11 hours

The longest night of sleep I have gotten in as long as I can remember. 11 sweet, sweet hours.

Not terribly hard to log that many hours in bed when you're asleep by 9:15. Not just in bed....asleep.

Yes, Mike and I were OUT before prime time TV was over. (We're crazy nuts, people. Watch out!)

Not to fool you though....Alice is certainly not sleeping that long.

We got to say our hellos at 1:30 and then again at 5.

The reasons behind our winter hibernation?

For me it was the first day of hard two a days, coupled with a 5am wake up call. (Michelle and I did an AM swim and PM mile repeats at the track during a tornado watch --we're so hardcore...or dumb:)

Mike's always in a for an early bedtime. Especially last night since he took the early shift this morning and ran before work. (He's in training for the ING Half Marathon in March, as well.)

It feels strange to be this well rested.
Strangely Awesome.

Some shots of the girls (and my mom and sister) on a walk at Mimi's house on Tuesday. My mom's house is one of E's favorite places to visit. Her dirt road has a ton of horses to see, a creek to throw rocks, and a grandma to spoil her. What else could a 3 year old ask for?

I can't braid my hair.

Well, I can, but it hurts.

The arms.

Sore. Very sore.

Why?

Swimming.

Apparently if you work your muscles hard. They get sore.

And your hairstyle suffers.

Someone get me Ken Paves number, please. Jess can spare him on my hard swim days.

On second thought, poor girl needs her friends around her now. E's gotta learn sometime, right?

Michelle and I met again (yay, us) for our very own Master's session (or so we pretended) at 5:15 at LA Fitness again. My longest (and hardest) post Alice swim yet.

Some shots of our weekend below. The warm weather was awesome and we picnic-ed and park-ed it yesterday with the family.

Chattahoochee Challenge 10K

Ran the Chattahoochee Challenge 10K this morning.

The good news?
I PR'd (not terribly hard seeing as this is my second ever stand alone 10K). I try to avoid this distance and stick with 5k's. They hurt just as much, just for not as long.

And for the first time in a while, I did not actually throw up while racing. Just dry heaved. A lot. (Can ANYONE tell me why this happens and what I can do to stop it?) But, big bonus for not leaving the race with a shirt full of puke.

The bad?
I lost.
To Kindzia. (His race report is here.)
My road racing nemesis.
He out kicked me...those damn dry heaves and a strong finish don't seem to go hand in hand.

If only the race was 5 miles long, I would have totally kicked his a$$. See above.

We ran together the whole time and he kept me in check with his fancy-schmancy Garmin. It was nice not to throw down a 6:15 adrenaline fueled first mile and actually run fairly even splits. He counted the ladies ahead of me...told me where I was overall. (I think I might have been top 10, but results aren't posted yet.) His nice wife took our pictures. (Thanks, Angela!) He kept my stuff in his warm car (I parked a mile away.). Let me sweat all over his phone when mine died. Wow...I sound like such a mooch, huh?

44:14. Very happy with that. I felt strong and comfortable until the last 1.2 and that was a struggle, but it is supposed to be, right?

Kindzia dropped a 44:04.

I smell a rematch.

Official results are online now. They're calling my 44:14 a 44:18. I beg to differ, Mr. Chattahoochee Challenge Race Official. :)

3rd in my age group and 11th overall. Very happy but much room for improvement!

Best part? A sweet brunch at Michelle and Eddie's post race. Thanks, guys...that was awesome.

Race shirt is totally acceptable race day attire. That and a big one socked baby on your hip.

Brrr.

I've tried every alternative, any way to avoid it, but, it seems, that there is just no getting around me getting up at the ungodly hour of 5 am to get my workouts in.

I really don't mind this once I am in the routine of it.

It is actually kind of nice to knock them out so early....kind of like they never happened.

It is the getting into the routine of it that is the hard part. Especially now since Alice still likes to party (aka eat, yell, be pacified) with mom and dad a few times a night. And Ella likes to join in from time to time (like last night when she couldn't find her "favorite blankie" in her bed...that was in her bed at 3:30am).

Michelle (our favorite photographer/smartass Eddie's, wife, and Iron(wo)man herself), and I decided to meet for an early morning swim at LA Fitness since we both needed to meet someone there or there is no way in hell we'd either show up. Could we have picked a colder morning for swimming?

The 10 minutes it takes to drive to LA was not enough time to warm me up. Brrr.

Although this sight as soon as I was home definitely did the trick. A "brown hair" convention at the breakfast table.

About time.

It is about time for a few things for the Parker family this week.

When you're getting closer to 4 than 3 and your curls have yet to meet a pair of scissors AND you're starting to look more like this...


or this...


See?


The time has come for this.


The time has come for me this week, too.

Time to race.
I am excited and anxious to see how this goes. Doing my second ever (non-Olympic triathlon) 10k. Not a huge fan of this distance. You don't really go any slower than a 5K and it is twice as long. OW. Planning on racing the Chattahoochee Challenge 10K on Saturday. Did this same race in 2007 in 45:07 (I think) and am just hoping for better....we'll see...I've been doing a lot of speed work and interval stuff and hope it is paying off.

Time to get my lazy a$$ out of bed.
Time to reintroduce myself to the alarm clock. Here come the early AM workouts. Ugh. Ugh. and Ugh. At least I have a smiling Michelle to meet on Wednesday for a 5:45am swim. If I don't do this I am just not getting all my workouts in and the first thing to go? The swims. Of course.

Tick. Tock.

Blue Steel

I am a model. A 32 year old, 5'3" supermodel. I just hope the paps leave my kids alone.

Check it out here.

Our friend, Kindzia, and his wife have this awesome company that sells ready made frames for all your races. Well, all the ones you want to remember at least. :) Finish Line Framing.

