TexasLindsey

3.7 miles at 3pm.  Weather=78F, 15mph wind, sunny.  Average pace=10:00/m.

 Pushing the double stroller with Jake and Ryan around my neighborhood.  A few big hills.  Major arm workout!  I'm loving this weather!!!

9.8 miles at 2pm.  Weather=60F, 12 mph wind, mostly sunny.  Average pace=9:05/m.

 Pushed Ryan in running stroller at Trinity River Trails.   Great run!  Ryan is my running buddy... he is sooooo good.  He sleeps or he just observes.   My arms are a little sore now from two days in a row of running strollers.   

5 miles around the neighborhood.  Didn't even wear watch.  

6 miles at Trinity River at 6:30pm with Ashley and Wendy.  Average pace=8:12/m.  Fastest mile = 7:45

I missed 2 weeks of running due to several things that happened all at once.  First, we had a death in my husband's family... The funeral was out of town.  

Second, I had to clean house and cook for our entire family to come to our house for my son's 2 year birthday party.  (It sounded like a good idea 6 weeks ago... HA!)  During this weekend, my in-laws stayed two nights with us.  I didn't get any babysitting to help me prepare for any of that so I was very busy getting my house ready.  

Third, we finally found out about the Italy job my husband was being offered... If we take the job, it will be a pay cut!  We decided that we are not willing to do that... so much for changing my name to ItalyLindsey...  oh well.  

And finally, and ironically, forth, the day after we found out we will not be moving to Italy a friend that I used to work with called me to inform me that my old manager was hiring and he wanted me to apply.  (I worked in procurement on the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin).  I have been a stay-at-home mother for 4 years.  Money is getting really tight here because inflation is going up faster than my husband's salary.  My husband just told me that I couldn't buy new running shoes for a couple weeks because bills were tight.  Ok... now, wait a sec...  I am willing to cut back on many things so that I can stay home with my kids but, I draw line at "can't afford running shoes"...  So I sent my resume in.  I had a phone interview and it's looking like I've got the job.  Possibly I'll start in 3-4 weeks (bureaucracy...).  So I'm preparing to get my kids into daycare for the first time in their lives.  Next week they are going to 3 days a week to get them acclimated before I go back to work full time.  

 So huge life change is coming.  It was a hard decision but I think it is the right time for us.  We just can't afford for me to stay home any longer.   This is going to be doubling our income almost instantly.  This evaporates so much stress in our lives.  We're also going to be able to do fun things like go on vacations.  I can afford to run more races.  We can afford to do fun things with the kids on the weekends.  

Now I've got to figure out how to balance running, working and kids.  I'm sure I can do it.  Lots of other people do.  I'm actually looking forward to the challenge!

I've got a 10k this weekend.  Considering the lack of fitness that I'm in right now, I'm just going to be happy with a 8:00 pace.  It's a hilly course.  I think I'll sign up for a bunch of 10k's and 5k's and just work on improving at that for a while.    

5.2 miles at 6:00pm around my neighborhood.  Weather= 59F, 46% humidity, 38 dew point, 9 mph wind, cloudy.  

I took Jake out in the running stroller for 2.5 miles.  Average pace=9:30/m.    It looked like it was about to rain so I brought him home.  Then I went back out for more.  I figured if it started raining, I'd just come straight home.  The rain clouds just seemed to circle our little neighborhood but not rain on us.   I ran another loop which ended up being 2.7 miles.  Average pace=8:50/m.  Last .2 mile was 7:18 pace.  

 I hate these Nike Pegasus...  it might not entirely be the shoes fault as much as the runner store person who told me I needed to get a bigger size than usual because these shoes run small.  She was wrong. They look like clown shoes on me and they have no arch support, possibly because they are too big.  

I was supposed to do Joe's Run today.   I didn't because I had some kind of throwing up virus the day before.  The morning of the race I felt weak and light headed because I was so dehydrated.  Decided to skip it.  Very disappointing.  

10 miles at 1 pm at the Trinity River.  Weather=78F, 80% humidity, cloudy.  Average pace=9:13/m.

My kids started daycare today.  We're getting them acclimated to it part-time before they have to start full time when I go back to work.  Today I dropped them off at 9am and picked them up at 3pm.  My 4 year old had a great time and made lots of friends.  My 2 year old refused to eat or participate with the group activities.  It's going to take some time.  

I decided to get a nice run in while I had babysitting.  It was very peaceful out on the trails but the heat and humidity were uncomfortable.  I decided to just go slow.  I noticed that my hips were feeling rather tight around mile 5.  Then I started having some trouble with my left knee on the outside (IT band) at 8.5 miles.  I ran through the pain and it somewhat lessened by the time I finished.  I read that IT band issues can be caused by weak hip muscles... based on my experience today, I'd believe they are related.  Also, I forgot to stretch before I ran.  

8 miles at 2pm at Trinity River.  Weather=82F, 68% humidity, 7mph wind, 65 dew point, cloudy for first half of run and sunny second half.  Average pace=9:11/m.

I ate a big lunch and then went to run immediately after.  As a result, I felt very sluggish.  I decided to just go slow and not worry about it.  We'll just call this week of slow running a week of working on my slow twitch muscle fibers.  

It was really hot especially when the sun came out.  I had to stop at water fountains and splash water on my face.   It wasn't so bad.   I like sweating... It makes me feel so refreshed afterwards, like toxins are leaving my body.   

I stretched really well today and I didn't have any IT band issues.  Legs felt great!  So nice to run without pain.   

8 miles at the river again.  9am.  Weather=65F, 88% humidity, 15mph wind, cloudy.  Average pace=9:09/m.

Just going slow, building my base back up.  I have found that if I go any faster than 9 pace then I start having aches and pains.  So today was perfect.  Cardio-wise I'm still pretty good.  I could have run 15 miles today as far as that was concerned.  It's my legs and feet that are out of shape.  I took so much time off I figure I just need to start over and slowly build my milage before I start working on speed.  After a few weeks of this, then I'm going to start doing some faster miles in my runs and maybe some short tempo runs.