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I Ran And Ran And Ran, Then Ran Some More

May 2, 2012 by 7 Comments

Saturday morning I woke up crazy early, like 6:30. Which after a day at Great Wolf Lodge is pretty close to torture.  

The ever helpful Mandi offered to pick me up, so there was no hiding under the covers. Darn. Saturday morning brought a chill and I had to wear Ken’s really nerdy windproof hat. No laughing please.
From left to right: Mandi, me in pink (with nerdy hat), Laurie and Tobias.Watch out for Tobias, he’s about to do some big things. Don’t let his ‘crazy’ face fool you.

Team run like stink before the race. That wasn’t our real team name or anything, I just made that up. But we really did run just like stink. From left to right: Mandi, me, Agnes, Tobias, Laurie and Bryan. Agnes joined us for a 5K warm-up and then went on to do another 10K as she gets ready for a marathon.

See? There I am running and stinking. That’s Agnes’ hand reaching back to pull Laurie and I on. Cause that’s what marathon runners do, encourage. This is not the first time I’ve run 5K with hardcore runners and every time I’ve been overwhelmed by their support and encouragement. Good people those marathoners.

We survived and finished and the sun even came out for us. Mr. Tobias finished his 5K in 27 minutes! Faster than all of the ladies and faster than his dad. My time was 44 minutes.
This is the third 5K run I’ve done. The other two I trained for and was ready. This one, not so much. I just went.
The scariest part was when they handed me a timing chip and I realized that this was a race. Uh oh. Turns out I run way better unprepared. No doubt a team of friends helped too.

The race was in aid of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Laurie was the top fundraiser at the race, raising over $1500. A pretty special moment.
Visit Laurie’s blog, finding my inner me, to read her account of the race. Her first one!

Pictures were taken by Mandi and Michael. Thanks friends for letting me share them.

Filed Under: I like action, Life as I know it Tagged With: ,

Runstreak? What The Hell Is Runstreak?

February 6, 2012 by 6 Comments

Several weeks ago, maybe you remember, I pledged to join the ever courageous Poppy at Funny or Snot on her January resolution to run everyday for a month. I even upped the anti by committing to a writesteak and write every day for at least an hour.

Except for Wednesdays.

Well…uhm…

I ran twice. Then lingering laryngitis and anti-biotics forced me to hang up my running shoes. I’m better now, but my shoes are still hanging there, staring at me. I pretend that I couldn’t possibly start running in the winter with all that snow in the way.

About 30 seconds after that thought a neighbour jogs by my front window waving merrily. I should totally use those new curtains all day to avoid being one upped by the neighbours.

OK, ya, ya, I get the point. I’m healed and I’m festering and I need to get my shoes laced up and my hind quarters moving. In the interest of honesty I feel it’s only fair to tell you that the running with be little more than a walk but I will be moving.

Now about the writing-
I did a lot of writing, nearly filled a notebook full of notes. Excellent witty blog post beginnings, few endings. Then my youngest got sick, then my oldest got sick, followed by my youngest getting sick again.

I suppose I could of tapped away on my laptop while my sick children shivered alone under a blanket watching cartoons but that didn’t seem very motherly to me. My laptop was left on my desk gathering dust, while my desk gathered clutter. And half written posts remain.

I am starting to think that all this wrench throwing into plans is the point of life, or rather the wrenches are thrown to keep us on our toes, to remind us what we were suppose to be doing before we were smacked in the head with a wrench. Only these wrenches keep coming.

The chaos of life never stops.

Some messes you can work through, others you can’t. I’m learning that the trick to navigating these wrenches is knowing when to stick to your commitments and knowing when to let them slide, guilt free.

I will run, I will finish my umpteen blog posts. If one of my kids vomits in the night, then the great blog-post-finish-a-thon will be delayed a day or two, the couch and my kids need me more than blog posts do.

 

Filed Under: Life as I know it Tagged With:

Let’s Streak!

January 13, 2012 by 7 Comments

Right. So I committed to runstreak. Only I live in Canada and it is winter here. Sadly the part of Canada I live in doesn’t bring a lot of snow. But we have rain, lots and lots of rain.

So I ran in the rain. And I liked it because it’s all about the bright side with me.

Freezing rain, no. It’s called a cold mist facial and it’s good for your pores. And it’s free!
Puddles to infiltrate your mesh toed shoes. That’s just keep you on your toes, football training style. Jump Kristin jump.
Cough and chest congestion…well, that part just sucks.
Once I got myself dried off and cleaned up I settled in for something I am going to call writestreak. My 1 hour of daily writing. A few of you were keen to join me on my daily writing challenge and I thought we needed some rules. Guidelines to keep us in line.
  1. One day off a week is allowed.
  2. Daily writing goal is over and above currently writing commitments. Or not. I am not counting blog posts I publish here but you can I am not the boss of you.
  3. I’ll be using #writestreak on Twitter to check in.
Let’s get streaking! Uhm… I mean writing. And hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow.
Filed Under: Life as I know it Tagged With: ,