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!!

Boston Training Week 10

I'm 10 (and 1/2) weeks down with marathon training and it is starting to get hard. I knew this going in, but basically there are 7 pretty solid hard weeks before taper starts. I did my first "strength" workout yesterday of 6x1 mile at 10K pace. And it had to be done on the treadmill due to some unexpected snow/sleet. I normally would have run outside it what we had but because I had to do intervals, I knew I had to hit certain paces. So 9 miles total on the treadmill. Whew....that was after 9 miles last Thursday on the treadmill too. Man on man.

The last few weeks of running had been pretty solid. Hitting my times no problem and feeling good. I think this week will be the first real test of everything. As I have another 9 hard tomorrow and 16 this Sunday for a total of about 53 miles this week. We are on the downhill though of training. 7 1/2 weeks left!

Here are a few pictures to document the last few weeks:
 I managed 15 miles on a pretty cold morning:

Had some company with my BRF for most of a 10mile run:

EZ put together a motivation board for my treadmill:

Sweating it out for 9 miles on the TM focusing on Running for Another! 

Girls

family life has been chugging along. We've of course been keeping busy with all sorts of things. Potato heads, playdoh, crafts and ice cream! Currently the girls are getting along most of the time but definitely have their moments. If I'm with just P, she is incredibly sweet and nice and everything, but once she's with T all hell breaks loose. She is doing well in kindergarten prep, is reading a lot more now and is interested in math in terms of adding/subtracting things. T on the other hand seems to be reverting to crazy baby. A lot of screaming, tantrums, throwing toys, ect. We are not sure how to deal with some of these things but we just keep saying, it's a phase, it's a phase, and things will get better! 

Training

Well, I am in the middle of week 9/18 of Boston training. It is going well, I finally did less than I was prescribed in a workout Monday when I did 4ez miles instead of 5.  I've been fighting a cold thing for almost a week and I just couldn't do it. I went to the doctor Monday and got some antibiotics and am feeling so much better already!

I'm still running a bit faster than my plan is set for on all runs. So maybe that means I'm secretly training to run 3:25 instead of 3:30 (HA!). I have a feeling that might not last too much longer as I start running more and more and longer and longer. I've done 3x7mile marathon pace runs, and start my first of 3 8mile marathon pace runs today. I'll run 15 this weekend too as my longest run in the plan.

I've also randomly found a few new running people and have been doing some other runs with them. It has been good but different and I definitely miss my runs with just my BRF!  While I don't have any running pictures, I did take this photo of me doing a yoga pose post my interval workout of 6x800m (all around 3:15-3:19) on Tuesday at the track.

Letting My Kids Dress Me

One of my good friends challenged me to let the kiddos dress me. So I let them pick out my clothes for Sunday. T picked out the top (I want the stripes she said), while P picked out the dark blue skirt and black leggings. I thought they did really well and I totally could have worn this to work. Instead, I was outside with the kids playing in a dressier out fit than I normally would. A couple of my friends told me I copped out by letting them pick a Sunday. To be fair, I did go grocery shopping on Sunday and saw lots of neighbors outside, so it wasn't like I was in the house all day. 

Well, than I decided to try for Monday too. Below you will see what P actually picked out. To be honest, she first picked out the same blue skirt as the day before. I got dressed to take a picture, but I told her I didn't think I could wear the pink skirt along with the pink sweater and pink/orange striped shirt. So she picked out jeans instead, which is actually what I wore to work instead of the skirt. I told EZ that if I was a stay at home mom or had this been the weekend, I would have worn it, but I think because my job is to stand up in front of people all day talking to them, I just couldn't quite do it. Maybe I'll try again this summer for a week! :)

Detoxing

Back in the fall I decided to consult with an Integrative Health doctor. Someone who could potentially put the Celiac's, possible Hashimotos all together and just take a look at overall health. I feel like I was overproducing cortisal and wanted to also do a food panel study on possible irritants. There is a test for possible food sensitivities and basically what came back was dairy and peanuts (and wheat). The test tests for antibodies produced in your system to different foods. Peanuts weren't that high but dairy was significantly higher than anything else.

