Two Weeks Until Cannonball!

From the five-month photo shoot. One of her new favorite things

is to pick up legs and arms and "fly".  How did she get

so cute?

Goodness, what a week! Alfie turned 5 months on Tuesday, Bambino got a train table which reinvigorated his locomotive obsession, and he made it all the way through a movie last night:  Ratatouille! Thank you, DVR, for bringing us so many good choices for movie night and for letting us fast-forward through the commercials. Bambino is at that tender age where he proudly parrots back slogans- funny but a tad bit scary.

On the running front, I've done well. Monday was a rest day, then I ran Tuesday afternoon with Bambino and ran Wednesday morning solo. Thursday night I tried the treadmill for the first time in a long time (more about that in a minute), and then this morning I had a two-part long run of 11 miles! Why two parts? Because I do not like to do a long run in the pouring rain and the dark.  At 5:00, I woke up to feed Alfie and myself (peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat toast with a side of Gatorade). Of course, my morning glory (aka Bambino) woke up, too, so I fixed him first breakfast- he has two or three on a typical day, like a Hobbit- and sent him back to bed. I hopped on the treadmill for four miles while catching up on last week's Big Bang and The Office.  Then I hopped off to stretch and guess who was awake? Bambino! I bribed him with my iPad and hopped back on for four more miles, this time watching Glee.

Whatever it takes. He knew exactly where I was

if he needed anything. 

At the end of that set, everyone was up, so I got to hang out with Bambino in the train room and let Alfie have her second breakfast.  Then Jenn and Bambino went yardsaling. I planned for Alfie and I to stroller run the last two-three miles since the rain had stopped, but it kept returning. I will run in the rain, but not with a baby. We just chilled, meaning she played and made noises while I stretched and had my coffee.  Around 8:30 the yardsalers returned and I headed out for Long Run Part 2 (or 3, if you break the treadmill into two parts). I ran the neighborhood for three miles in just over 27 minutes.

So, the treadmill. I haven't used it recently, because when I do it no longer gives an accurate measurement of pace or distance. I turn it on, press start, and enter a speed, but the speed feels much much faster than expected, and then the speed indicator starts switching numbers really quickly, finally settling on 0.0.  If I set it at 5.0-5.5, I can manage to not fall off the back.  Aggravating? Oh, yes. Aggravating but workable. My solution has become to set the speed somewhere that feels reasonable and just call it 10-minute miles, because I don't really care about pace right now anyway.

There's got to be a good caption for this, but I don't know what it is...

So, a great week for life and for running. I hit 20 miles today and I plan to run tomorrow, making this my highest mileage in a long time.  I've run 83 miles so far in September, the most in 18 months. On top of that, I feel really good about running's place in my life right now- I run early in the morning or late in the evening to preserve family time. I run with Bambino in the afternoons when he asks, because how could I say no when he wants to do that with me? I'll run with both of the kiddos in about another month, because it's such a great way to spend time with them.  I am very conscious of not letting my running take too much time away from family, and I think right now I've struck a good balance.

My first post-Alfie half-marathon is coming up in two weeks: Cannonball! I'm running it with my dad again. Last year, we ran it together when Alfie was still in my belly. In the year since, my dad has trained a lot, so it will be so much fun to see how he does- I bet he'll take at least 10 minutes off of his PR.