sisterly love

Oh, how fascinating it is to watch big sisters and little sisters.  I kid you not, the pictures below were taken approximately 30 seconds apart.

Can you tell who wanted the first turn?  

lake pics

We spent a week at the lake a couple of weeks ago.  We had absolutely gorgeous weather and made lots of memories.   

Monday was spent painting fingernails with the new nail art kit that Grandma had bought with Amelia on the way up to the lake the day before.  Now, let me tell you that I'm not a fan of little girls painting their own nails.  I completely understand that they need to practice to improve, but it makes this Mama a bit crazy to have them all wanting to do it all at the same time...at your parents' lake cottage.  

This may have caused me a bit of stress.  I told Josh that I was not having fun on this particular morning, and (after everyone's nails had sufficiently dried) he ordered everyone to put on swimsuits and jump in the lake.  This improved my sanity greatly.  And on a side note, I'm going to beg my mom to go with the hula-hoops next time. :)

We ended the day with ice cream from the local ice cream shop and a pontoon ride (or "contoon" as Olivia calls it...she also calls her swimsuit her swimsoup...and popsicles hotsicles)  

Tuesday was another swim day along with an all-family wave runner ride.  Claire, Josh, and Amelia ended up in the water at one point.  After Amelia finished crying, she thought she might want to fall in again.  The girls and Josh also went tubing.  

Grandma and Grandpa came back on Wednesday, but we were gone most of the day enjoying some time with friends.  

Thursday was spent playing and preparing for more friends and family.  Josh's parents came for a visit and a pontoon ride on Thursday.  

Amelia and Eden can finally sit next to each other without fighting at mealtime. :)  Eden is currently OBSESSED with Meredith.  Anytime Jill asks Eden what she would like to eat, drink, do, etc., she responds, "Well, what is Meredith having/doing/etc.?"  Every. single. time.

The breakfast crew...where are Grandpa's smiles?!

 Amelia caught a nice catfish:

Claire hooked a soft-shell turtle:

Meredith and Carter are inseparable when they're together:

This Meredith/Carter relationship amazes me each and every time we're together.  Our families get together 2-3 times per year, and they play together (almost non-stop) for several hours straight.  I have a picture of them together from 2009 (when they were 4), and I distinctly remember them not leaving each other's side that day either.  They eat together, swim together, play together, talk to each other, and wait to do anything while the other one is in the bathroom.  It's awfully sweet.

Lake days have always been some of my favorite days and continue to be.  Looking forward to spending more time up there before school starts.    

sweet summertime

The girls love eating on the deck.  I guess Olivia loves eating with her feet propped up as well.

claire's cake

As I was looking through facebook photos the other day, I realized that I never posted pictures of Claire's birthday cake on the blog.  I need a record over here, too. :)  

I was so proud of her for making her cake from scratch...I was also thankful that I didn't have to do anything!  Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting.  Yum!

  

She did a great job, and we invited her friend Abby's family over to celebrate and eat cake.  It was a fun night, and the cake looked great and tasted delicious!  Great job, Claire!

chop chop

Ever since Meredith heard that you could donate your hair, she's been wanting to do it.  She decided at the beginning of the year that this would be the year. 

The night before her appointment, she was in complete agony over the whole ordeal.  She had decided to cut 12 inches but was having commitment issues.  I told her that she didn't have to cut her hair, and she could donate another time.  She was convinced that she would regret either decision. :)

The organization where Amelia donated hers a couple of years ago takes 8 inch donations, so she finally decided that 8 inches would be acceptable.  

Before:

After:

She came home, admired herself all evening, and then went into total chopper's remorse at bedtime.  It wasn't pretty.  We tried to remind her that her hair would grow back, it was still really long, and it was really generous of her to donate her hair to a child who needed it.  

What won out in the end was a little extra time with Josh, Claire, and me after Amelia and Olivia had gone to bed...along with an extra snack of peanut butter bread.  I did an extra special hair-do on her this morning, and she seems much more content.  No tears today. :)

the half marathon: the race

"Of course it's hard.

It's supposed to be hard. 

If it were easy, 

everybody would do it.

Hard is what makes it great."

--A League of Their Own

The race.

Want to know the greatest source of anxiety that I had ahead of the race?  Where am I going to park when I get there?

Seriously.

I was completely worried about it!  Thankfully, my sister knew someone who runs it every year, and she offered to drive me there and be my source of reason.  She's also a psychologist.  Some therapy was in order on the way down.  I don't think I talked too, too much. :)

I was staying with my sister the night before the race since her house is closer than mine.  I never go to bed early, but I was exhausted from the long day of preparing.  I went to bed early around 9:30ish.  I was supposed to wake up the following morning around 5:00, but I woke up around 4:30 and knew I wouldn't go back to sleep.  I got around easily and headed out the door.

