Pepper Spray

Today both of my sons had football games in the next town over. We all go as it is a total family and friends affair. The girls play with friends' that they don't see during the week, eat yucky food from the snack bar and cheer for their brothers'. Today though Siri provided some excitement to the game when she went into the car and just happened to spray my pepper spray in her eyes. Now you might be saying to yourself, "What is Rene' doing with pepper spray?" I have it for running. I am scared of animals in our rural area i.e. bear, fox, skunks and I run at 5 am sometimes and there are some crazies out here/there. Next thing you know I have a 10 year old girl (Siri) screaming because she has sprayed pepper spray in her eyes when she was showing it to her friend. I am so thankful that one of our friends and her mother are both ICU nurses and they immediately stepped into action flushing Siri's eyes out with bottled water for over 30 minutes. After we got her settled and she could see again, I had essentially missed Ben's game and Siri had caused a scene on the sidelines. All of the boys' kept asking if she was okay, what happended, which was all super kind, but I think my husband (who is the head coach) had just about had it at that point and "encouraged" the boys to focus on the game. After Siri felt better she went about her business going to the snack bar and playing. The best part of the ordeal, when my friend stopped Siri and asked her for the whole story she looked at her and said, "it's really complicated." Only Siri would have that answer. The real story, she was showing it to her friend, opened it and showed her how to spray it, then sprayed it on her hands and rubbed her eyes. Never a dull moment.

On a running note I took today off and will run 6 miles tomorrow. I am doing a little tapering this week as I am running the Applefest Half Marathon on Saturday.

Tired

I am tired today and a bit disappointed in myself. I got up to run this am and talked my friend Lynn into running 3 miles. We were supposed to go almost 6. I just did not have it in me. Between the 18 on Sunday and the 10 on Wednesday my legs are just TIRED and my mind is TIRED. Running, shuffling the kids around from school to activities and even just my daily stuff is catching up with me. So, I have decided to take Sunday off. Tomorrow I have an eight scheduled that I want to do and then Sunday I have nothing planned. Both of my boys have football games and the Pats are playing the Jets so I think that I will just take it easy that day and start from scratch on Monday. Anybody else tired today?

A 30 K and 6 boys

Yesterday my friend Michele and I ran the Nahant 30K. We were using it as a marathon training run and we thought it would be fun to do a "race" for the training. For those of you that don't know Nahant it is right on the coast of MA on the other side of Lynn. What a beautiful course. When you weren't running on the water, you were running through beautiful neighborhoods. One house that we passed had views of the beach from every part of the house. INCREDIBLE!!! The water stops were great, almost every 2 miles and the volunteers were super. The only down sides.....HILLS. Who knew that Nahant had so many hills? In fact when we were driving over I asked my friend if it was hilly and her response was, "of course not we are on the water." But, Manchester City Marathon is hilly so this was a good training. The other bad idea, you pass the finish line and then have to run a mile and a half loop before you finish. There is nothing worse than going past the finish line at the end of a race. I don't mind it at the beginning of the race, but definitely not at the end. So....our time was 2:54 which we felt great about! Our pace was great, although we probably should have run a bit slower, we got a bit caught up in the "race" aspect of it. But, all in all a fun time...

Now to what I came home to. 6 boys, 2 girls and 2 dads in the pool. (it was 65 degrees) The first person I see is Izzie clapping for me, then one of my favorite boys asks me, "Did you win?" My response, "Well, my time was good, and I got a medal, but I didn't win. The woman who won was really fast." He thought about this for a minute and then looked at me, "Well, I guess you better train harder." You have to love a nine year old boy.

Getting it Together

I am in the process of getting it together for tomorrow morning. I am running the Nahant 30K. It is a race put on for fall marathon training and since I am running a marathon in November I thought that this would be perfect. The problem with getting it together for an early morning departure is that I also have 4 kids that I have to get everything ready for. Both of my boys play Pop Warner football so I have all of their stuff out and laid out on their floor. The girls just have to go to the field and hang out which they are both pretty good at, but of course that means that I have to have Izzie's clothes ready to go and Siri will just take care of herself. Did I mention that my husband was a coach so Siri has to be somewhat responsible for Izzie which does not always go over well? I could go on and on about the other stuff I have to do, but I have decided to just do the best I can and hope everybody makes it out the door in one piece, including my husband who sometimes is more of a problem than the 4 kids. Happy Weekend everyone. Let me know some fun stuff that you are doing this weekend?

Running Alone

This morning I ran by myself, just me and my Garmin. I went to put on my i pod and it was dead again. I must not be turning it off. This is the second time this week that this has happened. I try so hard to enjoy running "naked,' but I have to admit it is just not for me. When I am running with someone or with music I either talk or tune out. When I have nothing it drives me crazy. My brain becomes a ADHD teenagers brain. It flits from one thing to the other so much so that it seems that my head is about to spin off. I run in order to get away from everything, but without music it seems as though I am taking it all with me. I can't stop thinking about my list or my calendar or my kids or my husband and this will go on the entire run. Let's just say there is a little shuffle plugged in to my computer right now and it will be working for Sunday.

A quick blurb about Sunday. I am running the Nahant 30 K on Sunday morning. I am super excited. I am running with my friend Michele. We are using it as a training run and plan to keep our pace at about 9:30. I am hoping to just finish. I know I did 16 just a few weeks ago, but 18.6? That is really far!

Failing

Two nights ago I took my test for the RRCA certification. I had taken the class to become a certified running coach. I printed out the test 2 weeks ago and have slowly worked on it when I had the time. I used my book, the computer, some old nursing books that I had and was feeling confident. I had always been a good test taker I kept telling myself and some of the answers I was completely sure about. Right? Well, needless to say, I failed. I got a 79 and you needed an 80 to pass. I had gone through it a couple of times and I had changed a couple of answers which typically I never do. I definitely was defeated. I have been feeling like I am having such a good year with my running, training and goals. This was what I felt was my next step in my running and I am now feeling a bit stagnant. So anyway....I am allowing myself the week to feel sad and next year I can take the class again for $100 cheaper. I will meet this goal and it will feel great when I do.

On a funny note, Siri is trying out for the Wizard of Oz at her school. If I hear "Somewhere over the Rainbow" one more time I might have to jump off of a rainbow. God love her, but she is definitely not the next Judy Garland. Happy Wednesday night everyone.

The Great Frog Escape

Wow! What a morning at the Warren house. Andy caught a frog to bring to school in his special bug/frog catcher and all was well in the world. It had grass, a little bit of water and some sort of berry in the container. Smiles all around. Smiles until Izzie picked up the container, dropped it on the floor and all of a sudden I have a frog hopping around the kitchen, a cat chasing it, Ben screaming, me screaming, Andy and Izzie crying and Siri finally catching the frog and calling us all crazy for screaming. This was supposed to be a great Friday morning. I didn't have to take Siri to school today, she luckily had the day off. I went for my run at 5:30 am, got a coffee, came home and got the kids ready etc...etc...instead it only takes one thing to throw everyone off. Chaos is not great sometimes and when you have a house with 4 kids it seems like there is ALWAYS chaos.

Now for my August numbers. Tall Mom Mel posted a challenge on her blog to run 80 miles the month of August. Well, I hit 80 alright, as a matter of fact I hit 132 for the month. I am midway through marathon training and feel great. Imagine these two legs ran 132 miles this month. It makes you realize how much you can do if you put your mind, heart and soul (and sole) into something that you are excited for. This marathon is my big challenge and it is keeping me going in all of my chaos.

Happy Friday!

Anyone affected by Earl? We might get some rain and wind:)