Another race done.

This weekend my husband and I along with another couple did race to the rocker. It's a 4 mile race all on highway with lots of hills. 

Now heading in to this I knew I wasn't in the best shape but was going to do it anyway. A couple days before the race my sinuses started acting up and making me cough and feel like I was drowning. But I still wasnt going to back down from doing the race. My A goal went out the window as I knew pushing to hard would be dumb (plus I had to work a 24 hour shift the next day) and knew it would make me feel worse. So my B goal of not even being close to the last person was what I was hoping for. The night before the race we went to dinner at a local bar and grill and met the other couple we were racing with there for dinner and well for a few drinks.. 

The race had a 9am start which was nice no rushing around way early. We arrived and took a team photo before the race. 

As you can tell it was super cold I had two shirts and a jacket on and was still froze. We realized quickly our team most whole we had never met was super fast runners. I immediately felt bad that we would pull their team times down but were told that only the top 5 times counted anyway. 

The race ended up being one heck of a mental battle for me. I realized I need to suck it up and go to the chiropractor as my hips are so far out of line it's causing me to walk different which caused pain. 

Some of the miles felt they past quickly some drug on forever I was glad I was able to tackle the hills with no problem. 

I never did look behind me but made my husband look to make sure we weren't in the end. 

The closer we got to the finish line the more I wanted to be done so I ended up doing the last mile as the fastest of the day. We crossed the finish line I wanted something to drink and wanted to cry. I was frustrated with myself knowing we were the last two of the team to cross. But when I got home and looked up to see how many were behind us I wasnt to upset. There were over 90 people who finished after us!

It was still cold and I was glad to get back on the buses to head to the car. 

We stopped and ate Mexican on the way home and then spent the day helping my grandma move and go thru things. 

I am already looking for another race in a month or two to actually train for this time no more winging it. I want solid times not half ass ones. 

Skating and random things

Been quite a while since I last did a post... Didn't think anyone needed to hear about stress work stress work kids stress. Lets just say was a very rough few weeks. 

Anyway last Saturday I took the kids to roller skate. The babysitter was taking we grandkids so of course mine wanted to go as well. I have been skating since I was 2 or 3 my dad always took me every Saturday and Sunday my whole childhood. It was our thing we did together and most of the time he was the only adult/parent out there skating. 

Blake had been skating once Nathan had never tried. So we went and I got us all three on roller blades. Nathan preferred the carpet to practice on he did go out on the rink with me twice. 

Blake did good and by the end of the 3 hours he was more confident and could get himself around the rink. 

I skated the whole 3 hours minus maybe 10 minutes. When I would check on Nathan or take a quick break for a drink. The boys loved it and want to go back. On our way home I called my dad to tell him about our afternoon and I think we will make a skating date soon with him and the boys. 

After we got home I ended up running fire calls for brush fires so by bedtime I was wore out and SORE!

Friday morning I took Nathan for his preschool screening. So as a special treat we went to breakfast together before screening. He was one happy camper to have breakfast out with just mom. 

This weekend Kenny and I are doing the race to the rocker it's a 4 mile point to point race with some friends. I wasnt really planning to do this race and well I will just wing it (then have muscles that hate me later). I got a text last night that our team shirts had came in. I was quite happy with the color not so sure the guys on the team will be. 

However we will nice and bright and easy to spot. 

I don't really have many goals for the race. Other than dont finish last and try to beat my time from last year. 

A new month new week and a fresh start

I am pretty darn glad that February is gone done and over. It wasn't a terrible month but it sure wasn't a great one either. Had lots of thing happen that stressed me out and didn't help that its stayed super cold. We had a couple nice days but I was always working on those go figure.

I only posted twice last month, had lots of potential posts in my mind but never put them down and hit post. My attitude sucked for the last couple weeks of the month (still working on that now). Things were piling on that stressed me more and more to where little things would send me over the edge. I HATE that feeling and then hate knowing that I let bad old habits creep back in. Luckily this time around I was smart and let a couple close friends know I how things were going and I was able to keep some of the bad habits at bay.

