Needing an update

Marty told me he wanted me to update my blog, which I found to be a funny request since he lives with me and should know everything that's going on. But here goes.

When we last talked, we had just gotten back from the Dominican Republic.  That Sunday I did my longest run (14 miles) in preparation for the half marathon I have next weekend and it went all right.  I negative split it and although my paces were not stellar, they were not horrible. I was still thinking breaking 1:30 would be doable. Fast forward to the next day and my *hip* was really bothering me.  After some self assessment I determined that it's really my glute medius - a very common weak muscle in runners/triathletes.  I now see a pattern that when I go over 12 miles at harder paces I end up with issues. It's just not a correlation I totally realized because I hardly ever run that long.  So I've been dealing with this ever since; missing runs here and there and overall seeing my goal times disappearing and adjusting my outlook to have a fun weekend (which it will be, the posse going to the race is all fun).  My plan is to get through this as best as possible, then take a short time off from running to allow it to rest before I focus in on specific exercises to get that muscle stronger and able to endure longer distances without weakening.

Gaal, party of 3, ran in one of the local Turkey Trot's although if you search you won't find us in any of the results. Marty had originally signed up for the Skinny Turkey half marathon but after his foot injury asked to be switched to the 5K. For whatever reason, he wasn't switched and because of the timing of the two races he didn't want to cross the line since it would look like he had a super awesome half marathon time.  We got to the race with not a whole lot of time to spare and as we're in line to pick up our packets Marty asked, "You registered for this, right?"  I looked at him and gave a very eloquent, "Uhhhhhhh.....I thought you registered me?" Fail. So because my hip was being obnoxious and I didn't have a whole lot of time to get back to the car for my checkbook, I just ran with Marty and Logan, went ahead a little for some short tempo, and stopped before the finish line.

I will be asleep in 3...2...

That afternoon we headed on over to our friends house for orphan Thanksgiving which has become a tradition.  Logan looooooved Thanksgiving dinner.

He's also cuter than Jesse Thomas.

All right, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!

Double points for knowing the movie quote above (googling doesn't count). 

Here are some more recent pictures of the little guy in no particular order. He is loving Tassie now, handing her toys and trying to play ball with her (in the house, of course).

In our backyard

Gimme that ball

Come on, gimme!!

This place has so much stuff!

Here's a tiny leaf for you, mom

Think I'll take a break

Spider monkey (where are my Twilight fans?!)

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Dominican Republic

One of our very good friends from Orlando, Dan, got married last Thursday in the Dominican Republic. In a tribute to how awesome he is (and his wife), this destination wedding had 100 people at it. Grandma flew up to watch Logan for us and Marty and I flew to Punta Cana by way of Atlanta early Wednesday morning.

Happy New Year 2006! This guy is off the market, ladies.

Punta Cana, as far away from Haiti as possible

This was the first time Marty and I had ever stayed in an all-inclusive resort, and it did not disappoint. It didn't hurt that a bunch of our friends had flown down to eat, drink and be merry through the weekend. There was this little bothersome feeling I had deep down about the juxtaposition of being in 'paradise' in a 3rd world country developing country (apparently 3rd world is not a word that is used anymore. who knew.) And then to also know that Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the entire world was right next door. I tried not to let this bother me too much as I got my pina colada's at the swim up bar.

It was seriously a good time. I did very little running/working out. We did do 20min of water aerobics one day which was led by a pretty ripped Dominican named James Bond. Marty also won a swimming contest where he traveled across the pool the furthest distance underwater before coming up for air. This earned him the nickname of "Greg Louganis" from one confused vacationer, while another person tried to decide if he was even going to try since the "Merman" already won.

All you can eat; all you can drink

Not a bad place for a wedding

All the single ladies, all the single ladies

Dan sweating it out waiting for his bride

I'm sure it's a good idea to stand in my speedo next to this beautiful wedding

Da Gaal's

Dancing to their first song, it was not Gangnam Style as someone had guessed

Ed & Andi, we hung out with these fellow NC'ers a lot

Fire dancers

"You have no idea how good the wind feels on my chest." You're right, I don't, Pat

Our group started early and ended late at the pool bar on Friday. I'm in the green tube.

