Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Screaming Chicken

Nick calls me Katie Kaboom sometimes. He tells me that I'm crazy and that my craziness reminds him of a cartoon character called Katie Kaboom. The way he describes it: Ms Kaboom is a loveable sweet character, but then she gets angry and turns into this super crazy chic. Then he showed me a clip, and admitted I'm not really like her, but that I can go from sweet to crazy chic in mere nanoseconds. I love it when Nick tells me this stuff. I like to ask him random weird questions and see what he throws back at me. I asked him once, "What type of car do you see me driving? Let's assume money isn't an issue." His response, "Why do you ask me these questions? I don't know...probably a screaming chicken." I was all, seriously, a chicken car? I almost went Kaboom, but then he explained what a screaming chicken was, and I was impressed with the uniqueness of his answer. Now I want to drive a firebird...

In other news, I've registered for the BayState Marathon in October. I have no idea what my goals will be. Right now I just want to build a base and feel strong again. I'm going to give myself 5 weeks to build my mileage, then I'll figure out what I should be doing pace wise.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Recovery is hard

A whole month blogging hiatus! Yikes! Recovering from my marathon has been tough. I haven't been injured. But my running mojo has disappeared, and although I keep trying find it, I haven't been particularly successful.

After the marathon, it took about two weeks for me and the family to fully recover from our ailments (which included a ridiculously scary Emily vomiting episode about 5 days after the marathon).

With recovery in full swing, I started running regularly again. I even did a few speed workouts, which went quite well. I thought I might try to run some fast 5K's this summer. It's been a long time since I've broken 20 minutes, but I've been pretty close the last couple years. Well I ran a 5K last week (see awful picture above), and I was sorely disappointed. I wound up running 21:09. Granted it was at noon in 90 degree heat and I was the 6th overall finisher out of 50, but not even breaking 21 minutes was a huge disappointment. Also, my knees were killing me afterwards. Not IT band hurt. I know my knee issues aren't caused by running. It's from being on the floor a lot with Emily. The last few months we've moved her diaper changing area to the floor (just to be safe). It's a killer on my knees...

Even before the 5K, my running has just been lackluster. I'll have a good day here and there, but mostly I'm just blah. Part of the problem is sleep. I average 5-6 hours of sleep a night, which simply isn't good enough for me, but that's where I am. Emily is the happiest, cutest baby during the day, but she really struggles in the sleep department at night.

I had been planning on running the BayState marathon in October. After Providence, I told my friends and family that I'd be doing the half instead. I woke up this morning and thought to myself...I want to run the marathon in October. I don't know why, but I do. Nick told me I need help, to which I replied "good point, maybe I should get a coach." He shook his head and said, "that's not what I meant." Nick tells me fairly regularly "You're crazy, I love you, but you're crazy with a capital K..."

So here I sit, thinking about running BayState. I guess I'm still undecided, but right now I want to run.