Duathlon #2

Ashley participated in her second duathlon on Sunday. It was on the American Tobacco Trail, a local trail that runs for miles through our county and beyond. For her age group, she had a .35 mile run, 1.5 mile bike, and a .35 run.

She's the tall one in the middle in the pink. Notice in her right hand my handheld water bottle. She really wanted to carry it with her, just like I do.
Here she is coming to the finish...

And closer. I am not sure of her time yet, I should have timed her myself, but I forgot. She did great, no picking dandelions this time. She said the bike was hard. I think it was because of the surface of the trail and doing and out and back for the bike part. She ran the entire part of the run both ways. And the other thing about this race was it was hot. The start wasn't until 1:00pm, and she actually didn't start until closer to 2:00pm (the other two age groups went ahead of her). And while waiting at the finish line, I got to witness a few kids lose their lunch. The kids aged 11-17 had to do a 1 mile run, 4.5 mile bike, and 1 mile run, and a few of them I guess either pushed themselves too hard or were dehydrated.

Next up for her? A triathlon in July. I think I have this kid hooked on racing!

Lost....

Audrey's Dance Pictures

Bear with me...

There is a ton happening these next few weeks, so posting may or may not be sporadic. The craziness started this past weekend and will continue for the foreseeable future. But I promise to upload some pictures of Audrey's dance recital from Saturday tonight as she was wonderful and beautiful and loved every minute of it.

I of course cried through the entire performance. Heck, I started crying when another class was performing. They were just all so freaking cute.

Ashley's dance recital and piano recital thankfully falls on the same weekend, the first weekend in June. One on Saturday, one on Sunday. And at the end of Tuesday, June 8th, she will officially be a second grader. Seriously, when the HELL did that happen?

There are just so many milestones coming and going that my head is spinning. Ashley is will be bridging up to Brownies soon and Audrey will be starting Pre-K (and the requirement to wear a uniform every day which will make my mornings SO.MUCH.EASIER) in July. The girls are also going to go through something that we all don't want to go through - one of their good friends is moving (and one of my good friends as well...). They are neighbors of ours, and their oldest daughter actually went with us to Disney World when we went in December. She is Ashley's age, and they have been in school together since Pre-K. Audrey loves this girl as well and her little sister who is 2 years younger that she is. I think it is far enough in the future that Ashley and Audrey don't really know what to expect out of "moving day". I don't really know what to expect from the girls or myself either.

I realize it's been forever since I posted

I breezed right through Mother's Day and my Dad's Birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!). Mother's Day was spent doing something I enjoyed - going to the grocery store without my kids. And since our vacuum cleaner broke this week, I am thinking that's going to be my belated Mother's Day gift. Yea for me.

I have had 2 crappy runs this week, with hope that speedwork at the gym tonight will be better. I am just so sick of running in my town and really, really tired of the hills. I need a new place to run. Although that won't be in Chapel Hill since some woman yesterday was almost kidnapped running IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY on a very busy street.

Audrey's dance recital is Saturday and her dress rehearsal is tonight. I need to figure out how to hold it together so that I am not a sobbing mess for the recital. Seriously, I cried over the email from her teacher about the specifics of Saturday. What is wrong with me? Ashley is still a few weeks out from her recital, maybe I will figure it out by then.

Mother's Day

This morning was Muffins for Moms in Audrey's class, and I also got a chance to see her latest artwork. The above was me like I was talking (ignore the scary claw-like hands, but I do like the skinny stick body). I think she put that I like carrots because my latest addiction is hummus, and instead of eating hummus with other fattening foods, I use carrots. I also like how she left out any mention of Ashley saying I like to play games with my daughter, not daughters. And I definitely like to run!

Mickey Mouse and Happy Neurons...

First off, the Mickey Mouse thing. I have to admit, seeing the video on this blog post brought tears to my eyes. HOW FREAKIN COOL!

So we had book club on Monday night, and the book was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. I think all of us in book club agreed that it was kind of weird saying we enjoyed a book about a woman with early-onset Alzheimer's, but we did. It was exceptionaly written and interesting how the different family members reacted.

One of the things in the book the woman has to do is take mental tests during her doctor's appointments. I often sit at my desk at lunch eating my Lean Cuisine, and instead of cruising the gossip blogs, I actually enjoy going to some of the websites that have brain games. The connection to the book mentioned above? A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that subjects frequently participating in cognitively stimulating activities had a 63% lower risk of dementia/Alzheimer’s than less frequent participants.

So the most recent website I found was HAPPYneuron. Between memory, language, attention, executive, and visual-spatial games, I was set. And let me warn you, some of the games are hard. Or maybe I shouldn't tell you because maybe they are just hard for me, but whatever. It's nice in that it gives you a summary of how you have done as well.

This what I look like at the gym...

I did intervals at the gym last night - 1 mile warm up, 3 miles of intervals. Needless to say, I was a little sweaty. I was still sweating even after I showered and was driving home. Gross.