You know the races where you want to have your medal, race number and picture professionally framed but cannot bring yourself to drop $400 bucks for it? Their frames have holes for all the stuff and you just pop it in yourself and save a ton of $$.

So smart. And nice looking, too.

Wow. Sounds a lot like their models. ;)

Really not loving it.

Now, I am not one to spew negativity.

Well, not often, anyway.

But, the sinus infection that is making my teeth ache and ears pulse is keeping me from being in a very positive place today. (Well, that and the fact that I didn't workout on account of said sinus infection. I am a crankypants without a good sweat.)

Hence, my post today.

A very unpositive post of things I Do Not Like. The yin to the yang of yesterday's (much more positive) post. (a day that I worked out.)

1. Caillou -- can this kid whine more? Seriously. His parents should really address this. We just pretend that we can't understand a whiny voice. Maybe they could try that? BUT, Ella loves her some Caillou. Can't stand the kid.


2. The peanut butter recall -- Everything I (like to) eat has peanut butter as a main ingredient. It is the base of my food pyramid...well, that and hummus. All my delicious Clif Mojo bars are now inedible promising the possibility of a night spent over the toilet. I put my time in there with my two pregnancies, thank you very much.

3. New Hair Growth -- Something with the hormones related to pregnancy cause me to both lose (pounds and pounds) of hair while simultaneously growing tiny, little ones all along the crown. Causing me to look like I have purposely spiked my hair while in a ponytail...a kind of mom-mullet. A look I am not unfamiliar with. I am from Jersey after all.
I can't remember why I was yelling in this picture, but it does show all those tiny little buggers.


4. Baby Socks -- Can NO ONE make ones that actually stay on a baby's foot?

5. Summer Video Baby Monitors -- I love the video. When the darn thing works. Got one before Alice was born. Video screen went out a couple weeks ago. Just a black screen now. Babies R Us wouldn't take it back...awesome. Now we're stuck with a $160 monitor that refuses to let us know if Alice has her leg caught in the crib slat...again. Get new one @ Babies R Us. Video works for 10 minutes....then black. ARGH.

I feel better already.

Love it.

Just a list of some stuff I've been um, loving, lately.

1. My new Training Plan
Yes, that is Training Plan with a capital "T" and "P". Courtesy of my harda$$, ironman, friend, Justin. He is not messing around. And although, last week was a bust with doing all of them (with Alice so sick and so many doctor's appointments and blah blah blah...) this week, I am going to knock them out. I hope. If I can make it. Seriously...they are hard. I just had a baby. And there are a lot of them. Whine. Whine. (Just kidding, Justin!)

2.. New Training Plan purchases
NTP requires new swim paddles (XS Tyr Catalyst). And oh yeah, A TON more swimming than I was doing.
Hop onto swimoutlet.com (another love of mine.) Surf around. Decide if I am going to actually swim more than 2x per week, I NEED a new suit, right? And some new earplugs, too.


3. Shazam
New iphone application. I am sure you've seen the commercial for it...so cool. Hold up your iphone to a song that is playing and it tells you the name and artist. Right then. And then you can buy it. LOVE IT. The other day, I "tagged" and then bought Fink -- "This is the Thing". Never would have ever known who was singing that song on "Friday Night Lights" that was just awesome.

4. Runners World Online Smart Coach
I love this. Type in a recent distance you have run and your time...insert how many miles a week you are currently running....what race you want to run...when you want to run your long run....when your race is....and it gives you a totally customizable training program. So smart and so easy to follow. Not that I am...since I have a NTP to follow, but if I was just running, I would totally use this.

5. My toothbrush. Oral B Crossaction Power.
Sounds totally boring, right?
Yes...yes, it is.

BUT, Mike and I love these toothbrushes...they are pretty inexpensive ($7), but make you feel like you just left the dentist. Something on my mind since me, Mike and E all have tooth cleaning/plaque scraping long delayed dentists appointments this week. It is the little things, people. :)



Happy belated 60th to my dad. Below with Annabelle and his dog, Sophie. He came up this weekend to celebrate with some bowling, lemon bars, cupcakes, ziti and lots of quality grandpa time for Ella and Alice.



He and Ella "acting cool". Nice try, guys.

Sore legs.

Sore legs. (from the hilly 7.5 mile long run @ 7:57 pace)

Sleepy eyes. (from the ever-coughing 6 month old alarm clock sleeping in between us.)

The only cure?

Some serious couch time, a diet sunkist, chocolate chip cookies and pizza. AND (fingers crossed) some good, hard, cough-free sleep tonight.

Gotta love Saturday nights.

11

11 is the (insanely large) number of doctor's appointments that we have had since last Tuesday.

Seriously.

SERIOUSLY.

Way too many.

1 for Mike for a run of the mill physical.
1 for me to get some antibiotics for a sinus infection.
2 for Ella for a cold that just was hanging on too long.
And the rest?
For my 6 month old (today...Happy Half Birthday, Alice!) sweet baby. Visit after visit to the pediatrician, ER, and finally the pediatric pulmonologist to deal with the just diagnosed Reactive Airway Disease (huh?)...all in addition to the croup, the double ear infection and the RSV-like virus she already had.

She just was not getting any better from that virus that she had last week. Poor kid just kept coughing and wheezing, and coughing and wheezing and repeat. Scared us silly. We are finally, finally feeling better about how she's doing. She's still sleeping with us and has to stay on her breathing treatments for the rest of the winter. And is now at an increased risk of having asthma...but today is the first day in a week that I am pretty sure that we are not going to be making any ER runs for Alice.

I feel like I can finally breathe easier now, too.

At one of her many appointments this week.