Taking a Sun Day

As homeschoolers we don't like to take Snow Days. Since we don't have to trudge through sleet and snow to get from the bedroom to the school room there's really no reason to not have school when it snows so I always count on us making up any missed schoolwork during the winter months.

 Instead of Snow Days, we take Sun Days. I love Sun Days...when it's gorgeous out, the weather is warm, the sun is shining...those are the days I like to miss school. And today was a 1/2 Sun Day. We did math and science and then loaded up our bikes and headed to the tow path.

Ella and Shane before I stuffed them into the trailer

I have to say that I'm glad my almost 7 y/o weighs only 45 pounds so she can still ride in the trailer. And I'm so grateful that I bought the 'double wide' trailer when we had just Hank and no other littles on the horizon.

Cute little posers

 We rode 7 miles overall but as is common with little kids, we stopped to check out the scenery and take a couple of potty breaks.

The river is so pretty this time of year

One section of the tow path is under construction and the detour around it took us down next to the river and then back up to the tow path. It was made out of nice soft, loose dirt and gravel. Pulling the bike, trailer and 90 pounds of kids up that nice soft hill was pretty funny. I had them get out and walk on our return trip.

Just north of Harpers Ferry where we turned around

Ella and Shane did such a good job of not whining or complaining  (must have been the ice cream I promised if they were good). Shane wanted to get out and run, and usually on shorter rides I have him just tough it out.

But because he was being so good, I let him get out; he wanted me to time him while he 'raced'; it was really cute because he kept saying 'you need to cheer for me! louder!'

This ride was a thousand times better than yesterday's Sun Day. Today we finished 7 miles in  1:25:53. Not lightning speed but not too bad.  Yesterday it took us an hour to go 2 miles. Yes, you read that right. I had a full scale mutiny on my hands yesterday and 3 little angels today. It must have been something in the water 'cause I don't understand it!

We went to McD's for our ice cream  and headed home where the kids ran in the field playing football with the neighbors. Then Hank and I headed to cross country practice. He and I got there a little early so we ran .6 miles for fun until everyone else came.

I've been running with 2 other moms while the kids practice. It's amazing how quickly the miles pass when you have someone with you. I ended up running a total of 4.55 miles in 48:58 so the other two ran about 3.9 miles. One of the moms hasn't done more than a 5K so she was really pleased with the distance. The kids cheer for us as we run by; it's really sweet - especially since they're all really fast and we are not.

A handful of us are going to be running our local Turkey Trot and we found out another mom who can't make it to practice because of her schedule is going to run it, too. We should think of a name for our little 'team'...like Stuffed Old Farts or Tough Old Turkeys. I'll have to keep thinking on that one.

The last cross country practice is next week and I'm going to miss running with my friends. I guess it will make the spring track season that much sweeter when it arrives.

100 Pushups and 200 Squats? No problem!

Ha! and if you believe that, I have some ocean front property in Arizona.

My friend Karma at Insperspire posted about a little something she and Jimmy Spin are doing  - 100 push ups challenge. Some of you super buff people are probably thinking, "only 100? I can do that in my sleep."  And I reply with a genuine and heartfelt, "Hooray for you!"

I, on the other hand, can barely eek out 15 decent pushups in one shot. I'm still making sad attempts at the Hard Core Club, but struggled a bit in the 2 weeks after my half marathon ( I think I strained an ab when I had a wicked side cramp so core work hurt for a while).

So back to the push up challenge.... The work outs are totally do-able - do a handful of push ups, rest, do more and so on. It's kind of deceiving actually. Today, for instance, I did reps of 12, 13, 10, 10 and then 15 (after 4 reps, you do as many as you can, but they give you a minimum goal- which today was 15).

So I did 60 pushups today, choke! cough! gasp! But I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I could actually do 100 at once. I did 10 good pushups for the initial assessment so it will be interesting to see just what kind of improvement I'll see at the end of the 6 week program.

I tend to work better when I have lots of balls in the air so I figured I should add squats to the mix too. There are also programs for 25 pull ups, 50 pull ups and 200 sit ups; I may be crazy, but I try to be realistic sometimes.

Is it just me or in the illustration above are his knees are a little too far forward. Maybe not?

So the squats program works pretty much like the one for push ups.... you do 5 sets of incremental squats 3 days a week with the 5th set being a 'max' set, and they give you a minimum number to shoot for.

I have to admit the squats challenge feels more like it's within reach for me. I've always had really strong legs nicely insulated by layers of cellulite  so I'm trying to make sure I'm using proper form instead of just surviving like I'm doing with the pushups.

The kids have even joined in the fun and done some of the work outs with me. If I'm fast enough with the Flip, I'll catch a video of them. It's a hoot watching Shane do pushups!

I have to say that not having the pressure of a big race hanging over my head is kind of nice and even fun. I can do things like this and not worry too much about saving my legs for a long run or a race. It's going to be a fun winter! I can just feel it! :D

Welp, I finished my Week 2 workout this afternoon so I just have 4 weeks to go! Wish me luck!

Biking with the fam

I forgot I had a bunch of pictures on Jake's camera and he just got them to me.  About two weeks ago we loaded up the truck with kids, bikes and a picnic lunch and headed to Sheperdstown. 

They all look like they're from Sombertown for some reason. They really were excited to have a picnic and then ride. Honest!

My big 8 y/o with an even bigger head. His helmet was giving him a headache so Bill let Hank wear his. And he's wearing my gloves. Such a cute little mess!

