The Life of a Running Momma

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

Wordless Wednesday

Otis missed us when we were gone for the weekend and was determined for me to hold him even though I was working on our troop's initial cookie order.

Milo the Mantle Kitty

Tesla's ready for cookie season!

Sunset run at the trails.

Carter was very upset about this sign as it was posted after he turned 11.

Milo creeping me out!

The kids went back to school the day before I did so I got to go eat lunch with them at school.

Sweet note to welcome me back the first day after winter break.

Dump dinner, Elise wasn't so sure at first.

Our new couch is too big so Ty shares his foot rest with me.

Squeezed together.

The rest of the couch. The only other foot rest is way on the other side of the couch!

Milo was very interested in Elise's bath.

New shoes a co-worker bought and didn't like the way they fit so she gave them to me.

Carter ready to shadow at a middle school!

He went out to lunch with friends after before going back to school.

My new running vest has come in so handy! I've already worn it 5 times since I bought it a week ago.

Elise at an ice skating birthday party for a friend.

Milo and Otis were both intrigued by the snow.

Nothing better than a trail run in the snow!

The only other tracks were made by animals.

She made this little set up for distance learning on our snow day.

Can you spot what doesn't belong?

Elise got some brackets to fix an anterior cross bite.

Carter had the flu and threw up phlegm on the floor, Elise panicked and hid behind the curtains.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Wordless Wednesday

Trying out a new ice cream place called Taiyaki. It was delicious!

A better view of the fish shaped cone the ice cream was in.

Sapulpa Christmas Chute

Book basket exchange at book club.

The book basket I made for book club.

Elise enjoying treats from book basket I got.

Dad accidentally sprayed himself with the sink sprayer as he was cleaning dishes.

My mom really wanted to run this race in Joplin on New Year's Day. I love the Race Into the New Year, but I don't love running a race so late at night because it's hard for me to wind down and go to sleep afterward. The years we've run it, I typically don't fall asleep until around 2 in the morning afterward. I thought a race at 10:15 in the morning on New Year's Day sounded pretty perfect instead. I looked at the race website and it's touted as the fastest 5k in Joplin with a point-to-point downhill course. Then I looked at the course map and knew the course went through a portion of the Joplin Memorial Run's course and it is not flat. I knew there was no way there weren't some fairly significant uphills and the course map showed 68 feet of elevation gain overall. Even so, I figured it would be a fast course and I was excited to shoot for a sub-21 again. Mom signed everyone up, including Ty and the kids, even though they likely wouldn't be running. She and Thomas both got sick before Christmas and still weren't feeling good going into the race. Thomas decided not to run and mom decided she'd go ahead and do it. My friend, Sara, messaged me the day before the race saying she'd decided to run it and saw I was registered when she was checking things out. I was excited for the added benefit of getting to see her as well. I slept in until 8 after staying up until after midnight the night before and still had time to eat oatmeal for breakfast and do yoga before we left. Ty, the kids, and I left a little earlier than everyone else so I could get a warm-up in before the race.

Jeremy and Moneypenny before the race.

When I packed for the race, it showed a forecast of 32 with feels like 32. The day before on my run it was 30, feels like 23 and I was so cold! Race morning wasn't quite as cold, but I was pretty cold on my warm up. My fingers were in pain by the time I finished 1.5 miles and stopped in to go to the bathroom before the race. During my warm up I saw Sara running to the start. She parked at the finish and ran to the start as her warm up. When I came out of the bathroom I saw Carter putting his bib on and found out he decided to walk the race with my mom. I looked for Ty at the start area and couldn't find him so I went to where he parked and figured I would leave my warm ups on the truck, but he was in the car so I tossed them through the window at him. I made it to the start line with a couple minutes to spare and found Sara so I lined up behind her. I had noticed there wasn't a timing mat at the start so I was pretty sure this was the kind of chip timed race where everyone's time started at the same time when the race started and their chip just registered the finish, so I wanted to make sure to start close to the front for an accurate time. She said running the course as her warm up, there were definitely hills on the course, but the race finished downhill. A woman standing next to her said she has run the race before and it's just the back half of the race that's downhill, the first half of the race has quite a bit of elevation gain. I was mentally prepared for that with what I'd seen from the course map, but I was glad they confirmed it and I knew better what to expect.

