This morning I actually set my alarm, got up and ran outside! There is no photo evidence because it was pitch black the entire time. It was finally warm enough (17 degrees) to get outside so I was excited to get out even if it was still pretty cold. Four cold miles later and the third day of the run streak, check! There was still some snow but it wore my trail shoes and had no issues with slipping.

Yesterday my dad had to have a small surgical procedure done, I got to hang out with their super cute golden-doodle tucker while they were at the hospital.

Luckily Dad got to come home last night, sleep in his own bed and start recovering. I hope that his recovery is fast, please send him good vibes!

I am still trying to figure out my 2019 race calendar, usually I have races for the next year figured out by the fall, but this year I keep bouncing around on what I want to do, I think it’s an issue of wanting to do it all (work on speed with shorter races, run all the ultras, and run a bunch of marathons) I know better than trying to accomplish more than one goal at a time. I am leaning towards a 50 miler sometime this year. I was set on running one in the summer of 2017 and training was going pretty well but I broke my toe on the 4th of July and missed the race. Then I was pregnant with Emmy so this is my first chance to try again. I have been toying with an early or late summer race. In June there is the North Fork 50 Mile, I ran the North Fork 50k in 2017 and LOVED it.

But waiting until the end of summer gives me more time to gradually build my base, and much more daylight to run on trails. I will just need to suck it up to run in the summer heat. I also am looking at Run Rabbit Run and it’s a very difficult course, not exactly a beginners course. The Leadville Silver Rush 50 was the race I was planning to do in 2017 and there are a few others still on the list….WHAT TO DO. So torn.

Once I have an A race picked out I can fill in the blanks, maybe a marathon and 50k as training races.

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How do you choose your races? Any big races in 2019 you are so excited about?

Today was a return to some routine at our house. My alarm went off at 4:30 am ( I allowed myself to sleep in 30 minutes extra) and Cory returned to work. My day started out with a three mile run on our treadmill and a little strength training.

I was worried that the kids would have a hard day since they have gotten used to slow mornings and Dad staying home.

But everyone had a great day and Cannon even took a nap. Recently Cannon has started refusing to nap at least once a week. I cry when I think of him not napping every afternoon but I think the end is near.

Also Cannon has been becoming more and more attached to Emerald. He started whining at her door this morning, saying he wanted Emmy. I don’t love the whining, but it’s just too cute that he always wants to be with his sister. One of his favorite things is to help me get her up after naps, and she squeals with delight when she sees him.

It’s officially goal setting season and I LOVE it, I love a fresh new year and all the motivation to reflect, dream and prioritize goals. I know some people are not into resolutions and all the new year hype but I am the biggest dreamer and I. AM INTO. IT.

I have been spending time reflecting and digging deep into what I want 2019 to look like. More on that soon, but one thing I knew I wanted to do this January was a run streak.

There are a lot of opinions about run streaks for and against, I fall in the for category but only within reason. My reason for wanting to do a run streak is to help myself reset habits. In December training wasn’t great because of illness, holiday hustle, cold, dark, laziness, etc, etc. When I do a run streak it feels easier, there is never a question if I am going to run or not I just get it done. When I run everyday for a month I feel like I set some really good habits to take with me into the rest of the year. I make my streak short and simple to avoid burnout and injury. Since it’s my streak I set my own rules and it’s simple run at least one mile (walking is allowed) once a day, everyday for all of January.

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Are you for or against run streaks?

Ever done one? If so what’s your longest streak?

Happy New Year Friends! I hope you had a wonderful night celebrating a new year, fresh possibilities and another chance to make a trip around the sun.

As for us we partied hard, at noon.

I took the kids to a noon years eve party at a friends house. It was so cute and so much fun. There were homemade (kid safe) party poppers, a Netflix countdown and a confetti/ballon drop at noon.

It was a great way to celebrate the new year because there was NO WAY I was going to keep these kids up until midnight.

In the evening, we stayed in, it snowed all day long and was about 5 degrees. I actually turned in around 10PM. A few years ago I wondered why people didn’t stay up until midnight to ring in the new year. But now I totally get it. In this season of life, sleep is precious and being tired just makes everyone miserable. These kids rarely sleep past 6am, they don’t care what day it is.