We had a great time down there and it was nice to have a mini vacation away - although we really did miss Logan a whole lot. No more traveling for us until St. Pete tri camp at the end of February.

We got home really late on Saturday (actually Sunday) and I was the last one up in the morning. Logan was at the bottom of the stairs with grandma and when I said, "Hi Logan," he whipped around and exclaimed, "Mama!!" Heart. Melt.  He had been saying those sounds recently but I really couldn't determine that they were at me - so this was the first real intentional mama I had gotten :)

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Walking Problems

The problem with walking when you're a baby is you fall down a lot. And you brake your fall with your face. Case in point:

He tripped at daycare and landed on the side of a little bookshelf. I'd say we are averaging 1 accident report a week right now. We went to the nearest Urgent Care and they glued and taped him up.

I'm just wondering if the scar is going to cause him to look like Vanilla Ice when his eyebrows come in.


Yo, VIP! Let's kick it!

 In other news, I got a new Ipod! My original Ipod (to be clear, this was actually 'Our' Ipod, but I totally appropriated it. Kind of like I did with the Kindle. I am the youngest, whaddya want.) was 7 years old, totally full and finally bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. It was really annoying to have to delete songs off when I wanted a new song. Anyways, I received a brand new one in the mail, with a note that read: "I am not always not listening. love Marty" And it wasn't even my birthday!

In other, other news, I ran a 10K yesterday morning that was part of the Raleigh City Oaks Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. As expected, I felt not all that great after coming off of whatever the heck I had last week. But, I did go much faster than I was really expecting, particularly considering the course was up and down and up and down. Actually, the first 2 miles were mostly down so those splits were fast and easy, then the ups killed me and I'm pretty sure each mile got slower and slower which is very atypical with how I usually race. Since all the fast people do the 1/2 or full (there is some $$), I ended up winning the 10K. They start all races together and I certainly felt weird 'winning' since there were several girls ahead of me -- running much further than I was!  Bottom line, I have some serious cramming to do if I want to feel good during the Kiawah 1/2 marathon. Because right now I am not strong at all.

But it was a fun morning - I got some good Kari time, which I haven't had very much of recently, and we knew a bunch of people from the group we often do our track workouts with who were all running.

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Logan on the move

A little over a week ago, Logan took his first steps by himself. Marty was squatting down and Logan had a hold of his knee, then let go and took two very wobbly baby steps into daddy. We were all there to witness and it was pretty exciting :)

Over the following week, he became braver about letting go of the couch and trying to walk to the ottoman (which is very close by) and then this past weekend he started taking many steps in a row. Crawling is still his preferred method since it's way easier and faster, but if he's standing up he'll try and walk.

One thing he is still doesn't have much of is teeth! He cut his bottom two teeth right at 6 months old and it kind of looks like at least one of his top teeth is about to poke through, but that's it. Still okay with me because that means less brushing and a very cute gummy smile.

He smiles and laughs a lot and is pretty easy going whenever we take him anywhere. He does seem to have a strong personality and will let you know if he objects to something. Like changing him into his pajama's. I have no idea why he hates this so much. The second you pick him back it's as if nothing was wrong.

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Downward Spiral

It's so true that you really appreciate your health when you're not feeling well. Things got weird on Wednesday. I was feeling, there's no other way to describe it, 'off.' I drove to Umstead to do a run workout and when I got out of my car I had this overwhelming desire to NOT run. It was a beautiful day and I didn't have time to workout the day before so there was no reason for this. But then I started running and it went downhill fast. I was having bad chest pains, not really crampy pains but something totally different and I was just not feeling good. After 5min I turned around and walk/jogged back to my car. This is so not like me! It was almost like I was on auto-pilot. I went home and set up on the couch with my computer. I was fortunate enough to be able to work from home that day.

