no doubt about that. The course is tough though and I can see why it is hard to run fast there. But I hung in for the race even though I was struggling. We saw my family/friends at mile 17 on the course and again at mile 25, which was much needed! I really was struggling hard the last few miles. I did though push hard all the way to the end and ended up running a PR of 3:34:25. I was a bit disappointed at first, but after thinking about it. I really feel like I had a great day. I wasn't feeling great, and really stayed with it and didn't let the weather/negative thoughts get me down. I don't know if I will be back or not. It was a wonderful experience to run Boston, but I'd like to focus on some other things I think!

Pre Race-Packet Pickup-

 Having fun the day before the race:

So happy to have Jenny with me-

Heading to the buses-

 Mile 25-

YEAH!!!

Celebrating with a MASSIVE burger!

Swimming Lessons

So I signed the kids up for 6 weeks of swimming lessons, 1xa week, 30 minutes. I knew that T would not be happy if P was doing it and not her. But it hasn't actually turned out well for T in the end. P has really enjoyed going (3x so far). Here is the first day, you can see how excited one is and the other not so much.

The second week things were a little different...P is learning how to float and T is happy as a clam sitting on the bench not getting in the water!

So then I decided that I would talk her into getting in by saying I would get in with her. She seemed all for it, so I wore my swim suit for the 3rd lesson, but we spent the whole 30 minutes walking around the pool, eventually put our feet in and kicked and also sat on the edge and put our hands in and splashed them. Baby steps I guess! :)

Happy Birthday T

So T celebrated her 3rd birthday back at the beginning of April. We had a very low key party, just some friends over. I attempted to make a super cool rainbow bunny cake. We had some disaster with the cake not rising, so I made another to save the day.

T is quite the hell raiser. Is in the tantrum throwing phase a lot. She is so so so  so crazy. And ridiculously funny. She pushes P's buttons (and mine too) a lot. But she is also super independent. She absolutely loves her sister. Is all about following her and copying everything she does. She is super talkative and has quite the vocabulary. She knows her numbers well but letters are a struggle. We still really don't identify letters yet. She is super tiny-weighs only 26.8.lbs (9th%) but is 37" tall (47th%). She wears 2T bottoms but 3T tops/dresses.

Here is a photo collage of her at each of her birthdays:

We have major meltdown tantrums a lot: :)

Here is the bunny cake...pre oven everything looks good!

The rainbow cakes didn't rise kind of fell apart coming out of the pan....so I used a lot of icing and put them together for the bunny face and made another cake for the ears and bowtie and in the end you can't tell!

Happy Birthday T!

Egg Hunt

So we had a little Easter Egg hunt in our neighborhood in our yard and the kids had lots of fun. It was pretty cold out, in the 40's and the girls insisted that they wear Easter dresses, of course! They had fun all the same! :)

SuperHero Dash

I took the girls to a local 1K SuperHero run. They were so super excited about it! We met up with our friends and did lots of fun activities. Face painting, bounce house, tattoos, and then it was time for the 1K run! I thought all was good, but T decided that she didn't want to run (reminds me of P on her first race last year). P took off running and I held T's hand and we walked. It was two loops around a big parking lot, so while T and I only walked 1, the other kids ran and did 2. What was great is that P ended up running the whole way and passed us, so I was able to see her and take a couple pictures of her running by! She was super proud of herself (and so was I) that she ran the whole way! 

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit and we had fun as usual. It was nice weather and so we were able to go to a new park to check it out. 

Some updates on the girls:

T is gearing up to turn 3 next week and is full of energy and spunk! She is very well versed and lots to talk. She has an excellent vocabulary and is very easy to understand too. She knows all her colors and can count to 20 (except she usually leaves out 16). But she does not know her letters yet. We've been working at it, but she seems to not really have any interest. 

P is starting to read quite a bit, and she loves it. I think it started with memorization of words, but now she is starting to sound out stuff and is starting to get it. She is rocking it out in gymnastics and pretty much can't sit still! She is also into playing games and lately UNO has been her favorite! 

Boston Marathon Training updates

So yes, it's been awhile. I'll be updating this week! :) So I've been chugging along at the training for Boston. I've hit my mileage and pacing on every run and have been fueling with homemade sticky bites (out of the SkratchLabs Portable Foods cookbook). I've enjoyed not eating gummy type things on most of my runs. The weather has been fairly cooperative after our last snow. 

This week was the biggest week of the whole plan. Totaled 57 miles this week. I have no more runs longer than 10 miles from here on out. Three weeks to go!! 

 Carrot cake sticky bites:

Taking an ice bath with snow!

Thankful for a few runs with this wonderful person:

Snow Round 1

We got a little snow here last week. On top of that we had really cold temperatures, so what little snow we had turned to ice which just didn't melt for quite a while. This forced me to do a lot of running on the treadmill. The girls did have fun though!

We then got the sled out the next day and had some more fun!

Snow Round 2

We got another round of snow here in NC. It was about 5-6 inches of soft fluffy snow. Not super great for sledding, but great for making snowmen, and snow angels and just having fun! And the girls  (and I) had so much fun!!