The Scourge

Now that I'm the mother of toddler and preschooler, I'm coming around to the idea that pinkeye is the new scourge. I know that you can give it to yourself and that toddlers are most likely to do it because of the frequent finger/nose + finger/eye contact, but frequently (like the throw-up virus), it seems like folks send their kids out sick so that they spread their crud to everyone else.

Yesterday, Doug's sister called me at work to tell me that one of the other moms in Annika's class reported that 3 kids in the class have pinkeye (3 out of 13). Yikes! Annika's eyes were goopy yesterday morning but didn't look red. After a warning email to Doug, 2 hours of worrying about my own itchy eyes and one trip to the ladies room to wash hands and check the mirror, I realized that maybe it's just spring. That, and I saw a sign at the eye doctor's office on the way home that said something about allergies. Me being crazy and paranoid is nothing new.

However, I took Annika to her first swim lesson today. She whined and acted like she was going to drown (she was not - they put a floatie on her at the beginning so that she wouldn't sink) - it was very embarrassing, but hilarious. Wow, are we ever going to have to work on toughening her up, though. What a wuss. Anyway - back to the story, while we were waiting to begin the lesson, one of the teachers showed up late to work. The other instructors had been whispering about him prior to his arrival because he was late. His right eye was swollen shut and he said that it hurt to even open it. That's right - pinkeye. No one said that out loud, and the guy said he would do his lessons with goggles on, but they sent him home.

Whew!

I was very worried about the scene I was about to make about how my kid was not getting in the pool with oozy eye boy.

Skubetzelis

The photos are apropos of nothing. I was trying to capture Dagny and Annika while they were all dressed up in their pretty dresses the other day, but had only limited success. Above, my friends Michelle, Corinne and Beth during the Christmas knitting night with cracker crowns.

Then, Annika showing me her beautiful dress and smile. I think it was on Valentines Day. I took photos of Dagny too, but hers were blurry because she is so fast. So, I put in a Christmas on of her instead. Same dress, though, so just imagine her taller with more hair.
The Skubetzelis is a Lithuanian word which means klutz (we think, but possibly with stupid and some bad words involved). We don't mean it as stupid or with cursing, though, it's just that Annika is currently so clumsy that the words "klutz" or "clumsy" do not cover it adequately. Yesterday, she fell off of her chair at least three times, flipped a grocery cart over on herself and crashed on the floor while walking or dancing more times than I counted. This, after hitting her lip on the kitchen counter on Saturday. She must be having a growth spurt. Poor thing, she is all bruised and battered.

In other news, on Tues - 4 mile tempo run at 8:53 pace, very slow and sluggish. Thurs, 3.32 mile hill sprints/walks at combined 8:56 pace. Sun, 10 miles at 9:24 pace. That was my longest run of my training so far (and farther than any run for my Disney race). I'm sore today, but was not in any appreciable pain yesterday. Next time, I'll make a better route and station some water or gatorade so that I don't have to avail myself of the QuickTrip. Doug told me to run somewhere else and he was right, again.

Still other news, we made our adult dinner on Saturday and had the fancy wine that I bought Doug for Valentines Day. We are still wondering whether we don't appreciate wine enough to like the expensive stuff or if it was simply not a good choice. It seems to me that we are far less likely to be disappointed in a bottle of wine if we only paid $14 for it - we expect less, but are surprised when it is (frequently) better than that. And the $5.49 Valpolicello at Trader Joes -delicious.

Now That's Action

Today the House passed a resolution (non-binding) which says that they disapprove of President Bush's direction in Iraq. In case you've not heard of this, read a story on MSNBC here.

Regardless of your position on the war in Iraq or President Bush, doesn't a non-binding resolution saying that they don't like his plan seem dumb? I remember listening to a Representative (don't recall his name - he's not from GA) say on NPR on the day after the State of the Union address that he really needed to "DO SOMETHING" about this new plan and that his action would be to propose a non-binding resolution. What kind of action is that? Who doesn't know how their Representative feels about this issue? Or their Senator? What is the point of a non-binding resolution but to send a big F-you to the Executive Branch? And that helps our country, how? Doesn't the Congress send the President a big F-you every day anyway? Seems like it to me.

