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Monday, January 30, 2012

Half Marathon Training Week 5

Keeping it short this week.  We ran 8 miles Saturday and it went pretty smoothly.  No pain on my part and we kept pace with each other.  We made a decision that our long runs need to be outside from now on because 8 miles is about all we can handle on a treadmill. 

How we feel this week:  Great! Almost halfway there!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Running update

As you know I went to the orthopedic surgeon on Friday to get my hip checked out.  He x-rayed my hip and thank goodness nothing is broken.  He took me through an exam. Asked how long we've been running? What kind of shoes I am wearing? He asked all of the questions I'd anticipated he'd ask and then told me I needed to cut back on my running until I healed.  He did say that I needed to do other cardio to keep up the cardiovascular part of my training, perhaps biking.  He doesn't feel like I have bursitis but that I've strained a muscle around my hip and that I need to rest it to allow it to heal.  He also referred me for physical therapy to work on building up my muscles.  

I was really disappointed and planned to still try and run or at least bike over the weekend.  When I went to the gym and sat down at the bike, I started having pain in my lower back. I decided I'd try to run and my back was just bothering me too much, so I ended up walking for an hour.  I didn't do anything on Sunday and just kind of moped around pretty sad about my situation.  

On Monday, I had my first appointment with the physical therapist.  I'd made it through the rest of the weekend without having any pain but my lower back or hip but that morning my back bothered me pretty significantly.  I took our training plan to the PT and asked if I'd be able to continue training and he said we'd see.  He walked me through a variety of stretches to determine where my pain was coming from and he determined that I have unspecified back pain (which is radiating to my hip) and walked me though a few exercises to help build the muscles in my back.  He also said I could continue running as long as I have no pain!!!!  I was super excited.  I've been doing my exercises along with running and have been pain free all day today.  Hopefully this continues as we continue our training plan. 

We had a one week buffer in our plan so we are repeating this past week and staying on track.  I feel like we are on track as long as we remain free of any further setbacks. 


NOT NICE!!!

These words have become quite popular in our house.  We hear them probably 25-50 times a day. 


"N, not nice!!" 
"L, not nice!!" 
"Daddy, not nice!!" 
"Mommy, not nice!!!"  
"Dog, not nice!!!"

The girls are at an age where the daycare is teaching them to get a long with other kids and they are told when they are not nice.  Around our house it quickly became a battle cry.  When they each want the same toy.  When the dog is sniffing around if they have food.  When they don't like what we are doing.  EVERYTHING is not nice.  

It's hilarious and frustrating at the same time.  We didn't know so many things could be not nice.  I'm sure as time goes by but we are definitely fascinated to see how their vocabularies grow further and what the next popular phrase will be :)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Funnies for today

While Greg and I were eating breakfast this morning I heard L stirring in our bed - she has a cold and ended up coming to bed with us early in the morning we could get a little more sleep.  I started towards the room to get her and all of a sudden she came running by, ran to her slide, climbed up and slid down with excitement.  I looked at Greg and said that was the best way to start the day EVER!!





Tonight N decided she was going to practice her balance on her own personal sized balance ball :)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Half Marathon Training Week 4

We successfully completed week 4 of half marathon training.  Nothing major to report.  We were blessed and Miss B from daycare will be coming over to watch the girls for us every Saturday morning so we can put in our long runs together.  We had a 7 mile run on Saturday that was fairly easy and ran a total of 17 miles this week.

My bursitis flared up after the run but that did not surprise me.  It also flared up today as I did a 45 minute walk.  The nice thing about it is that while I am in pain on occasion it has never been so bad I cannot run and it has stayed the same over time.  I have an appointment with an Orthopedic physician on Friday to see if there is anything we can do about it.  It is not terribly painful, just more of a nuisance at this point.  I will update next week on our plan after my appointment.  I hope he doesn't tell me I can't run because we will both be pretty bummed.

How we feel about training this week:  Pretty good, definitely on track for success. 

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Half Marathon Training Week 3

We had a pretty successful third week of training for our half marathon in a couple months.  Our weekday regimen is fairly consistent from week to week.  Run 3 miles Tuesday and Thursday and 4 miles on Wednesday.  This goes up to 4 and 5 miles respectively when we get closer to race time but as a whole it is pretty easy to remember.  We are supposed to rest Monday and Friday, I've been walking 30 minutes on these days to keep active but nothing otherwise and on the weekends we have a long run on Saturday and cross training on Sunday.  This week our long run was 6 miles.  We split up the time and both ran in the gym separately.  We do this in the evenings after the girls go to bed during the week and it works out well.  

Today, we decided we would go for a 5 mile walk and enjoy the weather.  While we were walking we decided we might ask our sitter Miss B if she can come over on Saturday mornings so we can do our long run together instead of having to plan it around both of us every week as it gets longer and longer it will end up taking 3-4 hours on a Saturday and with twoddlers (twin toddlers) this is not really ideal and we don't want to lose a lot of time with the girls for our running.  Hopefully, we can work something out with her.  

How we are feeling about training:  Pretty good.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Day at the Park

Today was a beautiful day so we decided to take the girls on a trip to the park. Here are some pictures of the fun we had!





They went down the slide about 20-30 times!


N carried her water bottle around for awhile.


Taking a quick sip!


There's Mommy!




Playing in the sand


Sliding with Mom & Dad





Friday, January 6, 2012

Mmm, oatmeal!

We've been really focused on improving our diet so we can impart good habits on our girls.  Last weekend we went to Trader Joes to see what we could pick up that would be interesting and different and we picked up some quick cooking steal cut oatmeal.  I didn't think there was any such thing so I thought we'd give it a whirl.  It is our new favorite breakfast.  The girls even took some to daycare for breakfast and ate every bite.  If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend giving it a try.  We sweeten it up with a little bit of brown sugar, maple syrup & a couple pecans. 


Monday, January 2, 2012

Chatter

The girls have really started chatting up a storm in the past 3-4 weeks.  Here are some things we hear them say:
  • NOOO (emphatically to the dog who is following them around for food)
  • Uh oh!  (every time something falls on the floor, whether it was on purpose or not)
  • Nayee (L saying Miss N's name when we ask who she is)
  • Melmo!  (Elmo!!)
  • Dog - They love April
  • Bull (when L is looking for her Mr. Bill)
  • Shoes
  • Bay-be (when playing with their new baby dolls)
  • Nana (looking for a banana - man these kids love their fruit)
  • Mama (milk, water, mommy, more)
  • Peese (please, they also sign please)
  • Bu-ffa-lo (whenever football is on!)
There is a lot of other random talking that we can't quite distinguish yet but with every passing day their speech gets more and more clear.  

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!!

Greg and I made to midnight last year for what we think might be the first time since we've been together, we aren't sure.  We've set some goals for the new year.  Here are a couple:

1. Run a half marathon by the end of March.  We are currently training for the AHA mini March 18th. 
2. Continue our weight loss journey.  I'd like to lose 20 more pounds by April 1st & Greg would like to lose 15 pounds by the same date.  Then he will be at his goal weight, all maintenance from there!!
3. Blog more!  I'm going to attempt to blog once every 3-4 days so we don't lose our ability to capture some of the great moments with the girls.  Greg is going to post on our postereous page everyday. 

Good luck to everyone else on their new year's goals and I hope everyone has a prosperous and exciting 2012.