all things running...

Holy crap! I'm back to work now after 8 weeks of maternity leave and I had NO idea how hard it would be to find time to blog!! Lindsey, I am so sorry for bugging you to always blog. Now I get it! I've been back for 2 weeks and I feel so disconnected from the electronic world. I'm seriously way behind on reading tweets and blogs!! So this may take me forever to write since I have a ton to update you on and a 2 1/2 month old who wants my attention and is loud and clear about that! So hang in there with me... here goes.

I'm finally back to running! YAY! I'll be honest, it's been so much more difficult then I ever thought it would be. I ran my first race Sept 19. Well...I wouldn't say I ran it…more like walked/shuffled. Haha. It was the Portland Trails to Ale 10k. Danielle was super sweet to stick with me the whole way. I know it was killing her to go so slow but that's why I love her...a lot! Annnnnd she was super crazy to come run it with me the day after she finished the Reach the Beach 200 mile relay. Yeah, she’s hardcore.

This is Danielle’s thought about running today

I don't really know what my official time was, somewhere around 1:18:xx. It doesn't really matter to me. I was proud of myself for getting my ass out there and running 8 weeks post baby. I mean yea, I'm not pleased with my time and I didn't tweet the crap out of it announcing to everyone my slow time but I'm not upset with myself. But for the record I ran this race in 1:01:xx last year. Danielle and I had a good time chatting on our run about running, weddings, baby Ty, and fundraising for Train 4 Autism.

At one point someone was cheering for us and they said "yea walkers!! good job!!!" I looked at Danielle and said "we just got cheered on for walking. That will NOT happen again" and with that we started running again! Nothing like people cheering you on for walking to motivate you:-) I ran the race with a bunch of friends and had beer and pizza at the finish line. I couldn’t ask for anything better. Overall it was a fun time. The only fail was the fact that they ran out of water at the finish. I guess that's what happens when you are slow:-) At the end I didn’t have much in me to sprint to the finish line, but I did see the camera man so I made sure I looked ok for the picture

Here are Danielle, baby Ty and I post race.

The following weekend I went home and ran the Making Strides 5K. I ran this race last year and it's pretty important to me. The race is a fundraiser for my brother's school who is raising money to buy Occupational Therapy equipment for the autistic kids in the school. Last year is ran it in 28:xx, this year 35:xx...haha. Oh well. Again, it was more about getting out and running then my time. As my neighbor Mark said "Sarah you are not going for time right now, just distance" Um...duh!:-). In my hometown you are hard pressed to find any route that does not involve hills. My parents live in the middle of a huge hill so any way you go, you have to run up that hill at some point. The rest of my town is rolling hills. Needless to say, this course was quite hilly. We raised over $13,000 this year and in my book that's all that matters! Also, this year my brother who, if you don't know already, is autistic, ran/walked the entire 5k. Last year he had to turn around about a mile into it and come back. This year he did the whole thing and ran across the finish line with another kid from his school. SO CUTE! I'll admit, I had a tear or two. I'm also super proud of my mom for walking the entire race while pushing my son in his stroller. She has recently gotten into biking/walking and is doing an amazing job.

This weekend I volunteered at the Maine Marathon! It was so much fun!! The weekend was kicked off by setting up a Train 4 Autism booth at the Marathon Expo. Danielle and I told people about Sam, Operation Jack and Train 4 Autism for 6 hours. We met some great people who were very interested in what we were doing. So many people thanked us for being around. A lot of people that came and stopped to say hi to us were special education teachers that work with kids who have autism. We also met a few kids who are autistic themselves. I felt really good about being there and spreading the word. We really hope that we can build up our chapter and get some group runs/training going. So, if you are reading this and are interested in leading some of those runs let me know:-).

A few weeks ago I saw on facebook that the marathon was still looking for volunteers. So I signed up to hand out water at the mile 1.5, 11.5 (half) and 24.5 (full). This was the first time I had ever volunteered at a race and it was so much fun. I saw some very interesting outfits, people that had no clue how to run through water stops, traffic jams, smiles, tears, a runner down at 1.5 with a sprained ankle, and hardcore runners who wanted the jello shots that Elizabeth made:-). I left after the half marathoners went through on their way back so I could get to the finish line to see my friends finish the full.

