Postcards from Tennessee part one

Kylie and I stayed at the same hotel in Columbia SC that we stayed at last winter when we went to TN. Kylie brought her favorite two stuffed animals for the trip. Her best quote from the journey was on Friday when we had been on the road for about four hours and had stopped to eat dinner. Kylie said, "You know Mommy, if we had flown we would have been there by now". My little traveler loves flying.






We arrived Saturday afternoon and Kylie got lots of love from her Nana.


On Sunday, we were letting Kylie run around the nearby track. Her Aunt Amy and cousin Emily found us there. It was so fun to see the girls running towards one another with their arms opened wide. And I loved their full-body tackling hug.


Hanging around the house on Monday. Kylie loves to accessorize.


On Tuesday, my Mom made us a wonderful pre-Thankgsiving lunch at her house. Afterwards we went out for a walk. We don't have much of a Fall in Florida. As we drove through the North Carolina mountains on our way to TN, Kylie kept saying, "These Fall leaves are so beautiful!" So I wasn't surprised that she wanted to play with them.


Kylie's leaf enthusiasm was catching.


I woke up with a bit of a head cold on Monday which shows a bit around my eyes.


It's lovely to get my picture made with my darling Karen. We don't get much of an opportunity when we are away from our photo-happy family.




And later in the day, we saw Happy Feet 2.


More family pictures to come! I hope you are enjoying this Thanksgiving week with your family!

Half Marathon

Karen and I are in Tennessee this week to visit with our family and to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. I knew with the distractions of family that I would be tempted to slack off on my marathon training. So I was tickled to find the Secret City Half Marathon.

I ran it this morning. 13.1 miles and my unofficial time is 1:55. Today was simply fantastic because my Mom, Dad and Karen all came to root me on.

Here are a ton of pictures!

Sunrise at the start of the course.


It was 55 degrees which is a perfect temperature for running for me. But it felt quite chilly before we started moving.


Waiting to start.


And we are off! My family was cheering and waving at the start line.


The race was a loop that we ran twice. So it was easy for everyone to cheer us on as we ran by at the half-way mark. Seeing Karen, Mom and Dad jumping up and down, waving and shouting encouragement to me was priceless. It was a moment I'll treasure forever.




And here I am nearing the finish line.


They called my name and I threw my hands in the air and whooped it up.


After the race, I was so happy. Here I'm celebrating with my Mom. We were talking about the fact that my first half-mararthon race was held last year around Thankgsiving, and that I ran it in 2:11. I was elated with my new time and shouting out 1:55! with my Mom. I had to hug and kiss everyone. I kissed Karen and my mom...


Here I'm kissing my Dad.


And kissing my medal.




What started out as a long, training run became a personal-best run filled with some awesome moments.

Weekly round-up

It looks like a post-it note tornado has hit our home. In taking time to consolidate all my little notes into a workable "to do" list, I found the following notes about Kylie that I thought I would share. Nothing earth shattering...just little bits about her.

She wanted frozen waffles every morning for breakfast. And this week, she started eating two waffles instead of her usual one.

She started making her own bed in the mornings. I'm a bit surprised because I've never asked her to do this. It's difficult bed to make up because it's pushed against the wall. But Kylie is giving it her best effort.

She learned the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" game from the movie "Rio". She loves to play at it.

She leaned out the window of our car every morning during drop-off. One morning she shouted to a friend, "You aren't the boss of me! My Mommy is the boss of me." Yeesh. I don't know where she learned that phrase but we had a long talk about it. Here she is showing her friends her silly scarf and Harvey.


Kylie brought home this finished piece of school work. I had to look up the bottom word "plastron". I knew at some point Kylie's school work would show me something I didn't know. I didn't think it would happen before kindergarden.


Kiddo had a haircut-just a trim. The folks where we take her love to dress her hair up. I wish I could do this for her at home...




...especially when I saw her school picture. Check out Kylie's really boofy hair!




Have a great weekend everyone!

Skin tone

Kylie has been interested in skin tone recently. She wanted to know "why some people are peach, some people are light brown, medium brown or dark brown?"

