Sunday: We went to church today; We had a few families/friends over for dinner; We worked on PTO Thank-o-Grams for the school; We put puzzles together; We had church meetings today & one being at our house… And to top it off… Our good friends (the Barney’s) brought over dessert during the meeting at our house just because… It was great!
During Sacrament meeting today my oldest whispered to me, “Mom, you’re a mom now but you are going to be an old lady soon.” 
Monday: I woke up a little later than what I wanted to but I was still able to get my planned workout in… And it was a beautiful, peaceful morning.
I am tapering this week and next for my marathon race (in 2 short weeks :/). I ran 7.74 in 54:48 (a 7:04 pace). 7 miles with 8 x 100 strides to finish it off. I was sore for the 1st 3-4 miles but the last few I felt great. I helped at the school today, the kids played with neighbor kids and we did some cleaning. I was able to take some time to take my 3rd child out to lunch today. We had a great time!
My girls hung out at the Barney’s house while I went to CC practice… I was so grateful she offered to take them… It was freezing out! The CC kids had a interval hill workout…1 min, 90 seconds, 2 min… It was a tough workout.
When Corom got off work he came home and picked up our 2nd child and took her out on a daddy-daughter date.
They went to the $1 store. They, too, had a blast. We ate dinner, then my oldest and I went out (of course to the $1 store)…
It is amazing how much our girls “open ” up when they have that one on one time. My oldest usually doesn’t share her feelings with us but tonight was so different. My husband said the same thing about his date. We realized that our girls need their own attention. We decided that once a week… I will take out one and he will take out one. We did the 2 older ones this week and next will be the 2 younger ones. It really was fun. We had Family Home Evening and played Uno (with hot chocolate and popcorn)…
After the game was done it became instant chaos and noise… Maybe from the sugar-hot chocolate… It was funny for the 1st 20-30 minutes of running around, wrestling, etc. but after that… It got a little annoying. They had so much energy. 🙂 It is now 8:30… And everyone is asleep… Even Corom. Boring for me!
I met up with Rachelle and Mac for the 1st 3 miles of my 17 mile run. The 1st 3 were a nice comfortable warmup pace… Then I began a 4 mile tempo. The 1st mile was an uphill climb (gradual at 1st and then the last quarter was steep- steeper than what I would have liked in a tempo). A storm was coming in so I wanted to start my tempo while I had a tailwind because I knew my last set of the tempo would be in a head wind. Anyway my 1st mile in the tempo was:
1st mile: 6:10
2nd mile: 5:54
3rd mile: 5:51
4th mile: 5:48
Recovery mile: 7:10
Next set was a 3 mile tempo. A mile and a half I still had the wind pushing me and then after that I was looping back to where I started (against the wind with rolling hills :/).
1st mile: 5:52
2nd mile: 6:08
3rd mile: 6:10
Recovery mile: 7:22
I was supposed to run a 2 mile tempo next but my legs were shot. My recovery mile was running against the wind and I was so tired. So I told myself if I could push hard for 1 mile and break 6 then I would be done with the workout and the rest would be mileage to put in.
1st mile: 5:51
The last 4 miles were a recovery run and just to finish off 17 to get my long run in. (7:03, 6:46, 6:51, 6:30). The last couple of miles I started to feel dizzy. I did take a Gu at the recovery mile after my 1st 4 tempo miles but I didn’t have any drinks set up (but let’s be real…do I ever). Good thing Rachelle was there at the end with Gatorade for me. She also gave me a great pep-talk about my race coming up and helped boost my confidence up. With the race so close, there are times that I doubt myself… I know (and I coach it every day) that mental is 80% of the race!!! Thanks Rachelle! It helped a lot. So I ran 17 miles in 1:53.17… A 6:39 pace. It was an absolutely beautiful morning out!
