My First PPPR!

Hello! It has been just about three months since my last post and my goodness have things been fun in my world! I’ll start by filling you in on one of the most important parts of my life … Maddiecakes! She is 6 months old now and thriving. She can sit up, reach for and grab toys out of my hand, knows her name, and is very close to crawling. We have begun to feed her puréed fruit and vegetables twice a day, and so far her favorite seems to be apples. I absolutely love finding new ways to make her smile and laugh, but usually just my walking into her line of site is enough to elicit a big gummy grin! I am absolutely in love with everything about her and thank God every day that I get the privilege of being her mommy.

Maddie at 5 Months

Roxie and Maddie at 4 Months

Reese and Maddie at 6 Months

Maddie after some sweet potatoes!

Jason and Maddie at Christmas

Maddie and I at 6 Months

Maddie at 6 Months

 Things in the running world have been progressing nicely as well, with just one minor hic-up along the way. I had been told that Maddie would be bringing home all sorts of germs the first year in day care and that my immune system was in for a rough ride, but I had no idea just how rough that ride was going to be! At the beginning of February I was logging 30 miles per week including a 10 mile long run on the weekends, and my pace was coming along much more quickly than I had anticipated with most of my runs in the 7:30 range. Then Maddie came home with a cold, which was no big deal, she’s had one before and I knew it was just a matter of waiting it out until she felt better. I got her cold as well (as expected) but continued training. Then her cold turned into some weird eye irritation (the doctor said it wasn’t pink eye, but it was all gunky looking so they put her on medicated eye drops “to be safe”) which I also got. Then I woke up the morning after the super bowl freezing cold, my body full of aches, a 102 degree fever, and a nasty cough … I had the flu. After 5 days in bed I started feeling better, but there was this lingering pressure behind my left eye that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times I blew my nose. After two days of misery, I went to the doctor who confirmed that I had a sinus infection. Oh my goodness, I was one tired mamma. Fortunately, Maddie showed no signs of illness after the cold and eye stuff, and Jason is the most wonderful husband and father in the world and took over full time Maddie duty. After 12 days of no running, I finally felt well enough to head out the door for a 2 mile test run. The Disney Princess Half Marathon, which I signed up to run with my cousin, Laura, was only one week away and I needed to get moving!

Laura ran this race last year in an awesome first half marathon time of 2:07, and I was thrilled when she brought up the possibility of us running it together this year and aiming for sub 2. My mom and sister, along with Laura’s mom, came to cheer us on and add to our fun girl’s weekend in Disney World.

Friday night we all converged on the Orlando Airport and made our way to the Walt Disney World Resort. We were so tired from travel that we barely remained awake through dinner then trudged back to our rooms for some much needed rest. This was my first night away from Maddie … ever, and I worried about my ability to sleep knowing I couldn’t check on her to make sure she was still breathing if I woke up during the night. My fears were for naught though and I slept, well, like a baby knowing that Jason was home with our baby. I will pause in the race re-cap here to say that I am blessed beyond all measure to have Jason as my best friend, husband, and father of our child. After getting over the initial anxiety (and guilt) I felt from leaving them alone for the weekend, I did not at any point the rest of the trip worry about Maddie in any way, because I knew that she with her Daddy.

Saturday, after a scrumptious breakfast consisting of Mickey Mouse Waffles, eggs, bacon, yogurt, oatmeal, and fruit (yes, all of that is what I ate, I’m not sure what the rest of the crew had, I was busy chowing down!) Laura and I made our way to the race expo. I LOVE RACE EXPOS!!! Running as a whole does not require much gear, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a-whole-bunch-of-stuff-you-don’t-actually-need-but-it-looks-so-cool-you-want-to-buy-it-anyways for sale! I was a good girl and limited myself to 4 new pairs of balega socks, a sweet pink shirt that reads “motherhood is the ultimate endurance sport” and as much free food as I could possible fit into my bag. Once we had scoped out every booth there, we made our way to Universal Studios to meet up with the rest of the crew and explore Harry Potter World.

Me, Sam, and Mom in Harry Potter World! 

