I Probably Should Make My Blog Public again

3 easy miles.  Not really motivated.

This run was enjoyable.  Probably because the temps were a bit lower (mid 70s) and it wasn't as humid.  

I always have good runs when I am ruminating about something.  I read this article that I wish I would have read a long time ago (although maybe it wouldn't have had as much impact on me earlier).  In case you're interested, here's a link:  http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring99/PraiseSpring99.pdf

For a short version, what this article shows is that praise can be a dangerous thing.  These researchers took 3 groups of kids and gave each of them a challenging, but doable task.  Afterward, they praised the kids in the first group for their intelligence.  They praised the second group for their hard work.  They praised the third group generally.  Then they gave the groups a more challenging task, one that they weren't as successful with.  The first group--the "intelligent" ones--HATED the task.  The second group--the "hard working" ones--wanted to take the work home they enjoyed the challenge so much.  But the groups performed equally not-so-well.

Why am I so impacted by this?  I realize that we have been misguided with our oldest son.  He has ALWAYS been praised as smart by everyone, from the time he was 2.  He has always picked up things rather quickly, and of course, as parents we have been proud of everyone thinking he was so smart.  We don't really praise him solely for his smarts, but we don't discourage others from doing it.

The result?  He, even at 5 1/2, gets so frustrated when tasks are challenging.  I notice it with reading:  as long as the words are easy, he is okay.  But throw at him a long word, and his first words are "I give up."  We discourage that, always, regardless of the activity--because it happens with other things too--but now I understand more why he is like that.

The solution?  This is going to be the summer of praising him for what matters:  hard work.  I think it will make a remarkable difference in his confidence when he goes to kindergarten.

And my SIL had her surgery today:  double masectomy.  She got through it well. 

3 easy in the p.m.

I ran in the a.m.  Busy weekend did not give me time to blog over the last few days.  I had class Friday and Saturday and then a speaking engagement right after class Sat.  It was pretty cool.  I spoke at the HOBY seminar--a leadership group for high school sophomores. 

No run Saturday.  It was an early morning anyway and I woke up to some storms before my alarm.  I thought about doing it later, but my bro was in town, so when I got back we grilled and played with the kids.  Caleb learned to ride his bike. 

I had a good run.  It is gearing up to storm tonight so the temp wasn't too bad, although the humidity was high.  It was in the high 70s. But the wind was nice and it was on the cloudy side.

I took the weekend off running, and got my blood drawn for some tests.  Hopefully I will find out soon what I need to do to stay reproductively healthy :)

I think this summer I am just going to concentrate on enjoying running, but not getting obsessed.  I am also going to work on strength.  Tonight I did abs and arms.

I wore my garmin for this one, and it has been a couple weeks since I wore it.  Avg. pace was 8:40.

Just an easy 4. 

My biggest accomplishment this day was getting all four kids (2 nephews and my two, all boys) to take a nap.  It was quite a feat, but I felt quite proud when I got to take an hour nap myself :)

Miles are a little hard to come by this week, but I managed to squeeze this one in.  I'm getting ready for a garage sale this weekend!

Our garage sale went well.  Between Fri and Sat, I made $110, but more importantly, someone can now find use from stuff that I wasn't using.  I also sat outside and sweated a marathon worth of sweat over the two days.  I didn't feel great because of the heat on Sat, but after dinner I went out for a quick 3.  It was hot and humid.

This was not a great running week and it was a horrible blogging week.  I'll catch up sometime this week, probably just in time for me to go out of town and get out of touch again.

Ran big circles around the pool while the kids were at swimming lessons. I wanted to make sure I got 3 miles in before they were done.  I made it back on deck just as they were getting out.  So my average pace was a little fast for easy, but I was glad I completed it.  Plus I was only doing 3, so it's not like I needed to sustain the pace (it was 8:19 avg).  

It was too humid, so it was a little hard to breathe.  But at least it was overcast because I started running at 11:05! 

Tomorrow I'm handing off the reins of "my" cross country team to their new coach.  I haven't even met him yet, but we'll meet for a run with some athletes tomorrow morning.  I have so many mixed feelings about giving up cross country.  It is goodbye to 13 years of coaching (10 of them with runners).  It's sad because I know that my chances of coaching ever again are slim to none.