This month I want to have a great month with food fitness and attitude and be in a good spot mentally. I have some things I wont discuss that I need to work on an change but lets just say I got hit hard with something unexpected last Tuesday that threw me in to a bad downward spiral.

Last month my goals were:

1-Get a schedule figured out where I can schedule time in for workouts. I have my first race of the year coming up in 22 days its just a fun 5k but I want to beat my time of last year. First race was wake up call that its not smart to wing a 5k (and not smart to stand and work 3 hours prior to race) I tied my time from last year which I was ok with.

2-Get my costume done for that race and quit procrastinating. I have the tulle just need to cut and make the tutu. Had it done in plenty of time even made two tutus for a couple little girls and another one the morning of the race for a friend.

3-Continue to drink more water and cut back on soda. About 80% on this I drank more water but some days still had two sodas instead of one or none. However I did have several days (not in a row) that I didn't drink any soda

4-Bring healthy lunches for work and cook more crockpot meals along with cooking more than we need at night so we have leftovers for a few days. This was hit and miss between me working nights and then nights I was home Kenny would work late I opted for dinners that would have lots of leftoves. We had roast and veggies, salsa crock pot chicken, grilled one weekend. Kids well they had lots of cheese pizza lots of yogurt and chicken. On days I didn't bring my lunch there was only one day where I opted for temptation on a hamburger from sonic and regretted it the rest of the day.

5-Spend time with the boys one on one and together hope weather starts to warm up some so we can go for walks or bike rides on our road. Mother Nature sure didn't allow for a warm up and my bike has still not seen much of the outdoors. Did make time to spend with the boys we had several evenings that was just the 3 of us and we would cuddle on the couch watching a tv show.


Goals for March:
1-Get some mileage in on the dreaded treadmill. I have signed myself and hubby up for a 4 mile race March 22, some friends of ours are doing it and talked us in to it.

2-Contiue spending more time with the kids in evenings and once weather warms up taking them to the park or for long walks or bike rides.

3-Find ways to manage stress better

4-More water less soda (its getting easier but days when stressed I WANT my Dr. Pepper) Tried the Advocare Spark drink and like it and also use Zipfizz some as well.

5-Learn to open up more to my close friends before getting to the over stressed overwhelmed point.

Freezin for a reason 5k

So last night was the 2nd annual freezin for a reason 5k. Last year I was prepared had been getting in a few miles a week. This year well it just didn't happen a lot of reasons but mostly just a fear of injury or that my ankle would re break. Yes I know silly but it was a mental block I just couldn't get past. However I signed up for the race planned my costume and decided to just wing it... 

Since the race is put on by the ambulance district I work for we had apt of work to do setting up. I worked the night before and was super busy all day and arrived at the race location at 3pm. Race time was 6 so lots of standing walking prepping etc. Race time arrived I put my tutu and accessories on and got ready to go. I knew lots of people doing the race all said oh hey we will do it together. Should have known better as that didn't happen... I ended up out there alone and let negative thoughts get to me. About a quarter of the way thru one of my close friends caught up with me and walked with me a bit I knew I should be a lot faster than them and it irritated me they caught me. I didn't wear my garmin or look a the time on my phone when I started. They walked with me and we talked about random things and I found a second wind about halfway. My legs were on fire my ankles were hating me but I wanted to be done so I went as fast as numb legs would go. The temps were in the 40's and fairly breezy. I started picking people to pass and did just that. I came back in towards the finish line and was looking for familiar faces to cheer me on and well most of the people who cheered as I left was gone. I got closer to the finish line and one of my coworkers was watching for me and her daughter dropped in with me and we ran the last few hundred feet. She was justthe inspiration    I needed.  I will do a post later with pictures as I only had a few on my phone but we had 3 photographers there taking pictures. 

