October 1, 2005 Me at the 2005 Boston Marathon!

This is me at the 2005 Boston Marathon. Don't I look great for uh, watching my friends run the marathon? I actually am technologically challenged at times and I think I uploaded myself with mini Groucho twice. I am not sure!! I know it is a lot of work shopping and eating yummy, bad for you food while my friends are out running 26.2 miles. I can't help it that I"ll absolutely never ever qualify and have to make such sacrifices as eating just made, melt-in-your-mouth chocolates.

Actually my family is from Boston and I have entertained the idea of obtaining a "scrub" bib number from one of my relatives that either is a Boston "firafighta" or "police offisa" or "docta". I really want to run the Boston Marathon for my Mass. marathon. I could raise the donation money in order to run it too. I am waiting for any of my close running partners to finally qualify so I could run part of it with them. The person I watched in 2005 I love very much, but he finished in 3 hours 6 minutes so ever running any part of the marathon with him is definitely out of the question!! I am really hoping Dianna qualifies so I can try to run part of it with the Running Chicks!

This week has been uneventful. I only ran twice and practiced yoga twice. I plan on running about nine miles on Saturday and about six on Sunday to get some mileage in. I hope everyone has a fun weekend. Bye for now!

September 24, 2005 Run Less, Lose Weight?

There is a mystery among us. Since I have been taking a slight break from the longer runs and mega miles, I have been enjoying some relaxing three mile runs with no pressure for speed or performance. I just bask in the warm, end-of-the-summer weather and blab with my post partum running partner. We are a perfert match right now. She's too tired to be competitive and my right leg is too stiff, therefore we enjoy eachother's company and wake up run (we run at 5:30am!). So anyway, I am running about ten to fifteen miles less per week now for about three weeks and I am losing weight!?! Can one of you smartypants runners please explain this to me?

I have my own theory actually. I believe that when I am packing in the miles, like reaching the forty mile/week mark, my body goes into starvation mode and holds on to all my fat. So when I back off and become more balanced between running, weight training and yoga, it is actually more healthy for my overall health and wellness. I could be just nuts, but tell me what you think.

Thank you all my RBF friends for the ammunition for my next codependent fight I have with my beer pong playing, peter pan complex, dork husband! By the way almost no one knew what beer pong is, I shall enlighten you, I know your life might not be complete without this knowledge. Beer pong is a drinking game played on a ping-pong table. You set up cups of beer in a triangle shape and you and a partner try to bounce a disgusting, grass covered pingpong ball into the other teams' beer triangle. If you make it, they drink it. The whole thing is pretty gross. But the grossest alcoholic thing my peter pan husband has exposed me to is the ice luge. How about that one? Anyone know what that is? Well talk about germs and freaky ways to drink. Okay, an ice luge is a huge block of ice sitting on the back of some hick's truck. The said hick carves a trail into the ice block, then a stupid drunk squats at the bottom of the luge while another hick pours some type of hard liquor down the path. All I can think of is all the germs at the end of the luge where everyone has their lips wide open catching the poison.

Hope you all are enjoying the autumn weather, praying for those in Texas. I hope Rita weakens before it hits land. See you soon!

September 18, 2005

My life is full right now, I don't even know what I am doing from day to day sometimes. Listen to this:
Saturday (my day off mind you)
Wake up 5:00am go food shopping at the 24-hour Stop and Shop (thank god a reasonable store stays open twenty-four hours too, I hate shopping at Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart for the whole evil empire thing and because without fail every time I walk in there for about ten dollars worth of merchandise, I spend $5o, even when I am not with my three begging kids! BUT anyway) Went shopping, couldn't buy anything frozen because I had to leave the groceries in my car while I ran with my "adoptive" father an easy nine miler at 6:00.

6:00-7:30Ran with "dad" a nice, easy, very scenic nine mile run past a bunch of farms in rural CT. He is running for first selectman in our town so I got to hear all the juicy campaign gossip. You would not believe what bizarre things happen in local politics, I can only imagine what happens at the state and federal level! YUCK!

7:30 Stopped to stretch a very tight right hip, yet confirming all the RBFs diagnosis for my knee injury the last couple of weeks. Hip felt better after stretching and coffee!

8:00 Quick shower and breakfast bar. Tried to pick up my house, not much progress made.

9:00-11:00 Coached micro soccer team. Oh my goodness, some "bright" , too competetive soccer hitler suggested we make our micro players, six and seven year olds, play seven player on seven player to get them "Ready" (my ass) for the "next level so we can win some more games when blah, blah, blah". It was chaos. Imagine fourteen players all trying to kick the ball in one big clump. They did learn a little about positioning, but some kids never even touched the ball once, well frankly they were probably saying, " no way, I getting into that mess!" Luckily, reason prevailed and next week we are back to playing three players against three players. It was hot and frustrating, but in the end I think everyone did have fun. We will all have more fun next week though!