Karen and I really got into our reply. We talked about your family of origin and which continent that family was from. We got out the globe and pointed to different continents and skin tones of people there. Mostly our explanation went way over her head.

Later that day, she asked me the same question again.

I borrowed a line from a movie and answered, "Because God loves wondrous variety." (Extra credit if you can name that movie in the comments.)

Here is some artwork that reflects how Kylie is trying to work out this question of skin tones with her art. I just love her rainbow people!

That's new!

Kylie did THIS at the park on Thursday. This is the first time I've seen her complete this move. Hurray!




We were both happy as clams. She was playing with everything the park provided and I was standing back shooting happily away with the camera. I'm tickled I made myself go with her to the park-- after that l-o-n-g run I really just wanted to sit down. I was tempted to plop her in front of the tv. But then I would have missed these fun pictures and hearing the kiddo squeal on the tire swing. When we came home, Momma Karen took over so that I could kick back on the couch and ice my right heel.









Have a great weekend everyone!

16 MILES!

Kylie's running

Kylie has had a surplus of energy for the past few days. Yesterday morning before leaving for school, she was bouncing around the house like crazy. So we went outside and I had her run around our cars in the driveway 20 times and down the sidewalk to our front door and and back 20 times. I hope she got a bit of her bounce out of her system and was able to sit still for school.



Neighbors who see me run and also see Kylie running around will stop and ask me if I'm "teaching her to run". Absolutely not. Running is something Kylie simply loves to do. It makes me very happy when Kylie will ask me, "Going for a run today Mommy?" or "How was your run?" or "Going to workout this morning Momma?" It tells me that from Kylie's perspective, exercise is a daily activity and just a part of what we do. I'm so glad that Karen and I are providing this healthy example.

After school, we went to the park and she ran back and forth and around for an hour. I think I read in a John Bingham book that kids make such beautiful natural runners because they carry no stress in their bodies. I love to watch Kylie run. Reminds me of this episode of Friends where Rachel describes Phoebe's running as a "mix between the Six Million Dollar Man and Kermit the Frog." Kylie runs with arms straight in front of her and straight in back. At some point, someone will "correct" this. But for now, I just watch her and grin.

The smuggler and the cop

Kylie LOVES empty toilet paper rolls for her crafts. She colors them with markers or crayons. She puts stickers on them. She glues feathers and faces and makes birds out of them. They are binoculars and telescopes. They are a source of science experiments (what will fit down this tube?). She uses them as mail carriers and secret vaults for her drawings.

And trust me, I'm grateful that she enjoys this "free" craft supply.

Right now, we have 6 empty toilet paper rolls sitting on the shelf next to her crayons. We have 4 more empty rolls under the vanity in Kylie's bathroom.

I think ten rolls are enough.

Kylie doesn't think so.

The little stinker is tall enough to peer into our cardboard recycle bin in the garage. If she spots a toilet paper rolls, she grabs it and shakes it vehemently and says (in a very parental voice), "What is this doing in here?!"

The discussion surrounding the toilet paper rolls always ends in Kylie being pissed off and/or tearful and me ending the very reasonable discussion (which got me nowhere) by saying "Because I said so!"

Good times.

So, I've started smuggling the little things. I flatten them and put them inside flattened cracker and cereal boxes. I bury them at the bottom of the recycle bin. I hoard them and run them to the recycle bin the moment before the garbage people come.

My mom always says, "You've got to pick your battles". I really don't like arguing with Kylie over toilet paper rolls.

So I'm the smuggler. And kiddo is the cop.

Kids...one heck of an adventure.

Here are some recent park pictures.

Triathlete- October 2011

This month has been about running, running and more running in preparation for the marathon in January.

The high point for the month was on October 21 when I ran 13 miles in a personal-best time of 1:57. The marathon felt totally doable and I felt on top of the world for the rest of the day. I laughed and sang songs and was pretty annoying in the way that only the truly euphoric can be.

