Running, Chores to Bigger & Better!
Sunday: It’s church day! The girls were pretty good… They had their moments. 😉 We had 4 families/households here (one household consisted of an older man in our ward). After they left, we had G-Goat (my mother-in-law) over for her birthday. Yolanda (my sis-in-law) and her family came, too, to celebrate with cake and ice cream.
Corom and I watched Divergent after everyone went home and after the girls went to bed. Good movie!
Monday: I met up with Amber and Rachelle for a 9 1/2 mile run. We finished in 1:13. It was a good run! I enjoyed running with those 2. I’ve been running a lot on my own and it gets lonely. 🙂 I did a lot of PTO stuff today at the school and kept myself busy getting ready for our Witches 5k/mile run that the HS CC team puts on. The Elementarys here in our community 1/2 marathon-marathon challenge finishes the last mile together at the witches 5k/mile run. It will be fun to Unit all the schools together. We then headed off for CC practice.
2 days until State!!! 🙂 We had Family Home Evening tonight. I made a chore chart because I’m so tired of how lazy my kids are. And I take complete blame for that! It is so much easier for me to clean up after them then to take the time to teach them to clean. But… I’m doing it all wrong. So with this chore chart, they have to do the 4 to 5 things on an every day basis (the basics… Clean room, make bed, clean toy room, bathrooms, etc.). Anything after that (mop, vacuum, etc) they can earn a quarter.
Now I get to teach them about tithing $, spending $ & saving $. 🙂 So I gave them each their own piggy bank. This is a bigger chore for me! 🙂 We shall see how it works.
Tuesday: I went out for a 9.3 mile (1:00.53 minute) Fartlek run. I ran about 1 1/2 mile warmup, then ran 12 x 2 minutes fast, 1 minute back to my normal pace. I finished off with a mile recovery. I felt good! Once again, more busy PTO stuff for the marathon challenge (with it being the last week) and getting ready for Red Ribbon Week next week. CC country practice, we started off with a meeting for the State varsity runners. It was a little pep talk about the big race tomorrow. Then they went on a 3 mile shakeout run with 5 strides to finish it off. Once we got home the girls went straight to doing their homework and chores! 🙂
My 4 year old had to help me with dinner. I usually tell them to get out of the kitchen while I’m getting dinner ready… I have realized that they will never learn nor want to if I keep telling them to leave. 
I had to give up my annoyances of having the tomatoes cut right and at a timely manner… It was actually fun to watch her do it. We then headed off for YW’s (and Corom to his bishopric meeting). The youth and leaders played the game “Bigger & Better”. They started off with a penny and had to go to different houses to trade with something bigger and/or better.
There were 5 different teams… Pretty funny on some of the stuff they came back with! A sink, a bike (which this team had 2 dogs they were going to bring back), a huge bat, toilet paper (score) and a big basket. We finished our activity off with hot chocolate and donuts. Fun night… But my girls were so riled up when we got home that it was so hard putting them to bed! 🙂 good night.
Mother Racer 
That chore chart seems like such a good idea! I’ll have to use that when I have kids! Sometimes I think that I prefer running alone but then you run with friends and you realise what you’re missing! I’d say 90% of my workouts are done alone!
I know what you mean with running alone. I do really cherish that time by myself because I’m able to think “everything” through-life, kids, running, ideas, etc. I can run my own workouts at my own pace, etc. But it is so great being able to run with people. I am fortunate that I have wonderful running friends… We are all just training for different races right now that we are off schedule from each other.
I would say I’m about 80-90% right now, too.
That game sounds like so much fun! It would be awesome to see what people come back with. Saving that idea.
Sarah… It is soo fun! I actually sent the CC team out one day for that game. I just told them they had to go to every 10 houses at least. It really is so much fun to see what they came back with! (I like playing that game. :/)
Jen, I finally heard back from my friend who is the coach for Ohio State. I know that you are way too close now to the marathon to make it matter but I wanted to get you her info. She is an incredible marathoner. She claims that she tends to blow up at mile 21 but I once contacted her to wish her good luck at a marathon she was running in D.C. She told me that she probably shouldn’t run it because she had some major injuries. And when I looked up the results she placed 2nd overall. This girl knows running inside and out and I trust her like no other. She also LOVES writing training plans. I can’t find an e-mail address for you and I can’t believe you don’t have mine! So when you get a chance e-mail me at sarahdudek80@gmail.com and I will get you her info.