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Saturday, March 05, 2011

Running and stuff

This morning I got up to go running before anyone else was up. I was sitting on the floor, tying up my running shoes, when Rachel stumbled out of her bedroom and asked me to hold her. She climbed onto my lap and I held her close.

Something smelled fishy. Or, to be more precise, like vomit.

I gave her head a good sniff.

"Rachel! You smell like throw up!" I exclaimed.

"That's funny," she said, "Because I didn't throw up."

"That's funny because you have chunks of throw up in your hair!"

"I do?"

"You do! Did you throw up last night?"

"No!"

She developed a cough yesterday and I heard her have a couple of coughing fits in the night and even checked on her a few times but never saw any evidence that she had been throwing up.

She had thrown up though but she denied it to the very end of the day, even asking why we were washing her sheets. Oh, I don't know...only because they were covered with vomit.

This girl has the most sensitive gag reflex I've ever heard of.

I called my running partner to tell her I'd be a bit late and helped Rachel into the tub and then nursed Miriam before heading out of the house. As I left I couldn't help but grin at Andrew, who jokes that my life is all about sleeping in and playing with children. Sometimes he forgets about the other joys of motherhood: throw up, poopy diapers, temper tantrums, nightly wakings, etc. And they're mine! All mine!

We ran fifteen miles today and it actually felt really good, at least compared to the eighteen miles we ran last week (I was ready to cry halfway through mile seventeen), and we really improved since our last fifteen mile run. Next week we are supposed to run twenty miles and I've already almost psyched myself out. Twenty miles just sounds so far. But it's only two miles more than eighteen so it should be doable.

It's amazing what training will do for you because the first time I ran 15 miles, back in January, I thought I was going to die. Today, though, fifteen miles was a breeze. Almost. In October when I ran the half marathon, I thought I was going to die, but now I can consistently run thirteen miles in under two hours and feel just fine. I know that running twenty miles will be good preparation for me but there is definitely a psychological threshold I have to bust through every time I attempt to run a distance farther than I've ever gone.

Today's run, though, was nice. It was the first time we attempted running outside in a long time.

Wendy and I are both wimps. Last week it snowed so we ran eighteen miles on the track. Today the weather was decent so we bundled up and headed outside. I had on a fleece jacket over two shirts, long pants, ear warmers, two pairs of socks, and gloves. We were passing runners wearing nothing be shorts and tee shirts.

Just when I was thinking how I will never understand how anyone can run in weather this cold wearing that little, we skidded to a halt.

A deer bounded out right in front of us and then hopped out into traffic. Another deer followed closely behind and barely missed being hit by a car. We were a little shaken up and hesitated for a minute, unsure of what to do next.

Have you ever had a deer run out in front of you? It's a little terrifying.

Do you know how big those animals are? They're huge.

We creeped forward a little until we could peer around the corner of the house to see if there were any more deer lurking there and, determining that the coast was clear, we set off running again.

A few miles down the road a truck full of Gillespies pulled up to a stop light, and unrolled their windows to wave, whoop, and yell encouragements. Brother Gillespie is an amazing runner—he ran the Boston Marathon a couple of years back—and several of his kids are excellent runners as well. He is always politely interested in how my running is going and isn't above unrolling the windows of his truck and cheering me on whenever he sees me running.

The second half of our run was decidedly less interesting but we powered on through it, anyway, and when I got home I found that Andrew had been helping the girls clean the house and do laundry as a surprise for me. Perhaps he doesn't think my life is all sleeping and playing, after all.

5 comments:

  1. Hey - in 20 miles you could nearly run from your house to mine. :D Just sayin'....

    Also, GO YOU!!!!!!! You amaze me. Always.

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  3. That's quite uplifting to read. I often look at morning joggers and wish I can do like them. I wonder if one can 'become' a jogger later in life, or if it's something you have to be used to at a younger age.

    It's one of the things I love most about North American (and 1st world in general) countries; the streets, general mentality and food choices make it easy to maintain a healthy life style (However, in the US -unlike Canada and Europe- it's just as easy to slip into the complete opposite -with super cheap calories-free entertainment, as well as calorie-full junk food and fast food all over the country. I remember putting on 20 pounds during my first two months in the US)...

    Back when I was in Egypt, I was one of the very few privileged people who was a member at those expensive sporting clubs, where I had access to clean "club" streets, running tracks, gardens...etc. Over here, I don't need it. Streets are running friendly, and people won't stare at a jogger as if he's an alien (and god forbid if a girl starts jogging in the street -gawking aplenty, I'm sure)... plus the weather, polution, and smog all don't make this lifestyle feasible there :(

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  4. I just thought I should mention that I know what Rachel's going through. As a little girl, I threw up in my sleep more than once. I wouldn't wake up until morning, and I would have no idea that anything had happened. It seems so strange now. My poor mother. Poor you. (You're inspiring me to run! I've always hated it...)

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  5. That gives me hope that she'll eventually grow out of it.

    (You did grow out of it, right?)

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