I did lots of things very wrong about this race. I didn't eat well the day of or day before just snacked. Not enough water the two days prior. Being over tired and then standing on concrete for 3 hours prior to race. But all in all it was fun and had a good turn out. I am looking for a race a couple months out to sign up for so I can have something to train for. 

Science center and monster jam

Have to play a bit of catch up. We took the kids to St. Louis a couple weeks ago for monster jam. This year we had another friend and his daughter go, Dwayne, Connie and Desmon go with us. Blake was super excited for Desmon to go and Nathan was excited his Connie and Dwayne were going too. 

We got to St. Louis early to see big foot store and they were closed but we got a picture of Blake and Desmon out in front. 

With time to kill we decided to go to the science center. I had never been there and neither had my boys. It was pretty neat. I liked walking out over the interstate. 

Cut outs in the floor so you could see the cars pass under you. Was fun to see kids jump over those and some jump right on the spots. 

After spending a couple hours there walking around the kids were getting hungry. We decided to eat at Texas Roadhouse which was a good choice the kids ate well and all the adults liked it. While we were there eating the kids kept wanting to know how much longer until we saw the big trucks. 

Finally it was time to head over. On the way we drove past the arch. 

Wish it hadnt been so rainy and cloudy. 

Once we parked the kids couldn't wait to get inside. We found our seats and waited for the event to start. 

3 very excited little boys!!!!

The kids loved it and even tho we ate before coming in we had to make trips to food stands for high priced hotdogs and sodas :) 

I really liked they had a pink monster truck with a female driver! 

Who put on a great freestyle show. 

Of course my boys loved grave digger and son of a digger who won the race as well as put on an awesome freestyle show. Once we thought it was over this doom day music and sirens started wailing. (Which after two seconds made me crazy). But this black unmarked monster truck came out and did freestyle when he flipped over he waited for a black  SUV to come out put a tarp over the truck and SUV to get him out. No one knows who the driver or truck is but from my guess its part of the grave digger trucks. By the way it drove and the body style. 

It was a great day spent with some great friends. The kids were asleep before we got out of the city and slept all the way back. 

January is over already....

Can't believe that January is already over feels like the year just started and already have to flip the calender!

This ended up being a super busy month for me one week I worked 99 hours between both jobs most weeks I seemed to average between 45-70.

My goals for last month were:

January:
1-Drink more water each day I do great Monday thru Friday at work but weekends I sometimes struggle. Especially if I am working. I have done better with this even at my second job. When we go on transfers if I'm not super tired or its not late at night I get a fountain lemonade instead of soda. Now the late night early morning transfers I get soda to keep me awake.

2-Workout at least 3 times a week. Doing both cardio and ab, leg and arm exercises. I have searched pintrest for some quick easy workouts that I can do at home. Pretty much a fail I have been more active as in moving around doing more at home and work. Make more trips up the stairs at my office job and doing wall pushups when in the restroom at work.

3-Start cutting back on soda try to only have one a day. Hmmm its better at times and worse at times depending on the week. I need to find something else to have when stressed and frazzled right now when I hit that point I want a fountain dr pepper.

4-Eat healthier was doing pretty good until holidays hit then still staying away from fast foods. However snacks chips and frozen pizzas have been filling that void. Done fairly well with this one can't remember the last time I ate McDonalds or any other icky fast food I have had subway chicken from sonic made good choices at restaurants etc.

5-Look in the mirror and find something I like about myself not instantly finding what I don't like yes and no I still avoid the mirror like the plague but I have quit weighing myself daily and multiple times a day. I think the week I worked the 99 hours I wasn't ever home long enough to weigh let alone have energy to. So that sort of broke that habit.

6-Stress less and find ways to manage stress better not to let it bog me down until I fall apart or want to disappear. Still a work in progress I am happy to say (unless something happens today) I haven't hit that wall that I want to say forget it all and throw in the towel.


