Wordless Wednesday

 

Smashing acorns at the playground to make squirrel soup.

Pushing her puppy on the swing.

Trying some plum crumble I made with all the plums we got in our school lunches.

Carter told me since he can read, he'd like to make cookies all by himself. He asked me to go in the other room so I did, but told him I needed to supervise the use of the oven. He did a great job! His first time making a recipe all on his own.

Enjoying the gardens at Gilcrease.

We found Battleship at a garage sale and have really enjoyed playing it! Although Carter has yet to ever complete and entire game!

I'm so glad Ty captured this sweet moment. Elise decided she wanted Tesla to have her own chair so she moved over onto my lap.

Jammy day but she still has to have her purse!

Science area is ready to go for distance learning starting on Monday.

Our calendar is all set up for distance learning to begin on Monday.

Writing area is all set up and has been utilized already.

Reading corner/book nook for distance learning.

Drawing time with Oma and Opa.

Couch snuggles with dogs are the best!

The kids wanted to do some practice school work at their table when they saw everything I set up for distance learning.

Carter testing out the reading area/book nook.

This boy sure loves to read!

Using his new drawing book from Oma and Opa.

Tesla seemed really into the book until she saw me taking a picture.

Aquarium Fun Run

We were signed up for the Aquarium Run well before Covid-19 made it to America. The race was close enough to Boston that I didn't want to race. My mom signed me up for the fun run with Elise and my dad because Elise said she wanted to run and my dad was just getting back into running. Carter didn't want to run, he just wanted to go to the aquarium, so he wasn't signed up. When the race went virtual I asked Carter if he wanted to run with us or if he'd rather Elise and I do it without him after Ty got home from work. He surprised me by saying he wanted to run it with us! I asked Elise where she'd like to run it and she replied with the aquarium. Why didn't I think of that?! Our bibs had a free admission to the aquarium on them so we would run and then go into the aquarium after. Thomas gave us his bib so all three of us could get into the aquarium for free.

We took off and things were going as I expected, Elise was rocking it and Carter started walking pretty early on. I let Elise go ahead and stayed back with Carter. I think it made Elise a little nervous running ahead by herself so she kept looking back to check on us. I started yelling encouragement up to her so she'd know I was still there, but she continued to look back. At one point as she looked back, she fell and rolled off the path. She was super upset and we all stopped and I swooped her up. She didn't wan to run anymore and wanted to go home. Carter wanted to finish out the mile. We were only a quarter of a mile in. I carried Elise for a bit and then asked her if she could try walking. She did and it wasn't long before she was off running again but she wanted to hold my hand most of the rest of the way. I was really proud of her for being tough, getting back up, and running again! Since Carter didn't mind me running ahead with Elise, I did that for the rest of the way so she would feel more comfortable. She and I finished in 12:08, not bad all things considered, and then made a finish line for Carter to run through. He really enjoyed that!

We stopped off at the car to get a drink and a picture with the kids' medals. Then we put on masks and headed into the aquarium. It was a nice visit and I was so glad Elise had that idea! Doing these virtual fun runs with the kids has made me miss doing my run streak a little bit. I always enjoyed running my mile on my days "off running". I'm a bit hesitant to start a streak again just because I can be a bit obsessive and don't want to get to where I obsess about missing a day of running. But it sure has been a lot of fun!

Hope Isn't Canceled 10k

My mom signed us all up for the Hope Isn't Canceled Virtual Face Mask Run. It was either a 5k or 10k for all the adults. You didn't have to specify when you signed up. I wasn't sure when I was going to run mine or which distance I would go for. Then the kids and I ran their fun run on August 4th since the weather cooled off for about a week. After we ran the fun run my mom did her 5k that same day and Jeremy decided to run his 10k later that evening. I figured, well heck, I might as well get my run in during these unseasonably cool days! I was planning on a 9 mile mid week longish run the following day so figured I might as well turn it into a 10k. I'd run a mile warm up, the 10k, and then a 2 mile cool down for a total of 9 miles. I really wasn't sure what pace to shoot for after the debacle that was my Run OK Virtual Half Marathon on July 3rd. I had no idea what I'd be able to do and I hadn't done any speedwork in a long time. I decided to treat the run like a tempo and just run what felt comfortably hard for the 1st half (hopefully around 7:15 pace) and then pick it up after the turn around. I haven't felt off and weird like I did around the time of the virtual half so I hoped this race would go better than that one did!

