that’s not justin bieber, that’s my mother

I decided to take the plunge and chop off all my hair. I’ve often thought about doing it, but I never had the guts. Lately, I’ve wearing it up since it needed to be cut and looked awful when it was down. It was a complete last-minute decision to go that short, but I figured I should just go for it. When I came home and got the baby up from his nap he looked at me with a why-is-Peter-Pan-in-my-bedroom-and-what-has-he-done-with-my-mom look. Once I fed him he didn’t seem to care. I haven’t decided how I feel about the cut. I’m still getting used to it. It’ll grow eventually if I decided it’s not for me, it’s just hair. What does everyone else think?

As for my run today…I didn’t go very far, just a quick 1.3 miles. I didn’t go yesterday and I probably won’t be able to go tomorrow, so I thought I probably should go, even if it was pretty short. It was a pretty gorgeous day out for November, but still a bit chilly. I debated on wearing a hat, since I’m relatively new to running without much hair for warmth. I decided to go without and I was glad I did. My hands were still freezing because I cannot seem to find my gloves. Anyway, I love running when it’s nice and crispy out and the leaves have fallen off the trees. If it’s even the tiniest bit sunny it makes for perfect running weather.

my first breath post-baby

Yesterday the baby turned 2-months-old. Today I decided, on a whim, to go for my first post-baby run. To be honest, I haven’t thought about running since my last run in April, when I was just 5 months pregnant. Today, though, I felt up for a short run.

It was a cloudy 40º day out; not exactly my favorite weather for running. I wasn’t even sure what to wear, but I knew if I thought about the weather too much I would chicken out. I quickly threw on a running tank, running pants, a long-sleeve T-shirt, and tied a pink bandanna on my head. I stretched, put on my mom’s old running shoes (mine are too small post-baby), turned on some Lady Gaga, and headed out the door.

I’ve had a few opportunities to be out on my own since the baby’s been born, thanks to Paul’s extended leave from work. On all of those occasions I still had the baby in the back of my mind. However, during my run, all I could think about was the run. It was the first time I didn’t feel bogged down with “mom fog” as well. It felt so good to get out and just run without having to think about all the other things I needed to do that day. I am a stay-at-home-mom; I don’t work outside the home, so running is my one chance to get away and do something that makes me feel good.

I felt that I should probably assess my current physical state since it’s been so long since I have run. I have the Adidas miCoach app on my phone that has an assessment workout that I like, which lasts 12 minutes. I thought that was perfect for my first run. I’m not ashamed at the fact that sometimes I can only go a mile or two. I learned early on that I do not enjoy running if I push myself too far. Sometimes a mile is all I can do and that’s OK.

My plan was to do the assessment, which begins and ends with two minutes of walking, and then I’d run home. However, my favorite running song came on as I made it to my corner, so I felt obligated to continue on the run. That is what I love about running. There’s nothing that says you can’t keep going.

How I did!!

The last two blocks of my run were the most difficult. My favorite song had finished and I was running into the wind. I was pretty tired and regretting not wearing gloves by the time I got home. However, I was greeted by a happy baby who had just woken up from a nap and been fed when I went in the door and that made the whole run worth it.

starting a new focus

I apologize to anyone who has attempted to read my blog in the past few days and found it MIA. I have decided to narrow down and focus on running and being a mom and I needed some time to gather my thoughts. That was part of my idea when I started the blog, but as my pregnancy went along and running went by the wayside, I derailed a bit. As my interests started to change I felt overwhelmed with an urge to blog about everything. However, that caused me to write even less because it was harder to focus on one task at a time and I believe my writing suffered. I never claimed to be a great writer, but I think having too much to write about was worse than not having enough. There’s always another run to write about.

I always feel it’s a bit better to start from scratch. The baby is 2 months-old today, and now is good time to start running again (it’ll force me to get over my fear of running in the snow). Anyway, here’s to new beginnings…

5K-ansas university

I’ve been trying all month to train for a 5K that my mom and I were planning on running on April 30th. The race was originally scheduled for February but got rescheduled for April due to the weather. I was really looking forward to running in it because it was going to be the first official 5K I’ll run while pregnant.

The race was to take place in Lawrence, Kansas, which is not too far from my parent’s home, but still a decent drive. Lawrence happens to be where the University of Kansas is located. I should also mention that although I have a decent sense of direction, whenever my mom and I go somewhere we’ve never been before we almost always get lost. We didn’t completely get lost this time, but we had a very hard time finding the race, and once we did, there wasn’t really a race to run. The area was between the river and some train tracks and there wasn’t anyone there who looked like they were putting on a race. I wasn’t too excited about running by the river anyway. I swear Google maps made it look like we would be running in a park.

We decided that since we had driven all the way out to Lawrence and we were dressed to run that we might as well run somewhere. I had never seen the KU campus so we decided to run around it. Usually I don’t enjoy running somewhere I’ve never been before, but running around the campus sounded like a lot of fun. It turned out to be incredibly hilly – probably the hilliest run I’ve ever done (definitely the hilliest since I’ve gotten pregnant). Part of it was really fun; I enjoyed seeing the campus and running with my mom, but I did not enjoy the hills so much.