NON-RACE-RELATED NOLA ADVENTURES

Poboys for dinner with Katie and Desi on our first night in town:

Alex reading to Desi, James, Manu, and Cora (we all did lots of reading over the weekend, when the kids weren't racing cars up and down the hallway):

James, trying to keep daddy in bed

 James, Will, and Cora at the NOLA Children's Museum:

 Manu and James dancing in front of the color screen at the museum:

 James grabbed a BIG snack on the way back to the car after the museum:

 James, Manu, and Cora playing around in the apartment we rented:

Manu, Cora, and James driving their cars around the coffee table while Jean instructed them with "Red light! Green light!" to keep them from running each other over:

After the race on Sunday, the guys ordered pizza using an iPad (to locate an open, nearby restaurant), a magnetic drawing board (to record everyone's pizza choice), and a little attitude (or maybe a lot of attitude...)

 Cora was absolutely terrible to get to sleep every night (honestly sweetheart, the worst attitude we've ever had from you...), and she barely napped, but when she did she crashed hard (and very late in the afternoon unfortunately, which didn't help our bedtime struggles):

We obviously couldn't visit NOLA without having breakfast at Cafe Du Monde. Us adults drank 2 orders of cafe au laits each, the kids had hot chocolate, and I think we went through 5 orders of beignets. Cora preferred to just eat her sugar with a spoon...

Sorry I didn't take more photos of our trip... we were crazy busy with race prep and race day festivities, and my camera is still on the outs (so these are all from my cell phone). We really did have a great weekend, and it wasn't ALL about racing. Considering we shared an apartment with 8 adults (we had 2 grandmas along for the ride!) and 6 kids aged 7-months to 4-years, I'd say we all fared pretty well. Perhaps not in the sleep department (especially since poor Lauren was sick and kept her mama and daddy up all night, every night), but we had fun and the kids couldn't have been happier to have their buddies around 24/7 for a few days. Of course, my favorite Jamesism from the trip is when we returned to the apartment from the Children's Museum, after having been apart from Manu for MAYBE an hour. Manu ran up to James and said "I've been looking for you!" and James replied with "I'm SO glad to see you!" That pretty much sums it up - a good, long weekend adventure with our good friends. And we couldn't have raced (and trained) without their help, so it was especially nice to be able to share the entire experience with them. Thanks again you guys (and you grandmas!) for making the weekend the best it could be!

ROCK'N'ROLL NOLA!

We trained for 12+ weeks, planned every last detail of race day, and headed down to NOLA for a long weekend of anticipation, racing, and recovery. Rock'n'Roll New Orleans has now come and gone, and I couldn't be more proud of myself, my husband, and my friends.

At the expo with our "swag bags"

Playing skeeball to win some swag

The kiddos dressed up for the Green Screen

The night before the race, everything set out and ready to go

5:30am on race day and ready to head out (many thanks to Alex for the starting line drop-off)

In front of Corral 11 (the 2:15 pace group) with Dave (go team kilts!)

Christina and Sophie nearing the starting line

Posing with the bagpipes at mile 8.4

Growling out the final mile (picture from Katie)

Crossing the finish line and SO happy to be done!

 
The kilts earned us lots of extra cheers along the route. Jay and I stuck together through mile 11.5, and ran with Dave off and on (he kept our 10:00/mile goal pace while we walked the water stations and stopped for a potty break at mile 7 for a few minutes). The course started downtown, went out to the Garden District (along St. Charles to Audubon Park), came back through the French Quarter, then the final 5K took us up Esplanade to City Park. Around mile 11.5 Jay's knee started to give out, so I pushed forward to aim for my 2:15 time goal. By mile 12 I got my second wind, and even though my knees and ankles and feet were hurting bad, I pulled out that final mile at a 9:00 pace. With only a tenth of a mile to go though I almost hit the wall, and I hadn't felt that type of exhaustion since high school track. I definitely gave it everything I had in me! I was so tired when I crossed the finish line that my hands were completely numb (too bad my legs weren't!) and I pretty much just stood there waiting for Jay, as the other finishers folded around me. I even forgot to stop my Garmin (oh well though, I never stopped it for the potty break either). My official time was 2:15:41 and my Garmin "moving time" (minus some of the potty break perhaps?) was 2:14:10, so I'm calling it a goal met. Jay showed up just a couple minutes later (his official time was 2:18:22) and we limped over to the finishers photo area with our medals.