Once we arrived, I realized that I had brought the wrong bag to store my things.  For those of you who don't know, there are nice people that will hold your things for you while you run your race.  Unfortunately, they had given us TWO bags in our packet.  I debated and debated about which one to pack...I thought about taking both, and for some crazy reason, I didn't throw the other one in my bag.  (Seriously, how much space would it have taken??  What's wrong with me?!)  They could have at least told us which color to use.  Although, it seemed as though everyone around me had chosen the correct color.  Thankfully there were some extras near the drop-off area for the newbies who didn't know which bag was correct. :)

I didn't know what to expect when I got there.  I always have to go to the bathroom 527 times before I run, so I was happy to see a line of 3,000 port-a-potties in a row.

On a side note, the funniest thing about the port-a-potties was that there were lines of people at the first 5 port-a-potties, and no lines of people at the other 2,995 port-a-potties.  My first thought was this:  these people can run 13.1 miles in this race, but they can't walk 20 yards to find an empty port-a-potty?  My second thought was along the lines of...the more people that use a port-a-potty, the grosser it is.  It was really a win-win to walk the extra few paces.

Anyway, so I found my corral, and I ate my banana (which I left on the ground outside the port-a-potty...it's sad when you feel like the sidewalk is a clean place to set your food), and I tried to act like the other runners around me...so I did some stretches, but I refused to do the warm-up jog like some people...that's just pure craziness...I wasn't going to waste any of my steps on the warm-up...I had 13.1 miles to go!  I listened to the slow songs on my ipod to keep me calm.  I said a lot of prayers.

Then, the race began.

From our corral to the start line was a bit of a walk, and people were running before we even got the start line.  But not me...or the guy next to me.  He looked at me and said, "We haven't crossed the start line yet, have we?!"  I said, "Nope...it's up there!"  Him: "Why is everyone running?!!  I only want to run 13.1!"  Me too...we stayed strong until we got to the start line.

Then, I ran.  I ran for 2 hours, 10 minutes, and 50 seconds.  Straight.

The first 8 miles were were great.  The next couple were okay.  The last 3 were pretty rough.

I had loaded over two hours of music on my ipod, and I listened to a lot of it during my run.  During the first several miles, I could have listened to just about anything.  The last few miles?  I needed some major motivation.  I listened to Mandisa's "Overcomer" over and over and over during those last few miles.

I knew that I wouldn't walk.  That was my main goal from the beginning, but goodness did I want to stop running!  I think mile marker 11-12 was the hardest.  I knew I still had two miles left, and I knew that once I saw the 12 that I only had one mile remaining.  It seemed like forever until I saw the 12!!

And then I got to 12, and I couldn't see the finish line.  Where was that thing??  Through the entire race, there were people all around me running.  It seemed like there were a ton of people close together after mile 10 or 11...more than before.  And then, all of a sudden during my last mile, there was a big space between me and the people in front of me.  It was only for a minute or so, but it was a weird feeling!

Crossing the finish line was such a great feeling.  When I ran my 10K a couple of years ago, I thought I was going to puke...I was dry heaving near the mascot at the finish line.  Thankfully, I didn't puke on him.  And I didn't feel like that at all at the end of this race.  My legs felt weird, and I could tell already that my calves were going to be majorly sore in the very near future!

I picked up my medal, snacks, water, and the like.  (The cookies were not impressive...I'm such a cookie snob.)  And I went to pick up my bag of stored items to find my phone to call Josh.  I literally hobbled up and down the curbs of the sidewalk to get my bag.  Those calves would hurt for days!

As soon as I had my phone in my hand to call Josh, I started getting emotional.  He picked up the phone and asked how my race was.  I couldn't even answer.  I was bawling.  I just couldn't believe that I had actually just ran a HALF MARATHON...thirteen point freaking one miles!

How in the world did I do that?!

When I crossed the finish line, I was eager to know my time.  I knew I had run about 10 minute miles through the race because there were clocks at every mile.  What I didn't know was the time on the initial clock when I started.  Josh was receiving text updates each time I would pass one of their checkpoints, so he told me that he would text me right after the race with my final time.  But, he didn't know.  The last text hadn't come through when I crossed the finish line.

I was almost in a panic that it didn't record my time.  Josh assured me that they would know my time.  I found my sister, and while we were on our way to breakfast, Josh called me with my official time.  My goal was to run about 10 minute miles, and I averaged just under that.  So fabulous.