Shortly after getting home and getting everyone ready… The girls and I headed to my nephew’s wrestling match. My brother-in-law is the coach and my sister had to work, so I went to the match to help watch their 3 other kids. It was fun to watch and a lot of kids to watch. 🙂 My nephew is good!!!
Corom was playing flag football at the school near us with a bunch of neighbors…
The girls had their piano recital today. They did well! It was fun to see them play but I noticed that they need to practice (at least twice a week instead of once a week)!!! 😉
The girls went to bed when we got home and Corom and I watched Step Up All In – Step Up 4… Corom’s choice. 😉 Ok… It was mine.
Thursday: My morning run began at 5:30. I ran 15 minutes before I met up with Amber. We headed out on the Dairy Loop (a 7 mile loop) and then I ran a little further (I’m thinking I ran about 10 miles total). My time was 1:13.12. It felt great compared to yesterday’s workout. My legs were still a little tight/heavy but better. We did have 2 other friends join us our entire run…
Hopefully they found their way home! All the girls went to school and Corom and I had to run to Wal-mart to get a few things…
I went to my kindergartener’s classroom to help with rotations…
… The rest of the afternoon was normal… Kids, cleaning, playing, then CC practice (warmup with 5 x 800’s a little faster than 5k race pace with a 50 meter recovery, then a 150 meter full out sprint-after every 800 then a 2 mile cool down).
My girls joined them by running laps. 🙂 The rest of the evening was un eventful… Homework, dinner, Corom visited families in our ward, & bedtime.
Friday: I downloaded mapmyrun before I went out for my morning run… Finally! I ran 10.47 miles in 1:14.44…About a 7:08 minute pace. I was tired. I helped at the elementary school for a while…
… The kids were their normal hyper selves all day and played with friends…
Corom and I went to the movies with a few friends of ours (the Fullmer’s and Barney’s). We saw the Maze Runner… It was pretty good. I was ready for bed by the time we got home… I have had a head cold since I’ve been back from my trip. It has been wiping me out at night.
Tuesday: Well after a long day of traveling home from our trip to Spain & Greece and sad goodbyes to my sisters and my mom…
… I finally made it home to my family! It was instant chaos and everything back to normal. 🙂 Welcome Home to me! I do think the kids were even more “wild” due to the fact they were not on a schedule for the past 11 days. It was so good to be home but hard at the same time. I was welcomed home by a few homemade things from the girls…
As soon as I got home, I went to the girl’s school to check them out for the rest of the day. My oldest came walking down the hall and burst into tears. I felt bad because I realized how much they did miss me and that it was too long of a trip for them. I gave her a big hug and said that I missed her so much. She looked at me and said, “why did you check me out of school? We are in the middle of a project and I want to stay here.” So I guess an 11 day trip wasn’t too long after all. 🙂 We had our HS Cross Country banquet tonight. We have amazing kids on the team. The banquet went well. After dinner, we immediately went to the awards, said a little speech and went home.
The one very frustrating thing… I did not get a run in today!!! I am so bummed about that! There was just too much to do when I got back and I felt guilty even thinking of the idea of leaving again. It really mentally throws me off!!!
Wednesday: Talk about mentally being thrown off… I started with a 2 mile (15 min) warmup and then began my 10 x 800’s. The problem with this workout… I was struggling pretty bad with the 1st one!!!
1st: 2:36 finished the mile in 6:12.
2nd: 2:37 mile in 6:06
3rd: 2:38 mile in 6:07
4th: 2:36 mile in 6:09
5th: 2:37 mile in 2:13
6th: 2:38 mile in 2:06
7th: 2:38 mile in 2:09
8th: 2:39 mile I’m 2:06
I actually stopped after the 8th one. I could not do 2 more… My legs were heavy and tight. I don’t know if it was because I was on an airplane or sitting around at the airport all day yesterday, or the elevation or just lack of training for the past 11 days. But I struggled a lot this morning. Oh well… I have 3 1/2 weeks before my big race… There is nothing I can do about it now. At home my day went by fast. I watched 8 extra kids today, a few friends stopped by to hang out, and there was unpacking and cleaning to do. After all this, I had CC practice (while the 2 older girls were in piano lessons).
