Jill: And I Thought I Had Motivation Issues

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't quite figured out how to exercise regularly now that I'm a mom of two.  My training is like someone learning to drive a stick: full of jerky stops, starts, and lots of stalls.  My real runner husband has done a much better job figuring out how to work in his training, whether during lunch or late at night.  But apparently even real ultra runner types struggle with cheese motivation too.  Here's my husband's facebook update this week:

What I was supposed to do tonight: run 11 miles.
What I actually did tonight: ate 2 cheese coneys and a large fry in my car.

I love this man.

Jill: Catching Up--The Wine Report

It seems I have a little catching up to do around here now that school's out and I'm settling into a summer routine with the kids.  So without further ado, I present Catch Up Post #1.

Apparently we here at the club have an awesome knack of scheduling races to coincide with drinking events.  I know, I know, this would seem obvious from our love of all things wine, but in all honesty, we have scheduled our races and then found out about the drinking opportunities later.

Example #1:  We ran our first club race, the Jingle Bell 5K, on Stephanie's birthday weekend. Turns out she planned a wine and cheese girls party to celebrate the evening of race day.  Run, wine and cheese.  Perfect.

Example #2:  We all signed up for our 2nd race as a club, the Shamrock Shuffle, without knowing that it was being held the same weekend as the Cincinnati International Wine Festival. Seriously, I'm not making this up.  The stars are aligned for us when it comes to running and drinking.  I imagine those stars look something like this:

In addition to the traditional race reports, I will now be posting wine reports as well.  It just seems fair.

Cincinnati International Wine Festival Report

Several hours after finishing the Shamrock Shuffle my still-recovering-from-the-death-flu hubby and I met up with Steph and her betrothed and headed down to the Wine Festival.  You should know that the Cincinnati International Wine Festival is not just a place to try a billion great wines.  It is also a huge charity fundraiser that benefits over 30 different organizations.  That's right, folks, there's nothing we like better than running and drinking for a cause.

Here we are with our commemorative glasses still empty and shiny. It will be the last time until we walk back out.

Despite the look on Steph's face, this is PRE-drinking

We then bravely entered the convention center and joined the throngs of charity-loving wine guzzlers.  And when I say "throng" I really mean a very, very large crowd.  I know this picture from the Wine Fest's website isn't the best, but it should give you an idea just how many people love charity around here.

All of the aisles were that jam packed

To be honest, as much as we enjoy wine, the size of this event is overwhelming.  There's simply too many booths and vendors to be able to try everything, so we needed a strategy to help us pick.  Did we look for award winners?  Nah. Too easy.  Did we choose based on the history or reputation of the winery?  Nope.  That would require way too much reading and we only had 3 hours.  Did we choose based on grape type and variety?  Heck no.  All wines are equal in our eyes.  Finally, we settled on a highly trusted method for choosing our tastings.  With a few exceptions, we stuck to vendors that had to meet at least one of our two criteria:  either a really fun winery name or a really fun bottle label.  Yeah, we are super high class.  After making that decision, the rest of the night pretty much went as planned:

Let's not forget, though, that where there is wine, there is also CHEESE!  Yay!

I get a little misty eyed remembering that table

A little square bowl of heaven

And if cheese wasn't enough, there was also an amazing selection of mini desserts.  First, how awesome is anything that is mini?  And second, most of them were chocolate.  Rock on wine fest, rock on.

I think I may have eaten these before my first glass of wine

You'd think the night couldn't have gotten any better, right?  Well, let me show you just how wrong you would be.  At the end of the evening as we were headed out, we were lucky enough to spot a booth that was giving out free ice cream mini pints.  Not just any ice cream either.  It was Haagen Dazs.  And that is how you end the perfect evening.

Jill: Thank goodness we had all that wine, cheese, and ice cream to replace those calories we burned running that 5K this morning.  Steph: What 5K?

Jill: Park Life

Steph and I had a really nice run this evening at one of the local city parks.  Our hubbys watched my kids at the playground.  The weather was wonderfully cool.  The view of the river was lovely.  The birds were chirping.  The bunnies were venturing out for their evening snacks.  And someone, somewhere behind a tree or bush was getting high.  Ah, the joys of city parks.

Steph to Jill: Do you smell that?

Steph: The Rollercoaster

So to say the least, this experience has had a million ups and downs just like a rollercoaster.  Let me list the ways ...

