Tom King Classic Half Marathon

Yesterday morning I ran the Tom King Classic Half Marathon.  It starts next to LP Field (where the Tennessee Titans play football), follows the Cumberland River with a good portion of the race on the Shelby Bottoms Greenway, and finishes inside the stadium.  The Music City Half Marathon that I ran in the fall followed much of the same route but didn't finish in the stadium.

The race started at 7:30 am so I was out of the house just as the boys were getting up.  It was warm yesterday (upper 60s by the afternoon) but still chilly this morning (low 40s).

The race is very flat (just one tiny, tiny hill and a few very short inclines), which helped me run my fastest half marathon every, by more than 4 minutes!  I finished with a time of 1:51:22 (which is 8:30/mile pace).  I finished 25th of 124 in my age category (30-34 females) and 380th of 1332 overall.

I'm really happy with my time!  Especially since I've run VERY little lately.  I've been doing the Insanity workout and am on my last week of it.  It's a nine week program with one rest day a week and one workout that is a recovery workout that you do once a week.  So I've been doing a 4 mile run on my off and recover days but that's all.  But Insanity is a killer workout (much, much harder than running) and I have more muscle than anytime I can remember.  I've also been calorie counting for 3 months so with that and Insanity, I've lost 17 pounds!  I've decided to stop "dieting" and see if I can maintain my weight.  Once I'm done with the Insanity program I plan on doing the workouts about 3 times a week and running the other days to try to maintain the muscle I've built.  Since it's warming up, I really want to do more running outside again.

And I'm really happy with how I did considering I had a Girls' Night the night before the race!  I got home late and even woke up with a headache from drinking more than I had planned.  But it was worth it because we played two rounds of the Left Center Right Dice Game and I won both rounds.  Crazy!!! I came home with a profit of $75!!! I had to explain why I came home with so many singles to Brian :)

Anyway, Brian brought the boys down for the finish of the race.  They got to go inside the stadium to watch the runners finish.  I'm the one of the right in this picture (grey shirt and black pants).

Brian tried to get my picture on the jumbotron as I was crossing the finish line but between trying to time it right and keep on eye on the boys, the picture ended up out of focus.  But I'm the runner on the right again :)

Apparently when they got there, Rylan was so excited because he thought he was going to see a football game.  Brian explained that they were going to watch me finish a race and Rylan accepted it.  But then after I finished and they had to leave the stadium, Rylan was not at all happy.  He still thought there was a football game to watch after I finished running.

I got a nice technical shirt (though when I signed up I somehow ordered a medium shirt and it's HUGE so I may never wear it), a finishers medal, and the timing chip with the race logo on it.

The race was well run and I'm sure I'll do it again.  Two of the other parents on Carter's soccer team ran the race too.  It sold out at 1500 people so it is obviously a popular race!

There was an old lady ...

Carter's class read the book "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" on Tuesday.  Ms. Anne did a little survey after they read the book ...

We don't have this book but we have some holiday versions, such as "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat" for Halloween.

How'd I Get Here???

Rylan has trouble making it to 1 pm a lot of the time for his nap since he's such an early riser (and if he takes even a one minute nap in the morning in the car, he will not go down for a nap at 1 pm but then is a grouch and passes out later before bedtime in the car or on the couch).  And on Wednesdays his nap is often messed up because we have to leave the house at 2 pm to pick Carter up from preschool.  I can't always transfer Rylan to his crib or carseat or stroller once he's asleep, but it works sometimes.  

Yesterday Rylan fell asleep just as we were pulling into the garage.  He'd been asking for some yogurt so I carried him inside asking him if he wanted to go take a nap or if he wanted yogurt.  He groggily answered yogurt so I tried putting him in a chair at the kitchen table.  He sat on his knees and put his head down on the table.  After a minute or two he lifted his head and asked, "How'd I get here, Mom?"

(He usually does that when waking up in his stroller in a random place but this one was kind of funny.) 

Lexington

This weekend I took the boys up to Lexington to visit our friends.  Sarah was my first "mom friend".  We met when Carter was just a few months old at a storytime at the Farragut library.  Sarah had recently moved back to Knoxville and we ended up meeting up all the time to walk with Carter and Mary Grace in their strollers or go to places like the zoo.

Sarah moved to Lexington just after Rylan was born so we haven't seen her and her family much over the last few years.  We've been up to visit a couple of times before but this is the first time we've been there since Miller was born (and he's almost 14 months old!).  It was great to see our old friends, meet Miller, and see how much Mary Grace has grown up (she's 5 1/2 and seems so mature!).

When we arrived just after lunch on Friday, Sarah had to run Miller to their pediatrician to check his ears (he's had lots of ear infections lately and was really fussy).  Luckily there wasn't another infection.  So the boys had a blast destroying the playroom while we were on our own.

Mary Grace has preschool from noon to three so when she got home, the kids had snacks ...

and then watched a couple of shows while Sarah and I caught up.

