July 01, 2015

Wave pool, birds, and flooding

Thanks for the great responses and suggestions on yesterday's post! If there is one thing I love, it's listing out goals. I had actually spent quite a bit of time making a vision board for the post yesterday, but it wasn't approved by Prudential for some reason, so I couldn't post it. I can share it here, though:

I adore that picture of Eli with the powder all over him. I had taken a shower, and 10 minutes later, Noah and Eli had emptied an entire container of baby powder in my living room! Seeing how cute they looked, I couldn't even be mad--I just started taking pictures and laughing. That picture reminds me to laugh off the small things.

Yesterday, I had plans to get together with my friend Sarah, who is in town from Arizona. My kids have been begging to go to the wave pool, but it's been raining every day for about six weeks now. It was supposed to rain in the evening yesterday, so Sarah and her almost-three-year old son, Alex, planned to meet us at the wave pool at 1:30. We hoped to get in a couple of hours of swimming before the storm.

We ended up being the only people there at first! Usually, the wave pool gets pretty packed in the summer, but I imagine the impending storm was keeping people away. I like when it's not crowded, because it's much easier to watch the kids. Jerry was off work, so he came along, too. It ended up being a lot of fun! I mostly hung out with Sarah and Alex in the very shallow end while Jerry took Noah and Eli to the deep end, but during a few wave sessions, I went out there and joined them.

It ended up raining at around 3:00, so we stayed a little longer (you really can't feel the rain when you're in the pool), and then headed home. It was a fun (and kind of exhausting) couple of hours.

This morning, my mom called and asked if the kids and I wanted to go for a bike ride with her to check out the flooding from the Raisin River. It's been big news around here--with all the rain we've gotten, the river is extremely high, and has caused flooding over roads. I told her sure, but I wanted to get my run done first.

I had three miles on the schedule, and I decided to do the whole run with run/walk intervals of 2:00 run and 0:30 walk. My physical therapist told me I could run a mile once a week, but otherwise, keep doing the intervals. I felt really good from the very beginning of the run this morning! I didn't really feel like I was pushing the pace too much, but after the first mile, I saw I'd completed it in 10:16 (which included the walk breaks). I was excited to see that!

Once I saw my first split, I was hoping to keep the next two around the same pace, so I think I pushed a little harder on the running portions. Second mile was 10:04. And the third mile was sub-10, at 9:50! It's kind of mind-blowing to me to hit that pace when I'm walking for 30 seconds every two minutes. My average overall pace ended up being 10:03.

I tried to take a post-run selfie because I was feeling so good after my run, but Joey was way too excited to see me. Because, you know, I was gone for a whole 30 minutes.

That large spike in the last half-mile was when some birds were getting a little defensive. I know it's getting old that I've been talking about the birds, but I can't get over how crazy they are! Last Wednesday, I went out for a planned three miles: walk one mile, run one mile, walk one mile. Well, just two minutes into the walk, I got attacked by a couple of birds. I thought they were Purple Martins, but my dad later told me they were probably Swallows, which look similar.

It was terrifying! One grabbed a hold of my hair, and while I was swatting at it, the other swooped in from the front. I started running hard, but they were relentless. They kept following me! I ran for a full two-minutes at the hardest pace I could while flailing my arms to keep them off of my head. Check out this graph of my pace:

I finally made it to a busier street, where I darted across while the birds stayed on the other side. I spent the whole rest of the mile catching my breath. My throat and lungs were burning, even though I'd only run at an 8:00 pace for a total of 2 minutes. I ran a slow pace for the second mile, and then I just didn't want to go back down my street after that, so I stopped at my parents' house and asked my mom to drive me home. Because of birds! Crazy, right? I hope that their babies grow up quickly, so they can stop being so defensive.

After my run today, my mom and I took the boys on a bike ride. We drove toward the river, and then parked and rode on the sidewalks. I couldn't believe how high the river was when we got to the riverwalk.

Normally, you can go walk under that bridge, but the water was so high that it was completely covering the sidewalk. We went the other way, and discovered that the road was actually closed because it was totally flooded over:

There was no way around that, so we just turned around and headed back to the cars. I've never seen the streets flooded this badly! And we're still getting rain every day.

After we got back to the cars, I decided to take my bike to the bike shop, since I already had it with me. It was way overdue for a tune-up, and I was having an issue with my front brakes. I dropped it off there, and it should be ready in a few days. I think on Sunday, I'll try and do a long ride (maybe 20 miles).

Well, I'm off to the boys' baseball game!


  1. I love going places when it's just about to rain - it usually helps keep the temperature and the crowds bearable! It's just so hard to hit that sweet spot between "impending storm" and "storm." But I always try to go to amusement parks, outdoor fairs, markets, etc. on days when it might rain.

  2. I love your vision board (and the goals, too!). Our weather has been rainy and so cool lately. We have only gone to the pool once this summer. Have a wonderful 4th of July!

  3. Love the pic of you and Joey! That flooding is crazy!

  4. That picture of you and Joey is so cute!!

  5. That Joey pic is a RIOT!

    I can't believe the flooding! Just crazy!!

  6. I got dive-bombed by a bird when I was walking to work the other day! Why do they do that?!?

    1. I don't know, but it's terrifying, isn't it?!

  7. I was attacked a couple weeks ago by a red-winged black-bird so I feel your pain. I've been dive-bombed before, but have never had one repeatedly claw at my head like that - eek! It made for some great impromptu speed-work anyway :) I read that they don't attack if they can see your eyes, and that taping a fake set of eyeballs to your running visor or hat should keep them away...worth a shot!

    1. The red-winged black birds are the worst! They are the ones that always dive-bomb me. That's hilarious about taping a fake set of eyeballs to my hat--I'm totally going to try it!

  8. I know it's not funny when it's happening to you, but your bird stories crack me up every time! I'm sure it's only funny because I've never experience being dive-bombed by birds :) I love your vision board! I also made one this week and posted about it on the blog - http://www.loveyourselfhealthy.net/2015/06/weigh-in-get-happy.html

  9. Ugh the rain here in Ohio has flooded my running trail in the park by my house! The major river around here has flooded the streets too! We finally have a huge break from the rain for the weekend and hopefully everything dries out!

  10. AnonymousJuly 03, 2015

    I noticed that you've updated your running schedule on your sidebar, but not your weight (it still shows as being 136). Would you consider updating that so your readers can better support you as you work back to your goal weight? Right now it seems a bit deceptive.

    I love the photo of Joey!

    1. Yes, that's something I've been meaning to do forever! The last update was in 2013, and I kept waiting to take the time to fill in all of my Wednesday Weigh-ins before updating. That's probably never going to happen (there are about 18 months worth), so I'll just start updating it from this week :)

  11. AnonymousJuly 03, 2015

    Love the Joey pic! My dog becomes the super-kisser too. It's nice to get that unconditional love. Our WW leader gave us homework because we're not meeting tomorrow (July 4): making a vision board. Yours has motivated me to get started!

    Happy 4th!



Featured Posts

Blog Archive