Although we didn't run with anyone other than Dave (we lost Sophie and Christina in the crazy crowd at the starting line, though they were right behind us at every turn, as my phone alerts attested to), I had to borrow some photos of our friends for the blog. Here are Sophie and Christina, Jenny and Sandy, Ashley (who also ran the full marathon like Sophie, and rocked it with a 3:45 finish time!), and Amy (our spin instructor, who runs a marathon every month of the year, but did the half at RNR NOLA since she'd just run a marathon 2 weeks prior).  

Most of the half marathoners (missing Dave and Amy) at the family gathering spot (V for Vicksburg!)

Those final miles may have hurt, but we sure had fun out there on the course together!

Jean came out to meet us at the finish with the kids (pushing the double jogger over 3 miles round trip so they could cheer us on at mile 12.5, which was extremely motivating to keep me sprinting that final half mile!), and James was cracking us up pretending to be Batman with Jay's heat wrap - he showed any stranger who glanced his way!

After we hung out, stretched, iced Jay's knee, refueled, and drank our free beers, we got the alert that Sophie passed mile 20. Soon after that, we started getting things together to meet her at the finish. I went down to mile 26 to snap a photo before she hit the finish line, and seeing her coming in, completely emotional over the feat of running 26.2 miles, had me in tears. I'm proud of all of us, but I'm especially amazed at the strength Sophie displayed. And I'm pretty sure there is a full marathon in mine and Christina's future some day (Christina finished her race with a giant smile and told me "I feel GREAT!" - she trained well, ran smart, and stayed positive the entire race even though she'd only slept a few hours all week long due to a sick little Lauren - that's a tough mama!).

Speaking of those cute kids... Here are Will and Lauren, Desi (he and his mama Katie live in NOLA and we were able to meet up with them a few times over the weekend), Cora and James, and Leo and Manu after we'd collected Sophie and properly congratulated her

Recovery has been as I expected, other than my knees. They never hurt, even after my longer long runs (10, 11, and 12 miles), so I'm wondering if my pre-race massage/stretch (in which my legs were a bit contorted by the masseuse) tweaked something. My ankles hurt, but they usually do (since I'm still building up strength as a barefoot/minimalist runner), and my calve/quad soreness is completely normal (always happens after a race or speedwork). I'm looking forward to another massage tomorrow, and continued icing and foam rolling this week, without any running, in the hopes that I'm good as new by Sunday. (BACON socks courtesy of Robyn and Stephen, of course - LOVE THEM!)

UPDATE: The massage helped immensely this morning, and I learned that it's super important to ice/massage BEHIND the knees after a race because those muscles/tendons tend to tighten up and make everything below hurt (calves, ankles, feet), not to mention wrapping front around to create sore knees. That is why my ankles hurt so often, because I never ice or massage or foam roll BEHIND my knees. That changes now, of course. Fingers crossed that future races will have faster recovery times!

All in all, it was a great experience and one that I know I'll repeat many times in the coming years (I plan to stay "half ready" as far as my training goes, so that I can register and run a half anytime I please). Hopefully with this initiation half marathon behind me I'll continue to improve my form and increase my speed (and remember to rest more the day before a race - we did a bit too much walking and carrying around preschoolers on our bellies/backs on Saturday at the expo and around town...), and keep on running with my Jay and my friends. It's an awesome feeling! As for my next race? I'm skipping Vicksburg's Run Through History this year (since it's this weekend - I'm still too sore to think about racing this soon and James has his first ever soccer game that morning, plus his birthday party in the afternoon), but will likely register for a trail race later in March. Now I just need to decide, do I do the 10-miler or the 25K?...

I know most of you are completely uninterested in my Garmin results, but I'm posting them here because I like to see my splits. Mile 1 was slow because we were literally running elbow-to-elbow with thousands of  our newest running buddies and side stepping around walkers (not zombies, but folks who obviously started in the wrong corral). You can see my pace drop at the water stops we walked (stationed every 1.5-2 miles, though we ran through the first one) and the potty break (mile 7), as well as our stop with the bagpipes (mile 8.4, with another water stop just after it). Split 14 was slow because I forgot to stop the watch when I crossed the finish line and just stood there shuffling around for a couple minutes. You can also see the complete lack of elevation change at this race, something we're not used to in hilly Vicksburg, and something that probably made our legs a little extra sore/tired (though we tried to alter our pace and gait occasionally, and purposely walked the water stops to change up the leg muscles we were using). My heart rate is a reflection of Jay's, not mine (since he was wearing the monitor and was by my side through 95% of the race).