I also had some interesting blood sugar levels and high inflammatory markers in my system too. On the good side, if I had Hashimotos, I've put it into remission on my own (most likely due to the gluten free diet). The doctor put me on some vitamins to help with different deficiencies, like vitamin D and K and iron, plus some other herbs, like cumin which help with inflammation. I decided to wait until after the holidays to try and figure some things out and change some eating habits. So I gave up refined/process sugar and dairy about 2 weeks ago. I plan on given up the sugar for 3 weeks and then not really caring about that, but the dairy has to be 30 days to rid my body of the antibodies. I then get to add dairy back for 5 days in a row to see what happens.

In the past couple weeks though, our eating has been all flipped upside down. I've had to plan really hard to make sure I have enough calories (through Boston training) and enough nutrients at the right times too. I've made lots of new recipes...crustless quiche, maple salmon, honey mustard chicken, smokey quinoa and beans, spaghetti squash bolognase. I also make snacks like my own sugar free grain free granola with nuts, sticky energy bites for long runs, made my own hummus, making my own popcorn with dairy free butter. Definitely has been more challenging in the sense of just preparing dinners, but I'm managing.

My stomach on the other hand definitely seems to be off which is a bit of a bummer. I'm hoping that it is just my body trying to adapt to the new "normal" right now. On the other hand, maybe it's my bodies way of saying dairy is really ok for me! :) We will see! Here is a sampling of some food I've made recently.

 Spaghetti Squash bolognase

 Broiled Grapefruit with cinnamon and honey drizzled on top. I also topped these with bananas too and they were yummy!

Scrambled eggs with tomato and avocado, crustless quiche, cinnamon nut mix, homemade waffles with almond butter and strawberries. 

Training

I'm in week 6 (out of 18) for marathon training. I'm following the same hybrid beginner/advance Hanson's plan again but I have added a bit more to it in terms of some of the mileage so far. Not much, just a mile here or there. I've also really tried to keep at least 1/2 times a week some simple strength training and I've also added in 1-2 times a week of a simple 20 minute yoga for runners video to help with stretching. I don't know how much I'll be able to keep all this up as the mileage increases, but I'm just going to keep going as long as I can!

Longest run so far is 12 miles. I've done 3 miles of speed work every week (at 5K) pace, and I'm up to 7 miles tempo runs at marathon pace. These runs haven't been going well. I've consistently been running them too fast. That might be fine people might think, but the point is the train you body to run marathon pace for long periods of time and I know the pace I'm running isn't sustainable. (I'm running more like 7:40 pace on these when I'm aiming for 8:00/mile pace).

Spent a few days in San Antonio, TX for a large math meeting and I always enjoying running in new places. It was fun exploring (and getting lost). There were lots of beautiful views along the riverwalk and a really neat historic district too.

December and the Holidays

So yeah...you know I stopped posting. So I'll write a few posts to appear over the next week to catch up! December went by fast! We went to a holiday event at my work which was way overwelming, but the kids had fun playing in bounce houses, eating cookies and drinking hot cocoa, and playing in bubbles that looked like snow.

I ran a 5K race as a last minute decision and ended up placing 2nd. Won a little picture frame, a gift certificate and then the medals ended up being ornaments which was really nice.

I finished up the semester and we got ready for the holidays. We spent Christmas morning at home and the girls opened lots of presents and then we packed up and drove up north to visit family. We spent 4 days at my dads house and was able to spend lots of time with family. As usual, we all got hair cuts, this time for me, I had enough to chop off to donate (and I added some color).

We then packed up and drove across Canada to see more family. Over the course of both places we stopped in two different Childrens Museum which was fun, and headed to a mall with a carousel that the girls enjoyed.  The girls were troopers in the car!

Of course I am in Boston Marathon training mode now, and managed lots of good runs with my sister and the first run of the year in snow before our journey back to warmer temps!

T's First Visit to the Cow Train

So this was an old post I never got out, along with the one from the zoo...I'll get better!

We have taken P to a local farm the past two years around Halloween. There is a hay ride and tractors to play on, a mini corn maze, swings/tunnels, hay bales to climb, a cow train, plus these silos filled with corn kernals to play in. This was T's first visit to the farm and she LOVED it!