Sweat Pink Laces!!

Look what I got today in the mail:

I won these the other day from Sarah at Run, Mommy, Run!

Please check out her blog (linked above) and follow her here on Facebook: 

Run, Mommy, Run (facebook)

Camping

So J recently decided to join the Cub Scouts. 

This means we will have camping trips in our future so we decided to go ahead and buy some camping stuff. (We being my Dad and I).  We decided we didn’t want to look like total fools in front of a lot of people so we wanted to go out and attempt to set up the tents when nobody was around.  So we took an overnight camping trip at a local campground.  (This overnight trip happened back in October)

We decided to head up to a local campground, about 3o minutes away.   We chose a close, non remote location just in case….  The campground had mostly spots for trailers so trying to find a good tent site (close to the bathroom)  for two tents was not an easy task.  We finally found this spot and decided to make it work.

Tent #1 (NOT fun to put together)

Tent #2 (aka J’s tent, MUCH simpler to put together)

After we got the tents set up we decided to start a camp fire and had a gourmet dinner of:

Afterwards we had to have S’mores.  What kind of camping trip is complete with S’mores?!?!?

 

For entertainment, once the PSP battery wore out, we brought a birthday present to play with!

 

Which was fun, until Mom had to go hunt the foam darts amongst all the leaves.

So we decided to play with wrestlers in the tent for a bit.

 

Eventually it started getting dark so we just hung out around the fire until it was bedtime.

Are you afraid of the dark??

Of course the fire had to be poked several times….

Let me just say, the night was pretty miserable.  J and I slept together in the little blue tent.  Now I am not a tall person (5’ 4) and I could not stretch out straight.  Pair that with a boy with dystonia that can not control his legs and it made for a very interesting, sleepless night.

Someone had a pretty good seat supervised the cleanup the next morning.

Overall we had a good time.  Camping with someone with special needs can prove to be challenging because there are just different things to have to think about.  The weather, thank goodness, stayed nice.  It was cool but it did not rain which made this momma very happy.  We definitely will be going again soon.  J loved it!  (And as long as he had a good time, I had a good time.)

Failure

Well I already failed on following through on my last post.  I kind of think it might be self fulfilling prophecy.  I DID do the first week.  Then I made 101 excuses why I needed a break.  So let's just move on.  I really have no idea where to go from here.

In unrelated news, I had my last day today in my current job.  I am moving from being an inpatient respiratory therapist to an outpatient one.  Instead of doing breathing treatments and ventilator checks for patients that are in the hospital, I will be doing home oxygen related stuff.  While I am excited about the change I know I will miss my current co workers like crazy.  The good thing is, they will be right across the hall.

So, I guess I need to figure out where to go from here.... as far as this blog is concerned.  I think I might make it a goal to post every day this week.....so here we go.

Let's see if I can do this....

 I am HORRIBLE at follow through.  But I am going to attempt to step out of my normal bounds and attempt this:

(Image is linked)

This means I will have to go to the gym.  (I have access to a free gym at work, well I had to pay $5 for a key).  I really have no excuses.  I will start tomorrow because I didn't bring any work out clothes with me today.  Tomorrow is my day off so it will take some pure motivation for me to get up and come over to my work place and follow through.

Wish me luck!

p.s.  I actually "started" this 4 weeks ago by signing up for the emails but never actually started.

p.p.s I am actually really only following the work out plan 100%.  While I am reading the rest of the plan the work out part is what I am most interested in accomplishing. 

I DID make it ...

 ..through my first ever half marathon.    I will post details later.  I really kind of suck at this blogging thing....

Pile on the Miles!!

Check out this awesome challenge hosted at Run Eat Repeat:

  Pile on the Miles

The idea is that instead of piling on the pounds in November you pile on miles!  You get to set your own goal and are entered for some awesome prizes.  Plus the best prize of all is piling on miles instead of pounds!!  (I signed up and made a goal of 100 miles!)

Last long run

Before I get to the last long run before my half next week (eek!) I thought I would share a couple pictures from the walk I took yesterday afternoon.  During my break at work I decided to get out and take a walk.  I walked a mile.  It was so beautiful out.  A little overcast but I couldn't get over all the pretty fall colors on the trees.