Goals for February:
1-Get a schedule figured out where I can schedule time in for workouts. I have my first race of the year coming up in 22 days its just a fun 5k but I want to beat my time of last year.

2-Get my costume done for that race and quit procrastinating. I have the tulle just need to cut and make the tutu.

3-Continue to drink more water and cut back on soda.

4-Bring healthy lunches for work and cook more crockpot meals along with cooking more than we need at night so we have leftovers for a few days.

5-Spend time with the boys one on one and together hope weather starts to warm up some so we can go for walks or bike rides on our road.

An Interesting article

In browsing facebook this afternoon I came across an article that a girl I work with at the ambulance had shared. I read it and then decided to share it here this is the link to the whole article but I am going to copy and paste some that happen to me the most. http://voices.yahoo.com/tips-survive-being-married-paramedic-3700116.html.

Article references being married to a medic but same happens if your an EMT or a fire fighter.
Tip #1: Never schedule anything within six hours of a shift ending or starting. If you do, you will almost always have to cancel or go alone. It's cliche to invoke Murphy's Law but it's the only explanation for this peculiar phenomenon--unless you want to go with the idea that there's a grand conspiracy out there to get you. I go with the latter myself, but not everyone wants to admit that there's a grand conspiracy out there to get them. Your spouse is never guaranteed to get off of work on time. Never. Ever. Never. No one can ever predict when a bunch of idiots on cell phones applying makeup reading the newspaper eating breakfast will decide to get in a car accident. So if you schedule an appointment or engagement shortly after your spouse is supposed to come home, you're just asking for it. Same goes for scheduling something within a few hours of when your spouse is supposed to go to work. If they need extra manpower at work, chances are they'll call and if your spouse values their job, they'll head in. Yep has happened to me more than once plan to do something as soon as I'm off work or plan something in between both jobs. Never fails I will need to go in early or get stuck a little later than usual.

Tip #2: Remember that sentimentality is for normal families, not for yours. What I mean is your spouse will have to work on important dates, be it your birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving and every other important date in your life. It's not always possible to take off or switch for those days, especially if it's a biggie like Christmas. If you are hung up on celebrating Christmas on December 25th, you'll be celebrating without your spouse. It really is okay to open presents on December 24th or 26th, especially if your spouse gets holiday pay. Don't pass up on time and a half in this economy! I got lucky and only worked on Christmas Eve and New Years Day. However I don't mind working on holidays. Guess it goes back to growing up around the fire dept and knowing that you could get a call at any moment. My kids are ok with it and well Kenny is cause I get holiday pay. Holidays don't have to be celebrated on the date the calendar says nothing wrong with doing them sooner or after the actual day.

Tip #5: Let them sleep. The life of a medic is never easy. It's almost impossible to relax while on duty because of the anticipation of a call, being on a call, and recovering from a call. Even if they get to sleep all night, it's not restful because they're anticipating a call. So when they come home after a shift, just let them sleep, no matter how much you want them to stay up and wash the dishes. Most of the time Kenny tells me to go relax if he knows I had a stressful shift however doesn't mean anyone else does the chores so I usually just suck it up do what I can then crash on the couch.

Tip #7: Ask them how their shift went. But don't ask them for details because you probably don't want to know. You might think you want to know, but do you really want to hear about someone's brains splattered against a wall? Nah, probably not. But if you do, you should become a medic too. This isn't so much at home he sometimes asks and I sometimes leave the gory stuff out.. However at my office job yeah they learned early on not to ask how the shift went....

Pretty neat article to read and if you aren't around this lifestyle it doesn't make sense to others. I am thankful to have lots of friends in the fire and ems careers that understand. Then there are those that can't believe I would work on a holiday or work as an EMT or fire fighter but those are the people that will be darn glad that we are out there if they are ever in need of medical care :)
Just like on Sunday when I was to meet my friend at a certain time and got a page for brush fire. All I had to do was send text saying on a fire call she understood and heck even found where I was to wait for me....