Why do they waste our tax dollars this way? I think these folks have a bit too much time on their hands and might need some real jobs.

I'm "off" from my paying job today and Annika was supposed to go away with Doug's folks for the weekend. We had big plans for running this afternoon and an adult dinner, with wine. Instead, Annika threw up on the rug in the den. She seems fine, though, so that is good - but if anyone knows how to get vomit out of the fringe of a rug, please let me know.

The Food Wars

Mike just posted about the food issues going on at their house. Annika has developed the delightful habit of sitting with her food in her mouth (un- or partially-chewed) when she is supposed to be eating. Sometimes she even adds little gagging sounds to increase our fun. The offending food doesn't have to be anything that she doesn't like (onions, peppers, anything good) - sometime it is something as yummy as applesauce or bananas.

Last night, we had a meal of Chinese food that we got at Trader Joes - Shu Mai and Chicken Lemongrass sticks (which are a lot like taquitos with lemon flavoring) and honey glazed baby carrots (not from Trader Joes, but from Doug's imagination). No dice. After 10 minutes at the table with her first bite of Shu Mai in her mouth, Doug sent Annika to "The Chair" to chew it up and swallow with the instructions that she couldn't return to the table until she finished. She sat there for an hour while Doug and I had a delightful dinner and shared a bottle of wine and conversation. Dagny screamed a lot because Annika was missing and because she wasn't hungry either, but we can talk louder than she can scream. Apparently, the pile of Chik-Fil-A nuggets that they had for lunch at Annika's Valentines party filled them up so that they weren't interested in dinner (except for Dagny's cheerios). Too bad, they missed out.

Just wait until Annika figures out that she can spit out the food that is sitting in her mouth.

It's Going Around

On the eve of our big race - the 10K Peachtree qualifier, I woke at 12:52am to find Doug awake. "I've been throwing up all night and I have a fever," he said. Food poisoning or the roto-virus? We don't know, but he is still in bed with his ginger ale. He will have to race another day. The girls and I are going to relax the rest of the day and try to stay quiet.

I picked up our babysitter (bless her) and went to the race with Joe and Virginia and we had a lovely run, except for the ridiculous cold. Running is not so much fun when the temperature is in the 20s. However, I got my qualifying time for the Peachtree and a new fastest mile record. Here is the weekly report:

My training plan said to run 6x400s, a 6 mile tempo run and a 6 mile long run. I was a little off because of the work/run time crunch, but the results were generally good.

Mon: 4 mile tempo run at 8:45 avg pace. Cold and no fun.
Wed: overslept because the dog got up at 3:30 to pee - no run
Thurs: dog got up at 4, so I ran early - 3.31 miles hill sprints, walking down the hills at a combined 9:00 pace. I was sluggish because of not enough sleep and not wanting to overdo prior to Saturday's race
Sat: Race day - according to Garmin, I went 6.4 miles at an average 7:47 pace with mile 6 being the fastest at 7:24. That is my fastest recorded mile ever. Thank you, Joe and Virginia, for the encouragement and pacing. According to the race clock, I finished in 49:54 and Garmin said 49:55 so I don't know where the extra 0.2 miles came from.

Day Off

Today is one of my days off from my office work. In a fit of feeling sorry for myself, I was going to list all of the zillion errands we've done today. Other than the scone from Starbucks, the half-bag of veggie chips (sweet potato, taro, beet-colored sweet potato and something else I've never heard of) and the two trips to the running store, none of it was terribly fun. However, I've done this before on the blog - another Friday when we ran ourselves ragged and got me down. Maybe it would be better if I just didn't try to cram so much stuff into one day.

So, now I'm going to get my work computer and my i-pod and sit on my bed with Annika. She is having "quiet time" today. The days of her taking naps are finished but we are both a little worn down this week so maybe I'll work or maybe it will wait until tomorrow. But at least I've got the laundry going.

The Patience of a Chopping Block

Dagny is finally learning some words. They are mostly not intelligible to regular humans, though, so she gets very frustrated when we can't understand what she is saying. So frustrated that she balls her hands into fists, turns red, shakes and bangs her head on the floor - which hurts, apparently, and that only makes her more angry. We may have some discipline issues later, I'm thinking.