Elizabeth handing out jello shots:-)

I've been pretty nervous about my upcoming race, the MDI Marathon where I am running the relay with 2 other friends. Watching the Maine Marathon got me a little bit excited about MDI. I’m hoping to run the first leg of the relay, which is 8.5 miles. My mom also wants to bike along side of me for my leg. I told her she could carry the camelbak so that I don’t have to:-)

my race wish list

So now that I'm back to running again it's time to figure out all the races I'd like to run and all the races I'll actually be able to run/afford! I came across my wish list for 2010 the other day...I didn't end up running any of them since I got knocked up:-) (fun fact: little man is now 7 weeks and the most amazing thing I could ever imagine). Since joining Twitter I have heard about sooo many cool races and only wish I didn't have to take out a loan to run them all (entry fee, travel, hotels, food...yea, it adds up!) But here is what I would like to do in 2011

Mid Winter Classic- February 6

New Bedford Half Marathon- March 20

Big Lake Half Marathon- May 7

Reach The Beach Relay- May 20-21

LL Bean 4th of July 10K- July 4

TD Bank Beach 2 Beacon 10K- August 6

Maine Marathon (Here goes...my first marathon!! eeekkk!)

New England Runner Pub Series (This is a series of 6 races. I'm not sure what races will be part of it in 2011)

Of course all these races are subject to change. We'll see what happens. Depending on how my marathon goes, I might get crazy in 2012...stay tuned!:-) Have any suggestions of fun races to run in 2011? What's the one race you run every year??

Good luck to everyone training for fall marathons! I can't wait to run mine next year!!

When will running be fun again?

Here I am....at the end of week 3. I finally got in all my miles this week, just not on the days that they were scheduled but I wasn't able to make it to the gym. Ahhhh. If it's not one thing, it's another. Someday I'll figure out how to balance my running and my family. Luckily right now I am not running long distances so I'm not away from the house for too long. I follow a lot of running moms/dads on Twitter....how do you do it!!?!?!?

So my runs this week haven't felt great. My legs feel heavy and dead. At times I feel like I am steps away from walking. However, my splits have gotten better each week. Why do I feel like crap when I'm running, but each run I'm making progress??

On my 4 mile run today I started thinking "When is running going to be fun again?". I had this thought when I was training for my half marathon last fall. I remember on a 5 mile run I started to wonder when all my training was going to start paying off and my runs weren't going to feel like hard work. I don't have to run. It's something I do because I want to. I know that every run won't always be easy, but I feel like some of them should be. I just need to stick with it and things will get better.

A co worker of mine is trying to lose the last 10lbs from having her baby and asked me how I get motivated to run. I told her, I just do it. I have a difficult race in 5 weeks and I know that if I don't go out and run I am going to die in the race and let my teammates down. Even though I am pumped to get back to running again, there are days I would rather sit home with my family instead of rush out the door as soon as my husband gets home from work so that I'm not out running in the dark or forced to run at the gym.

I have a 5 mile run scheduled for next weekend but I am debating running a local 10K with beer and pizza at the end:-) I figure I'll run my 5, try and run 6 but if I have to walk part of it I will. The course is pretty flat and I don't think it should be too bad. I have several friends that are running it so I think it would be fun. It's also the last day of my 8 week maternity leave, the next day I have to go back to work. Blah. Not happy about that. I've had some serious thoughts about being a drug dealing porn star and working from home:-)

Week 3 Recap:

Monday- 2 mile run 10:29 pace

Wednesday- 3 mile run 10:54 pace

Thursday- Abs and lunges

Saturday- 3.5 hour hike

Sunday- 4 mile run 10:20 pace

On a side note, Saturday I went on a hike around Hermit Island with my neighbors. We hiked for 3.5 hours and had soooo much fun! It was such a beautiful Maine day. My husband is renovating our kitchen so he stayed home and worked on the kitchen while Ty and I went out and played:-) We really missed him though.

very slight improvement

Week 2 of my training is done!! While my runs this week still weren't *great*, they were much improved from last week. I'm just hoping that each week gets better. My fastest mile this week was 9:57!! Yay. Down from the 11:42 I was running last week. I think the extreme heat we had last week was a killer. I live in Maine people, I am not used to 90+ degrees for 5 days in a row.