1.  DOWN:  Motivation.  I just don't want to run ... often ... But, I still do it.  Within the last month, I was having trouble even forcing myself to run. To force motivation, I signed up for another race in my neighborhood called the OTR 5K to give myself a goal to work towards.  It worked.  I just finished the race last weekend and had a great time doing so.  Even if it was SUPER hot out!  It was my first official hot run, but I actually had fun.  I encouraged my sister-in-law Christina through the run and she did an AMAZING job even though she was unsure of herself at first.  Check out her blog @ http://workschapp.blogspot.com/

So let's take a minute for a quick race report ...

         I started with a yummy 'runners' breakfast.  It was super hot outside.
         We were downtown doing a city run.  The traffic was NOT stopped
         for us in a couple places.  We had to stop for it.  Even with that I
         averaged a 12 minute mile.  Right off the bat, there was a HUGE
         hill that we had to run up.  Christina told me that I increased my
         pace significantly on the hill.  I think that I just really wanted to get
         to the top!!!!  Lastly, we ended with a really fun block party type
         festival!  Good times.  (Which is crazy talk because I NEVER
         would have thought in a million years that I would EVER use those
         words in conjunction with running!!)

                 

  

 

Now back to my roller coaster ride:

2.  UP:  Planning.  I need a plan.  Something I have recently realized is SUPER important to my success.  I always knew that I liked planning things, but never how much I needed to do it.  So to keep the motivation going, Jill and I started a 10K running plan.  And I have it in writing, so it is official.  We are 1 week into the plan and I feel a new sense of motivation for running again!!! I have a new goal and a new plan.  Two things that I LOVE and need!

3.  WAY UP:  Fun.  The more fun the races, the better.  So we have planned a COLOR run in Louisville at the end of July and a Mudathlon in August.  Both of these are fun and different and crazy and right up my alley!  The only way that they could get better is if they involved wine or food :)

4.  DOWN:  Weight Gain/Loss.  I didn't start this to lose weight.  I knew that I was "pleasantly plump" and I was O.K. with that.  I knew that I LOVED eating delicious and interesting food and that chunkier weight was a side effect.  Then I started losing weight.  Then I liked that it seemed to be just falling off of me.  I went down a dress/pant size and down a shirt size.  Then I saw a new 'decade' in weight for the first time since college.  Then it all stopped.  I didn't gain any.  But I wasn't losing either.  Then I felt discouraged.  Then it stayed that way for 2 months.  Then I tried a crazy "cleansing" diet to break through my plataeu and it worked.  I lost 8 more pounds.  But now, I am at another plateau it seems :(

5.  UP:  Bonding.  This running thing has been a great bonding experience between my girlfriends and I.  I enjoy anything that gives women a chance to encourage each other through something instead of creating negativity.  It has also increased the bonding moments between my husband and I.  Sometimes I want to scream at him while he is pushing me to go farther and other times I am thankful that he doesn't give up.  Either way, it is something that we are doing together and that is time well spent.

6.  WAY UP:  The Picture.  I have always hated myself in pictures.  I have huge cheeks.  My husband jokingly calls them chipmunk cheeks because it looks like I store food in them.  I joked with him about them in return at times.  It was really fine with me because I didn't think they would ever go away.  I just thought they were a part of who I am.  So pictures sucked just like the first one below.  Then, I saw the second picture below that was taken of my husband and I.  I looked O.K., but I thought the cheeks were not showing up because of the angle of my face.  Then friends took the third picture below, it is a picture of my face from a straight on angle.  I was shocked.  I can see my actual face.  I am NOT just looking at cheeks.  It is AMAZING!!!!  I can see a difference in these three pictures.  It has single handedly re-motivated me.  I am NOT giving up.  I am determined to lose another 20 pounds in the next year.  It is going to happen!

          

Picture 1:  Taken about 1 1/2 years ago.

Picture 2:  Taken about 2 months ago.

         

Picture 3:  Taken 1 week ago.

Steph: The Summer of Skinny Scares Me!!!

So, I am going to miss my pregnant/breast feeding buddy Jill who would eat all of the dessert except for the 2-3 bites that I snuck because she needs all the calories for her baby.  She has declared this "The Summer of Skinny" and is determined to loose all of her baby weight.