Since I was just running a mile warm up, I started the 10k portion of my run on the roads before I made it to our paved trail system. I decided so I'd have an official time, I'd restart my watch after the warm up so I'd just have my time for the 10k by itself. My first mile was 7:18 and I felt fine. I figured that was about what I'd be able to do and I was okay with that. Then my 2nd mile was 7:06 and I hadn't felt like I'd sped up at all which made me happy! I did get confused at one point because I'm so used to having my warm up included when I run tempos and I couldn't figure out how I'd only hit 2 miles on my watch before I remembered I had restarted it after the warmup. Mile 3 was 7:13 so I was right around the 7:15 pace average I had hoped for on the way out. I checked to see what my time was at 3.1 so I'd have an idea of what my finishing time might be. My first 5k was a little under 22:30. I figured I could pick it up to around 22:00 for the 2nd 5k and run a 44:30 or so. I was excited about that as I had just been hoping to be under 45!

I went through mile 4 in 6:57 and was super excited about how good I felt. Mile 5 was 6:58 and my legs were starting to feel a little bit tired but I knew I could make my last mile the fastest. I went through the last mile in 6:53 and decided to run a decent amount past 6.2 so I'd for sure have a 10k. Unfortunately that section of the trail has quite a few twists and turns which slowed down my finishing kick a bit. I ran the last portion in 6:50 pace. I decided since I was probably around 44:30 or so, I'd go ahead and run out to 6.23 to make sure I had the distance and because who cared if I picked up a few extra seconds. I was so shocked when I stopped my watch and my time was 44:02! Had I known I was that close to breaking 44, I would have sprinted a little harder or stopped at 6.22 instead. Darn! I definitely didn't expect to be that low in the 44's. I guess my math was a bit off. I was thinking 7:00 pace would be a 22:00 5k and didn't think about how much under 7:00 pace I was running!

I was really excited about my time and was super pleased it was so much faster than I expected with an average pace of 7:04 per mile! It made me feel confident that I'd be able to run a faster half-marathon right now than I did at the beginning of the month. I don't know what was going on with me then, but I'm so glad to be mostly back to normal now! I was also proud of myself for focusing on my improvement over how I felt running the Run OK Half to how I felt for this, rather than focusing on the fact that I would be running a half-marathon at the pace I ran the 2nd half of this run in if I were in good race shape right now. 7:04 pace for a 6 mile tempo off no speed work is great for me! Plus it was faster than any of the 10ks I ran in the summer race series we used to run every summer. So I'm starting in a good place to run some decent times in the fall. After Virtual Boston, of course!  

Wordless Wednesday

Playing in the sand at the Gathering Place.

Tesla must've had a busy afternoon playing with all these toys.

The kids spent around 2 hours building stuff for and playing with their hamsters.

Carter fell on a rock in the backyard and we ended up at Urgent Care.

It looked pretty good after it got glued.

Carter is always reading!

Walked in and saw Carter reading like this while doing abs so Elise jumped up by him to try it out.

Elise was asleep. Ty and I were talking about picking up Dairy Queen and when Elise heard she popped awake right away.

Moving a garden box at Ty's grandma's house.

Elise fell asleep in the car on the way home from Ty's parents' house.

Tesla was driving Ty crazy by getting on the futon and messing up all the covers. I put a dog bed by the futon and problem solved, she's such a good girl!

I ordered a second set of track and car with my birthday money so the kids each had one to play with. They had so much fun playing with them all afternoon.

Reading their books we picked up on our way home from the library.

Groovy Joe, Thelma the Unicorn, and Nibbles are all favorite books around here.

Elise asked me to take this picture but I don't remember why, something about the shape of her banana bar.

They painted a mask on the Golden Driller!

Playing in the garden after a family lunch picnic.

This melts my hearts like a million times over every time I see it!

Carter and Katie

Carter wearing car track while video chatting to Oma on his tablet.

The kids decking Tesla out with car track.

Carter ready to ride the mechanical shark.

Touching the shrimp at the aquarium.

Elise wasn't tall enough to ride the shark so she got to feed the turtles.

They were so excited to see the otters.

Elise couldn't see so Carter picked her up.

Who was more into the movie, Carter or Tesla?

Carter made pizza crackers for Elise and himself for lunch.