Shirebacon

So here I am, two weeks removed from my first half marathon.  I’ve only run 5 times for a total of 15 miles, but I’m ok with that.  I needed a bit of a break from training.  It’s been nice to just go out and run a quick couple miles without needing to consult my training plan.  But two weeks of that nonsense is enough so let’s talk about what’s next!

First up, I have a handful of 5k races planned for this summer.  In June I’m running the Miles for Melanoma 5k, in July I have the Epilepsy Foundation 5k and I’m searching for an August race (it’s looking like it may be the Chick-fil-a 5k).  My husband and I are also planning on running a 5k when we are in Aruba in the fall. My ultimate goal with all of these races is to run a sub-25 minute 5k.  I was close in my last 5k (25:23).  I need to get back to serious training to make that happen though.

I will also be running Pittsburgh’s Great Race again this year.  I had a great time last year, so much so that I signed up for my first half marathon two days after this race.

And that leads me to my second half marathon.  Last week I officially registered for the Greensburg Half Marathon.  The race is in early September so actual training will begin in mid June.  I’m looking at training plans (I have it narrowed down to two or three) and I’m working on what my goals should be.

Until my half marathon training starts, I’m left figuring out what to do training wise. Do I start a 5k plan to help me reach my summer goal? Or do I just incorporate some speed work into my current running? I’m at a bit of a loss!

What are your running goals for the summer? What do you do when you have a gap in training?

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t updated this blog in a REALLY long time. There are a variety of reasons that I won’t go into. They are my reasons and we’ll just leave it at that. Anyway, I’ve basically made the decision to put an end to this blog, but I don’t feel like I’m done with blogging. Running is a HUGE part of my life and I often have felt a desire to write about it but I’ve never really felt that it belonged here. I’ve decided to start a running blog. Of course, you know I have to get my IT guy/husband to get it all started for me, so it may be a few days (weeks?). In the meantime, I’m going to start writing some running posts here and migrate them over to the new site when it’s up and running. I ran the Pittsburgh Half Marathon on Sunday and I want to write a recap before I forget anything, so here goes!

My road to the Pittsburgh Half Marathon begin in the fall of 2012. My husband and I ran The Great Race here in Pittsburgh. It was our first 10k race. We were both happy with our finish and literally walked away saying that we didn’t have a desire to run a race much longer than that. HA! Two days later we signed up for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon.

I spent a lot of time researching training plans. I asked the running community on Twitter for opinions too. I finally settled on the Finish It plan from Another Mother Runner.  I like the length of the plan. I like that the plan gives you one day every week to opt out of your run and I like that it tells you which run you MUST complete every week.

In mid-January I started my training. I was pretty diligent in my training. I took advantage of the “opt out” day a few times.  I had some really good runs. I had some really bad runs, but overall training went well.  I ran 3 races during my training, a 5k, a 10 miler and an 8 miler.  They fit well into my training plan and I was happy to have a few longer races under my belt before the half.

Like any runner, I made a few goals for my run. Most of all, I wanted to have fun and enjoy the experience. I also wanted to run the whole thing. And finally, I set a time goal of under 2 hours.  I had read that first timers shouldn’t set a time goal, but I needed one to help keep  me motivated during my training.

The week before the marathon, I was nervous. I did my last big run (13 miles!) three weeks before the race. The last two weeks, I followed the tapering schedule but it felt weird to run such short distances.  I alternated between being worried that I would start out too fast and fade at the end of the race (which I did in the 10 mile race) and being worried that the large crowd would cause me to start too slowly.

Race day finally arrived. I was up at an ungodly hour. Showered, got dressed and ate some peanut butter toast. I grabbed a banana to eat about an hour before the race.  Amazingly, my husband and I left on time! We arrived downtown where I proceeded to pee approximately 87 times.  Security was tight in the corral area. They were checking to make sure that only runners were in the area.  We checked our bags and headed to the start corral.  We actually timed everything fairly well and didn’t have to spend a ton of time in the corral. The race started right on time at 7:00. We waited patiently for our turn to start. Before I knew it, we could see the start line!

It took about 14 minutes from the initial start gun until the time that we crossed the start line.  Of course right before we crossed the start line, I realized that I had to pee. Again. My husband assured me that there would be port-a-potties within the first mile.  Sure enough he was right.  I saw a short line and stopped fairly quickly.  I’ll estimate that I lost less than two minutes when I stopped.  I could have waited to stop, but my thought was that I would rather stop when I’m barely warmed up and I figured that the lines would be longer later in the race (I was right).

I knew that I would need to have a pace around 9:00/mile to reach my time goal, but at the same time, I didn’t want to go out too fast. My first mile was a slow 10:15, but that included my bathroom break so I was pretty pleased. The start was great, lots of spectators cheering and I was really just having a great time.  Before I knew it, I headed across the first (of five!) bridges.  This is the 16th Street Bridge.