In my head that means no more of this:

And a lot more of these:

And ... we have increased our workouts/runs to 5 days a week instead of 3.  My doctor is going to love JILL!!!  Me, on the other hand, we will see?????

Jill: Stay Tuned

Reasons why you should still have faith in us and believe me when I say our return to regular blogging is immanent:

1.  Today is our last day of work until August 8th.

2. Today we start our 10K training.

3. We have 2 races on the calendar for the summer.  One involves an overnight road trip and paint, the other, mud.

4. Catch up posts about the Cincinnati Wine Festival, other races we must do, and whining about training in the heat of the summer.

School's out

Steph: I am the Slug

I have been struggling for the last 3 weeks with my running and I thought it was about time that I admitted it to myself and the entire world.

I have continued to hate running throughout this process.  That never changed.  But I could feel progress.  I was seeing my waist shrink.  I went down a dress/pant size.  I went from XL shirts to L shirts.  I was less out of breath when doing chores around the house.  I could walk around my neighborhood downtown with ease.  I was able to run a little more each week.  Don't get me wrong .... I still HATED running ... but I was LOVING what it was doing for me!

Then the plateau hit.  And it hit hard.  About 2 months ago, I stopped losing weight.  No more inches went missing, I stayed in the same size.  It was discouraging.  I felt robbed that I was doing the same things and nothing was happening.  I talked with my husband, my running buddy Jill, and even my doctor.  They all had the same advice.  Up the exercise.  Then I got mad.  No one told me when I started this that I would have to work out 5-7 days a week to continue the progress.  I was just getting used to the 3 days a week adjustment from the 0 days a week. 

But I tried to do it.  I added in an extra workout a week (up to 4) and when possible got in a 5th.  But it was hard.  I don't know how people do it while working.  There are days that I just do NOT have the time to get in that 5th, 6th, and 7th workout.  There are days after teaching when I can not possibly imagine doing anything at all besides dinner and bed.  It is just plain hard.  But I was still plugging along.  Hating it all the way.  But doing it just the same.

Then 3 weeks ago all HELL broke out in my body.  I feel like I am at war with myself.  My mind says ... you MUST get in at LEAST your 3 days of running a week.  My body and soul is saying ... you need to run NONE at all.  And my husband ... who has been so amazingly supportive since the 2nd week of this process ... has been getting frustrated with me.  Like it is something that I am purposefully doing.  I am not.  I wish that I still had that "go get um" attitude that I had for the first 5 months.  But I don't.  It is gone.

I have kept running these last 3 weeks mainly due to the persistence of my husband.  But they have been crappy runs ... slow runs ... short runs .... runs that make me feel like the first time that I ran for 3 straight minutes back in November.  A run that makes me feel like a slug that is trying to be a tortoise.  It makes each time that I am getting ready to run again even harder.  My brain feels completely defeated and I am currently only going through the running motions for Mike.  Not for myself like I was for the first 5 months. 

I don't know what I need to break through this mental block.  But it feels physical too.  Like every step weighs 500 pounds.  I am floundering in this sea of running.  I need to find my way.  In 3 weeks school gets out.  I will try to re-motivate then.  But for now, motivation seems like something so far out of reach that I will never get to it.

Jill: Shamrock Shuffle Finally (a.k.a. Beginning of Month of Sickness which is why it took me forever)

Yeah, I know it's only taken me 6 weeks to get around to posting my race recap.  Don't judge.  The Thursday before the race marked Day 1 of the Month-of-Never-Ending-Sickness that descended on my household.  It all started with a puking toddler and ran it's way through colds, coughs, pink eye, and back to another puking stomach bug.  Everyone had it in some form or another, although the baby and I escaped the worst.  My husband quickly came down with the first stomach bug a day after the toddler.  He crawled into bed Friday morning, and I didn't see him again until Saturday afternoon, well after the race was over.  Needless to say he didn't get to run the 10K portion he signed up for.

First let me start with a quick kudos to Stephanie who was (after all the bitching and moaning) really ready to find another race.  When we looked into signing up as a team, we discovered that it was a charity event and that our team could receive a small grant if we recruited at least 25 members.  Instead of running as the Whine and Cheese Club, Steph got approval from our school district to sign up as a charity team and if we got the money, we would split the money to pay for buses for our various field trips.  And so, Steph began relentlessly nagging recruiting team members by sending email after email after email after email begging and pleading for other staff members to join us for the walk or the run.

