Tag: Running

Run stats and updates

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I.was.run-ning

Said in true Forrest Gump fashion.

Dudes, I killed my run last night. And I mean killed it – whipped it, spanked it, made it call me mama. This was a really long one for me right now, and I had been mentally preparing for it for a couple days. I had originally planned on trying it this weekend sometime, but, well, we all know how this weekend turned out…

So I sucked it up and went out last night after I got home from work and picking up D. R might have to work some nights this week which means I will be playing with Miss Thang and not running or seeing my trainer, plus the weather these next couple days looks pretty crappy (something new and different). So I had to seize the opportunity while I could. And I knew I’d need a good chunk of time to complete this run, so I had to make sure R wasn’t busy so he could watch D for a while. I was figuring it would take me around an hour, so I told R my route and said if I’m not back in an hour and a half come get me, because I’ll probably be lying in a gutter somewhere along the way with broken ankles and collapsed lungs.

Now, are you ready for this? I ran 5.24 miles in 48:07 – that’s a 9:11 pace! Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not breaking any land speed records with that by any means, but this was the first time I’d done this route in 3 years. And that time from last night is only 2 minutes off my fastest time ever for it! I was blown away. I couldn’t believe I 1) ran it that quickly, 2) didn’t die along the way, 3) didn’t walk at all along the way, and 4) actually felt good and was able to kick it into a higher gear in the home stretch.

Maybe I am finally getting back into shape after all. My trainer has said she sees a lot more muscle mass coming back now too, which is good. I said I need to be in even better shape before I get pregnant whenever the next time comes than when I got pregnant with D, because she said everyone says stretch marks come with the second child. Whether or not she’s right, I have no idea. But I fortunately didn’t get any with D, and I don’t want to get any with any other Raulings. So I will continue to blast this booty.

I will, however, admit that my notion of attempting a half marathon later this summer was inane. After running 5 miles last night, I really can’t fathom trying to tack 8 more onto the end. That’s just silly.

 

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Fire burning

Unfortunately this one wasn’t on the dance floor, it was on D’s forehead.

Daycare called me at work yesterday around 1:00 saying she had a fever of 102.5, so I had to go pick her up (they can’t be there with a fever of 101+). I was debating calling her doctor’s office yesterday anyway to try to get her in, because she had begun acting like her ears were really bothering her again, coughing, the phlegm in her throat and snot rivers out of her nose were back, and she has had a couple bad nights going to bed recently, all of which were symptoms present with her first ear infection.

We’re going on vacation for a week in two and a half weeks, so if it was an ear infection coming back and we had to get her on another round of antibiotics, I wanted to make sure we gave it plenty of time to work its magic before we leave.

D’s doctor is off on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer, and there was actually only 1 pediatrician of the 4 in their office in yesterday, but fortunately she had a 2:00 appointment open to get us in. Sure enough, there was fluid in both ears again. Fortunately her chest sounded clear, though, so that’s good.

I was just worried that whatever is plaguing her now may be a little more serious this time around since she’s never had a fever, let alone one that high. So the doctor put her on a stronger antibiotic for this one, since the amoxicillin doesn’t seem to kick these things for good.

Her ears weren’t raging with infections this time, but since there was some fluid in both this was more preventative than anything, especially with the fever. And since we haven’t been in to see her doctor since her last appointment when the second infection was diagnosed, we can’t be sure that it actually ever totally cleared up. Great fun.

So when R got home from work and a quick run, he took over cradling our sick little girl so I could get a run in too. It was obvious how awful she felt – not only was her face all red from the fever, but her eyes just looked so sad and sick, and she was very cuddly, burrowing right into your shoulder or chest to sleep as much as she could.

The prescription wasn’t ready until last evening, and her fever continued to climb, reaching 103.4 at the highest – yikes! Fortunately R gave her a little bit of baby ibuprofen while I was gone, which brought it back down to about 100. It was a struggle to get the medicine in her once I got it, but we managed to control the dragon long enough to administer the full dose, and she was in bed about half an hour later.

She woke up once during the night and was a complete fireball – I could feel the heat through her jammies and every touch on my face from her little fingers was like a flame.

When was this thing going to break? She can’t stay that hot for so long, her brain is frying! Then I started worrying that her breathing sounded more rapid than usual, too. I was tempted to look online for some clues but knew I’d just find signs that she all of a sudden had some rare, incurable virus, and would spend the rest of the night worrying myself sick. Thank god the fever was gone this morning, though, back down to 99.