There were a lot of funny posters along the route, my favorite being "The NOLA Marathon: it may be BIG, but it ain't EASY!" Others included "At least NOLA is flat!" and "Worst Parade Ever!" Crowd support for this race was awesome (as to be expected in a large city, especially one that like any excuse to party) and we certainly appreciated all the cheerleaders that motivated us along the way!

"ENJOY YOUR KIDS"

As I was getting off the phone with Robyn recently, she said "I'll talk to you again soon, go enjoy your kids." She's been so brave and so very strong, I've been amazed each time I've spoken with her, but that doesn't reduce or eliminate the stress and worry that I know my best friend is going through. Those words have stuck with me though: "Enjoy your kids." My being sad or moping isn't going to help Christopher get better, and it doesn't make it any easier on Robyn or Stephen either. Instead, what I need to do (and what we all need to do) is pray for him while being positive and hopeful, and also not take for granted the health of our own kids. We need to let the little frustrations go and break the unimportant rules now and then, cherish the special moments and be fully present. It's not hard to do that, but it's easy to get into a routine that doesn't support it. So this long weekend (we were off today for President's Day), we decided to stay home together, plug in less, and play with our kids more. We enjoyed going for walks in the neighborhood, riding bikes, swinging on the playset, collecting leaves and sticks and building a fire, putting puzzles together, drawing with chalk in the driveway, eating lazy late breakfasts, spoiling the kids with their favorite foods and treats, dancing and wrestling, coloring for hours at the kitchen table, teaching them random tidbits and encouraging their curiosity, snuggling on the couch for a few movies, reading extra books and singing extra songs, staying with them at naptime and bedtime until they fell asleep, or even snoozing alongside them, breathing in their sweetness while they cuddled tight in our arms and told us they loved us (is there any better feeling?!), and smiling when they ran upstairs squealing to join us in bed in the morning. It's been a wonderful weekend, slowing down and just enjoying each other. We need more weekends like this. We are so blessed to have these children.

A LOVELY DAY

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last night Jay and I put together the kids' Valentine goodies... 

James and Cora's Valentines: cute bags with a few chocolates and JellyBellies from their parents, and the many cards they received from their grandparents and great-grandparents.

Valentines for Cora to give to her school friends

Valentines for James to pass out to his buddies at school

Cora's Valentine collection box from last year, making it's second appearance

(Our little 20-month-old Cora adding the hearts to her Valentines box last February)

James' Valentine collection box (I put a little more forethought and effort into it this year and he was thrilled!)

(His last minute fabric-covered glue-mess debacle from last year)

 This morning the kids opened their goodie bags while Daddy made pink heart pancakes and bacon for breakfast (yum!)

Please note that I received THREE boxes of chocolate this year. Jay and the kids each picked a box. I must have a chocoholic reputation or something...

Of course, the best part wasn't the chocolate. It was the cards. Especially the one from James, for which he wrote ALL BY HIMSELF WITHOUT TRACING "Mom" and "James". And who doesn't love Yoda wishing them a Happy Birthday Valentine's Day? The card lights up and plays the Star Wars theme. I'm pretty sure James wants it back (he picked it himself, of course, and actually told me all about it last night - preschoolers definitely don't understand the concept of a secret!)

 Cora wrote her name and her card too (with some assistance from daddy with the R) and I was equally impressed. Cora loves to spell her name for me and anyone else who will listen. They've both been SO good about their seat work lately and are being super careful with their tracing. I just didn't know they could write their letters (other than J, anyway) freehand without tracing. I admit I teared up realizing how big they're both getting...

 Mmmm, breakfast is ready!

James: "Thank you for making us yummy pancakes daddy!"

Cora: "Pinka pinka pink I said!" (quoting Pinkalicious, of course).

Then mama had to rush off to work, so daddy grabbed a picture of the kids in their Valentine's/ChristmasRed shirts holding their Valentine boxes before they loaded up in the van. He reported that the kids were super excited to go to school and pass out their Valentines, and eat lots of "treats" and chocolate at their party today.

And party they did! Just like last year, we ordered candygrams for the kids (and their best friend Manu, and their teachers), and they came home with a lot of sweets. And the sugar high to go with them. It's cool though - Valentine's Day only comes once a year.

After school we hit the gym, then the park. Unfortunately, only James played the 30 minutes at the park (before it got cold and dark), since Cora fell asleep in the car (I assume her nap was shortened due to the sugar intake today).

After the park we met Daddy at OrangeLeaf for yet more sugar...

Don't worry, we fed them a healthy pizza dinner to make up for all the treats. And got them to bed no later than an hour(ish) past their usual bedtime. Hope everyone else enjoyed some sweetness today as well. We love you all!