Amazingly enough, we actually got the 25 team members and the money.  Steph will be taking her 10th graders to the theater to see Julius Caesar and I now have bus money to take my Environmental Club to Mammoth Caves next month.

Alright so my race day started with the typical gear check.  Apparently there was also a chance to win more prize money as the most spirited/recognizable team.  In typical Steph fashion, she went overboard shopping for St. Paddy's day themed gear.  The white shirt she bought me said this on the back:

I'm not lucky, I'm good.

Sheesh. I felt like a teenager.

I wore almost everything on this table.

We also decided that as a tribute to Jill over at JoggingJeans.com (who we love to death) we would wear jeans or jeggings.  Steph looked high and low and finally scored us some jeggings, although mine were a little small and I felt like I had to pour my postpartum belly into them.

My first pair of jeggings

Compared to Steph's goody bag of gear, the official race swag seemed a little sad:

Official shirt and tiny green bracelet

Since the toddler and hubby were both sick in bed, I headed out with this girl to keep me company.  Club member Habanero Cheddar agreed to walk with her in the stroller so I could run and so she could walk with SmokedGouda who is pregnant again (YAY!!) and is off of running for awhile.

We got to the race and met up with most of our team, although poor Mark wasn't able to find us at all.  We soon figured out that it wasn't the most organized race we've been to.  There were over 3,000 racers and no port-a-potties in sight.  Later, we heard there were a few but they were nowhere near the start/finish area where everyone was hanging out.  There was 3 divisions: walkers, 5K and 10K and a mass start with no separation or staggering of divisions.  It was so bunched up that one of our co-workers, trying to run a 10K PR, actually fell while trying to get around all the walkers at the beginning.  There was also no official way to enter or be judged for the most spirited group award.  So all of our costumes and decorations were for nothing except our own pleasure at wearing goofy costumes and decorations.  The one aid station we saw was set up at this really narrow part of the course and had one poor lady trying to keep up with with cups of water.  We didn't need to stop, but we talked about how we would be worried about stopping and causing a traffic jam because of how narrow the passage was.  Not well thought out at all.  (Steph and I are planners, so we get easily annoyed by poor planning.  We've even considered starting our own event planning business.  I, for one, think we should start with races!)

The after party was interesting.  It had a wide variety of food and and people.  For example, some kids martial arts group was there doing demonstrations:

Clifford the Big Red Dog was there:

Some of the food options included Panera bagels (healthy), coffee (ok), Taco Bell (wtf?), and beer:

All in all it was a fun morning.  I got to spend time with some good friends, while seeing Steph meet her goal of running her first 5K the whole way through.  Big thanks to all friends, family and co-workers who ran on our team and helped us meet our goal!

 Pre-Race Whine and Cheese Club: Jill, Steph, Habanero Cheddar, Smoked Gouda

Super unflattering shot of Steph adjusting my suspenders

My real runner friend Cara who drove an hour to join us, Steph and her hubby.

Math teacher Kara and Steph

Real runner and band director Devin

Special Ed teachers Ann and Robin walked for us

Post race

Steph - SHAMROCK SHUFFLE!!!!

I had an AMAZING time running with the whine and cheese club plus some AMAZING colleagues from work. Funnily enough, as you can read in the previous blog post, I found everyone on the morning of the race except Mark and he is NOT going to let me forget it.

And AWESOMELY enough, we signed up 25 racers to earn the grant money for our school!

So race day started EARLY this time. I knew I could run 3.1 miles this time, but I needed a little caffeine to get me awake and started. By this point, I had already run 3.1 miles in practice twice. But I was still nervous ... because my brain did NOT buy what my body was able to do!

New Brain: This is fun ... I can't wait to run with everyone. It sounds like so much fun.

Old Brain: Fun ... hell no ... you know what is fun? When we used to sit on the couch and do nothing ... or ... if we were still asleep right now! That would be fun.

New Brain: O.K. The race has started. Man this is a congested start. I really wish that it was better organized so that all this weaving in and out of walkers doesn't slow down my time.

Old Brain: WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? Weaving in and out of the walkers gives us a perfectly valid excuse for going really, really slow at the start. We are basically walking. This is great.