At the start, we were caught off guard by the really quick countdown to the start.

We took off and the start had a decent little hill we ran down so it went out fast. I immediately felt great and I was very confident about my goal of breaking 21 minutes. At the Jingle Bell 5k I felt terrible from the start and the pace felt like a struggle. With this one I felt really smooth. There were 2 women who went out hard and Sara stayed a smidge behind them. She pulled away from them pretty early on and I was a ways back from them. They were together in a pack with some men and I really wished I had a pack to run with, but I didn't want to go out too hard and pay for it later so I ended up running the whole race alone. I could see that pack ahead of me which gave me something to think about. I went through the first mile in 6:38 and I was really excited. I was 7 seconds under the pace I was shooting for. There were some long, small inclines in that first mile. The 2nd mile had quite a few more hills. I told myself if I lost a little bit of time in the 2nd mile, it would be okay because I'd be able to make up for it in the last mile with all the downhill. I did get a little nervous when I looked down at 1.58 and saw my overall time was 10:45 which would be a 21:30 if we were halfway finished. I knew I was over halfway, but it still made me a little bit nervous about breaking 21. I focused on maintaining pace as much as I could without pushing too hard. I went through the 2nd mile in 6:50. That was 5 seconds over the pace I was shooting for, but there was a decent amount of incline so I didn't worry about it.

Once I hit the last mile, I really took off and started pushing the pace. I felt really strong and was super excited. I knew I was going to keep chipping away at 21 minutes. With about a half mile to go a man passed me and I focused on maintaining the gap, not letting him pull too far ahead of me. Then with about a quarter-mile to go a guy wearing shorts and no shirt went flying past me. I tried to go with him, but he was really flying! At that point it was all downhill and I'm not the best downhill runner. I always pass people going uphill and tend to get passed on the downhills. I could see the finish line and took off. When I saw the clock, it wasn't much over 20 minutes and I knew I was going to be way under 21. I finished and looked at my watch. I saw I had averaged 6:35 pace and had it in my head I'd finished in 20:35. It wasn't until later when I looked at results that I realized I ran 20:31! My finishing kick downhill was 5:34 pace! I was 14th out of 259 overall, 4th out of 148 females, and 1st out of 20 in my age group. The top 3 women all finished in under 20 minutes!

It's too bad my eyes are closed in this one, it would have been a good picture!

I watched dad and Jeremy finish and then I took off with Sara and a friend of hers to do a cool down. We ran a mile back out on the course before we came across mom and Carter so they kept going and I turned around to finish with mom and Carter. They were walking and I got really cold walking so I started running out past them and then coming back. Then I found a park with a pond and Christmas trees sponsored by different companies that were decorated and ran around the park looking at all the trees. When I caught back up to Carter and mom they were really close to the finish and decided to run the rest of the way in. Carter joked that he was going to sprint to the finish to beat his Oma, but then ended up doing exactly that. They finished right as the fun run for kids was getting ready to start so the photographer didn't get any pictures of them finishing which I was bummed about because mom was dressed in a Frosty the Snowman costume and looked so cute!

Jeremy finished in 26:03. He ran with Moneypenny and she did a great job. He was 53rd overall and 5th in his age group. Dad finished in 27:36, 70th overall and 4th in his age group. He got a cramp in his leg and coasted into the finish because he didn't want to cause an injury. 3rd place in his age group passed him at the end of the race and finished 2 seconds ahead of him! Carter finished in 58:42, 253rd overall and 2nd in his age group. Mom finished in 58:51, 254th overall and 8th in her age group. We stayed for awards and missed hearing Carter called as 2nd in his age group. When I saw it in the results, he said that was okay, he didn't deserve an award because he walked the whole way. That cracked me up since people always complain about his generation and their participant ribbons and refer to them as entitled and whiners. There's just further proof to what I've always said that it's not the kids who want participant trophies and ribbons, it's their parents who think they need it.