I began winding through the North Side and I was still impressed with the size of the crowds. I don’t listen to music when I run outside, so it was great to hear the cheering crowd. Rather quickly, we reached the next two bridges.  First up the 9th Street Bridge.

Immediately followed by the 7th Street Bridge.

Other than the last stretch to the finish line, these two bridges were my favorite part of the race.  Spectators are crammed along the bridges. A couple people were even reading names on bibs and calling out encouragement to runners.  As I began to cross the 7th Street bridge I looked at my phone and saw that I was 4.5 miles into my run.  I felt great.  I had no problems running up the incline of the bridge and I found myself remembering my very first 5k.  It was less 18 months ago. I ran the Turkey Trot and I recall struggling with that same incline when I was about 2.5 miles into the race. Oh how far I have come!

The race course began to head toward the West End and I was looking forward to the water station there. Not because of the water, but because I knew that Uncle Crappy and Mrs Crappy would be working the station.  I managed to see Uncle Crappy and give him a high five.  It was  nice to see someone that I know along the course and get a little encouragement! At this point, I was 6 miles into the race and right on track for where I wanted to be. My goal was to run the first half of the race a little slower than the 2nd half so I started to pick up my pace a little bit.

I headed up to the West End Bridge, which is the fourth bridge that I crossed that day.

I was still feeling good and not at all tire/winded at this point, but I was slightly dejected when I crossed the bridge.  I had forgotten that the course winds through the West End a bit. I had thought that it would turn immediately onto Carson Street. I had in my mind that hitting Carson Street was a huge milestone.  Fortunately, I quickly made my way through the West End and turned onto Carson Street!

At this point, I was feeling a little bit of tightness on the back of my left ankle and my right knee had a little pain. Nothing terrible, and I honestly don’t recall thinking about either issue for the rest of the race.  I headed up a hill that would take me under the Ft. Pitt Bridge.  This was the first time that I felt winded going up a hill, but I knew that once I made it up the hill, the rest of Carson Street was flat and straight.

I was still on a great pace, but I knew that one more bridge and a couple decent inclines loomed ahead.  I took advantage of the flat road and picked up my pace a bit. I easily  navigated the split between the half marathon and the whole marathon and began to cross the Birmingham Bridge.  I’m sad that I don’t have a picture of the last bridge, but this is where I really started to feel tired.  About halfway across the bridge, I crossed the 11 mile mark. I knew that I was so close to finishing but the long, slow incline of the bridge was tough.  I was grateful for the brief downhill run off the bridge but was quickly greeted by what would be the toughest incline in the whole race for me.

Coming up the hill on Forbes Avenue was the first time that walking even crossed my mind (11.5 miles in!) but I knew that I was so close to my goal and honestly, I was afraid that if I walked, I would struggle to run again so I kept running.  I made it up to the Boulevard of the Allies and slowly ran up that hill.  The 12th mile was by far the toughest mile for me and other than my first mile, it was my slowest at 9:18 (in contrast, my last mile was a fast 8:20! Speed work really does work!)

Once I reached the top of the hill, I took a deep breath and let go as I headed down the hill. I was running on the left side of the road and I could see the finish line around the buildings.  I began to fly down the hill.  My goal was so close! I glanced at my phone and knew that I would be so close to finishing in 2 hours.

As I grew closer to the finish line, I heard the PA Announcer say that the leader for the Men’s Marathon was  making his way toward the finish line.  I looked back but couldn’t see him. I heard the crowd start to cheer and roar and just as I crossed the finish line, I looked over and saw the winner cross at the same exact time.  You guys, it was incredible.  One of the most amazing experiences of my life.

I managed to stop the timer on my phone and tears came to my eyes as I saw my time.

So, I did it. I ran every step. I beat my time goal and most importantly, I had an awesome time.  Now the important question, will I do it again? You’re damn right I will.

Many moons ago, the husband and I decided that we needed a new couch. We had recently bought our first house and felt we needed something that fit our new living room. We set a budget and headed to the local furniture store. We knew that we wanted a sectional sofa but that was it. Style, color and fabric were all up in the air. I found one or two couches that I liked but not THE couch. Over the next couple weekends, I dragged my poor husband to every furniture store in a 50 mile radius looking for THE couch. I couldn’t find it. Finally my husband looked at me and said “PICK SOMETHING.” So I did. Of course I picked one of the two couches that I liked on our very first day of searching. I’m honestly shocked that he didn’t kill me.

As we sat discussing color and fabric options, the sales person asked if we had or were planning on having kids. We didn’t have kids at the time, but we knew that kids were in our future. Based on that, the sales person recommended a microfiber couch with Scotch guard. “It’s kid friendly and really easy to clean” he said. “Great!” we said. “We’ll take it in green.” Two weeks later, our new couch arrived and we loved it. I still love it. It’s comfy and it has tons of room.