On their way up to a cave just off the trail (they didn't go in; the last part of the trail was too steep for them)

Hank almost ran over this little guy accidentally. Major trauma for my animal lovers. The mole survived and no children threw themselves into the river with grief.

There's a great little store north of Sheperdstown at mile 76 called Barron's. They're only open on weekends and only take cash so plan ahead. Anyhoo, they cater to cyclists mainly but have ice cream, some fruit and drinks along with a few souvenier-like trinkets.

You can get there by exiting the towpath at the boat ramp access road or you can send your 8 y/o down a steep, rocky path that cuts across the canal.  Of course if you choose the latter be prepared for your 8 y/o to take a header over the handle bars into what looks like poison ivy but could really be false nettle.*

Thankfully, the really nice folks at Barron's will give you wet soapy paper towels to wash any affected arms and legs. And your 8 y/o may think it was really cool to wipe out in such an epic fashion...especially since he didn't break his neck in the process.

We made it back to the truck without any further excitement, and all told, we rode about 15 miles and had a really good time!

*I went down the steep, rocky path first. I was looking over my shoulder to tell Hank to get off and walk down just in time to see him crash.

80 Miles with Tall Mom

It's hard to believe it's September already!  On August 2nd Tall Mom challenged us to run 80 miles in August. My training plan had me scheduled for just 71 miles but I figured I could add 2+ extra miles a week with no trouble.

I must have forgotten about the 2 extra miles/week because yesterday I found myself just over 6 miles short, and I need to finish packing for the weekend, and oh yea, I homeschool two kids with a  toddler under foot. Easy peasy!

Run, Tracy! Run!

I stole this clip art from Tall Mom's blog post

Also because of the holiday weekend I have to move my long run to Friday instead of Saturday so I knew I couldn't just bust out 6 miles in this insane heat and humidity and expect my long run to be any good. Sooo I dragged the kids to the tow path with their bikes (though Ella opted to ride in the stroller, lucky me!). I hoped to run 4.5 miles so I'd only need to run 1.5 today, but that twas not to be.

If you've read my blog for any length of time then you know that my 4 year old is the wild card in our little family. We never know what each day will bring with him and the pendulum is rarely sitting calmly in the middle. It's swings very widely and can go from extremely happy to extremely NOT happy in an instant. And that's what we got on the tow path. So 4.15 miles it was. Which meant I needed to hop on the treadmill for a quick 2 miles this morning.

So what running fun did August bring? 

I ran two races. The Women's Distance Festival 5K where I finished with a new 5K PR- 29:11. And the Run For The Pie 10K which was a lot of fun and quite hilly. I finished with a time of 1:07:06.

I registered for my next goal race, Freedom's Run Half Marathon, which is on October 2- just ONE month away!!

Break It Down (in my best DJ Lance voice- I hate Yo Gabba Gabba but my kids love it and their songs are so darn catchy!):

Aug 1-7 = 12.1 miles of running, 20 miles on the bike, and 5 days of boot camp

Aug 8-14 = 15.28 miles of running, 0 miles on the bike, and 4 days of boot camp

Aug 15-21 = 17.22 miles of running, 0 miles on the bike, 3 days of core work and 2 days of legs

Aug 22-28 = 20.96 miles of running, 23.14 miles on the bike, 3 days of core work and 1 day of legs

Aug 29-Sep 2 = 14.58 miles of running and 0 miles on the bike, 2 days of core and 1 day of legs (I'll run 9 miles tomorrow for a weekly total of 23.58)

This gives August a total of 80.14 running miles and 53.14 biking miles!

I've become Hard Core!

Well, I'm working on it anyway. Jamoosh at the Last Mile Lounge  has put together a little 13 week challenge to strengthen our core, and he even details the exercises we can do along with photos of how to do those exercises. 

So there are 16 (I think I counted right but maybe not) exercises. Some of them  (heel touch crunches, Superman, bicycle crunches, and the diamonds in the sky) make my neck or my lower back hurt so I don't do them yet. Hopefully that will change as my core gets stronger.

Need a little motivation  to get going? Head over and join the fun!

20 Miles on the C&O

We decided yesterday to go for a bike ride on the C&O canal towpath. The parts of it north of here are really nice and not as heavily traveled as the more touristy parts near us and south of us.

We were very happy that Mark and Mark II could join us, especially Shane who thinks Uncle Mark is the coolest thing since sliced bread and Legos. He wanted Uncle Mark to tow him in the trailer which usually isn't a big deal...until you put everyone's extra water and snack in the trailer, too.

We split up towing duty because it was so heavy. Mark did the first 5- uphill with all the water. Bill did the next 10- 5 uphill, 5 down with lessening amounts of water.  I did the last 5- downhill almost no water. Yea, I scored on that one!

Here's Hank, Mark, Jake and Ella. We're waiting for the dads

Uncle Mark getting more of a workout than he bargained for

I think this is mile 10. We let Shane and Ella stretch their legs and Shane found a 'camping stick' for his camp fire

We passed this injured Egret on our way back. It looked like it had been attacked by something. You can't see it here but it's right wing was in bad shape and it couldn't fly. I was ready to launch a full scale rescue, but Bill reminded me of the 'circle of life.'

Two tired tamales

This kid, right here in the orange. See him? Right here... He rode 10 miles with Bill on Saturday.

Sunday he rode 20 miles. 10 + 20 = 1 amazing 8 year old

We had a great time and we can't wait to do it again!