This is her first real illness, and the first time we’ve ever had to go get her out of daycare. I felt so horrible when I got that call at work, and I just wanted to run to her and make everything better. Hopefully the medicine will be able to do the rest of the job that Mommy’s hugs and love can’t.

Her rosy cheeks - they felt as hot as they looked 🙁

 

(run stats from last night = ran 3.58 miles in 33:57, 9:29 pace. a little slower, but i knew it would be. this is a “longer” route that i haven’t run since before i was pregnant, so i wanted to take it easy to make sure i could still do it without walking. plus the turnaround point is a huge hill down to the lakefront with a run back up stairs taken 2 at a time – that hurts.)

 

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And I ran

Since I hadn’t run since my 5k last Saturday, I did finally get one in Sunday morning before my dad arrived. It was a longer route that I used to do all the time (well, longer for me right now), and it didn’t feel too bad. I ran 2.86 miles in 26:14, a 9:10 pace. Much slower than my 5k, but I can’t really keep that pace up while I’m just running for exercise.

Now that I no longer have the benefit of the breastfeeding calorie burn, I have to make sure I get back to regular exercise. Especially with all the summer grilling and brat/hamburger consumption, I’m sure that weight will come screaming back if I stay lazy. My goal for the summer is to get at least 3-4 workouts in per week. So if I can keep going to my trainer once a week most weeks, that’ll mean 3 runs. Maybe we’ll start getting out for some weekend bike rides too, now that we have a trailer for D.

Bikini season is not the time to start packing on the pounds, SM. 😉

 

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Cabbage patch

So this whole milk drying-up procedure has turned out to be much more painful than I expected. Remember how I thought that since my pumping had slowed down so much recently my risk of exploding boobs was pretty much gone? Yeah, I was wrong. Everything I read said that in order to get your milk supply to end you need to stop pumping/nursing entirely, so even my every-other-day pumping was making my body think I still needed to keep producing. I thought I was just teaching my body to produce less and less until finally it would simply get the hint that I no longer needed any milk. Apparently I was mistaken. So this weekend I decided it was time to stop for good, and I haven’t pumped since Thursday morning.

And I want to rip my boobs right off my chest. Actually just the right one; the left one has been behaving nicely. But righty? My god it’s being a turd. Full, hard, extremely sore, just all around unbearable. I’ve been popping ibuprofen like it’s my job since Saturday because I can finally take it again and it’s the recommended pain reliever for going through this process, but it hasn’t been doing much that I can tell.

What has been helping, though, is cabbage. What? Yes, cabbage. Everywhere I looked for how to go about doing this warned of the engorgement I would experience (they were right!) and recommended putting cabbage leaves on my boobs to relieve the pain of the swelling. Har – yeah I don’t think so. Raw cabbage leaves? In my bra? You’re crazy. Nope, you’re a genius! That shit saved my sanity this weekend. I’m not kidding, from the very first leaf against my skin I wanted to cry with joy and relief. For all the sites I read that suggested this I still can’t tell you what exactly is in the cabbage that helps, but I am now a believer. If Mr. Cabbage told me the world was ending tomorrow night at 6:00, I might actually listen, that’s how much of a cabbage convert I have become. You take raw green cabbage leaves, either slice off the top edge of the big veins in them or smash them down with a rolling pin (i chose the latter), and put them on your boobs for about half an hour or until whenever they’re wilted. I just wore a sports bra so they were easy to put in and remove, and I plowed through almost an entire head of cabbage in two days. The colder they are to start the better, and seriously as soon as you put the leaves on it’s instant relief. They don’t actually reduce the engorgement that much since they don’t do anything to make the milk dry up, but just like ice packs work, the cold compress on your skin does help take a little of the swelling down and provide some pain relief. And I guess women have been using this remedy since the 1800s, so who am I to judge? Bring on the cabbage!

I’ve also read that it may take up to a week or two for the milk to finally be dried up, and if that proves to be true too I may just have to be locked away by the end. I can’t even describe the level of discomfort, for although I’ve felt it before when I would go too long without nursing or pumping, knowing that I can’t relieve the engorgement or else I’ll have to start this cycle all over makes me a little crazy. If the pain gets too awful or I start running a fever I’m supposed to call the doctor at that point, so let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. I did have to express a little by hand last night before the right one exploded, which is such a fun endeavor all in itself. I tell ya, the human body? It’s a crazy machine.