Jeremy and Moneypenny finishing the race.

They even took a picture of Moneypenny finishing!

The only picture of Carter and mom. I think it was around the start.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

My Year in Books

This year was another great year of reading! I started tracking the books I read aloud with the kids on my Goodreads as well because I would forget which books we read and it makes it so much easier when I can check on Goodreads to see if I've read it or not. Carter was looking over my shoulder at how many books I've read and was so impressed. He asked how many I'd read with him and I loved that I could go back through and count them. We read aloud 9 books together which feels like hardly any, but is close to a book a month. Sometimes it takes us a really long time to get through a book and other times we speed through them. I just depends on how busy we are. Usually we read a chapter at night while the kids brush their teeth, but I've noticed when I'm really into a book, I'll sometimes keep reading past bedtime. There were a couple that Ty would come in and make a comment that it sounded like we'd already finished the chapter and it was past bedtime, haha! A co-worker asked me if I track the books I read with my class, but I don't because I only read books to the class that I've already read on my own. I only track those books once instead of showing how many times I've read them. I've read The One and Only Ivan 4 times! If I've already read a book that I read aloud with Carter and Elise, I don't track it again. Read past recaps here: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.

This was a fun notification to get when I finished reading my 170th book for the year!

This year I read 57,462 pages across 177 books.

Last year I read 51,272 pages across 171 books.
In 2021 I read 47,845 across 157 books.

In 2020 I read 56,782 pages across 186 books.

In 2019 I read 41,911 pages across 132 books.

In 2018 I read 38,074 pages across 128 books.

This was the first year I used StoryGraph to track which format I used to read books. I knew I read a few more physical books than ebooks or audiobooks, but figured I did about a third of each. It was cool to see I read almost half my books as physical books. That's definitely my favorite way to read! It also showed my breakdown of fiction vs. nonfiction which was 22% nonfiction and 78% fiction which didn't surprise me at all!

I read 87 physical books, 38 ebooks, and 51 audiobooks.

My shortest book was This Winter by Alice Oseman at 120 pages.

My longest book was Hamilton by Ron Chernow at 818 pages.

The average length of book was 324 pages.

The most popular book I read was Verity by Colleen Hoover with 3,979,828 other people reading it.

The least popular book I read was Mascot by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell with 1,240other people reading it.

My favorite fiction book was Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson.

My favorite nonfiction book was Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby

My favorite fiction audiobook was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

My favorite nonfiction audiobook was Meaty by Samantha Irby.

My favorite YA book was Heartstopper by Alice Oseman.

My favorite YA audiobook was Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley

Honorable Mention (how I read them in parantheses):

Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley (audiobook)
The Office BFFs: Tales of the Office From Two Best Friends Who Were There by Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer (audiobook)
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (audiobook)
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez (book)
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder Series by Holly Jackson (books)
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer (book)
Book Lovers by Emily Henry (book)
Life's Too Short by Abby Jimenez (book)
The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth (book)
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (audiobook)
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez (book)
The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez (audiobook)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara (audiobook)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (audiobook)
Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by Margaret Verble (ebook)
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (book)
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (book)
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah (book)
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adeji-Brenyah (audiobook)
Evil Eye by Etaf Rum (book)

Favorite Children's Chapter Books:

When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller (book with the kids, they both really liked it as well)
The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate (book, Carter also read this one on his own)
The Wild Robot Series by Peter Brown (book and ebook with the kids, they LOVED this series)
Mascot by Traci Sorell and Charles Waters (book, I read this and Carter started it but never finished it)
The Elephant's Girl by Celesta Rimington (book)
On Air with Zoe Washington by Janae Marks (book)