Jill and I went to breakfast where I hobbled in and out of the restaurant, in and out of the bathroom, to and fro the car.  The worst part was that I drove our little crap car, and it's a stick.  Who didn't think of that ahead of time?!  My poor legs.

Anyway, while I was running the race, I was thinking that this was definitely the only half marathon I would ever run.  Then, later that day (and many times since), I decided that I would certainly put it on my list of things to do again in the future. :)

My calves were extremely sore that day.  They were worse the next.  It took me a good 3 minutes of walking on Sunday each time I stood before I didn't look like I was shuffling.  My calves were sore each morning until Friday.

This race/run will rank extremely high on my list of great accomplishments for quite some time.

In the words of C.S. Lewis, "You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream."

You know all those things you've been wanting to do?  You should go do them!

the half marathon: training

Yep.

So, after I ran a 10K (6.1 miles) a couple of years ago, I started believing that I might be crazy enough to try a half marathon.  I wanted to do it last year, but it just didn't work out with the events that we had on our schedule.  This year was the year.  

I used Hal Higdon's novice training schedule, and overall I was very pleased with the training.  Our neighbor-friends were kind enough to let me run on their treadmill for the first several weeks, and they hooked up a t.v. with both Netflix and Amazon Prime AND added an earphone jack.  Guess who was spoiled?  Me.  And I happily indulged myself with the first two seasons of Downton Abbey.  (On a side note, who has the remaining seasons that I can borrow?!)

About a month into the training, I had to run a 5K race.  Thankfully, there was a free one being held nearby, so I signed up.  About a half mile into the race, I decided that treadmill running and outside running are two very different events.  Not that I didn't already know it...I did.  I just didn't think it would make that much of a difference.  I ran the slowest race of my life.  This was humbling to say the least.  

Oh, hello, motivation...nice to meet you.  

Thankfully, the days were getting longer and the weather was improving, so I moved my training to the great outdoors.  I did a 6 or 7 mile run by myself and decided I needed some running buddies to help me along the way.  I knew I would never be able run week after week without a little encouragement.  I walk waayyy too easily when I'm alone.  

So, as always, my facebook friends came to my rescue.  My friend, Shannon, told me that she would be happy to do my 7 mile (I think) run with me the following week.  My faithful running buddy, Kristin, also joined us for a few miles (and Kristin did a lot of my shorter runs each week with me).  

Let me take a minute to tell you about Shannon (who has still not run her first official road race...she's going to kick some major butt when she does).  Shannon is a few years older than me, faithfully runs 3-6 miles a few times a week, and is a complete drill sergeant when it comes to running.  Throughout the remainder of my training, she encouraged me, often made me run farther than necessary, and refused to let me walk.  She.was.incredible.  

She ran my long run with me every weekend for the remainder of my training...7, 8, 9, 10.  The week we ran 9 miles was the worst.  We ran it on a Saturday evening, and it was brutal.  I remember asking her at one point how far we'd gone.  When she told me 3 miles, I wanted to lie on the road and cry.  We made it, though.  When I got home that night, I was shuffling around like a 90 year old woman.  (I almost wrote 80, but I was certainly not moving that well.)  My back hurt like it did a few summers ago when I pulled something.  I was actually afraid that I had damaged myself in some way.

I remember telling Josh that night (on the verge of tears), "I can't believe that I have to go 10 miles next weekend.  I just want to run the race next weekend.  I don't want to feel like this again.  I just want this training to be over."

I dreaded the following weekend.  I was out of town Thursday night through Saturday night.  I hadn't slept well Thursday or Friday night, and I didn't get home until after 11:00 on Saturday.  I contemplated skipping church just to get more rest, but I didn't.  All I wanted to do when we came home from church was take a nap.  But instead, I put on my running clothes, and drove down to a new area of town where we hadn't run previously.  We decided that we needed some new scenery if we were going to go 10 miles.  And we added an extra running buddy as well. :)

Shannon brought along her runner-neighbor, Cate.  It was fun to have an extra buddy along for our 10 miles.  Cate is super energetic and decided that we should line up and high-five any other runners that we met along our path.  This kind of fun was right up my alley.  I loved it.  I could hardly believe it when Shannon looked at us and said, "We just hit 5 miles, girls!!"  It felt like 2.  

The first 8 miles of our 10 mile run felt good to me.  The last two were rough...the last one especially.  I found complete joy in the fact that this was my last training week and the following week I was actually going to run my half.

I couldn't believe how great I felt after that last long run.  It was phenomenal compared to the previous week.  I was actually looking forward to my race!!

Next up: the race.