Mother's Day recap and fall race thoughts

My beautiful baby

Mother's Day was fantastic -

First I woke up with my four year old, Ben nestled by my side. Every day he wakes up with the same words, "Mama, no school."  I don't know why he requests "no school" he loves school but this is what he says first thing every morning.

Mother's Day was no different, his eyes popped open at too early of a time and I heard the usual, "Mama, no school." But then, there was a pause and a gasp. "Today is Mama's Day…. Happy Mama's Day!"

It was unexpected music to my ears. Ben has special needs. He was just diagnosed on "the spectrum." His speech is delayed, blurting out and remembering something like that (unprompted!) is super SPECIAL. My husband later told me that he had this conversation with Ben several times leading up to Sunday. He remembered! I couldn't believe it. I could live that moment fifty times a day and it wouldn't get old. Best gift ever. Will never forget those words. Yes. something so simple for so many other toddlers his age is that big of a deal. 

His other gifts were pretty great too. A homemade "mom" necklace, a homemade card, and Dad's help of a few iTune gift cards and a Kindle Touch.

let's get reading!

It was a great day. Even got 2 miles in before heading to PA to spend the day with a few other great moms: (my twin sister and my mom).

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Last year's bling from the half

And in other news...

I'm thinking of signing up for a full marathon in October - The Atlantic City one. I did the half last year. I know this is lame to even say out loud but I like the idea of signing up for the full with the 'safety net' of being able to run the half if training doesn't go as planned. I know, I know. I talk a great game about "setting goals" and "no excuses" but here is the truth. I like the idea of signing up for a full because it will force me to get some longer runs in again and stop the wimping out at 2-3 mile runs. At very least I'll be getting more 6-8 mile runs in again and that'll make me better at running 5k's, 10k's and halfs. I need something bigger on the schedule to get me to put in those longer miles consistently because I have figured out how to fart around and still accomplish the half now. 

I know that part of my cramping issues on my last two halfs was probably potassium / hydration related but part was probably thanks to too many 2 -3 -4 mile runs and not enough longer ones.

But when it comes to 100% going for a full, truth be told, with a part-time job that sometime resembles a full-time job, a documentary in pre-productions, a few other media projects in the pipeline looking close to going, juggling my son,  bs, bs -- getting some of those long, long runs may or may not happen. I am still a slower long distance runner. I can find an hour or an hour and a half to run if I need to in a day but when it comes to finding 3 -5 hours for those long runs - that's where it gets tricky - especially now that I'm competing with my darling husband to get out the door to run! Plus when I run for more than 2 hours, in addition to those 2 hours out there, I'm pretty useless for the rest of the day.

I don't know.

But I know one way to NOT run another marathon is to not sign up at all. So we'll see. I'm still mulling it over.

Have you ever signed up for a full and dropped down?

Do you ever struggle to find balance when you're in full training mode?

How was your Mother's Day?

XO

Jen

PS: Exciting stuff!! OUR first piece of press on the documentary! http://relayguide.com/

Best Mother's Day Ever! New race

It's only 10:15 AM and so far this is turning out to be a great Mother's Day.

Gift #1: I awoke to a beautiful day - blue skies and sunshine for miles.

Gift #2: I make my way to the kitchen to find my two favorite guys all smiles and standing around the most beautiful bouquet of flowers.  (There was a Mother's Day balloon that was included but my son was dying to play with it so it's floating around here someplace!)  :)

Gifte #3: My 3 year-old somehow knew to get me a gift card for iTunes to start loading up my iPod for the big upcoming marathon!

But here's the biggest and best gift of them all. My husband who hasn't been so physically active has decided to take a big step. This morning he found a 5K training program and decided he wanted to start training for a 5K! So we found a 5K six weeks out for June 19 which lands us on FATHER'S DAY and together - we'll run my husband's FIRST 5K!!  I'm so excited that he's committing to a healthy path and I think he's going to rock it!

So this is what we're running and by coincidence this 5K takes place where I do most of my long runs - it's a beautiful park and the perfect place to 5K.

I am one happy Momma today.

Side note: I was supposed to do my long run today 18 miles. But decided to wake up way early tomorrow and knock it out in the wee early morning. The park is going to be jammed-packed today and I really didn't want to spend hours away from the family on Mother's Day. So today it will be the park, playing, maybe a little BBQ and I couldn't be more excited for a perfect day.

I'm looking forward to the big  challenge tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day!

XO
Jen