Cory and I had planned to run 13.1 miles on today to celebrate the new year. My parents had graciously agreed to hang out with the kiddos so we could run together. This is something we had done every year since 2010. The last three years we haven’t done it because of babies:

• 2015 = Pregnant with Cannon
• 2016 = Body wasn’t ready to run that far after having Cannon so we ran 8 miles instead
• 2017 = Pregnant with Emerald

*I know you can run 13 miles while pregnant, it just doesn’t feel good to me to run that far. We were so excited to get out and run together, something we rarely do. Sadly my father came down with a medical condition and has to have surgery sometime this week! Understandably they weren’t feeling up to watching the kids so we scrapped our plan. Since it never got above 15 degrees and was icy out it was likely a good thing we didn’t try to get out.

This morning I got up early with Emerald and enjoyed some cuddles and coffee before the boys got up. I often miss mornings with the kiddos because that is my time to run but since this was Cory’s last day of vacation I took advantage of him being home and waited until later to jump on the treadmill for a few miles. So grateful to have a treadmill in our basement on days like these.

The rest of the day we played in the snow, snuggled and watched movies. Pretty great way to start the year if you ask me!

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Do you always stay up for midnight on New Year’s Eve?

What is the coldest temp you will go outside to run in?

So much can change in a year, and it is so interesting how different years can be from each other. This year has been so much less racing and travel as we focused on adding a baby to our family and some unexpected difficulties over the summer. The focus of the year really seems to have been family, just as I feel it should be. There were incredible highs and a few lows but overall I will always look back on 2018 as an amazing year because we added our sweet Emerald to our family.

The begining of the year was full of hiking as a family, we really enjoyed getting outside even if it was cold as I closed out my second trimester.

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Spring was fun celebrating Easter but mostly counting down the weeks until I got to meet my baby girl. Anyone who has had a baby knows how time slooooooows down in the third trimester.

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We got the nursery ready for baby girl and did our best to prepare to become a family of four.

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In April, easily the highlight of the year happened with the arrival of Emerald Catherine. Emerald’s birth was so smooth we were able to go home to be with Cannon the very next day.

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The first month with Emmy was amazing, we loved getting to know our little girl. Cory took a month off of work (they don’t get any paternity leave so he worked really hard and saved up all his vacation time, come on aerospace company, you can do better). We played, rested and Cannon ran his first race!

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But then things took a turn for the worse, Cory went back to work, which was an adjustment for us all but an expected one. What wasn’t expected was at a BBQ at the end of his first week back, when Emmy was not quite a month old, he would completely sever his Achilles tendon. My sleep deprived, postpartum hormone filled mind couldn’t comprehend what was actually happening. Cory came home from the BBQ and told me of his accident, he claimed it didn’t hurt too bad and he was certain it would be better in a couple days. I took one look at his swollen ankle and was certain he had badly injured his Achilles. The next morning I made an appointment with a doctor and begged him to go, I didn’t want it to get worse. He agreed to go just to make me happy, the doctor confirmed he had ruptured his Achilles and later an MRI confirmed a full rupture. Now we were looking at surgery and bedrest to recover. I will admit I wasn’t taking this all very well. We had a very active needy toddler and a one month old, Cory has always been a big help with the kids. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it all. In late May Cory had his surgery to repair the tendon and it was a great success.

On top of dealing with Cory’s injury and recovery, our pug was getting sicker and sicker. We took him to the vet multiple times and even up to the specialists at Colorado State University. After a few weeks of no answers I noticed that he had a bump that had grown quickly on his neck. With great fear I took him back into the vet, we hoped it was just an infection but I feared the worst since he had been acting so sick. A few days later I got the call I had been dreading, it was Lymphoma and it was spreading fast. We started steroids immediately and were contemplating chemo therapy. The cancer moved faster than we could and it was clear there wasn’t time for treatment. We were forced to say good-bye to our sweet boy in June.

Even with all of the difficulty and the sadness there was also so much joy! We celebrated Cannon’s second birthday with a Where the Wild Things Are themed party.

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With Cory’s injury and recovery from surgery we didn’t have the adventure packed summer full of hikes and camping as we had planned but we did still enjoy the season and played outside a lot.

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Summer also marked the return of running for me, I didn’t feel that I could leave Cory home with both kids by himself because of his injury so that made the return slower that I would have liked but it was amazing to get back out there.

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At the end of summer we took a family trip to Oregon to celebrate my dad’s 70th birthday. It was a great trip visiting some of my favorite places in Oregon including Portland, Cannon Beach and SunRiver (near Bend).

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When we returned from Oregon it was time to head back to work after taking the summer as maternity leave. It was difficult to balance teaching and caring for babies but it was nice to be back in the class room.