Of course now that it is 6 years and two kids later, I often find myself wanting to hunt down that sales guy and ask him what the heck he was talking about when he said that it was kid friendly and easy to clean. Microfiber is most certainly not easy to clean. And EVERY SINGLE MARK shows up on it. Try to wipe up the mark and maybe the mark goes away but you are left with a water mark. With two kids (one who is a huge drooler), my couch looked like a disaster.

Nothing that I tried seemed to help. I saw on Pinterest that you could clean your microfiber couch with rubbing alcohol. I didn’t pin it because I thought “No way does that actually work.” Well one day I got desperate. Nothing was working and my couch looked like this: (this was the nicest looking cushion by the way)

So I grabbed some rubbing alcohol, an empty spray bottle, a sponge and a scrub brush:

I put the rubbing alcohol in the spray bottle, sprayed the couch cushion and scrubbed with the scrubby side (that’s the technical term) of the sponge. After the cushion was dry, I ran the scrub brush over the cushion just to “fluff” the microfiber. If you skip the last step, your microfiber will feel stiff.

Here is the final result!

AMAZING, RIGHT?

A couple tips:

* Don’t forget to open the windows, run a fan or something to allow for air circulation or you may find yourself faint from the alcohol smell. Not that I would know.
* Because my couch is so big, even with the windows open and a fan, I still had to clean it over two separate days just to keep the smell down. The smell only lingers for a bit. Once the couch is dry you can’t really smell the alcohol anymore.
* Use a sponge without dye in it or if you don’t have/can’t find one, test this method out on an unseen part of the couch first just to make sure that the color of the sponge doesn’t transfer.
* The alcohol dries quickly so you need to be liberal when spraying it. And work quickly.

Of course this isn’t a permanent solution because my drooler still drools and my kids still spill so I’ll need to do this again, but at least now I know that I have a way to clean my couch when it gets gross.

Jack has asthma. It’s a fact of life. It was a long journey from first episode to diagnosis to treatment plan to being at the point where his asthma is under control. We are FINALLY at the point where I feel comfortable saying that his asthma is under control. He is on two daily medications and (knock on wood) they are working. He willingly takes his meds every day. I no longer panic ever time that he coughs.

See, Jack’s asthma episodes are brought on by colds. You get a cold and you probably get a runny nose and a cough and a week later you are fine. Unmedicated Jack gets a cold and gets a cough and then his cough won’t stop. Then he starts breathing heavy and wheezing. It’s takes two weeks for him to get over his cough. His cough sounds terrible. For two straight weeks it goes from hacking dry cough to hacking wet cough and then back to hacking dry cough. Now that he has a treatment plan that is working, Jack’s colds are more run of the mill. They do seem to linger a tad longer than Xander’s colds but he hasn’t needed rescue meds in a while now.

Before Jack’s asthma was under control, he coughed A LOT. For weeks at a time. Fortunately he’s very good at covering his mouth, but still, he coughed a lot. I cringed when I took him out, but honestly I had no choice. My husband and I have wonderfully flexible jobs but we couldn’t take a week or more off every time he had an asthma episode (which averaged once ever 6 weeks). So he went to school with a hacking cough. Or swim class, or the grocery store, or sports class. Point being, we let him live his life. We could not let his illness hold him back. And every time I took him to sports class (or the grocery store, or the pumpkin farm) and he coughed I could feel it. I could feel the looks. The looks from the other parents that said “How can she bring her kid here?” or “I can’t believe she lets her sick kids be around my kid. If my kid gets sick. . .” I wanted to tell everyone of those parents that my kids wasn’t going to get their kid sick. I wanted to tell them that he has asthma and that’s why he coughs. I don’t want my kid to be known as “the kid who coughs.”

All around the internet you see parents judging other parents for pretty much everything that you can imagine. The usual culprits are out there but a new one has cropped up this year. Sending your kid to school or daycare with a cough. Every day I see multiple tweets or facebook mentions of parents being downright angry or flat out saying that they are judging the parents of kids who send their kids to school with coughs. And yes, I know, not every kid that has a cough at school has asthma. And yes, I know that this is a horrible cold/flu season. And yes, I’m probably being over-sensitive, but before you start complaining that Tommy is always at school with a hacking wet cough or that Sarah’s mom is always letting her go to basketball practice even when she’s coughing, please take a second and realize that maybe they aren’t sick. Maybe they have a chronic illness like asthma and their parents are just trying to let them be normal little kids and participate in the same activities as all of their peers. And mostly, remember that their parents don’t like it anymore than you do that their kid is “the boy who is always coughing”