The word of the week is milk - sounds like meyouk.

Inquiring minds: BMI - 20.4-8, BF 20%

TMI

For those of you who don't frequent any online forums that use "internet-speak," TMI means too much information. Usually that means that someone is about to talk about their sex life or their poop or vomit. I will leave all of those things to your imagination. It may also be used in IMing, but I don't know how to do that so I can't comment.

Thank you, Dorothy, for reminding me that I was supposed to have done a 15 month check-up for Dagny. So, belatedly, here are the stats:

Height: 32 inches (80th percentile and exactly the same as Annika at this age)
Weight: 22lb, 11oz (38th percentile, down from 57th at the last visit - I thought she was looking thinner. That's almost 3lbs more than Annika at this age)
Head: 18.5 inches (69th percentile - still a pea, but not as much as Annika)

It's very interesting to see how little their body shapes resemble each other - Annika is thin and slight and Dagny is sturdy. When I was little/adolescent, my Grammy told me (to make me feel better about not being thin) that I was sturdy. Oooh, I hated being sturdy at the time, but now it makes me happy. I hear/read "sturdy" and I think "kick-ass."

In other news, Doug bought us a new scale because ours was getting a little erratic. Doug was having 8 lb weight shifts in 24 hr periods. I said it just needed a battery, but now we own a body composition monitor which tells us our weight, % bodyfat and % water. How's that for TMI?

Party at My House!

Doug is going to the hockey game tonight with some friends and after I learned that the running will not fit into my schedule this afternoon, I thought to myself - cool! What are we going to DO? Just as if it were my parents leaving me alone for the evening.

So, chick movies? drinking the mom-and-dad-not-homes? breakfast for dinner? everyone sleeping in my room? prank calls? bras in the fridge?

Who knows, the world is our oyster. Dagny and I will hit the Trader Joes while Annika is at school to see what we should get for dinner because, let's face it, Doug usually makes our dinner. Maybe this won't be so much fun after all.

Not So Deep

So, I wrote a whole post about the nature of intelligence - based on Doug and my observations of the "Top Chef" season finale and the seminar that I attended at work this week. Alas, my two little friends called me out of the office and my post was lost. Regardless, I was rooting for Sam and when he didn't make the finale - for Marcel.

In other news, I discovered this week that the guy at my favorite running store is also using (loosely) the same running plan that Virginia and I are using. His race isn't until April, though, so he is much looser than we are. Anyway, this week we were to do 3x1600s, a 5 mile tempo run and a 10 mile long run. I was so excited about my tempo run that I almost posted about it on Tuesday - see what a little hubris gets you . . .

Tues: 6.18 mile tempo run at the park at an 8:10 pace. This is the best run that I have had since June or July. I actually ran my comfortable running pace - it was so uplifting. After 3 miles, my knee stiffened and I revised my plan to only go for 4 miles. Then at 4 miles, it felt OK so I just kept going. Thank you, Doug, for coming home early so that I could run in the afternoon.

Thurs: 3.01 mile hill/speed run (sprint up, walk down) at an 8:54 pace. I got to leave work early this day (thanks again, Doug), so I ran in the afternoon. I was truly sucking it at the end - felt like my lungs were trying to heave out of my throat to get some 0xygen. And, since others were awake, I had to run on the side of the road instead of the middle. Still, an improvement over last week. My plan to go 4 miles was abandoned due to the aforementioned sucking.

Sat: 4.02 miles at a 9:38 pace. I had planned to go 8 miles this morning at a 10:00 pace - set my Garmin and everything. My knee was stiff and I nearly quit after the first mile. Fought through it and kept running through miles 2 and 3. Then I had to go potty and decided that 4 was it. I was very depressed at my knee crapping out like that, but when Doug told me the temp when I came inside (24-26 degrees F), maybe that was a good enough excuse. I'll have to meet with my pal Billy in the morning as penance/punishment/make-up, though.