What's going to be difficult now that I have a baby and can't just run anytime I feel like it, is finding time to run. I know I could get up super early in the morning and run but I just can't bring myself to do that yet. I love my sleep people and I'm just not ready to give it up, especially if the baby is still sleeping. So I have been running at night when my husband gets home from work. That sucks too because it cuts into our family time, which we don't get a lot of during the week. So I'm still trying to figure it all out. Once I go back to work (which I DO NOT want to do) I can go for a run directly from work before I pick him up at daycare. I'll have 1.5-2 hours from the time I get out of work and the time he has to be picked up by to run. I'm hoping that works.

So here is a review of my week:

Monday- 2.06 mile run. 10:37 pace

Wednesday- 30 min on the bike at the gym

Thursday- 1.23 mile run 10:09 pace (I was late meeting some friends for dinner so I had to cut it short)

Saturday- 3.01 mile run 11:07 mile pace (yea, I spent .3 of those miles walking up a hill...oops!)

During my run Saturday I wasn't feeling great and was disappointed in myself for walking. When I hit the 1.5 mile mark I was running at a 10:09 pace...not bad. Once I got 3/4 of the way up a hill on the way home I lost some steam and ended up walking for about .3 miles. The entire time I was thinking about what a failed run this was and how crappy I felt. But now that I am home and I look back on it, it wasn't so bad. It's still faster then I was running last week, so I suppose I can't complain.

Next week I have a 2 mile run, 3 mile run and a 4 mile "long run". I know I'm going to look back on this someday and laugh at myself and wonder why I thought this was so hard. Let's hope that day is soon.

so much work to do...

I know while some of you are reading this post you will be screaming at me through your computer, especially if you are are a mom and know what I've just been through. I know if I was reading this, I would scream at me too! Week 1 of training for the MDI Marathon Relay is over. It sucked. It sucked because I am out of shape and slow. I've never been a fast runner, I openly admit that. I'll never win a race and I'm never going to BQ (but seriously, how awesome would that be!?) Before I got pregnant I was running 9:30-10:00 minute miles. At that time I was not ok with that pace, but as a new runner I felt it was respectable. Today, I would give anything to be running a 10:00 minute mile. I have 7 weeks left before the race and I'm 5 weeks postpartum. I know that I need to start out slow and listen to my body, which is what I have been doing. Trust me. Both my midwife and the nurse that helped her to deliver my beautiful baby boy are runners and they both warned me not to start back to early to too hard. The last thing I want to do is get an injury and be sidelined from running for another year.

I picked, what I thought was a very easy and doable training plan from Runners World. It had me running 3 days this week for a total of 6 miles and some cross training mixed in. Shouldn't be too difficult, right? My pace for my runs this week has been around 11:30. Seriously??? Come on, I know I can do better than that but my legs just wouldn't go. At the end of 2 miles I was tired and glad my run was over. I guess I just didn't expect a 6 mile week to be difficult.

I'm not used to this and frustrated that I'm not what I used to be. I know it will take time, but I want to snap my fingers and be back in half marathon shape like I was the day before I found out I was pregnant. Does anyone have suggestions/ideas/tips/inspiration or motivational thoughts for me!?? What's the best thing to do to get back in shape? Hit the gym on my off days and build up my strength?? HELP!?

Next week I have two 2 mile runs, a 3 mile run and cross training. Last year at this time I would have laughed at how easy this week was going to be. This year, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some good runs.

End of me feeling sorry for myself. Week 1 done. Bring on Week 2...

Here are a few pictures from my half marathon last November, the day before I found out I was pregnant.

At mile 10...my husband met me there and ran the last 3 miles with me:-)

Crossing the finish line. I can't wait to have that smile when I run again!