To switch topics to try and take my mind off the boobage pain, let me tell you how my 5k went. I rocked it!! My original goal was to break 30:00, which, after I ran the route earlier last week I knew I’d be able to pull off. So then I had the 27:00 mark in my head. I secretly wanted to break 27:00, but the whole time I was running I kept telling myself I’d be happy with 28:00 something and felt like that’s the pace I was holding. Imagine my surprise when I crossed the finish line and my watch read 26:57!!! (it wasn’t an officially timed race so i used my watch instead of their clock) I mapped out the race route and it actually was 3.24 miles, so that’s an 8:18 pace! Holy shit. The whole time I was running I couldn’t believe my legs were holding in as well as they were, but I had no idea I was going that fast. Well, fast for me, I should say. So I was very happy about that.

Then Saturday night R smoked another scrumptious rack of ribs and we enjoyed 2 bottles of wine. These:

 

Kung Fu Girl Riesling
Leese Fitch Zinfandel

 

Both were quite tasty. The zin was pretty sweet for a red zinfandel, which I love, and the riesling was nice and light, tasting very much of pears. Last night R used his new pizza stone and pizza peel and made 2 homemade pizzas for dinner. They were both on whole wheat crust, and one was topped with his homemade bacon and cheese, and the other was topped with pepperoni and cheese. Need I even say it? Delicious!! Unfortunately he didn’t take pictures of any of the food this weekend, so you’ll just have to imagine the savory delicacies yourselves.

 

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Follow the rules

I went for a run again tonight, since I have that 5k on Saturday morning and I wanted to keep my legs loosened up.  Well, as loosened up as they can possibly be after the first week in approximately 52 weeks (if not more) in which I have worked out 4 times. The 5k will make 3 runs, plus 1 workout with my trainer. Youch.

So anyway, tonight’s run started off horridly. My legs hurt, my ankles were stiff, my whole body just felt tired and lacking any semblance of speed. I even crossed the street at one point so as not to run up behind a couple pushing a stroller with my dinosaurish plodding and gasping for air. I seriously considered giving up and heading home at the halfway point, but then I thought, you ass, you’re only going 2 miles. Keep moving!

As I lumbered along in misery, I determined rule #1 of the universe. Even more important than the Golden Rule. Do unto others is great and all, but this one trumps even that. If you see me jogging toward you on the sidewalk, even at a ridiculously slow rate of speed, all out of both shape and breath, please, for the love of god, please, do not step / walk / fall / ride a bike / ride on roller skates / push a baby stroller / push an adult stroller / push a wheelbarrow / throw a toy or ball of any sort / sweep / or even try to glance across the sidewalk in front of me, for I am so out of both shape and breath that I will be unable to maneuver in time to avoid tripping over you and breaking my leg and possibly yours in the melee. Just stay out of my way! Mkay? Thank you ohsomuch.

Also, can we discuss the scents in the neighborhood while I run? I won’t even go into the extent to which my smells became fucked up while I was pregnant, because that’s an entire other post in itself, but let’s just say it’s taken me this long to finally be able to wear perfume and smell meat again without verging on vomiting. However, if I run through a cloud of smell when I’m having a particularly bad run, that gag reflex comes roaring back into action. So to those of you grilling burgers and doing laundry, let’s save it until I am safely past your house next time.

Fortunately I made the whole run again without walking (oo wee, all 2 miles of it), and after about the first half my joints sufficiently loosened up so that each step didn’t involve something locking up on me. I ran 2.09 miles in 18:56, a 9:02 pace. It definitely felt like about a 20:00 mile pace. I was glad I kept my butt moving there in the middle. I even had enough energy left to mow the lawn when I got done. Coolness.

 

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My first 5k in at least a year and a half

Is coming up on Saturday morning in our neighborhood, so I decided to try out the route last night to make sure I could finish it. I knew I’d be able to complete 3.1 miles, but I wanted to be able to do so without stopping or walking. And I did. Turns out I actually did more than a 5k last night. I had written one of the streets toward the end of the race route wrong on the little map that I took with me, so I just improvised what I thought would equal the full 5k. Guess I improvised a little too much. I ran 3.82 miles in 34:17, which comes out to a pace of 8:59. Since I thought I was only running 3.1 miles last night this would have put me at roughly an 11:00 pace, so I was kind of surprised. I knew I was purposely going much slower than usual, but I was hoping to be able to finish the race on Saturday in 30:00 or under. Now that I’ve plotted the route I did last night I feel a lot better about that 34:17 time, and I think I’ll be able to reach my goal this weekend. I’ll keep you posted.