 

I snapped the pictures with my phone and apparently the the overcast sky caused most of the pictures I got to turn our dark (shoot).  

Anyway, I also have another couple pics to share, totally unrelated to running.  Here is crazy J catching a ride with Pops (his grandfather) in the store.  I swear the kid is crazy.

(sorry that was also taken with my phone and it was an action shot so it is a little blurry).

J might be crazy but I sure do love him!

So yesterday I did it, the longest run to date:

Overall pace was like 10:50 something.  I did have a little ankle/lower leg stiffness in my left leg but it worked its way out.  Next Saturday is the half.   My goal is still just to be able to finish. 

I had originally thought  about doing a run/walk method but I think if I start out at a good slow pace I should be able to run most of it.  Not to say I won't take a couple walk breaks but I do want to try to minimize them.  

I really needed that run to have a little more confidence going into next Saturday.  I am not sure what kind of training I will do this week.   Along with my left lower leg my left knee is bothering me some too so I think I will probably try to just take it easy this week.  Probably will add a lot of rolling and icing to my nights. 

A week from today...

I will be attempting  my first ever half marathon.  I am excited, nervous, scared, anxious, all at the same time.  My knee has been giving me a little trouble this week so I have kind of been taking it easy.  I ran some on Wednesday.  I did 3 miles on the treadmill.  I did one easy mile then did 1/2 mile fast for me, 1/2 slower then repeated the 1/2's.   Thursday was a complete rest day and then yesterday I did Jillian Micheal's 30 day shred.  I am doing level 2 now and yesterday made the 5th day.  (I haven't been doing them in consecutive days.)   Today I plan on getting in my last "long run" before next week.  I am still undecided how many miles it will be.  Kind of depends on how the day at work goes. 

Our weekend

The weekend started Saturday with a long run. 

 

Yeah I am slow but I’m working on it.  And I truly follow this motto:

And so can see where my blog name comes from, here is a small sample of how I look when I got done:

Yeah you’re welcome. 

Other then that the weekend has just included laundry and lounging around.  Tomorrow I go back to work after being off all week.  (Later I will post some pics from our first ever camping trip we took during the week.)  It was so nice to hang the scrubs and stethoscope up for the week but back to helping people breath tomorrow.

Oh and sometime tonight this little  fellow is getting a shower, much to his dismay.  He has enjoyed being on Fall Break this week but heads back to school tomorrow.

It’s all in a name…

I confess, I am HORRIBLE at naming things.  I always joke that my sister named my son but in reality its the truth.  (She told me I had to use the name I used because I had previously told her she couldn’t use it). 

Anyway, so when I was trying to think of a blog name, I decided to go with Sweaty Wendy because I am a major sweater!  Wait is a sweater someone who sweats a lot or just what you hope not to get from Grandma for Christmas??  Anyway, I sweat a lot!   It’s really kind of embarrassing because when I work out I sweat like a man (I almost wrote swear, which is kind of also the truth too.) 

All of that rambling to say, after I named my blog I found this awesome site of other sweaters. 

 

Seriously, go check this site out!  It is full of all kinds of information (and some really cute shirts!) 

Cleaning = no fun

Spent all day cleaning.  Was going to do so much more but then didn't.  I did get a good deal of cleaning done though so that's something I guess.  I really, really want to start adding some pics to this blog.  I know personally I like blogs with pictures.

I did sign up for this today:

This is October's Klutch Box!   

I have seen this site before but passed but decided to go ahead and give it a go.  I am so excited and can't wait to get it in the mail.    

Guess I will go watch some Post Season Baseball.

MIA

Well I managed to do it again...went MIA.  Gonna try to get back at it.  I have a ton of pictures to upload from my camera so maybe some will make their way here.

Still working on training for my first half marathon - which will be two weeks from Saturday!?!?!  Yikes!  So not ready but will make it through one way or another.

Week 1 of 8 done!

I won’t lie, the last couple days have been rough.  I just haven’t been feeling it.  But they are done so that’s all that matters now. 

