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.