The low point was the following Friday when I was supposed to run another 13 and I bottomed out at 9.5 miles. This was only the second time I've ever hit the wall and wasn't able to complete a scheduled run. I'm pretty sure it was because I didn't carb load appropriately the night before and I was just tired. But poor Karen, who was working from home that day, heard me grumble. My rant sounded something like this:

"Why the heck am I doing this to myself! This is insane! Only crazy people take ice baths. I'm sick of having to do laundry every day to wash our stinky workout clothes. I'm tired having to drink recovery drinks and protein drinks. And look at me! My face is getting all runner's gaunt and I'm getting more and more wrinkles. And I still have all this fat on my belly and tons of cellulite on my ass. It's not fair! This sucks! It's crazy! I'm too old for this shit!"

And on and on. You get the gist.

My sweet wife listened and nodded appropriately and then on Monday, she encouraged me to lace up my running shoes and go for a run.

Training for a marathon has its serious ups and downs. And the loving support of your family can make all the difference.

Here are the stats for October:

I ran 5 miles every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. My average pace for those 5 miles was 8:52 per mile.

On Wednesdays I ran a slightly longer run (but not the long run of the week). This run is supposed to be at a faster pace than the long run.
6 miles in 53:07 8:51 pace
8 miles in 1:16 9:30 pace
9.52 miles in 1:28 9:15 pace
9.6 miles in 1:25 8:54 pace

On Fridays, I ran my long run for the week.
12 miles in 1:54 9:34 pace
12.5 miles in 2:01 9:43 pace
13.02 miles in 1:57 9:02 pace PR!
9.5 miles in 1:28 9:16 pace

The total miles run each week were 32.5, 35.5, 37.57, 34.1 (plus 5 on 10/31) puts my total for the month at 144.67 miles at an average pace of 9:07.

Swim
I had 6 swim practices this month. At one practice, I swam 6 50's, all at 55 seconds or less and with only 10 seconds between intervals. At another practice, I swam 4 100's and they were at 2 minutes to 2:03, again with only 10 seconds between intervals. I'm pleased that I've been able to maintain some amount of endurance with my swims while training for the marathon.

Bike and Strength.
On alternating Sundays, I took in two spin classes. And I participated in four strength training workouts.

Overall, I worked out 24 days and had 7 days off. And my weight stayed the same at 118 (gaunt face and cellulite and all).

Thanks to all of you who take the time to comment on these long triathlete posts. Comments lift me up more than you know. I leave them in my inbox so that I read them over and over.

September 2011
August 2011 summary
July 2011 summary
June 2011 summary
May 2011 summary
April 2011 summary
March 2011 summary
February 2011 summary
January 2011 summary
December 2010 summary


Goal: Triathlon in 2012- initial post from December 2010
One Little Word: Triathlete post

Week in review

With all the excitement of Halloween, the rest of this week flew by! Here are a few highlights.


This week in after-care, "N" was the letter of the week. The students made these bird nests. Kylie was so proud of hers. She named her bird "Sparkle". She had fun taking care of her pretend bird for the rest of the week.


Her school is supporting a local food drive. Kylie and I had several interesting discussions about homeless and hungry people. She still doesn't quite understand but was more than happy to drop food off at her school bin each day.

Wednesday we had parent-teacher conferences and we got a copy of Kylie's report card. If interested, you can read her report card here and here(the print is very small and hard to read on screen). Kylie is doing well in school. Her teachers wrote: Kylie is very pleasant to have in the classroom. She has a great outlook and rarely needs redirection. We are currently working on getting her to choose more challenging work on her own. She is ready to start higher Montessori materials. She seems very happy at school and is always enthusiastic to learn.

Thursday was my birthday. Karen and I celebrated Wednesday afternoon. I was grateful to my family for their phone calls and cards. Kylie gave me a wonderful card; she decorated the envelope. And fortunately, I was able to understand what she had written and drawn.

Kangaroo, elephant, giraffe, snake, and alligator.

Kylie really wanted to get me a cake or cupcakes but I didn't want either. So Karen was able to convince Kylie to get two cookies and to decorate them for me. It was so sweet.


All in all, it was a great (and fast!) week. Have a great weekend everyone!