Running Ruminations

It’s funny, in a way, because I’ve been staying at home with A now for almost a whole year (while sometimes working PT or being in grad school FT), and I think way back when, part of me thought that I’d find that I had tons and tons of time on my hands because that’s what stay-at-home moms have, right?  Lots of time. I could blog and blog and blog, and then blog and blog some more, among other things.

Good lord, how wrong I was.

Even though I completed my MA and my TESOL in March, and I ran my marathon in April, things have been non-stop ever since March between marathon training, finding a condo and then subsequently preparing for the move, running a marathon, starting Windy City CrossFit’s foundations class 3x/week for four weeks, joining the folks over at Team Run Your BQ/Team No Meat Athlete, and learning how to run with A’s newest urban assault vehicle ride, the BOB Revolution SE… among other things.

Honestly, I mean to blog nearly every night as I’m winding down for bed, but half the time I’m just ready to veg and not think anymore… especially after a full day of (insert many and varied activities here).

So, in an effort to shoot for brevity, I’ll do a quick catch-up, bullet-list style.

1. CrossFit: I wrote about this in my last post, but it’s f-in awesome.  Tons of fun.  Like adult recess, basically.  I’m in week three of my four week program, and it might be in my head, but I swear I’m already stronger and harder/more toned (in parts) than I was on April 29th.  Here’s an interesting article I read about CrossFit and runners.
2. YMe 5k: Perhaps closely related to #1, I ran YMe’s Race at My Pace 5k on Mother’s Day (my gift to myself) and knocked off 61 seconds from my time at the GNYER in Ohio on 12/31/11–making a PR in the process (20:31).  What’s interesting is that I’m only two weeks post-marathon.  Seriously, I think #1 had something to do with how I performed.  Naturally, I did some pre- and post-race vlogs over at my handy YouTube channel, so click here, here, and hereto watch 🙂

   

3. Running with a BOB: I’ll have to write a separate post about this (and about running post-pregnancy… I’ve been meaning to write that one for a while now), but it has been quite the learning experience, for sure.  Below is a pic of A and me in her Mazzerati stroller (although we weren’t running at the time).  I’ll come back to this post in the future.

   

4.  Team NMA/RYBQ: which means No-Meat Athlete and Run Your BQ (Boston Qualifier).  I think it’s technically Team RYBQ, but since I learned about it through the No-Meat Athlete website, I’m giving credit to both entities.  This has been really interesting so far because it’s basically an online community of runners who are trying to run their BQs and/or PRs, and it’s coached by Matt Frazier and Jason Fitzgerald.  I’ve been reading their articles and forums (and contributing to the latter), and I’m excited to try their plans come NYC and Houston training time.  I’ve never done a training plan or really, have been part of a training community, like this, so I’m looking forward to it.  It should be fun.
5. The move: ah, yes, the move… my new hobby that has seemingly taken over lots of my days and nights when I’m not with A (and sometimes, even during).  I can’t tell you how sick I am of reading MLS listings.  Crossing my fingers here that if all goes well, in about three weeks’ time, I’ll be blogging from our new condo 🙂

Super short and quick tonight–well, at least a bit shorter than usual–but I’ll try to be better about blogging.  My next race is the Ragnar Madison-Chicago 200 mile relay, so that’ll be a good time and I’m sure will lend itself to a great post.

More to come!  Until then, onward and upward…