Training

I'm still training for the half marathon. It's starting to get harder. More miles. Longer runs. Very very humid and sweaty. I miss my old neighborhood. It would have been easy to find long run courses there. This was what my old run looked like. Down paths and around parks. Lots of shade. Depending on the time of morning we got out we could see birds, squirrels, and bunnies. It was beautiful.

My neighborhood here is far less scenic. Busy streets, a couple of small neighborhoods and the freeway. We've seen some wildlife by the side of the road but I don't point it out to Tate unless I nudge it with my foot first, in case it happens to be dead already. I learned this lesson the hard way with a frog that appeared to be fine on our way out and was dead and covered with ants on our way back. I told Tate while we were jogging that we could stop and see it again on our way back home. When I saw how gross it was on the way back we just kept jogging past and he remembered all day that we didn't stop to see the frog again. Then there was a sad tiny turtle and the occasional uninitelligible mushes of gore...needless to say, it's not always a beautiful jog here.

My immediate neighborhood is less conducive to jogging long distances. It's so much easier to get Tate in the stroller and get my jog done with in the morning so we can play with Glenn at night but it is getting harder to do as my runs get longer. Basically there are two circles to run near my house and when you have to run them over and over in order to get the mileage in for my training schedule, it makes my already bored mind go nuts. Does anyone have some great running ipod music recommendations to keep my mind busy? There are so many family members who run do you have any suggestions for me at this point?

Well, those are my challenges, but overall I'm feeling good. I feel stronger and more confident in my training routine. This week it's a 4 mile run today, a 5 mile run on Wednesday, and an 8 mile long run on Saturday. Then cross training of some sort on Tuesday and Thursday. Those long runs are killer. I am feeling like the shorter distances are finally getting easier to knock off and now they're increasing too. Was I crazy to think I could run for 13 miles? Most days I feel like I can totally handle it. Some days I wonder.

Tate is a great sport to sit in the stroller and chill for increasingly long periods of time while I get my morning jog in. I usually let him listen to my ipod on my cool down. He loves it and as soon as I start walking he asks, "Music on?"

Then I carry him up the stairs to our apartment and let him listen to it while I stretch and stuff. The other day he just laid down and listened to the songs.

Speaking of the little man, here are a few more funny things he's done this week before I forget to record them:

- Tate was sitting in his high chair eating breakfast and talking to himself and I heard him say, "Tate, no. No TV ANYMORE." I tried not to laugh and then thought, is that really what I sound like to him?

- Tate kept asking me to see pictures of Mya on the computer while I was sitting at the desk the other day. I finally said, "Okay, we can look at pictures of Mya." I lifted him up on my lap and he whispered, "Oh I so happy!"

- Tate hugged me while I was cooking yesterday and then told himself, "Oh, so sweet."

- We're trying to work more with eating utensils. He's just shown no interest in them thus far so we figured we might as well avoid the mess for a little longer. Now, however, I figure we probably should encourage him to try. Thus far he's just used them to scrape and push things around, not actually try to get them in his mouth. Last night he pushed all his cheesy rice and broccoli off his plate and then picked up the sticky rice covered plate and put it on his head exclaiming, "It's a HAT!" Ah, so it will be a bath night eh Tate?