Beauty

So, I drove to Savannah for work last week. That's right, 8.5 hours in the car for a 40 minute meeting and lunch. But, the meeting went well and they didn't need much of my legal expertise during the discussions (always a good thing), so it was a successful day. Along the way, I noticed how beautiful Georgia is. You don't always think about it, as you pass all of the piney woods and kaolin mines on I-95 and I-16, but this state is lovely. And Savannah - even the slums are gorgeous. If you ever have reason to visit the federal building in Savannah, please note that they do not have a lobby or bathroom that you may access without the presence of the party you plan to meet. No good after a 4.5 hour drive. There is, however, a lovely coffee/dessert shop just down the street (Walnut St, I think) that had good coffee, yummy scones, delicious-looking sandwiches, clean potties and all manner of chocolate, including chocolate thongs. I did not point these out to my colleagues when we returned for them to use the facilities, but I did buy a chocolate bar with chiles and nibs in it for Doug. No dice for him, but I have really enjoyed it. Yum. Please also note that if visiting Savannah, you need to take change for the parking meters or buy some stuff at the aforementioned coffee place so that you have enough to cover your time.

In other news, our training program called for Virigina and me to run 4x800 speed repeats, a 4 mile tempo run and an 8 mile long run this week. Viriginia and I found this program independently and are following it loosely to train for the ING race. I am following it more loosely than Virginia since it's not my first half (loved writing that, by the way) and my knee is still touchy. So, here is what I did this past week:

Tues: 4.02 mile tempo run in the flats at a 9:11 pace. This was not a hard run. I've not done any tempo runs since August, so I was pleased to get the four miles without my knee crapping out.
Thurs: 3 miles of hill repeats (sprint up, walk down) at a combined 9:18 pace. This was very difficult because it was cold, the hills are hard and I had a lot of phlegm. I was definitely sucking it at the end.
Sun: 6 miles at a 10:00 pace at the park (the flat one, not the Rec). Not hard, I probably could have run further but I didn't want to hurt the knee.

Pretty good, if I do say so myself. I've not been looking much at the training program because I'm so far off of it - especially the tempo part. To train based on my regular 5K pace, my tempo run should be at an 8:27 pace. I didn't even do the math for the speed work, and cross-training, forget about it! I'm off to a good start for this week, though, so hopefully the next post will be all about that.

Also, a friend of mine just found out that her baby may have a heart problem. They don't know how serious the problem is yet, and the baby won't be born until spring, but say a prayer for them please.

P says pppp

It's P week at Annika's school this week. For that reason, they are wearing pajamas to school today, having popcorn and a movie for snacktime and a pizza party for lunch. For breakfast, we even had pancakes. I'm out, though, and can't think of any other "p"s to have for dinner except peas. Any ideas?

In other news, I finally came through on my promise to Dorothy and gave blood yesterday. They were having a drive in the office park at work. The participation was low, but overwhelmingly female. You would think that the men would be more likely to give, but not this day. It had been 8 years (I had signed up to donate one other time, but had to cancel when I got pregnant with Dagny) since my last donation, so I am surprised at how punk I feel today despite not feeling light-headed at all yesterday (usually I do). Maybe it is a consequence of getting old. If you want to give, here is the site to make an appointment. You can search by your zip code for a convenient location and make an appointment online.

Patience is a Virtue

Patience is a Virtue. One of Mike's sisters mentioned this in a comment over at Hollandsenieuwe. My mom used to tell us this (in the really annoying sing-songy voice) when I was a kid and boy, did we hate it.

So right now, I don't have any patience. I knew that something would fall through the cracks when I started my permanent job (that's right - the temporary, part-time gig turned into a permanent, more-hours but still not-full-time gig). When I started the temp project, birthday cards fell off my plate. Until last year, every cousin, aunt, uncle, other relative or friend got a birthday card on or near (except for Tara, whose birthday has always confused me) their special day - and most got a handwritten "message" from Annika. No more, after July of 2006 we terminated the cards because I never got around to buying any in August and we just slid downhill from there.