New Brain: Good. It is clearing out a little. Thank goodness that we have now naturally separated into runners and walkers. It makes it much easier to establish my normal pace.

Old Brain: Normal pace. Listen to yourself woman. What are you talking about? Your normal pace is walking a 20+ minute mile. There is NOTHING normal about this.

New Brain: O.K. This feels good. Now I am running. Good pace. Good conversation with my running buddies Jill and Cara.

Old Brain: WHO ARE YOU? This does NOT feel good!!!!!

New Brain: Ha, Ha, Ha!!! This conversation is good! They are so funny! Great times :)

Old Brain: The only think good about the conversation is that it is distracting me from the running! How can they possibly keep talking? I am just trying to breath!!! Are we done yet.

New Brain: I can keep this up. It is not too bad. No stitch in my side yet. Breathing is slightly labored. I just need to concentrate ... breath in ... breath out ... breath in ... breath out! I need a huff or two on the inhaler and then I will be GREAT!

Old Brain: Are you kidding me? I am going to die right here on the path. I can't breath. We need to stop. No really, we need to stop NOW!!!!

New Brain: O.K. Now I am feeling this. I am definitely starting to feel worked out. It feels good to work out all these muscles. Loosen them up.

Old Brain: Right ... you are feeling this ... that means STOP!!! And the only work out that feels good is using your arm to raise food to your mouth! Stop all these crazy thoughts.

New Brain: Maybe Jill is right. Maybe I can train to do a 10K next. I think we should start next week.

Old Brain: How do you even know what a 10k IS???? Let alone talk about doing one. You have gone CRAZY!!!

New Brain: Cool ... I am almost finished. I can see the clock tower again. This means that I get to have a coffee and eat some breakfast soon without feeling super guilty about it. YEAH!!!

Old Brain: Now something that we can both agree on!

New Brain: I can see the finish line. I think we should try to sprint the last little bit to the finish line for a strong finish and to make-up for the slow start.

Old Brain: Insane woman ... the start was the only part of this I liked! Let's stop and walk to the finish. No one would blame you.

Both: Oh, look. There is Mike and Timmy. They are cheering me on from the sidelines. That is so sweet!!

New Brain: O.K. We are turing the corner. Time to sprint to the end (well as sprinty as I can get right now). Thanks CARA!!! Cheering me on with ... "You can do it" is exactly what my brain needs right now. I can do it!!!!!!

Old Brain: My lungs are going to EXPLODE!!!!!

New Brain: You've got this!

Both: YEAH WE ARE DONE!!!!! We ran our first 5k ever ... the entire thing without stopping.

Both: YES!!! Now Mike owes me that IPad ... bet he wishes he didn't make that bet now :) And look there .... our sweet, adorable, he just lost the bet husband is bringing all three of us water!

At the end, we met up with good friends again. Talked and laughed about our individual experiences and ate some really BAD food choices. But a great experience overall that I would not take back or change in any way ... well ... maybe I would have looked for Mark a little harder :)

Food 1: Coffee - YUM!

Food 2: Dorito Taco Bell - NOT yum :( (MIke Liked it!)

Food 3: Panera Asiago Bagel - YUM!

Mark B: Shamrock Shuffle - Guest Post

I spent my time at the walk-a-thon/race playing the game of "Where's Stephanie?" After being badgered to participate I thought for sure I would see her there with the rest of her retinue. So, struggling to walk such a long distance I had to find something to keep my mind off of the physical strain of the walk. Unfortunately for me I had not one sight of her, so I left the race convinced she had not been there but had just lured the rest of us into committing our Saturday morning. Beyond that I had a very nice walk with Kara's friend Kelly. Interesting lady and fun to tour the streets of West Chester with. Still looking for Stephanie, though. Did anyone else see her?

Jill: New Kicks

Last weekend I finally got out the door to get my new running shoes.  This was way overdue, but I kept putting it off because all of that unpaid maternity leave put a dent in the household budget.  I was also waiting for the spring clearance sale at Bob Roncker's, which is our local running specialty store.  They are super nice and very knowledgeable, and they totally treat us like real runners instead of the cheese-loving, wine-drinking pretend runners we really are.  For example, real runners get really excited about new gear like tech clothing, GPS watches, socks and hydration equipment.  But shoes really take the cake.  Everyone dissects the latest models and foot wear trends (crazy barefoot people, I'm talking to you).  Heck, even Runner's World has the "shoe issue" every year.