Fall was also so fun to celebrate with Cannon, he is really starting to enjoy adventures and holidays. We went to vail for Oktoberfest and dressed up as Wizard of Oz characters for Halloween. Cory also returned to running and we started family runs again, and everything was looking better.

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And then there was all things Christmas, we rode the Georgetown train, met Santa and spent a lot of time celebrating with family.

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It feels a little sad to be saying goodbye to 2018, it is the year that Emmy was born and the last year that we had Winston with us. It is made a little easier by the very exciting plans we have for 2019.

I hope you all had a wonderful 2018, what was your favorite memory from this year?

Christmas this year was magical and just a little bit sad. I have been looking forward to celebrating this year so much. Cannon is starting to understand the idea of Christmas more and this was Emmy’s first Christmas and that is just so special .

Wrapping our first gift to Emmy.

Christmas morning was a very early start for us with a wake up call from Emerald at 2am. Emerald has been sleeping through the night from a very early age so we were surprised to be woken up to her crying. We weren’t sure why she was waking up and upset but even with the extra early wake up it wasn’t all bad as we got some extra cuddles.

Feeling good on Christmas Eve

Cannon woke up at his normal time around 6 am. I threw our cinnamon buns in the oven (I use this recipe, it’s so easy and SO good) and settled in to open the kids’ stockings.

After stockings we packed up and headed to my parents house to celebrate with them and my brother.

As the day wore on poor Emerald started feeling worse and worse she was having trouble napping and would cry and she rarely ever cries. Poor thing was feeling pretty awful. The silver lining is that she would sleep while being held and there were lots of volunteers to cuddle her.

We made it through a delicious lunch and cranberry orange cake. Then hurried home to try to get the kids down for naps.

In the evening we cuddled, watched Christmas movies and ate yummy lasagna.

It was so fun opening gifts with the family and Emmy got the cutest Mini Mouse dress.

Overall we had a good holiday but it was sad to see Emmy feeling so sick. Now we are all feeling a little under the weather and just taking it easy until this bug passes.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Anyone else sick on Christmas?

So many good things this month, I knew this time of year would be fun and we are enjoying it so much. Emmy’s first Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are just a few days from her first Christmas. I feel a little weepy that the year of her birth is almost over and so many firsts are behind us, but she is just so fun it makes me look forward to all the amazing things we will do together as a family.

At eight months Emerald is 28.2 inches long (88% ) and 18 lbs 7 oz (66%) BMI 36%. Emmy is wearing size 3 diapers, and is wearing mostly 9 month size clothes.

EAT

Emmy takes milk like a champ and happily drinks from her bottles, we are starting to work on her holding her own bottle. Anyone have any tips?

Eating solids is getting a little better but she still won’t put much in her mouth and spits out any solid we give her. 

She will eat traditional purees when fed to her with a spoon so we are working with that and just hope that she becomes interested in self feeding solids soon.

SLEEP

Emmy has been working really hard on getting mobile. She is rolling, scooting, and itty bitty crawling. It’s surprising how far she can get on her own. It’s time to really baby proof the house again!

She has also been trying to stand while holding onto her walker or the furniture, it’s still very wobbly and not for long but she is making progress.

Emmy got her first haircut this month, I don’t think it’s as cute as her long hair was but it was getting into and bothering her eyes so we got a quick trim.

She also outgrew her baby bathtub and graduated to the big tub with brother.

PLAY

So much fun this month! We ran our first 5k as an entire family.

Then it was time to start celebrating all things Christmas. We rode the train in Georgetown.

Meeting Santa

Enjoying the lights

And generally enjoying the season.

Past Monthly Updates

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

Happy Thursday Friends!

4 miles with a few strides thrown in was the perfect way to start the day. While I am a little over the frigid temps at 5am it’s not icy so I won’t complain!

I can’t believe how close Christmas is and I have SO MUCH WRAPPING still to do ( I haven’t even started, yikes)

We actually gave Cannon one of his big gifts on Monday when it was his half birthday. It wasn’t really meant to be a half birthday gift, just a way to keep him from getting overwhelmed on Christmas day. Last year it was a little too much for him so we decided he would have more fun playing with his new train set all week.

I think it was a great choice for this year. It’s so fun that he is really getting the idea of Christmas this year!

