This week was my first week since my calf injury that I was able to run 5 days. My coach is definitely taking my history of injuries seriously and building me from the ground up. I really appreciate that. When hiring a new coach, I was intimidated and afraid to admit that I couldn't do something. This is partly why my first few weeks ended in disaster. I was in pain and didn't speak up. I kept running through it hoping I'd turn a corner. Now, I'm realizing this isn't like some of those college programs out there that you either can handle it or you can't. This is individualized personal training, and I've honestly never experienced it before. I am in this position where I feel like I need to prove myself, and while I know that that feeling is in my head, it actually motivates me. The coach I worked with after college was an assistant coach from the college program, so he knew what I could do already. After I got injured and pregnant we lost touch, and I had my husband coach me for a year since I had so many new variables... Now I'm coached by Pardon Ndhlovu from McKirdy Trained. It's the first time I found a coach rather than the coach found me.... So it has a bit of a different vibe and I think it's been good for me. So far I've been really impressed with the patience, and responsiveness, and the shared belief in even my most far fetched (but NOT far fetched ) goals. #believe
This week I started off solo parenting to continue last weeks challenge. I had a personal goal of maintaining patience. I was starting to feel under the weather toward the end of last week and because of that I was quick to snap at students and my children. I wrote patience on the board for my students so that they, too, could help me achieve my goal by practicing being patient themselves. I notice that when I start losing patience that is when everything starts falling apart. So even though in the very moment it feels impossible to keep my cool due to lack of energy, I had to tell myself that in the end, losing my cool costs me much, much, more. 
Monday 30 mins, 3.6miles, 8:14/mi: Once upon a time my toddler slept in. It was a dream. Going to bed early, sleeping in late... Gone are the days.... Now, I get an early (for me) wake up call ranging from 5:30-6:30... If I"m lucky I get to sleep until 7:00... but either way, our treadmill is in the garage, so if Matt isn't home I'm running at night. I just simply can't predict what time I should wake up to start running to be sure I'm done before Raea is up. This was particularly long day because I had a staff meeting right after school as well, but I went to bed early Sunday so I was feeling renewed. The end of solo parenting was in sight!
Tuesday: Surprise Morning run! 5 miles, 40 minutes, 8:30/mi It was supposed to be 50's and rainy today, but the morning started off with black ice and a 2 hour delay. My school is the last tier so some schools in my district start nearly 2 hours earlier than I do. This made me feel like the ice on the roads would be mostly clear for me to run. I had a babysitter coming to the house anyway, so that's what I did. I started really slow and it was slick in spots to begin with, but by the end it was just rain. Cold, wet, rain... (which is what I like!) I rushed around to get to work on time and was really really relieved to have this done. Taking another treadmill run out of the equation really renewed how I was feeling about finishing up the solo parenting days.
Main roads weren't *that* icy, The video below is from a few towns over... Needless to say I took it slow! Day 9
Wednesday: 1 hour on the bike: Another 2 hour delay. I actually didn't believe it... but after buses crashing all over yesterday, I think most places were being overly cautious. I had a cross training day today, anyway. So I got some awesome morning snuggles! I even got to work a little early so I could take care of some report cards and have one less thing to do as the week progressed. Matt also surprised me letting me know that he was coming home one day earlier... So THATS A WRAP! No more solo parenting this week (technically Thursday morning until the babysitter comes, but Matt will be home in the afternoon)! Not going to lie though.... this was the hardest one hour of exercise I've done in a long time.
Fighting illness, tired AF, didn't want to do this... but DAY 10. Solo Parenting is OVER!
Thursday: 45 minutes, 5 miles: Sneakerama fun run! I can't even tell you how nice it was to have my husband home and to be able to meet people for a run! I ran with Barbara McManus for the whole run. Somewhere around 8:50 pace. Part of me wants to run fast all the time and show all my progress, but I know that that is not how improvement happens so I was happy to take it a little easier.
The cold doesn't bother us anyway!
Friday: 40 minutes with Fartlek. 5.5 miles, 7:22/mi: I was committed to making this day about me. After Matt was gone for 10 days, today I just wanted to relax... and by relax I mean get a really good run in and then do 75 minutes of yoga. I felt unbelievably smooth on this run. I think the combination of Matt being home and the fact that it's Friday and I was done work for the week (also had all my lesson plans and progress reports completed so I didn't need to do any thing over the weekend) had me feeling a huge sense of relief and freedom. My body felt it. Below is the data with the fartlek sections at the end.
Saturday: OFF Its so much harder to get motivated to do anything when I have the day off from running. However, I did do all my drills and bought myself some more liquid Iron and B12 to get my numbers back in the normal range. After getting my period back I could tell I must be hovering in the low normal or just below normal range. Also, I really have no idea why I don't buy this stuff off of amazon. SO MUCH CHEAPER! Pretty sure I paid like $40 at the vitamin shoppe. Whoops.
Sunday: 10 Miles, 7:48/mi: Brought my girls over to my moms today so Matt could meet a client to run and I could get my own run in. I wanted to run alone today, actually. I thought running with Matt would be nice but I was thinking it would be easier to honor my body if I'm by myself. I really want to make sure I can listen to any of the messages my own body will send me. I think at this phase I don't really have an established "easy" or "hard" pace. Once I add volume and workouts what feels easy today might not tomorrow... but for now, I'm pretty excited to genuinely feel great at sub 8 pace after a day off.
Total Mileage: 29.3
Drills: 3x Yoga: 1x R8: Daily Average sleep: 6:45 (not consecutive)
Overall, another good week. I've definitely got some momentum on my side. I proved to myself that I'm capable of doing this even with my husband gone (but please don't leave me during peak week!) Maebel will be starting solids hopefully this week or next which should improve my sleep situation a bit. Some days are great others not so much... it's really inconsistent still. One thing I really learned while Matt was gone is that I have to be insanely flexible with the when and the where I work out. Some days I'll get to do my run at an ideal time, in an ideal place... and other times it's past my bedtime and I'm on the treadmill. I thought I would have to transition into a morning runner, but really I have to transition into a more flexible runner... figuratively and mentally. I need to be willing to do the run no matter what. Obviously there will be times it wont take priority (if I'm sick or the kids are sick)... but with a treadmill in the garage and a bike in the house, there's not much excuse. There's always time for something.
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Hello!Welcome to my blog! I've been blogging for a long time on various platforms. My intention has never been to reach the masses, but rather to give myself a chance to reflect and journal. I feel it at least challenges me to be somewhat coherent, however you can expect ramblings and grammatical incorrectness here!
I've recently been diagnosed with CECS and fPAES and had it treated with BOTOX of all things... So I suspect to see more and more people looking for answers with that in the future and hope to continue blogging so there will be easy to access follow-ups as that was helpful for me. NOTE: Apologies that some of the pictures incorrectly load sometimes. I try to keep up with the glitches, but can't always! Hope it doesn't impact the blog experience for all the PAES visitors. 
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January 2023
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