I, on the other hand, despise shoe shopping.  Problem number 1 is that my feet are almost a full half size different from each other.  That makes finding a shoe that fits nicely on both feet somewhat annoying.  But the fun doesn't stop there.  I have been wearing special orthodics in my shoes since the age of 15 because I have arches that look like this:

Needless to say, it takes me awhile to find shoes that work well for my high maintenance feet.  My last two pair were very simple Asics Gels that I loved very much.  Unfortunately, I was determined to get something that was on sale ($60 or less!!!).  I ended up finding these which remind me quite a bit of my old shoes and have so far felt good:

Mizuno Wave 7. That's right.  They are the OLDER model. More proof I'm not a real runner.

To celebrate my success in finding a workable pair of new kicks, I'm leaving you with a few of my favorite songs about shoes.  Enjoy!

Jill: In Defense of Cheese

Unless you've been hiding out in a Cold War bunker recently, you have probably heard that the citizens of our country are getting a little thick around the middle, to put it nicely.  We now have an entire industry dedicated to weight loss, exercise, and healthy eating.  Experts deliver theory after theory about why our fatness has reached epidemic levels: sedentary lifestyles, laziness, medical issues, fast food, plugged in to our electronic devices too much, saturated fat, trans fat, not following the food pyramid, too much processed food, too much red meat, too little fruits and veggies, not enough exercise, portion sizes, calorie control, hormones and on and on and on.

So the ultimate question is what exactly is to blame for America's pudginess?  Take it from the teacher.  The answer is

D.  all of the above

Clearly, logic should win out on this one.  All of those factors combine in a variety of ways to affect each person in a different way. This is why one weight loss remedy works for one person but not another.

I don't begrudge any of the experts and advocates for taking a stand against one particular fat-causing demon.  Everyone deserves to have a soapbox to stand on.

That being said, I am drawing the line at this guy who wants to lay all the blame on CHEESE.  Seriously?!?  It is absurd to accuse Cheese, and Cheese alone, of causing the fat on those billboards.  (I'm so annoyed by this that I'm refusing to post the pictures of the billboards, but you can see them in the original article.)  He also claims that you should NEVER include Cheese in your diet.  Never?!  Cheese has been a part of the human experience for thousands of years, but people have not been packing on the pounds in such rapid fashion until relatively recently.

In my humble opinion, he has openly declared war on Cheese (either that or he is just simply crazy).  I, for one, will not tolerate this defamation of this most amazing food.  I will stand and proudly defend my love for Cheese.  I will continue to cover my organic, farm fresh broccoli with it (how else am I supposed to get it down?).  I will continue to slather my baked, multi-grain crackers with it.  And I will most certainly continue to use it as a side dish for my wine.

The line has been drawn.  You must choose your loyalties.  The time is now.

As it should be!

Jill: BIG Thanks

Well hello there, world 'o bloggers.  Seems we have some catching up to do, no?  Let's start with the basics.

• Yes, I still remember how to log onto the blog site.
• No, I have not had too much wine.
• Yes, I am still running.
• No, I have not figured out how my children know exactly when I am sitting down to blog and then choose that exact moment to go ape shit around the house.
• Yes, some of that ape shit is happening right now, but my husband is "handling" it.
• No, I did not finish this post in one sitting because I still had to go help out. Sigh.

When we first started our little club and blog I was happily enjoying an extended, albeit unpaid, maternity leave and could find the time write more often.  Six weeks ago I went back to work, and since then free time is a luxury I can barely remember.  I'm lucky that I have been keeping up on the running (barely) but I was sorry to discover that the blog fell very far down the To Do list.  I'm back at it again with a renewed vigor basically because I need Stephanie to stop nagging me about it. 

I've decided to begin by giving out a few much deserved THANK YOUs.

First, a huge THANK YOU to our good friend Jill over at JoggingJeans.  She's been a great supporter of ours from the beginning. Our blogs went up in the same month, and I was lucky enough to discover hers really quickly.  Since then, we here at the Whine and Cheese Club have incorporated finding folks running in jeans into our regular routine because we love her site so much. 