Anyway, despite Doug's herculean efforts around the house (relieving the sitter in the afternoon, cooking outrageously good dinners, helping me pack lunches), I find myself losing my marbles on an increasingly frequent basis. I'm going to have to work hard to find something else to lose so that the patience can stay on my plate and I won't yell at Annika because she has antagonized Dagny for the seventeenth time of the morning or just not gotten dressed when asked.

This short temper could be related to my crappy training. Natalie asked how my training for the ING half-marathon was going - in a word: badly. I don't know how long one is supposed to "recover" from a half-marathon, but I'm pretty sure that I've exceeded that time and have moved on over into either complete sloth or just re-injury. Because I ran my race at my training pace, took Tylenol and fueled as Joe recommended, it was not challenging cardio-vascularly and I didn't feel used-up at the end. However, my knee was toast. I have only run 7 miles each of the last two weeks (hopefully more this week because I have a date to run with Virginia this afternoon). That darn IT band just doesn't want to cooperate with my plans.

However, on Thursday I was able to run the loop around our block by running the uphills and walking the downhills. Since I haven't done any speed or hill runs since September, the loop was a challenge - I was actually sore! Maybe today will be the beginning of something good.

Now, if I could just find something else to "lose". . .

Speaking of which, I just noticed that I lost both Jason and Camille from the sites list during my change -you guys are clearly not paying attention either!

Oops!

I just noticed that I had accidentally dropped Corinne off of the blogs list. She is back now. Rest easy.

In other news, while I cleaned up after dinner today my amazing husband made chicken salad for me and the girls to take for lunch tomorrow. From Paula Dean's recipe that he looked up on the internet.

Walt Disney Half Marathon Race Report + photos

At long last, here is my race report with photos of the girls from our visit to Disney World last weekend. The first is Dagny wearing Annika's Minnie hat. Then, Annika inside the mouth of one of the sharks from the Nemo ride at Epcot. This was originally an informative ride about the ocean, but now it is an informative ride with Nemo and friends. Dagny and Annika LOVED it. At the end was a cool play area (where the shark is) filled with cool shark facts and children. Next, Annika with her face painted as "princess kitty" - her choice. She wore the face paint for two days until it wore off (after we were home).



Last, Dagny gets to know (or pounds, whichever) Eyeore at the Crystal Palace restaurant. If you go to Disney World, this place is great for lunch because (1) the food is good, (2) they have the Pooh characters, and (3) it is very close to the baby center, which has clean changing tables for use and baby supplies for purchase.

Lest you be disappointed at the lack of running photos, the following links show me at the race finish and post-finish with my medal (not beautiful - I'm not Miss Photogenic). Please note that in the finishing photo, you can clearly see the reason that our friend missed me at the finish (Doug was off placating Dagny, who had lost her marbles).

On race morning (Saturday), I woke at 2:58am. It was two minutes before I planned to get up, but 10 minutes before the alarms. I took some Tylenol and started my coffee in the coffeemaker and my oatmeal in the hotpot. After showering, coffee, and as much oatmeal with soymilk as I could manage, I got dressed and left - without waking Doug. I was to meet our friend Joe at 3:50 so that he could drive me to the race. He volunteered to do this so that he could scope it out for his marathon on Sunday. Alas, we left one important part out of our plan - WHERE to meet. He wasn't in his room and I had no phone. After a moment of adrenaline panic, I banged on our door and woke Doug up so that he could call Joe on his cellphone. Bless him, Doug called Joe for me and we were on our way!

Race morning was warm and damp. Florida is quite humid. Disney does not skimp on any aspect of their race, so I was able to take care of "business" no less than three times before we even got to the starting area at 5:30am. I also ate some more Tylenol before the start (Doug's advice). The start of my race was on the road just beyond the Epcot parking lots. The wheelchair racers started first, then the fast folks (wave A) and then my group (wave B). Wave C brought up the rear. I thought that I was in the middle of the wave, but perhaps was at the back. Mickey, Donald and Goofy started the race for us and shot fireworks for each starting group. It was slow going at the beginning and shortly before the mile 1 mark, the folks next to me dropped to a walk because we were essentially running in place. After we ramped down to World Drive, the crush eased a bit and we were able to get to a better pace. Miles 2 and 3 passed without significant speed as we all plodded along in the dark. I realized how slow the first miles had been and gave up all hope of keeping to my 10 min per mile goal pace. As we ran, I found and chatted with Brittany Brown from Kansas, who I had met as we stood in line to get our numbers at the Expo on Friday. Go Brittany! At each mile volunteers dispensed water and gatorade in appropriately colored cups and there were portopotties.