 As many of you know, my maiden name is Potter, and I am quite obsessed with the Harry Potter books. I have read every book at least twice, listened to each book on tape at least twice, and watched every movie who knows how many times. Going to Harry Potter World was like the mother ship calling me home. Fortunately for me I was not alone in my excitement as my sister is even more obsessed with Harry Potter than I am. We quizzed each other on little known Harry Potter facts the entire afternoon while my cousin and aunt looked at us with amusement as though we were speaking another language … silly muggles! That evening we watched the most amazing show I have ever seen, Disney’s Cirque Du Soleil, followed by a delicious dinner at Wolf Gang Puck. Unfortunately in order to fit all of that excitement in one day, we did not go to bed until 10pm … 2am race day morning came awfully soon!

2am Sunday morning my alarm clock went off … good thing I’m a morning person! I fumbled my way through my morning routine then with my second cup of coffee in hand made my out the door at 3:15am to meet my cousin for our bus ride over to the starting area. I must give a massive shout out to my mom here, and also provide some context. I am still breastfeeding Maddie, and plan to continue breastfeeding for the entire first year if possible. That means my breast pump is my ball and chain, wherever I go, it goes, and I pump every 3-4 hours, every day, no matter what. So, leaving the hotel room at 3:15am for a race that does not start until 5:30am and will not conclude until 7:30am (hopefully!) meaning we won’t get back to the hotel until 8:30am at the earliest, presented a bit of a problem for this milk-pumping-mommy. Even though it would have been just a bit longer between pumps than usual, who wants to run 13.1 miles … how should I put this … full? This is where my mom came in. She got up at 2:30am and came with me to the starting line for the sole purpose of taking my breast pump from me before the start of the race so I wouldn’t have to risk losing it in the bag check. My mom is awesome. At 4:30am we jumped a little gate between information booths, ducked behind the booth, and I was able to squeeze in one last pump.

3:30am ready to load the bus!

5:30am just before the start!

And We're Off!

 Before long I had hugged and kissed my mom goodbye, it was 5:30am, and Laura and I were about to embark on our royally magical princess journey! The race was great, and I am so glad that this was my first one back after having Maddie. I felt no pressure whatsoever since I was not racing for a new PR, and I was confident that Laura and I would obtain our goal of sub 2. I was ready for a fun tour of Disney World with 26,000 of my closest running friends! Due to the large number of runners the first few miles were extremely jam packed, and we were 30 seconds per mile slower than our goal pace at mile 1. I assured Laura that this was to be expected with such a large event, and that during almost every world record set in any distance event the runner negative split, and we were far better off to be too slow at this point than too fast. Miles 2-3 came and we had made some headway in lowering our pace, but we were still 10 seconds per mile slower than goal. I was not worried at this point, but knew these next few miles were where we would make it or break it. Fortunately Laura rose to the occasion and when I quickened the pace a bit she did as well.

Cinderella's Castle!

Laura just after the castle!

At the half way point we ran through Cinderella’s Castle and we were now just 3 seconds slower than goal pace. From that point on the race seemed to go by much faster, probably because I knew we were running back towards the finish line. Around mile 8 I took a self inventory, and realized this was the farthest I had run in 3 weeks. Aside from a general soreness in my legs which is to be expected 8 miles into a race I decided that I felt great and was in good shape to finish strong and continued encouraging Laura to do the same. At mile 10 it dawned on me that every step I took was farther than I had run at any point in the past two years! Disney did a great job of keeping the course entertaining despite being on a high way between parks; there were characters about every half mile and plenty of music along the way. At mile 11 I knew we had it in the bag. We were dead on pace, and Laura’s stride looked just a strong as it had when we first began, I knew she and I both had what it took to finish fast. Mile 12 came and I encouraged Laura that it was time to give it all we had. There was a good group of six or seven other women that we had been with the last two miles, and they all came along too as we sped up. I continued shouting encouraging words like, “Mickey Mouse Waffles waiting for us after we finish!” and we continued to quicken our pace. After several turns that I thought would be our last, the finish line was finally in sight. Out of no where Laura found another gear and I thought, “well crap, now I have to catch her!” as I took off as well. We crossed the line side by side and I ecstatically pointed up at the clock which read 1:59:59 as we ran under it. Our chip time was actually 1:58:55, but it was fun chasing down the clock at the end to make sure we were legitimately under 2 hours.

Proud Princesses!

I am so proud of myself and Laura for this accomplishment. For Laura, this was a HUGE PR, and for me it was the jump start I needed to fire up my excitement for racing. While I did not set a PR this weekend, I did gain some much needed confidence in my ability to continue pushing myself in that direction. On my way there, I am planning to have a lot of fun setting some PPPRs…

Post Partum Personal Records here I come!!!