Undertraining

I'm so busy you guys! Just kidding, I don't purposefully use that excuse because isn't everyone?

I actually steer clear of the writing of the blog posts due to my defense mechanism: avoidance. It mostly reminds me of my injuries, lost abilities, and things I only wish I could write about.

There are dozens of great kid pictures

to post for the grandparents to check out, many stories of the little ones buried in my brain crevices to write down. Kids are so cute and funny! And time consuming? Yes. But cute and funny first.

Consuming the majority of my limited computer time these days is USA Triathlon and its biennial recertification requirements. I don't need to do all that much, but I do manage to cram it all into the last few weeks of alternate years. Of course since this is the area I have chosen to study in my free time since grad school, I enjoy learning more, but time is at a premium. The main thing I have gotten from my study so far is this: keep your elbows high under water. Just do it. (Credit: Sheila Taormina's book, Call the Suit. Totally worthwhile read.)

As far as my pitiful undertraining efforts are going, I was much less optimistic just a few weeks ago. I am having more hip pain, or back pain; who knows? because it is all quite continuous these days. After a couple of nerve blocks plus some steroids, I went in for a really wonderful nap in the anesthesiologist's office, but they woke me up to ask where I felt the tingling. It was in my hamstrings and glutes at the time, which I surprisingly remember. He singed a few nerves back there from L3-S1 and sent me home to wait 3 weeks to feel better. It took 3 weeks to feel much difference, but I *think* it is slightly less painful after 4.

My three sticks in the back. No wonder the spinal erector muscles were sore. They got a good needling.

After several weeks of 2x3 mile runs, then a 4 or 5 miler thrown in here and there, I went out and ran a flat 6 miles. Limping the next day from pain in the groin and hip flexors made me take off 2 weeks from running and get addicted to a new show while on the trainer: Dexter. Why did nobody tell me to watch this before? I can pretend I like riding the trainer now.

I'm turning 40 in a couple months and I don't see any PRs in the future. I'd get into some other sport, like weight lifting, but I really can't squat to parallel without my hip popping and eventually pestering me. I learned this by picking up toys endlessly one day. I suppose I could swim with my newfound technique, but it can be so hard to get into water when it's cold!

I haven't quite convinced myself that I'll never get back into racing or being at least closer to my former speed, but I am slowly accepting that few people actually get it back after this surgery. More than once I have been told that I am just getting older and this is what happens to older bodies. And some days I may lose a little more motivation because of that, even though I know 39 is not too old to be fast. Why couldn't I have been one of the moms who have this amazing postpartum fitness? But enough crying in my soup. I can still do a lot of things. Like hike with my big kid.

Since it has been no less than 2 months since my last post, we go from the beach to Christmas. In between I spectated at Ironman Louisville and watched my three amazing athletes Ironman very successfully. It was such a motivating day, it almost made me sign up. So I put Jeremy on it, and he's racing Chattanooga next year. Living vicariously again.


Thanksgiving was full of family and sisters who love me. Actually we just seemed to always pose as though I was either dying or worthy of congratulations, so of course we made fun of ourselves.

We had an extra little furry being in the house, but this one sat contentedly in laps while squeaking a cute little tune and driving the cats insane. Meet Princess Brownie Julia. Now we apparently need a guinea pig.

 

We still love you most, Bear. For your patience, foremost.

 

Thanksgiving week turned out to be beautiful. For as much as I do not like fall and it's rainy, cold, impending winter self, we do have a pretty nice view from our upstairs back deck that I have appreciated more than usual this year (since it has been unusually warm).

   

And this little one has LOVED being outside regardless of weather conditions. 

   

Now onto Christmas season we go. Hunter is our master decorator this year, having arranged the hickory nuts on the hutch with the greenery,

 and single-handedly placing every ornament on this tree by himself. I don't want to brag, but y'all, he is good! He got a tall bar chair out and climbed right up to work.

He even made ornaments himself. I love the crayon filler. It's so him. And me. Crafting out of craft supplies.

 

The cats and baby have been loving the tree. And I love this picture for Josie's face, which shows that she is not being overly gentle with bear (squeeeeeezing him no doubt), and I also love it for the blue painter's tape, which is obviously holding the paper snowflake ornament on the tree.

 

 

A big Merry Christmas to all!

Since October

I'm terrible at keeping up. Never knowing what day of the week it is anymore, I surely cannot tell you the date. The weeks are flying by with Jeremy at his new clinic, working 5 days a week instead of having Wednesdays off. But we are so thankful for this opportunity. The office is literally just over a mile away; I used to run right by it. 

I used to run right by it. I haven't run in over a month now, and the pain still comes and goes in my hip. The trainer is where the workouts are happening, and it is the exact same thing each day: 45 minutes when Daddy is home from work. The weekends are when the real action happens and I get to go outside to ride or get in the pool. I can still swim.

To catch up from October, I have dropped a bunch of pictures here; first there is Halloween, since the cutest pumpkin and "Bruder Man" went trick-or-treating with us. When we asked Hunter what he wanted to be for Halloween, it was a quick decision. If you don't have any Bruder trucks, you might not know that the Bruder Man drives all these trucks, and that is code for contruction worker. This is the first year that trick-or-treating has been an attractive option to the smallish one, so we set out before pitch dark with his tool box in hand for collecting the goods. Hunter silently went about holding his toolbox toward the neighbors after they answered the door, as I was behind him saying "trick or treat!" and "happy Halloween!" A couple of times he just stood there still holding the box after getting his loot, and they gave him more! What a revelation! Mommy ate a bit too much of his candy, but I just cannot resist while nursing all the time. I'm so hungry!