It was a busy day today and I was tired all day! After dinner (a lady I just met and her 2 girls ate dinner with us tonight-I will explain tomorrow), homework and the normal nighttime routine… I got ready for bed, obviously did my blog, and went to bed (by 8:15). 🙂 I’m so tired! Good night!
Our alarm went off at 3:20 a.m. Ugh! It was time to go to the airport!!! By 4 we were on the road to our 2 1/2 hour train ride that will drop us off 13 kilometers from the airport.
We are so grateful for Keri and Steve for taking us around everywhere! Keri once again brought us to the train station (it was an hour and a half drive to the station :/). The train went by fast… We all slept off and on throughout the ride. We had to run to catch a taxi (we were short on time). The airport was huge! There were 4 terminals… The problem was the language barrier between us 4 and the taxi driver. He understood US and international. He took us to terminal 4…
We found out at terminal 4 (from the information desk) that we were at the wrong terminal. We had to hop on a bus and hurry to terminal 2. We get there, run in, and soon find out that we were still in the wrong terminal… It was in terminal 1. The people at the Delta desk in terminal 2 said they would call the Delta desk in terminal 1 and let them know we were on our way… We had to run again. It took us 10 minutes to run from 2 to 1. We got there with an hour to spare. Well through much talking (and arguments between 2 of the employees)… They took our luggage off the tram, pulled the tags and said we didn’t have time to make our flight. By then we had 45-50 minutes… We totally could have made it! The male employee was not very nice… The female employee was arguing in our favor but it didn’t change his decision. We Missed Our Flight!
Oh my gosh!!! We were all at a loss!!! Because we went through a travel agent, they were the only ones that could help change our flights. The only problem… It was 11 a.m. Spain time and 2 a.m. Utah time. It took us awhile to get a hold if our travel agent… We were getting nervous because they said the next flight isn’t until tomorrow at 11. But like I said, they couldn’t get in to change it without the travel agency. Through all of this… I’ve been starting to freak out about my lack of run this vacation. Yes I have been getting out every day but not to what I’m supposed to be doing!!! My race is only 3 1/2 weeks away and I didn’t train this hard to waste it. I already figured I wasn’t going to be able to run today with the traveling home but now to bump another day… Yes I’m beginning to mentally lose it. So I decided to go through my luggage, pull my running clothes out and go for a run (even though it was short, it felt good). I ran around the rental car area for 52:06.51 minutes. Sometimes I was able to run at a solid pace and others not so fast due to crazy drivers in the parking lot.
When I got back from my run, I found out that our travel agent argued on behalf of us… She argued with 3 different supervisors and finally got us on a flight at 5 p.m. to New York. We still won’t get home until Tuesday afternoon but at least we are on our way. I hated calling Corom to break the news. Now he has to find someone again for the girls… It has been a long vacation for him. He’s a good husband… And my poor girls!! But what do you do? We finally got on our flight and are headed home. We left at 5 p.m… It is a 8 1/2 hour flight to the States but the beautiful thing is… We arrive in at 8:30 p.m. the same night. 🙂
To bad we have to spend the night at the New York airport. We all found our spot- on the airplane we all had a chair next to us empty so that was nice. At the airport in NY, we were not aloud into the main airport. We had all of our luggage and we were not able to check it in until 4 a.m. I slept next to the windows right on top of the heating vent… A very restless sleep. My sisters joined me along the windows and my mom found a wheelchair to sit in for a while. My poor mom… We worried about her! She is a trooper and a strong woman! Nothing seems to faze my mom.
It is now 5:50 a.m. NY time (3:50 Utah time). Our last flight leaves at 7… We are almost home!! I can’t wait to see the girls and Corom…
Mother Racer 