As we approached the Transportation and Ticket Center (could have been Magic Kingdom), there were cheerleaders chanting and clapping for us and then two divergent paths with music (country and rock). The sun was starting to rise at this point, but I still didn't need my visor yet. Joe had advised me to fuel after 40-50 minutes of activity. He trained hard for his marathon and read a lot about fueling. Because of my knee, I hadn't done any training runs long enough to require fueling and really if the point of exercise is to burn calories, why would I consume extra ones (other than beer?). Seriously, other than water, I had consumed nothing while running. So, because the local Target has Sports Beans (made by Jelly Belly) and Joe said that they weren't horrible, I packed those in the key pocket of my shorts. As we came into the Magic Kingdom, I busted out the beans - because of the danger of hurling, Joe advised consuming water at the stops before and after eating them. Because of the humidity and my lack of experience at this distance, I consumed water everywhere. I munched on my delicious jelly beans as we ran through Tomorrowland, past Space Mountain (and the real potties), the Teacups, and the Carousel. I stopped eating to pass through Cinderella's castle (they take photos there, you know) and finished them up on the way out through Frontierland. At this point, the race volunteers were handing out bananas. I almost passed them, but ate a few bites of one as I ran just in case the beans were too "hot" for my tummy. The beans might be harder to consume if one were running at a faster pace - for a first-time racer, they were perfect. I wasted a whole mile concentrating on eating my beans one by one without dropping any.

The sun was fully up by this time and I realized that I was making better time as we passed miles 6, 7 and 8 out of the Kingdom, past the Grand Floridian and the golf course. This guy said that this was the difficult part of the race because of the boring scenery, but I loved it - so green and relaxing. Also, as I exited the Kingdom, Annika appeared in my headphones, yelling "Go, Mommy, Go!" Doug had secretly taped her with several different uplifting messages and uploaded them to my i-pod. I laughed out loud and then got misty. What a great husband. He also put my tunes in a good order, which I didn't realize and messed up because I started with Whitesnake instead of Christina Aguilera. Anyway, after mile 7, I decided that a potty-break was in order so I waited until the mile 8 marker since it was over halfway and past any distance that I had ever run before. At mile 8 there were two potties facing the road and about 8 facing away. I ran to the "away" ones and there was NO line. Marvelous.

Lighter and with a spring in my step, I continued down the road, listening to my tunes, taking my earphones out to listen to the marching bands and the steel drum band and the DJs who liked the road. It was so much fun. I didn't stop smiling the whole time. At mile 8, prior to the potty break, my left foot started to hurt. I thought perhaps my shoes were askew and tried to stretch it as I ran. The knee was OK - a little stiff but nothing bad. I decided that I could start running faster. Miles 8-10 passed without incident, though I did figure out that the Team-in-Training coaches were running ahead on every mile and then waiting for their peeps to come by before sprinting ahead again - those TNT folks and their spectators were great. I made a mental note to require all friends running in the ING race to wear matching shirts (a joiner, I TOLD you). At mile 10, I figured that I was close enough to the finish to run at racing speed. I tried to keep up with this beautiful woman (dark green singlet, dark skin, single long braid, a very tall, good-looking man passed her in mile 10/11 and gave her a kiss) because she was running so well. She passed me, though, on the flat part of the highway as we went over the overpass. Because we were on the highway for the last 3 miles, there was a big crown in the road. Inclines of all kinds seem to make my knee hurt, so I ran a lot in the grass. There was less pounding there too, seemed like. Anyway, there was another food stop at mile 12/13 where volunteers dispensed Cliff Shot Bloks. These were sour apple flavor and smelled heavenly. However, it was nearly mile 13 - who needs calories there? Not me. I sprinted past the beautiful woman in the green shirt, into Epcot, around the Christmas tree and straight to the finish. I had the best time. It was so much fun - I couldn't stop smiling all day. This was the perfect first half-marathon. No water/fuel/potty worries, plenty of music, cheering, distraction - so much fun! I definitely would do this race again, if finances permit, but I would save the park visiting until after the race and after the other kids are back in school to avoid the crowds.