Thursday morning I woke not feeling any better. I went into work and by noon I was shivering so badly and feeling so horrible that I decided to call it a day. I went home and bundled up, got under the covers and turned the heat on. I had my work computer set up next to me so I could answer any urgent emails. I knew I had a fever and doing all this was not going to help but I was so cold! Marty got home in the afternoon (he had been down in Miami for a couple of days) and took my temperature: 102.8! No wonder I felt so crummy.

I really wish there was some way to take a bunch of drugs that will knock you out when you're feeling like this. They always say rest and fluids are the most important things, so I say, put me under with an IV drip so I don't have to actually feel all this and not be able to rest or get any fluids down. Michael Jackson's doctor was onto something (minus the dying part).

Now I am on day 4 of no working out, and I'm totally turning into that athlete that is all "OMG I'm am so slow and out of shape and my races are going to be horrible and why bother blah blah blah" It does sort of stink that I am signed up for a 10K next weekend. I'll still do it but I'll definitely have to adjust the goals.

Ok, time for Logan pictures.

I took him to a local pumpkin patch last weekend (Marty was down in Wilmington cheering for people at B2B). I could not for the life of me get this kid to look at me and smile! It was like he was going out of his way to not look at me. And when he did, he would have the most ridiculous look on his face, as you'll see. In his defense, he was pretty tired and ended up taking 5hrs worth of naps (!) He doesn't nap well at daycare and seems to want to catch up on the weekends.

This is better

He was very excited the other night when he was eating

And he fairly recently started waving and clapping (I was waving at him behind the camera)

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Photo with Ramses

It was a little late because we were traveling on Logan's actual 10 month 'birthday' but I still tried to take a picture of him and his stuffed Ramses.  This didn't go so well. He would not stop moving! I posted one to the "Logan Month by Month" in the facebook album, but here are all of them.

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Long Weekend Trip

Packing for a trip with a 10 month old is no joke. I felt like I was packing for two days straight. I am told it does get easier as they get a little older - right now you have to think of all sorts of contingencies while traveling (hunger, diaper changes, toys, extra outfits, etc etc). I love flying Southwest; everything just seems so much easier with them. Unfortunately, Southwest doesn't yet fly into Pensacola so we were on Delta, with a layover in Atlanta. I swear, their 'zone' boarding takes 3 times as long as Southwest.

Logan was spoiled rotten by my sister and her family while Marty and I went to Tallahassee for the weekend. I'm pretty sure they liked him, but he's very hard not to like :)

In Tallahassee we got to reunite with our Aussie friends, John and Bron. They were featured heavily in Trippin' 06 (our trip around the world where we hung out in Australia for 4 months, 2 weeks of which was at there house). Bron brought Logan a kangaroo stuffed animal which will be hard to keep away from Tassie. She also brought me two bags of TimTams and a very cute Lorna Jane running top.

We had a lot of fun in Tallahassee, reuniting with Marty's former teammates for a swimming reunion. At the game, they were recognized on the field during a timeout and they let the wives and kids go down there, too. So neat to be on the field in a packed Doak Campbell Stadium!



A static picture of the tomahawk chop never comes out very good



Bron and I on the field!



Logan has discovered the fun game of throwing things on the ground



Cousin Haileigh was great with Logan



Amie the dog is very old, but she had a new lease on life with a baby constantly dropping food on the floor.



Logan spent a lot of time napping; the Houser's tired him out!



More shopping?!



They went to look at one of Haileigh's prospective high school's...Logan was not impressed.



For kind of a skinny baby, he always tries to eat everyone else's food.

And on the workout front for me, mainly I'm running with about one swim a week. Enough for it to never feel very good ;) Running has been going well - I had a great long run the other week and some solid workouts, but this past weekend was kind of a bust. I'm hoping to get back on track. I'm doing a cross country 5K this weekend, a 10K in a couple of weeks, another 5K on Thanksgiving and then the half marathon in Kiawah, SC in early December.

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