Happy Birthday to Me & All the Other Saints

Monday (10/26/15) - 7.6 miles, 1:05:25, 8:37 pace

Tuesday (10/27/15) - Off

Wednesday (10/28/15) - 6.6 miles, 54:52, 8:19 pace - I ran to the gym in thick humidity. I set out to run 4 x .75mi at 5-10k pace with .25 recovery in between. It was a suffer fest. The chest cold that had been lingering since the week before made my breathing almost impossible. I cut the run a half mile short. My first attempt at speed work since the marathon was a stupid, annoying fail.

Thursday (10/29/15) - 3.94 miles, 34:19, 8:43 pace

I couldn't remember the rule of thumb for running while sick.Was it above the neck, don't run? Or below the neck, don't run? I finally decided to look it up.  Below the neck, don't run (Oops). Okay, you don't have to tell me twice. My cough was getting worse to the point where I could barely finish a sentence. The post nasal drip made falling asleep at night wishful thinking. I could definitely use a few rest days.

Friday (10/30/15) - Kids' Halloween parade!

I secretly enjoy feel badly about 

scaring the tootsie rolls out of

the little kids at school. 

Saturday (10/31/15) - Trick-or-treat!

Oops, my Mommy mask started peeling off.

(It ain't easy being green.)

Sunday (My birthday! All Saints Day, obviously.) - Pete took my eldest to New Jersey for the day which took soccer off the table. I was excited to drag bring the three little ones to Queens to watch the New York City Marathon! I knew a few people running so I decided to make a couple of signs. I hurried (hurried is a relative term when children are involved) my kids out the door hoping to catch the elite men at the half marathon mark. Once we got to Queens, many of the roads were closed so we just parked where we could. We walked over to Vernon Boulevard and got a nice spot right in front of a cafe. First, I noticed we missed the elites (dang it!). Then, I noticed we were on the opposite side of the road that I told everyone we would be on (double fuck a potato!). Hopefully, they would still be able to spot my bright orange Boston Marathon jacket (they didn't). Despite our little setbacks, I we mostly had a good time. There was DJ a couple of feet from us and enough crowd support to be fun, but not too crowded to be irritating. Many runners winked or smiled at our signs, and a couple even stopped to take pictures of them. We danced, we shouted, we high-5'd until we cried, we complained, and we fought ( "We" meaning "they"). It became clear that I needed to get the kids out of there pronto before they started running on the course just to spite me. I knew I was going to miss Kin and his wife by just one mile which was a bummer gigante.

Reference?

Did I mention I got a Garmin Forerunner 10 for my birthday? Yup. Finally!! And can I tell you how my life has changed? No more math while running. No more stopping to get the damn phone out of the arm sleeve or FlipBelt mid-run. No more guesswork. I love it. It's simple to use, small, and lightweight. The only annoying part is having to hook it up to the laptop to download the runs (Is that lazy? Probably.).

I heart her.

Tuesday (11/3/15) - 6.41 miles, 59:19, 9:15 pace - Sanibel is running our local 10k on Saturday.  She has never run more than 4 miles. We were going to be up in Manhasset for my doctor's appointment, so we ran there. It was a lot hillier than she's used to. Other than her shoelaces being untied for God knows how many miles (Seriously?) and her crossing the street without looking (I mean, SERIOUSLY?!?! And with headphones?! Ugh.), the run went well.

Wednesday (11/4/15) - 6.26 miles, 52:24, 8:22 pace

Thursday (11/5/15) - 7.55 miles, 1:05:10, 8:38 pace