However, I wanted to make a special mention about her super awesome post about teachers.  The last time I submitted a photo to her, she posted it along with an really nice shout out to those of us working in this profession.  Currently, all of our club members are teachers, and this serves to explain our absence of late.  I'm sure some folks out there are thinking "how in the world do you NOT have time to blog when you are done working at 3:15 each day?"

Allow me to explain.  First, let me introduce you to the stages of a typical school year in our particular school district.  Let me repeat, I am speaking only about where my club members and I work.  This is obviously not the case everywhere.

1st Quarter:  Everyone arrives back at school full of optimism and excitement (no, seriously, that's not the wine talking), students and teachers alike.  Students try really hard to start off on the right foot despite their past issues, and teachers give all the students a blank slate and tons of confidence.

2nd Quarter: Cracks in the armor start to appear.  The behavior and academics of many students begin to decline.  Teachers start to learn more about their home lives (or lack thereof), disabilities, and health issues.  Anxiety levels build as the holiday breaks approach not because our students are excited to get out of school but because many of them do not look forward to being at home for an extended amount of time. At this point, most of us have probably had to break up at least one fight, most likely more.  Just when you think your sense of humor has abandoned you forever and you just might spend every night soaking in the bath tub crying for the youth you try so hard to help, we get around 2 weeks off to coax our sanity back by enjoying as many holiday "spirits" as possible.

3rd Quarter: See below

4th Quarter: Testing is over or will be soon.  There is light at the end of the tunnel.  Students and teachers begin joyfully counting down the days/weeks until summer.  Teachers get to do a lot more "real" teaching because the tests are over.  Awesome projects, field trips, and enrichment activities abound (if we have found some way to pay for them), and everyone strives to end the year on a positive note.

I saved the 3rd Quarter description for last for two reasons.  First, it is by far the toughest time of the school year for us.  Second, it is currently where we are right now which should help explain our absence from the blog and also the lack of training for some of us.

3rd Quarter (of death):  The pressure of testing is full force which wears on both teachers and students.  The weather is gray, dull, cold and crummy.  There is no such thing as a snow day in our district. Seriously, last year after a snow storm, the local news was at our school filming because we were the only one open in the entire COUNTY. The only good that came of that episode was the beginning of Baked Goods Breakfast between club members.  The theory being that if we had to be the only school in session, then we should start the day off right with a breakfast that made us happy.  Habanero Cheddar baked a cake that first day, and it's a tradition that is still alive and well among us. I think scones from Panera are on the menu this week.

Anyway, I digress.  During 3rd Quarter we get up and drive to work in the dark, and many of us return home after the sun has set as well.  There are very few days off in which to repair our mental health.  We are deluged with meetings and paperwork, most of which seems unnecessary and counter intuitive to our mission of educating and helping kids.  We spend time being upset that our students stole from the substitute teacher when we had to be home with our own sick children.  We have to contact social services for students who are literally sick with hunger or are walking to school in winter with nothing but a flimsy sweatshirt on.  We try our hardest to make sure that even in our class of 34, no one falls through the cracks, but more often than not, feel like we are failing.  It's the time of year where we question our motives, our effectiveness, and even possible career changes.

This, my friends, is where we currently find ourselves.  Blogging has become a luxury of time that we simply do not have, and some of us are even having a tough time keeping up with running.  This is not an excuse.  It's simply our reality right now.  We will no doubt make a huge comeback as 4th Quarter rolls around, and we have race reports to write.  Because despite the absence of regular posts, we have been busy signing up for races, training occasionally, and eating and drinking as much as possible, all in the spirit of the club.  Fear not!  We are still doing our thing.  We just haven't had as much time to share it all with you.

Remember that this post is really about saying THANK YOU, right?  So finally, I have 2 more folks who are deserving of my gratitude. 

THANK YOU to my husband.  My transition back to work has been exhausting and even more difficult than I predicted.  My real runner husband has put his own running on the back burner to help with the kids, help keep our house in a livable condition, and even occasionally help me grade papers.  He's super awesome, and I couldn't be more lucky.

THANK YOU also to club member Stephanie.  Without her nagging and her inability to run alone, my training would have disappeared altogether.  She's pretty much single-handedly kept me running even if it hasn't been as often as in the autumn.  Wait a minute.  Did I actually just thank her for making me get up on Saturdays as well as dragging me out of my home during the work week at least one evening a week?  I definitely have had too much wine.