Post race picture with Ruddley!:-)

i'm baaaaacck!

I'm back!!! I have returned to the blogging world:-) Since I last blogged I had my little man which you can read all about here. The short story is that Tyler Jackson Emerson was born July 25, 2010 at 9lb and 20in! He has been keeping me quite busy! I'm hoping now that he is getting a little older I'll have a little more time to write!

My first race since NOVEMBER (yikes!) is in 8 weeks! I am soooooo excited! I am running the MDI Marathon relay with my 2 friends (fun fact: runner's world voted it the most scenic marathon)! I've got A LOT of work to do between now and then. It's been 4 weeks since I delivered and a loooooong time since I have run. I am starting back slowly.

Once I stopped running during my pregnancy I would see people out running on the streets or go to races and watch and be so jealous of everyone running. I wished I was them and wished I could be out there too. I was frustrated that I didn't have energy to do much exercise and was rapidly getting out of shape. Yea, yea, I know I was pregnant and that's what happens when you are pregnant. In my mind it didn't have to happen. I know plenty of people that worked out straight through their pregnancy with no problem. I often thought "why can't that be me?" As I got toward the end of my pregnancy I saw people running and went to races and for once I wasn't jealous, I didn't care that I was standing there watching and not running...I knew this was not a good sign. Had I lost my excitement for running? Had my passion for something that had been so important to me when I was going through a difficult time suddenly gone away? Ugh! I just ignored it and focused on my pregnancy and delivery a healthy baby boy.

About 3 weeks after I gave birth, I was at my parents house rocking Ty and I had the urge to run! I was soo excited. I hadn't wanted to run in a long time. It felt good. I knew that 3 weeks was too soon to start running again so I had to make myself wait. All week though I felt like I wanted to go for a run. I saw people running on the streets and I started to care again. So this past Saturday I laced up my orange NB 1063 and headed out for a mile run. Granted I was slow and probably looked like someone who had never run in their life before, I was pretty stiff.

I have a pretty good training plan for my race and fingers crossed things go well. I am just so happy to have running back in my life again. I am so grateful that this break I took from running was only temporary and that I knew once I had my little guy that I could run again. I didn't have a disability that prevented me from running or a medical reason why I couldn't run again. I am thankful for my good health and that I can run.

I super suck at keeping up....oops!

i know, i know. i super suck at blogging these days. but really...i don't feel like i have much to write about. my life is super boring and I'm just waiting for this baby to pop. i could write about the last few weeks of my pregnancy but i am afraid i would send you into a deep depression with how bad it has sucked. i'm tired, hot, cranky, emotional, my feet are the size of footballs (no really, it's true), my house is under construction (why wouldn't it be!? ugh.), and i have long since stopped caring how much weight i gain or how long its going to take me to get back to my tiny self. so, to deal with all of the above...i eat. i eat ice cream pretty much everyday (it's summer and its hot, cut me some slack) and yesterday i think i gained a few new stretch marks with the amount of food i had.

however, life is not all that bad. my husband has been SUPER supportive me of me. he wants to make sure i get all the rest i can and tries to put up with my emotional state as best he can. and since he is doing all of the house construction himself with some help from our neighbor mark, he doesn't get too mad when i cry and say it needs to all be done NOW. some very great things have happened in the last few weeks so i thought i would share...

very great thing #1: my very, very, very good friend danielle threw me a surprise baby shower with people from job #2. i wasn't expecting it and it was sooo nice to get together with everyone again. it's been a while since we have all hung out together. tough economy has forced some of them to be without a job, and others to move on to a different, more stable job. i was completely surprised and happy. i lost my camera (add that to the list of things annoying me) and so i don't have any pictures of it, but it was a blast and danielle is pretty much the best. because while i am not going to spare you with the details of my shitty pregnancy....danielle has gotten EVERY detail and i think i have convinced her to not have a baby...ever:-)

very great thing #2: this almost ruined very great thing #1, but life has a funny way of making sure everything turns out the way it is supposed to. my friend jim runs a ropes course at a local summer camp and last fall i was telling him about zach and how he loved doing the ropes course at summer camp and was quite good at it. jim verrrry kindly offered to zach take up on the ropes course he runs and we were finally able to make that happen later on that day. zach has no fear and was a champ out on the course. my mom loved seeing him be so successful. its a rare opportunity that we get to see zach accomplish something that some "normal" kids can't accomplish and he did it without any special equipment, or adaptations. he did it and completed it just the same as any other kid out there would have! go zach!