Monday, January 1, 2024

2023 Running Review

This year started with a big high, running the Houston Marathon and qualifying for Boston. I had such a blast training for and running Houston, that I couldn't get excited about training for anything other than a marathon in the spring. I typically only run one marathon a year because I mentally need a break after a marathon training cycle and doing shorter races for the next season is the re-set I need. I decided to run a summer marathon and needed somewhere up north for cooler temps and landed on Grandma's Marathon. At the end of my Houston training cycle I was doing a yoga move and suddenly had quite a bit of pain in my foot. It was similar to an issue I'd had about 5 years before so I picked up the PT exercises I had done then that helped. As I tapered for the race the pain let up and I didn't have issues during the race so I thought nothing of it. Training for Grandma's the pain kept ramping back up and the PT exercises weren't clearing it up, just making the pain more manageable. On our drive to Minnesota for the race, I'd get out of the car and could barely walk. After the race my foot was bruised already as I took my shoe off and it was swollen. Finally in July I went to a sports medicine doctor and he did an ultrasound on my foot. He diagnosed me with a fancy name for bone spurs which were caused by Achilles Tendonitis. He mentioned surgery if PT didn't help and I was scared enough to back off and do half my workouts as cross training. The benefit was I discovered I love cycling. The downside was that I missed running. Between cross training and PT appointments 3 times a week, I was feeling pretty decent by August and got the go ahead to start slowly building my weekly mileage. I've since learned between my PT exercises and about half my miles on trails, I can keep the pain at bay. Even though the middle of the year took a turn with an injury, it came back around and I was able to get back to training and ran some fun races in the fall. I wasn't as fast as I would have liked, but I was happy just to be running! So overall, this year was a success even though it included less running than I would have liked. Read past recaps here: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016.

Total Miles Run:

1,758 miles

For Comparison I Ran:

1,921miles in 2022

2,161 miles in 2021

2,020 miles in 2020

2,019 miles in 2019

1,918 miles in 2018

1,546.41 miles in 2017

1,332.6 miles in 2016

Average Weekly Mileage: 34 miles

Average Daily Mileage: 4.8 miles

Total Time Spent Running:

256 hours

For Comparison I Ran:

289 hours in 2022

331 hours in 2021

292 hours in 2020

283 hours in 2019

271 hours in 2018

223.5 hours in 2017

191.5 hours in 2016

Total Elevation Gain:

70,610 feet

For Comparison:

85,344 feet in 2022

91,021 feet in 2021

71,963 feet in 2020

75,483 feet in 2019

70,513 feet in 2018

Total Active Days/Days I Ran:

316 (I think this may include when I've done races and tracked my warm up and cool down separately because there's no way I was so close to the same number of runs as in 2020 and 2021 with so many fewer miles than those years.)

For Comparison:

304 in 2022

319 in 2021

319 in 2020

338 in 2019

308 in 2018

Weekly Mileage:

Weeks with 20-29 Miles: 12 (8 in 2022, 7 in 2021, 3 in 2020, 0 in 2019, 5 in 2018, 21 in 2017, and 24 in 2016)

Weeks with 30-39 Miles: 16 (17 in 2022, 14 in 2021, 20 in 2020, 23 in 2019, 25 in 2018, 8 in 2017, and 11 in 2016)

Weeks with 40-49 Miles: 14 (22 in 2022, 18 in 2021, 21 in 2020, 29 in 2019, 17 in 2018, 9 in 2017, and 7 in 2016)

Weeks with 50+ Miles: 6 (4 in 2022, 13 in 2021, 7 in 2020, 0 in 2019, 3 in 2018, 7 in 2017, and 2 in 2016)

Highest Weekly Mileage: 60 miles

I had 4 weeks under 20 miles during the height of my bone spur pain this summer.

Cycling:

17 rides

21 hours, 17 minutes

304 miles

6,335 feet

Elliptical:

2 hours, 54 minutes, 53 seconds

PRs:

None

I included my cycling and elliptical totals because they are for sure PRs for me. I am pretty good at preventing and managing injuries so this was the most prolonged period of cross training I've ever experienced.

My big accomplishments this year were qualifying for Boston at the Houston Marathon, getting into Boston in September, and getting my 7th Tulsa Run 60/70 Mug after battling back from bone spurs which caused a lot of pain and months of cross training followed by low mileage.

Races:

January

15th- Houston Marathon in 3:28:18 (7:52 pace), 58th in my age group