The race route goes right past our house, so I told R that he and D can sit on the porch and cheer me on as I go by. 🙂 I’ve been trying to think of the last 5k in which I participated, and it would have to have been at least a year and a half ago, before I got pregnant. It’s probably actually closer to 2 years now, sometime in the summer of 2009 I’m guessing. I honestly can’t think which one it was, or when. I did do a 4 mile race last summer, but that doesn’t count – I was almost 8 months pregnant and I just walked it. Well, I did jog the very end of it, but that part was all downhill into the finish line. When you’re that big, you’ll definitely use gravity to your advantage whenever possible.

We also heard some great news last night – our dear friends the Ds welcomed their second baby yesterday evening, a little boy, K. Congratulations!! I can’t wait to meet the little guy. They now have a girl and a boy – how awesome. I’ve noticed the waves of new babies kind of go in spurts, and right now is apparently high tide. This little man, a girl I work with is due with her second boy in just under a month, my old boss is due with her first (a little girl) the end of June, we have 2 friends here that are both expecting boys in August, and another friend in Madison is also due in August, but I don’t think they have found out the sex.

I must admit, all these wonderful new little angels joining the world… I’m starting to get a yearning in the uterus area… 😉

 

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Take me out to the ball game

Last night was D’s first Brewers game, and she had a ball! We seriously could not have ordered a more well-behaved baby for the evening. I picked her up early from daycare so I could get home, bathe her, and get a quick jog** in before we went, and thankfully she cooperated and napped for an hour right before we left. We got to the stadium at 5:30 and didn’t leave until just before 10:30, which is a good 2-3 hours past her bedtime, but she was awake and happy the entire time. I figured her 6 teeth weren’t quite sufficient to handle a brat, so I fed her some delicious jars of turkey and mixed veggie dinner and peas and rice (both organic, kudos to Roundy’s) while R fired up the grill. She was all done and ready to soak in all the tailgating action by the time the adult food was ready, so that worked out perfectly.

We had ridiculous seats – 4th row, directly behind the Brewers on-deck circle, which made for some great viewing pleasure. R snagged a Fielder-foul-tipped ball that was tossed into our section by one of the bat boys, so he graciously gave that to D as a souvenir of her first game. And then I prevented her from putting it immediately into her mouth to try and lick off all that good diamond dirt. 🙂 Shockingly enough, I caught another one later in the game, which I gave to our friend S. No need to be greedy. It was cute, too – R took D over to the guest relations booth shortly after we got there, and they printed up a little “My First Brewers Game” certificate for her. It wasn’t anything fancy, we just fill in her name and date and stuff, but still a nice gesture for the littlest Brewers fans on their first appearances.

It was an awesome night all around. Good weather, the roof was open (which made for some chilly wind by the end of the night, but better than rain), great friends were able to join us, the Brewers won, and little D once more made us so proud with her smiley, happy, easy-going spirit. She had made friends with everyone in the seats around us by the time we left. R joked on the way home that maybe we should just stop at one – D is so good we have to have used up all our good fortune in this kid. Will all of the bad stuff we’ve so far avoided with her be channeled into the next one if we give her a sibling? Or is she just saving it all up for the teenage years? Oh please god, not option #2!

The only lowlight of the night came at the end of the game – we were hoping to get a picture of D with R’s cousin who plays for the Brewers on the field, but he didn’t come over our way after the team victory handshake. R was pretty bummed, because he thought his cuz for sure saw us a couple times during the game, so I felt bad for him – I knew how much he wanted that picture of little D on the field with a Brewer to cap off her first game. Hopefully sometime this season we’ll be able to get one to make up for it.

I had to snap a picture to document D’s first baseball game, but it was on my phone so it’s not the highest quality. R took many, many more on his good camera, so I’ll have to get some of those up here once they’re uploaded.

I love the Brewers!

 

Go Brew Crew!

**run stats – 1.44 miles, 11:23, 7:55 pace. holy smokin’ fast! i’m not going to count that as my normal pace because it’s a really short route and i was in a hurry last night, knowing we had to leave shortly after i got done. i am encouraged, though. i’m going to try a 5k route later this week, so i’m sure that will be more along the lines of my 9:00+ pace.