Something of a routine?

This Saturday I repeated my 3.7 mile run. It wasn't any easier, as I'd hoped, but it happened. Yesterday I dutifully ran my 25 minute EZ run. Sometime in the last year my subdivision has added a significant amount of sidewalks, making a trail around the entire subdivision. It's a nice little route.

It's amazing what two months can do. When I was pregnant someone told me that the first month after birth is all about survival, and she was right. Now at the end of two months, though, I feel like I can sort of anticipate how the days will go. That makes running SO much easier! My husband has been phenomenal at working with me to mesh our schedules so that I have time to run and he still has time to do his things. I still worry that it's going to be very difficult to mix parenting with the training schedule once the miles get longer, but so far so good.

This week I'm starting to use a diet plan. Over the weekend I wrote out meals for the week. I'm doing this to help myself eat well, which can only make running easier, and to help myself lose more of the baby weight. I'm using old eDiets menus and some that I got from Dannon's website a few years ago. I will probably post a link to my FitDay account at some point, if anyone is curious. It's nice to eat things I don't normally eat. For instance, last night we had teriyaki salmon, steamed carrots, and sweet potatoes. Yum!

I'm headed to Detroit this weekend for my sister-in-law's baby shower. I want to try a 4-miler for this weekend's long-run. Not sure if I'll try it there or on Sunday when I get back. Wish me luck!

ch-ch-ch-changes, and I'm crazy

I was encouraged today by my friends Lisa and Dorie to feel like I can use this space to blog about my crafts projects and the rest of life. I never have because originally this blog was devoted to training and fundraising for my first race. But life has gone on and I'm realizing that this would probably be more interesting for everyone involved if I widened the scope. So here I am.

First though, an update on running. This past Saturday I ran 3.7 miles!! I wasn't sure I would make it that distance, since my longest run before that had been 2.8. The weather was in my favor, which helped, and I was feeling good. I'm starting to feel like maybe I can do this again. But I'm also crazy. I'm going to attempt to run the Disney Marathon in January. I'm working with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training again. This time around I will need to raise over $3,000! Be warned that there will be lots of fundraising in the months to come! So, wish me luck. I might be crazy to try this. All of a sudden, the Indy Half in October has become a training run. I'm really excited about Indy, but still intimidated about Disney. I might just be crazy, but I'm going to give it a try.

In other news, yesterday was Elliot's two month well-baby check-up. It went really well. He weighs 11lb. 11oz. and measured 22.5 inches. He got his immunizations, screaming as all babies do. I planned to feed him right after the shots, which soothed him a lot. After he finished eating he had forgotten the pain. I think the day wore him out though. Last night he slept better than ever. He slept from 11pm to 4:10am, then from 4:40 until almost 9am. It was so nice to get so much sleep!

On the scrapbooking front, I discovered something nifty a few days ago. Some background: a while back my friend N gave me a white pigment ink pad. We both thought it would be great to stamp white shapes onto colored paper. Not so much. Turns out the ink fades about 90% when it dries on regular paper. So for a while I wasn't sure what I could do with my white ink pad. Over the weekend N and I were scrapbooking together. We came up with a layout that involved a printed vellum background page. Unfortunately, I had only one sheet of the printed vellum and I needed two for the two-page spread. I went to the local crafts stores but couldn't find another sheet. On a whim, I tried to "paint" a pattern onto plain vellum using q-tips and the ink from ink pads. I tried a few colors of ink on a test strip to see which looked the best. Much to my surprise, the white ink works beautifully when applied to vellum. Here's a picture of the result. And yes, I'm just now getting around to scrapbooking my 2005 wedding.

baby steps

Last night I added just over half a mile to my route. I can't remember a time when running ~2.5 miles was this difficult. It was also only about 25 minutes after dinner, so it wasn't the best time to run, either. Like the 2 mile loop got easier, this will too. I'm hoping by the end of next week to be up to 5k.

Today I'm going to try Lynn's full body workout plan. I bet that's gonna hurt in the morning! I'm also working with Lynn and some people on this website to get my diet under control. It's fun to work out a healthy diet for someone who is a) trying to shed some fat, b) breastfeeding, and c) training for a half-marathon. It's a bit of a challenge, but will hopefully be a fun one. My husband has been so supportive. We worked out a schedule so I could go run last night. Then he sat down with me to plan some healthy, veggie-packed dinners for this coming week. I'll be honest, I'm a little bit intimidated by how much work is ahead of me, but I'm up to the challenge.

two new tools and some growing pains

I've recently been introduced to two nifty gadgets for people who, like me, are attempting to get back into reasonable shape.

The first is a pedometer on Google. N told me about this. You can click on a map to enter the route you walk or run and it tells you how long the route is. You can also save your routes. I love this! I like my carry-it-on-me-while-I-run pedometer, but it has to be calibrated separately for running and walking. With the Google pedometer there's no re-calibrating. It's just a simple measure of distance. Check it out: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

The second tool is an online site to keep track of what you've eaten. My friend Lynn told me about this. You enter in everything you ate in a day and it breaks down your calorie sources: carbs, fats, and protein. It uses a catalogue of most foods, which simplifies things. For instance, you can just type in "strawberries" and it knows everything, nutritionally, about strawberries, so you don't have to enter anything. Allegedly you can enter recipes, but I haven't figured that part out yet. Entering packaged foods that aren't stored in the database, like specific granola bars, is really easy though.

My bid to get back into running is going well. I've done my 2 mile loop three or four times now. Thankfully it's starting to get easier. I think I might add half a mile next time I go out. It's hard to believe that in a month or so two miles will seem like nothing. I did a full body workout on Sunday (the second half of the yoga dvd I posted about, actually). I was sore, to be honest. With my friend Lynn's help I'm adding more full body weight lifting routines to the mix. I'm going to do the weight lifting for the first time today. I love feeling my body start to pull itself together. I love knowing that slowly I'll get there...slowly.