It was so nice to step out onto the front porch in Sacramento with no jacket on! It was a beautiful morning to attempt a good tempo run.
I ran a 12 minute warmup all on a dirt road, which felt really nice on the legs. Oh, and breathing was great!!! My upper body and lungs were loving it! I began my tempo once I got on the highway… I ran at a good, solid, hard pace for 32 min. I went out for 16 minutes and felt great. Once I turned around to come back that is when I felt tired. 🙂 I still pushed it even though I wanted to back off. It is amazing how fast you can lose your speed when you take a little break. I finally feel like I am gaining good endurance, now I have to add speed to it. I finished off with a 16 minute cool down. I ran a total of 1:00.05. I ran 9 miles total. It was a 6:35- 6:40 pace for the 9.1 miles, so I don’t know how fast the warm up, cool down and tempo actually was.
We had to get in the car to go figure out the mileage… I am realizing that if I want to be more serious with running, I need to get up to the times. 🙂 Or not… I did have an encounter with a rooster on my cool down. I turned around on one of the dirt roads I was on when I realized the rooster was not going to let me run by without chasing after me. Rooster’s can be scary!!! 🙂 It was a good run, though.
We finally left at 11 a.m. for our trip to California. We have 2 foreign exchange students with us on this trip… Z, the one living with us, and A, Z’s friend. They are both really excited! It is pretty awesome for Corom and I because the 2 girls have been entertaining our girls. 🙂 We stopped off at McDonalds for some great hamburgers… I wanted to go somewhere else but was out voted.
For this chicken sandwich being on the $ value menu… It wasn’t to bad.
Of course it wouldn’t have been a road trip without being pulled over. Our speedometer doesn’t work so we don’t know how fast we are going…
After small “talk”, and Corom telling the officer that he thought he was only going 70 (not 92 mph), the officer gave back Corom’s license without a ticket and told us to have a nice day. We will! 🙂 For a good couple of hours we were able to see the sun go down… To bad it was right in front of us making it hard to see. It was pretty though…
We had a good chunk of the trip where there was “potty” talk…
The girls have been so good this trip (a lot has to do with A & Z)… Until the last 2 1/2 hours…
We were going to drive all the way through but decided the girls needed to get out (with only an hour an a half left). We stopped off at Taco Bell… My favorite fast food!!! I really do love Taco Bell! We are back on the rode and almost there…
I ran 26 min on my own before I met up with Mac, Beth, Trish and Amber. I am thinking I ran 3 1/2 + miles and then ran 6.1 with everyone else. I ran a total of 1:16.14 and 9 1/2 + miles. It was freezing this morning. We have been spoiled with warmer temperatures the past week that I was not expecting the 8-9 degrees… Good run though!
I chose this picture because you can see Corom’s shadow… Now he is part of the picture. 🙂 We all went for a nice little run. I pushed the stroller and Corom helped the girls on the bikes if needed. We went out for 34 minutes.
I loved this run. It felt good, the day is beautiful, and I loved that we were able to go out together. I love that 2 out of the 4 can ride their bikes along side us.
As you can see our youngest fell asleep. We ran back home and I went out alone for another 16 minutes. I made that a solid pace. I felt great. The 1st 34 minutes I felt like we were doing an 8 min pace and the last 16 was in the high 6’s… What a great run! Total time 50:08.3.
5:30 a.m. came around too soon. I told the girls as they all ran into our room that we were not going down for another 1/2 an hour. By the time we got Z (our foreign exchange student) up, we were ready to begin our present opening by 6:15.
We had a $50 dollar limit per child. My great running friends surprised me with taking care of Z! They each bought her a gift… I don’t think they realize how much that meant to Corom and I! Very, very helpful and I love them for who they are and the examples they are to me!!!
Notice our oldest’s hair band… Corom stayed up until 2 in the morning making these for all the girls. They turned out really good!
Everyone received a lot of nice things!!! Thanks to grandparents and friends! We changed things around this year. We had each person open a present up one at a time, unless it was the same gift then they opened it up at the same time. It was fun to see what everyone got and their reactions. It has been a pleasant morning.
Thanks Z for the hat… Corom looks hot in it. 🙂
Grandma and grandpa Hansen got the girls the bracelet looms and bands and little dogs that move around. G-goat gave all the girls their own towels.
The nice thing is… Not too much fighting this morning. 🙂
Our dogs got their bones from Santa. After we made breakfast…
Merry Christmas! Thank you everyone for everything!!!
Mother Racer 