New Look

I'm a joiner. I admit it. Any group that I think might be fun or exciting, I'm in - tennis team, track club, golf group, casserole ministry, mom's group(s), alumni association, etc.

So, after Anne and Dorothy updated their layouts with the new Google Blogger, I had to do the same. I like blue better than green anyway. It makes me happier.

I lost some of my links when I made the layout change so if you think there is a cool blog or link that I should show, let me know.

Qwack, Qwack, Qwack

So, during one of the many Christmas festivities last month, my sister related a story to me of how Annika told her that her eyes were cracking. "Ha!" we taunted, "your eyes are cracking!"

Yesterday, Annika told me the same thing. "Mommy, why are your eyes red?" she asked. "Because they are tired," I replied. "I think they are cracking" she chirped, "like eggs."

Please note that each instance of the letters "r" or "l" is either silent or sounds like a "w" - "Mommy, why are youw eyes wed? I fink they awe cwacking."

Garmin's Results

For my half-marathon at Walt Disney World, here are Garmin's results by Mile number, in minutes and seconds. Clearly I should have moved towards the front of my corral, but perhaps the slow start allowed me to finish as easily as I did:

1. 11:48
2. 10:47
3. 10:52
4. 10:28
5. 10:05
6. 10:08
7. 9:31
8. 9:56
9. 10:10
10. 9:53
11. 9:15
12. 8:51
13. 8:25
14. this wasn't actually a mile, but 0.41 miles in 2:53

I'm not sure why Garmin thinks I went farther than 13.1 miles. It could be that I forgot to press stop at the finish or did it late - I don't know. Please note the negative splittage is marred only by my visit to the porto-potty in mile 9. Stopping at all but one of the previous 9 water stops made this necessary - it was humid, folks! I'll post a full race report later (maybe later in the week) with some photos of the girls at Disney.

Results

Displaying 1 to 1 of 1
Unofficial Race Results

STEPHANIE BACHMAN Bib #28120 Age 34 F
START
5K
10K
15K
FINISH
6:15:22 AM EST
34:54
1:07:12
1:39:13
2:13:15
TIME
Chip Time: 2:13:15
Clock: 2:28:01
Pace: 10:09
Placement
Overall: 2683
Gender: 1039
Division: 165

Questions? Please contact ChampionChip USA

So, you probably can't understand any of that, so I'll explain. I started my very first half marathon (DisneyWorld 2007) on Saturday at 6:15:22 am. At the 5K mark, my chip said that my time was 34:54, at the 10K mark I was at 1:07:12, at 15K I was at 1:39:13 and finished at 2:13:15. My pace was 10:09 minutes per mile and you can see the placement.

What you can't see is that the Disney Half is a lot like the Peachtree Road Race. There are a zillion people. For the first 3-4 miles, traffic was very congested but after that I was able to find places to run. I'll post my mile splits later, but I had a great race. I stopped for 10 of the 12 water breaks and one potty break plus the slow start and still finished in a decent (if not record-breaking) time. It was really fun and I am so looking forward to the ING Georgia half in March.

The Best Party

So, Doug and I are not much for New Year's Eve parties. We had one here the year after Annika was born, which was fun but usually we do something low-key and frequently don't make to the ball drop before falling asleep.

Last night was no exception. We invited some local friends (and by local, I mean 5 miles or less) over, with kids for tapas and beverages. The kids got sparkling apple juice (not a hit), macaroni and cheese and little cheese pizzas. Sara brought a delicious cookie cake and we had Bellinis. Doug kept refilling my glass so I might have been over-served, but it was a lovely evening. We did a haphazard clean-up after everyone left and were asleep by 9:30pm. Gotta love the bring-the-kids party. We will be having a lot more of those.

New Year's goals/resolutions:

(1) Have more patience for my children.
(2) Have more empathy for my family.
(3) Run more races.
(4) Faster.