11:30 Arrived home to eat lunch and clean the house, remember didn't get much done before. Well at 11:47, we lost power - no vacuuming, no water to wash my disgusting kitchen floor, no water or power to wash 14 or so loads of laundry, no nothing.

12:00-2:00 Sat around looking at eachother, wondering what to do next. Yelled at kids for opening the refrigerator door, obssessed about when the hell I would get those 14 loads of laundry done, obsessed about the porto-potty smell that was attacking my bathrooms, kept flipping light switches because I would forget. It is amazing how much we need electricity.

2:00-9:00 Attended jack and jill party. Fun, good food and was hot enough to swim in the nice pool that was still open. Had to drag very plastered husband home after too many games of beer pong. How old do you have to be in order to be considered pathetic that your wife has to lug you home from beer pong? This is the question!!?? Obviously, my husband and I don't agree on what age one must stay away from the beer pong table. Help me out here my running buddies, tell me what you think.

9:00-9:30 Put my very tired, sweet children to bed. Just hoping my husband was passed out, I mean asleep upstairs, so I can read my book in peace!

9:30-10:00 Whew, he's snoring. Read a couple chapters of Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. Excellent book, highly reccommend any of his books.

Now listen to what's in store for today:
6:30 missed my running buddies, not sure what to do. I guess I'll run later today.

6:45 went downstairs to do one of those 14 loads of laundry from yesterday to find I flippin' left the washer door open. Now I have 14 1/2 loads to do!! Started blogging to get away from it all.

7:50 finished my post

Left to do:
14 loads of laundry
all the housekeeping
church from 9:30-11:30
softball game at 12:15 (my first game in like ten years, so I am little nervous)
son's soccer game at 3:00, I 'll try to run an easy three while my son's team warms up
5:00 come home and crash!!!!

See you soon, remember I want your feedback about beer pong age appropriateness!!

Sept. 11, 2005 On The Mend

Well, I have listened to all the good advice from my RBF friends and stayed off my knee for awhile. I am happy to say my knee is pretty much better. I continue to stretch and make sure I listen to the tweaks and twinges a little closer. I have decided to let go of my marathon training until I feel completely healed. It is funny, I feel a lot better, but my knee feels tentative and weak at times. I believe that if I continued to run long miles I would regret it. Today I ran seven easy miles and I felt good but not perfect. Why do you think trail running bothers my joints more, I thought trail running was supposed to be easier on your knees?

Another seasonal obsession I have is collecting little critters for my class to observe for a short period. We always let them go before they die as long as they don't escape before we get a chance to let them go. I am sad to report I found a very dried up frog in my bookshelf this August that escaped last May. YUCK! Currently, I am searching high and low (mostly low) for a monarch butterfly caterpillar to have my students watch it metamorph(sp?grammar?). My running partners know that at any moment I may dart off into some hopfully friendly farmer's field furiously searching the underbody of the milkweed plants!! I have not been able to locate any yet. There are caterpillar dealers that sell these little green guys, but it so much more fun when you can find them "in the wild"!!

Well, time to go pick apples, a New England must-do in the autumn. Have to run a few extra miles to work off the apple pie. Yes, I do enjoy other treats beside chocolate. Not anywhere near as much though! Chocolate rules, of course!

Sept. 4, 2005 The Therapy of Running

I have been thinking about what wonderful therapeutic benefits runnning offers. While reading fellow blogs, I also observe how therapeutic running can be for others as well. I am amazed at how angry I can be about something (usually at my husband, of course) at the beginning of a run and with every pounding of my sole (ha, ha) the madness slowly melts away. If I am running with a group or partner, I can usually come up with a plan as well.

My last long run illustrated the therapy of running perfectly. My partner was rightfully angry at his daughter for a really dumb move on her part. At the beginning of the nine mile run, he was never talking to her again. She was "out of the family forever". By the end of our run, he said maybe he would speak to her in maybe two years or so!! I loved it!! One of the principles I use in my work with my social and emotional challenged students is to teach them that their madness goes away - a concept that has not been taught to them yet. I love the way running helps the "madness go away"!!

I find that partner or group running is far more therapeutic for me than if I am running alone. While running alone, I can find myself obsessing over some issue and returning home even more angry. The plans made on my lone runs can be really stupid ones! Unfortunately for my husband, he has to put up with whatever stupid plan I made!!

Thank you to all of the RBF members who gave me some great advice on my knee pain. I think you were all accurate, because now my whole leg is tender!! I have continued to rest and stretch. That is my new mantra. Oh I still practice yoga everyday too, of course! Well, I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Can't wait to read about the RBF's experience in New Haven.