the sign of a great day!!!

very great thing #3: this should actually probably be very great thing #1 if i was posting them in the order that they happened....but oh well it will be #3. i was on nesn (new england sports network for those of you non new englanders). when ruddley and i got married we decided we wanted to visit every major league baseball park in the US over the course of our marriage. for the last 2 summers we have knocked a few off our list. so far fenway park (red sox, duh!), citizens bank park (phillies), yankee stadium (yankees), camden yards (orioles) and nationals park (nationals). this summer was camden yards and nationals park and it's also the trip that i lost my camera on..ugh! so again...no pictures. BUT....when we were at camden yards we happened to be sitting right in line with the nesn camera. danielle was creepin' on me and stalking my every move like what i was drinking, eating, texting, or saying to ruddley. she took this picture off of her tv...yea, thats me waving to her while i am on the phone with her in the tank top::-)

very great thing #4: yesterday was the 4th of july (duh) and it also marked the one year anniversary of my very first road race ever! it was the ll bean 10k. for obvious reasons, i did not run it this year. however i couldn't let the race go by and not go and put my cheering hat on! i knew several people running and like i said, i have no life so really had nothing better to do :-) its a tough, hilly course and yesterday i was kinda glad i wasn't running. it was h.o.t out. even though the race started at 730, it was not fun. i was the camera lady and i must say i did a great job...again!! i met some new friends while i was waiting at the finish line. this guy and his 3 kids were waiting for their mom to finish. she had hoped for a sub 40 but ended up 42:xx i think. still not bad.

then i snapped this sweet picture of joan benoit samuelson finishing in 38:25 and was the womens winner. If you live under a rock, or are just not a runner and don't know who she is...she's a pretty big deal in the running world. stolen directly from danielle's post cause what i would have said it pretty much the same " joan was the 1983 boston marathon winner 2:22:43, 1984 winner of the first ever womens marathon in the los angeles olympics and founder of TDBank beach 2 beacon 10k. she also holds the course record for this race. shes pretty awesome." (well said danielle). i also read in a newspaper article today (http://www.pressherald.com/sports/fighting-traffic-blazing-to-the-end_2010-07-05.html) that she ran the last 4 miles of the race with her shoes untied because she didn't want to take time to stop and tie her shoe. samuelson was quoted saying "you'd think after all these years, i'd know how to tie my own shoes"

here is the post race picture from last years race...

and this years post race picture. see why i didnt run! 3 more weeks folks. 3. more. weeks! we were a little more festive this year i think.

very great thing#5: our friends/neighbors mark and christine also ran. after the race they invited me to spend the day with them and christine's family for the 4th of july since my husband was home working on the house. we went to a parade and bbq and i spent the day hanging out with their amazing kids.

here is kaden, about to turn 3. he had just run down a hill, singing all the way down and then took a massive face plant in the mud. probably one of the best things ive seen in a while. haha. he was not so happy.

very great thing #6: I WON SAM'S BET!!! yup that's right i guess he would run 3:24 in the grandma's marathon on june 19 and he went 3:22. closest to his time without betting too fast wins! after betting every week since the middle of april it's about time i won!!! i cant wait for my operation jack sweatshirt to come in the mail! also a little plug...operation jack is in the running to win 20,000 through chase community giving!! all you need to do is vote for operation jack just click here and vote! it take 30 seconds and he/i would really appreciate it.

so there you have it. 6 very great things that have happened in the last few weeks! i hope everyone had a wonderful, fun and safe 4th of july:-) hopefully next time i blog ill have a little munchkin to tell you all about.