And tonight I may or may not be enjoying a little adult beverage.

Day of rest

So incredibly happy today was a rest day on the plan.  Back at it tomorrow! 

Back at it…

Again…..  Let’s hope this time I don’t fail like all my
other attempts at this.

The good news is that my ankle is finally wanting to cooperate with me
when it comes to running!!     I have totally slacked the last couple
weeks but a couple days ago decided to bite the bullet and sign up for
my first half marathon.  I think I had a temporary moment of insanity
clarity.  I need to just get one under my belt.  I had originally eyed
a half this fall, in September actually, back in winter time.  I never
officially sign up because it seemed so far away.

I was reading the website of local events and saw this race:

It has a three hour time limit, which I read as I need to be able to
maintain an overall pace of 13 min/miles.  I am pretty sure I can do
this.  I have such high expectations of myself for this half:  simply
finish!!

I counted down how many weeks I had – 8.  So, thanks to Google, I
found an 8 week training plan.  I did adjust it a little so that my
week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday because my “race” will be
on a Saturday.

So far, I am off to a good start.   I did miss the crosstraining
(which I plan to bike) on Tuesday but made up for it by doing 25 mins
on Wednesday.  (I had some company on the ride)

It was pretty hot out.  This trooper pushed himself 1.5 miles in his chair, all by himself, while I rode.   We were pretty worn out afterwards

I also was trying out some padded liners (am I the only one who HATES
the soreness you get after riding?!?!?).  Anyway, here is hoping I am
able to get through this 8 weeks (and maybe actually blog about it).
(I really want to be able to blog so I can look back at my progress
and see that I did it.

Work and Baseball

Had to work a 12 hour shift today which really kind of stinks.  I did manage to get a mile walk in when I went out to move my car.  It was hot, especially in scrubs but I am glad I did it because right after work I went to the JC Cards ballgame.    Here is how I found my son when I got to the game:

Hanging by the bullpen .....  trying to collect baseballs.   He LOVES trying to collect baseballs from the players, along with foul balls that other kids chase down.    He's quite proud!  (I won't mention how many baseballs we have managed to bring home this season.)

I had to remind him not to hassle the players during the game.    The game wasn't too great for us since the Cards started off allowing 7 runs the first inning.   The only good thing about the game was that the temps were down tonight so I was not soaking in sweat just sitting watching the game like I have the last few games.  During the bottom of the 8th the lights decided to go out - well some of the lights....

J has been on a mission to get all the JC Cardinals to sign a little wooden bat.  He has done quite well and gotten most of the team.  Well during the little delay for light problems he decided to work on his signatures.  Here he is looking at his roster to see who he's missing.  He did manage to get 2 that he didn't have yet!

MAD (mile-a-day):  Just got the 1 mile at work done today.  I thought about trying to get another mile or two in after we got home from the game but it went too late and I didn't want to walk at 10:30 at night, in the dark, by myself.  Didn't want to run into any monsters!    Hoping to head to bed here very soon!  So glad to have the next two days off!

Walk - Don't run

So I started out running a few months ago and LOVED it.  I totally hearted running.  I was working on a half marathon training plan with the idea to run my first ever half in the fall.  And then.....I suffered my first major injury.   I developed a stress fracture.

I had suffered and battled with shin splints when I first started running but had finally got them under control when the fracture happend.  So I ended up side-lined about a month ago. 

Since the injury, I have really been lazy when it comes to exercising.   Well a friend on Facebook decided to start a July Mile-A-Day challenge.  I decided to go for it, knowing I would have to walk but still. 

I have only missed one day, and that was the 2nd when we were out of town watching a baseball game.  I am so excited to be back exercising.   While I do hope to run again some day, I am going to try to focus on walking and regaining my focus on more healthy living.

I also have about 30 more pounds I want to lose.

I am really hoping to figure out a way to add some pictures to my blog.  I know there has to be a faster method then the way I know how to know.  As for now, I am at work though and have to be here until 8pm so picture posts will have to wait for another day.

My new little space

New blog, new start.  My place to document my journey through life