Josie loooooved the whole Halloween event. She has become our little family extrovert. The rest of us will just let her do all the talking in the future. She wants to go places and do things and meet people. And after all the excitement, she became the tiredest little pumpkin. 

   

And then November happened. Everyone is so excited about fall and cool weather and I'm not sure what else, but I'm over here thankful to have unseasonably warm weather so we can still play outside with short sleeves on. Listen all you fall lovers, you are not allowed to complain about rain and cloudy skies because that defines fall! Around here at least. Thankfully, we are prepared for winter, because Hunter keeps asking when it will snow, I don't do much outdoor exercise these days, and Josie is still at the age where she can't pull a hat off. 

Though she may be complaining to me about it here. Hunter and I went around calling her our baby polar bear while she wore this.

 

And then I get this look. The eyebrows! I get the eyebrows a lot. I'm sure she won't outgrow this until well after her teenage years. 

 

Or selfies. She loves selfies and trying to eat that delicious baby in there. Actually she is fascinated with my phone from all angles, and I can usually get her to smile for the camera. This must be a girl thing.

  

Our garden is actually still growing, another benefit of the warmer weather, and the cherry tomato crop is really bountiful. Only one of us actually gets many of them to eat, straight off the vine. And we finally got some okra out of nowhere. With the beautiful fall foliage in the background, we go every day to pick

    

And then our chef makes something in the kitchen. His real-life cooking skills are really quite good, and he is a very eager helper. Now if I could just leave him alone to fix supper while I nap or something. 

 

We spend a lot of days out on the trampoline, which we have found Josie LOVES. Pretty much everything that Hunter would have hated as a baby gets this one giddy. It is hilarious when the big brother comes bounding up to us, jumping so high and barely missing a tackle. She loves the activities of the day so much that napping has become more and more difficult. Life is just too fun to sleep through. Which, now that I think about it, must've been Hunter's motto for his first 3 years. Maybe they aren't so different.

The trampoline may be affecting my bad hip. With the flips I'm constantly doing chasing the little guy for tag or seeing who can jump highest or double bouncing him, I have felt a fatigue in the one hip later, which tells me I'm doing good for it! Right?

 

We are doing our best to enjoy the nice days, as the preschooler counts down the days until snow comes. Out at the river on a nice weekend, Josie went strollering with Daddy while Hunter and I skipped rocks off the dock and rode scooters, his new favorite thing. This serene picture is quite a contrast to the events of the next few minutes which involved one of them slipping off into the one foot of cold water and mud lying just below the dock. It was really quite a scene for the family taking portraits behind us. We got him laughing about it pretty quickly afterward. 

 And lest you think Hunter's only duties involve gardening and cooking, I'll show you how my entertainer keeps my baby happy. Nobody comes close to matching the hilarity of Hunter's antics. That face of adoration!

And that is our highlight reel. 

Full Days of October

I thought I was such a terrible blogger last month, and I actually wrote twice. I've somehow missed over three weeks of October without a word. In my free time, besides that of the athletic variety, I have actually read a book, and not just Giraffes Can't Dance, although I really recommend that one. Hunter likes to skip naps many days of the week now, and usually I'm pretty tired by the time he goes to bed. I have slowly come to realize over the past two and a half years that most children are not quite as demanding of their parents' attention as mine is. Whew! But he has things to learn! Lately he wants to know what every word starts with and how to write the letters. And how to draw Minnie Mouse.

For some reason I can't stop doing my own art projects in my free time, including the painting that has been a slow work in progress for like six months now. I call it my disasterpiece, because really, it's terrible. I like a few tiny sections of it enough that I'm not willing to paint over the whole thing in white just to save the $20 I spent on the canvas. That, plus I've spent a lot of broken up hours on it. Now the canvas just sits in the office while I alternate ignoring it and looking at it in every conceivable light.

As for the "athletic" free time, I was doing pretty well with getting it in when I had a nasty cough hit me and make me take three full days off from exercise. For normal people, I imagine husbands are proud of their wives for exercising three days in a row. My husband was proud of me for taking them off.

It finally occurred to me that the last time I'd had a lot of right SI joint pain, I would go to the chiropractor in New Mexico who I started seeing to help me try to turn Hunter vertex. Not wanting to go through with any hip scopes right now, I decided to find a chiropractor here who would do something similar. I have to say, while I appreciate the aligning he does, I'm no so into the "spinal scans" and "heart rate test" that tells him that I don't have enough HR variability, and that my system is too sympathetically inclined right now. I cannot figure out how sitting still with my finger on a metal plate for 5 minutes is going to tell him any of that information. Just crack my back and send me along.

I converted to some Hoka Bondis about 150 miles ago, and they are doing great. I figured I needed all the gentleness I could get for my hips, while I still  pound away at them every few days. It's funny, I think my legs have always known that minimalist shoes just weren't right for them. I never got into the minimalist movement, because runs were just more painful in less cushioned shoes. Now I realize that it must be due to the impact. Smart body. If just my brain would catch up.

Unfortunately the brain seems to be going the other way. Just this week I was cooking some peaches on the stove one evening and completely forgot about them. The next morning when I saw charred remains in the fridge it took me standing there a few minutes to realize what it was. Thank goodness Jeremy saw the flame going when he turned out the kitchen lights before bed!

Now that the toddler is asleep,  it's time for me to go prop my feet up or get some much needed sleep.

Toddlers need to prop their feet up sometimes too.