The big change of plans coming up is that I have decided to change from the 50k at Arches Ultra to the Half Marathon. I do wish there was a distance between the half and 50k but the choices are 9k, half marathon, 50k or 50 mile. I have been having some hip pain lately and I suspect it is from giving birth this year. I don’t want to push too much and risk injury so a 50k in January just doesn’t seem like the best idea.

Once I made this decision I actually got really excited about the shorter race! Cory’s cousins and their two sweet girls are coming with us to Moab and I am so excited to hang with them and have our kids get more time together. Now that I am not going to be prepping and recovering from an ultra I will be able to enjoy our time in Moab so much more.

I will be able to say yes to hiking in Arches before the race and be able to walk around town after the race.

After having Cannon in 2016 I felt like I had to prove to myself that I could get back to running long distances again, it was out of fear that I wouldn’t be able to. This time I KNOW that I can and will get back to ultras when I decide that I am ready.

So now it’s time to get serious setting goals for 2019, I am really on the fence about what I want to do.

Have you figured out your goals for 2019? Let me know what dreams you’re chasing!

This past month has flown by! So many fun things happen this time of year and Emmy is changing so fast. We had the best time celebrating Halloween this year. I don’t know if this girl could be any happier, she is smiling all the time and has the best laugh.

At seven months Emerald is 28 inches long (94% ) and 17 lbs 7 oz (57%) BMI 17%. Emmy is wearing size 3 diapers, and has grown out of most of her 6 month clothes. It’s so sad to pull her cute little outfits that she is just too tall for.

EAT

This last month we started to try solids with Emmy. We were a little surprised when she didn’t take to it like Cannon did.

Right at 6 months Cannon started feeding himself solids and loved it but Emmy was definitely not as interested and when we tried to help her she would just spit everything out. It took us a while to notice that Emmy’s tongue thrust reflex was still really strong. Over the month she has shown interest in food but can’t keep any food in her mouth and her gag reflex still seems really far forward. After a little research (google) it seems that most babies lose these characteristics around 4 months but it’s not uncommon to not lose them until 8-9 months old. Our pediatrician wasn’t concerned and encouraged us to just keep offering her food and eventually she should be eating like a champ.

SLEEP

GROW

Emerald has become a very solid sitter and loves to watch the world and play with toys sitting upright.

She is also getting herself up on her hands and knees, scooting and rolling all over. Gone are the days you could lay her on a blanket and have her stay put!

PLAY

It is so much fun to play with Emerald. She is much more into playing with toys than Cannon ever was. She loves traditional baby toys like rattles and toys that light up. She also really loves Tickle Me Elmo, it’s so cute to see her cuddle stuffed animals.

All of the holidays are so fun to celebrate with Emmy!

This little pumpkin is just the best! She loves to give kisses and hugs and has the best laugh. I just can’t get enough of this munchkin.

Past Monthly Updates

1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

5 Months

6 Months

I seriously considered skipping posting this week, but it’s not fair to only post the good weeks and not talk about the down ones. And to be clear last week was AMAZING! I had the best time with family celebrating Thanksgiving and getting to share Emerald’s first Thanksgiving, honestly I wouldn’t change a thing because family comes first. That said I didn’t get in as much running as I would have hoped, but hey there is always a chance to start over in a new week.

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Monday: Easy 3ish miles on the treadmill, too icy to run outside. I used to love running on the treadmill and would run many miles while catching up on Netflix but somehow this year it’s been a struggle. I can’t run as fast and feel so tired when running on the treadmill. Any suggestions on how to get my ‘mill mojo back?

Tuesday: I headed outside at 5 am to try for 4×4 min fartlek workout. I didn’t believe that I could hit the pace outlined for me but I did my best and was surprised to see that I did hit the paces and even ran the last two faster…progress!

Wednesday: Out in the dark for an easy 5 miles with a few strides to keep things fun.

Thursday: The entire family came out to run a 5k turkey trot and Cannon ran in his own kids race. It was so much fun to have everyone there!

Friday: On Friday I took an intentional rest day. We drove up to Georgetown (about an hour into the mountains) to ride the train and see Santa. Cannon has been so excited to see Santa and ride the train, we have been watching the Polar Express once a week since Halloween.

Saturday: Unintentional rest day, we had 14 people at our house to celebrate Thanksgiving and a run just didn’t fit in. The food and the company were great!

Sunday: I was scheduled to run 12 but I injured my back moving Christmas decoration bins. A few miles in my back was aching so I decided to cut it to just under 7 miles.

Not the best week I have ever put in but I enjoyed almost every mile and celebrating with my family.

Happy Running Everyone