We got a tremendous amount of rain in a short time yesterday.  So when I was driving to practice, first my on ramp for the interstate was closed (for construction reasons I think), but I was driving through the country and had to keep turning around because the roads were flooded.  Finally I made it, but I was about 20 minutes late.  I talked to the new coach for a while, and then headed out for a 2.6 mile run.  I'm still in my running clothes, thinking about running again while the kids are at swimming lessons, but it is now humid AND sunny.  We'll see.  I might just stay gross so I can remain motivated to do a least 2 more miles.

Update:  I stayed gross but I was only motivated to make it an even 4 for the day.  It was sunnier than yesterday.  I ran faster than I did this morning, but only because this morning I was running with one of the slower runners.

I joined the shred crowd.  Did level one after a sorta crappy day that culminated in me leaving my purse in Chicago.  Hooray.

4 miles on a treadmill after a bunch of driving.  We are in Pittsburg.  I should have been more adventuresome, but we had just arrived and I went to the hotel gym.  We had a nice night of walking around the city.

I'm having trouble remembering what and when I ran.  I think this was the only run from our trip that I haven't blogged yet.  I ran early at the hotel and then we spent the day walking around D.C.  Got to see many of the things I wanted to see when we were there a few weeks ago.  Met a really strange lady at our hotel who hinted that she was someone important and then got stranger and stranger the more she had to drink.  She claimed that she founded USAToday and had been on Oprah.  Then she kept asking me what she could do to make my teaching job easier.  I think she might have been hitting on me, but I didn't realize it at the time.  One of the craziest conversations.  Ever.

Back at home.  Four easy p.m. miles and followed by level 1 of the shred.  

3 sweaty miles during swimming lessons.  90 degrees.  No shade.  A little wind.  Then I came home and lifted a little.

Went to school in the morning and then spent much of the rest of the day outside.  It was a gorgeous day, the humidity wasn't so bad.  So why didn't I run?  I had every intention to, but kept missing opportunities, and by 9, all I wanted to do was just relax.

We got to swimming lessons late, although I'm not sure how that happened, and so I had just enough time for this run.  It was warm and so I decided to run towards a little more shade.  I ran a mile over to the old base buildings and then ran back to the pool.  

I went out at 9.  It was already over 80*.  I tried to create a route that gave me as much shade as possible and was somewhat successful.  I carried a water bottle, and when the water bottle was done, so was I.

A really easy 3 miles with cousin Jennie and Brendan (Luke's bro).  Brendan got tired of running with the old ladies after about 1.5 miles, and so he broke free.  Our pace was leisurely and the conversation was good.  And more important, it was the perfect night for a run (in the 70s with really low humidity).  Ahhhhhhh.

My mid-morning swim lessons run was so much more manageable today.  It was in the high 70s with much lower humidity.  I tried to stay in the shade anyway, but the lower temps felt goooood.

I have this run down to a science.  I make sure that the kids are in the water with their teachers and then I take off.  As I am walking onto the pool deck, the kids are getting wrapped in their towels.  It works perfectly.

Another swim lessons run.  It is so much cooler this week than last week.  There was a nice breeze, which made this run pretty enjoyable.  My average pace was about 9 mm, but I did try to push it a little during the last 1/4 mile.  

There is a 5K here Friday evening.  A bunch of people I know are running it, wearing their Luke shirts.  I am pretty sure I am going to run it too, but I feel kinda torn.  I haven't seen my family in a while and my sister invited me up to Michigan.  I want to go (I haven't seen her since April, although my kids have seen her since then) but I don't really want to drive.  Plus there are some things going on here that I don't want to miss.  Chuck's family is still in ultra-togetherness mode, and although I am getting tired of all the love, I feel bad missing it.

On the other hand, my SIL probably needs more support than I have been able to give up till now, so I feel like I should make my family a priority.  However, my bros family is not going to be in Mich, so I wouldn't see them till Sunday or Monday.

So I'll probably decide at the last minute what I'm doing, but if I do stay and run the 5K, I'm not racing it.  Just shooting for somewhere around 26 minutes maybe.

I also have another decision to make along the same lines:  we are supposed to go to Wisc to see my FIL's brother and sisters (a yearly thing) on the weekend of the 17th.  But my SIL is having a joint b-day party for her kids that had to be rescheduled around her impending chemo.  I feel that I should go to that.  My husband and I are thinking about each taking one kid and splitting up, but he wants to take the kid that I want to take :)