Miller was a little cautious about us at first but he's got a great personality and warmed up to all of us really quick.

Sarah cooked us dinner on Friday night and then we got the kids to bed before watching a movie.

The weather all weekend was COLD.  There was almost constant snow too but it rarely stuck for long.  So we stuck around the house most of the time.  It worked out well though because the kids got to play and Sarah and I got to talk.

We did venture out on Saturday after lunch.  We went to the Aviation Museum of Kentucky.  It's at the Lexington Airport in a former private hanger.

There are a couple of dozen planes and helicopters here.  Some the kids could even get into.

Carter is such a silly kid sometimes!

Miller was awesome the whole time and seemed to like looking at all the planes too!

Rylan can barely slow down long enough for me to take his picture lately (usually he's either doing this or hiding his face so I can't get a good picture).

A really good (rare) group shot!

And another!

We had a private tour guide show us around for awhile.  He told Sarah and I that this plane was flown five years (I think???) after the Wright Brothers flight in North Carolina.  It was the first powered plane flown in Kentucky.

When Carter and I were going through pictures yesterday, he saw this picture and told me, "That's the first plane that flew in Mary Grace's state."  I had no idea he'd been listening!  Or would remember something like that!

Our guide gave all the kids these wings to pin on their shirts.  Miller's brown fleece now looks a little like a bomber jacket :)

After the Aviation Museum we stopped by Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt.  Yummy!!!

Rylan and Miller were dressed similarly on Saturday so we tried to get a picture of them together (easier said than done!).

While Mary Grace got a bath, the boys got to play with Miller before bed.

Even though Miller can walk several steps at a time, the boys really wanted to help him walk.

Carter told me he wants a little sibling so he can help him or her walk.  We'll just have to find friends with younger kids! :)

On Sunday morning we woke up to more snow but it disappeared pretty quick even though it kept snowing.

We played at the house until lunchtime and then we headed out after that.  Playtime included getting out the Playdoh.

We headed out a little earlier than I had planned because the boys had been missing or getting really short naps and they were not behaving so well anymore.  Rylan passed out as soon as we got in the car and Carter wasn't all that far behind.

The drive is a little under 4 hours and the boys woke up about halfway home.  We took a bathroom stop and I let the boys each pick out one thing from the IGA mart we were at.

Carter chose this giant Rice Krispie Treat (he only got about half way through it).

Rylan chose a banana (I had no influence - I would have let them pick just about anything because it was supposed to be a special treat).

We got home in time to see Brian for about 2 hours.  He was in Knoxville since the previous Sunday and got back to Nashville after we had left on Friday.  He had to leave again that Sunday for Knoxville and got back to Nashville tonight.

It was great to see our friends and we hope to see them again soon!

Flowers

On the way to school last week, Carter told me that Quinn give Ms. Margie (his class's assistant) flowers and that it made her cry and that he wanted to bring his teacher and Ms. Margie flowers.  I couldn't get a concrete answer out of him of when Quinn brought the flowers (last week or earlier) but since he was set on bringing the flowers soon, we did it today.

Since Carter was getting flowers, Rylan really wanted to get flowers for his teachers too.

So on the way to school this morning, we stopped by Publix and got some simple bouquets.

I love the boys' school and the teachers.  Ms. Anne (Carter's teacher) is great.  She teaches Carter things I wouldn't even think of doing with him and loves to share about what Carter does in class.  Rylan's teachers are a bit different.  We still aren't allowed in the classroom and get no updates on the kids.  I don't really know what they are working on (not too much, I think).  The lead teacher (Ms. Jayne) is no-nonsense while Ms. Karen is more loving.  Rylan told me a few weeks ago that Ms. Karen is nice and Ms. Jayne is mean.  Using the description of "mean" is a bit strong, but I would totally agree!

Backflip

I took this video of Rylan at gymnastics last week ...

School Crafts

The theme for last week in Carter's class was transportation.  This was hanging outside the door at pickup on Thursday ...

Here are some of Carter's crafts for the week.  The "T" was made using tires to roll paint across the paper.  The random drawing on the bottom left is a Carter original (while the kids are waking up and waiting for their parents, Ms. Anne lets them color).

Even though Valentine's Day has been over for awhile, Rylan's class was still working on their shape of the month - hearts.

Water in My Eyes

Washing Rylan's hair is torture (in his opinion).  He refuses to tilt his head back so I just go for it rinsing it with a few cupfuls of water while he screams.  He's always yelling, "There's water in my eyes, " over and over again. (He does have his eyes closed during this and an arm across the top of his eyes.)

Two or three times now Rylan has done this ...

He'll be crying about something (Carter took something from him, etc), and he'll come to me crying more because, "There's water in my eyes!"  Those are tears, buddy.  Stop crying :)

Back Home

The boys and I got back this afternoon from a trip to Lexington to visit our good friends that we used to do everything with in Knoxville.  I'll post a lot more soon, but here is a cute picture of Carter with Mary Grace.