Trying to catch up...

Wow. July 1st. It's been a while since I've written here. I've been busy.

July my baby turned 8 years old and I totally should have done a post just with pictures through his life. He's just getting so big! He did a Jr Lifeguard program at the beach this month and LOVED it! He also went to Cub Scout day camp for a week, AND ended up sleeping over on the last night! He took the place of a friend who didn't want to camp overnight after the 1st night. He LOVED that too! He is in 3rd grade now and has started walking home with his buddy that lives around the corner. It's about 3/4 of a mile and over train tracks! But he does great. And last week he  earned his black belt candidate status at taekwondo! He will be testing for his black belt in March.

July races:  I was the runner of an Olympic distance relay. That was amazing! I've never been a part of something so huge. We had tons of women from my tri group doing this race. Some doing the entire thing alone! The only bummer was when all the bikers kept coming in, my biker was the last one into transition. I only beat 2 people. LOL! But that's ok, when I came around the finish line and heard all the women from my club screaming for me and then gave me high fives all down the finish shoot it was totally worth it!
I also did a sprint triathlon the very next weekend. It was my 3rd time doing this same tri, so my goal was to beat my horrible time last year. I got to borrow a road bike from a friend and had a fantastic time. The ocean wasn't too angry this year.
Swim (300 yds): 7:02,  T1: 3:39,  Bike (11 miles): 37:56, T2: 2:03,  Run (3 miles): 31:08,  TOTAL: 1:21:46.   Considering that my 2010 bike was 39:54 on a different course shows I was still pretty bad ass on the hybrid. I still want a road bike. Bad.

August: I did no races. I was gearing up and starting long runs for the Marine Corps Marathon...which I am not doing now. Hubby got some sciatic problems (literally a pain in the ass. lol) and on the last week of MCM transfers he tried to do over 10 miles and he was miserable for the whole 11 that he did. So we got most of our money back and transferred to a nice girl and her dad that lives 2 towns over in our running club (I love Facebook!)
We also had BOTH boys big birthday party in August. Since Ryan is July and Logan is Sept, we rented a huge awesome blow up water slide and had 40+ kids over to play. I strategically set up the 3/4 yr olds 12-3 and the 7/8 yr olds for 3-6. Worked out perfect and we had a fantastic day!

Now we are up to Sept, and oh boy do I have a list of races at least 26.2 miles long I have coming up. The weekend after Labor Day, I did our local 10K. My goal was to get under 1:10. It is a super hilly course and very difficult. This was my 3rd time doing it- the 1st time I did it I had no idea what to expect and I did 1:05! But, it was a perfectly cool morning. This year it was SO hot and humid, there were actually 2 people taken to the hospital before they could even finish the race! I was so happy to finish in 1:10:47.

What I have coming up?
No more races in Sept. I was going to do a 25K on the 30th, but our cub scout pack meeting and camp out is the night before....so I can't let my son down and not camp out. He's been looking forward to this camp out all summer, and I'm the den leader!

Oct: Seaside Half Marathon, as part of my training run...for what? You ask.... Well, since Hubby and I are no longer doing MCM, I have signed up for the Philly FULL on Nov 18th!! So excited since my tri club will also have tons of women doing the half and full. We'll be in the same hotel the night before, it'll be a blast!! The only down side? If there is a down side to going on vacation!! Hubby, me and a few of our friends have already signed up for/got flights/rooms in VEGAS for the Rock and Roll Half just 2 weeks after the full!! Crazy? Sure. But we aren't going for some record breaking times in Vegas. Hell, we'll probably be drunk by the time the race starts at 4pm. hahaa!
I have been doing some fantastic training runs. My furthest so far is 14 miles (longest run ever!) I am planning 15 this weekend, after doing 12 last Sunday. Besides a few blisters and chafe permanent marks I am very lucky to be injury free. *knock wood*

So that's the (very) short version of what we've been up to. Throw in the beach, the pool and just hanging out at the park, we've had a freaking awesome summer. Sad to see it go.

Oh! And Logan started pre-K this year. He goes to Ryan's big school and goes 5 mornings a week...and he will be turning 4 on THIS Sunday!! You know the same day as Bruce Springsteen turns 63, and speaking of Bruuuuuuce, I will be seeing him in concert at Giants Stadium in Saturday night!!! Whooot!!  SO much going on!

Hope some of you are still around to even read this. Hope I didn't bore you to tears. I've got to get some pictures up SOON!

Heat Wave in NJ

June has come and gone. I can't believe it's July 1st. Still have 2 glorious months of summer. We have been spending a lot of time on the beach and at the pool. It's been quite the heat wave here in NJ. Some seriously bad stuff has happened here along with it. A huge water main broke and almost a whole county has a boil water advisory. Thank goodness we weren't a part of that. Then South Jersey got a huge surprise pop up severe thunder/lightning storm a couple nights ago. Lots of damage. Plus the saddest story I read was a 2 and 7 year old cousins were killed when a tree landed on the tent they were camping out with their family. So heartbreaking. The storm wasn't even predicted.

I feel like I have been working out non-stop. For the month of June I filled over 80 miles of running, biking and swimming. The most milage this year! I ran 32.5 miles, biked 45.3 miles and swam 2.45 miles. I am falling in love with swimming laps! And today I kicked off July with an official start to my Marine Corps Marathon training with running 8 HOT miles this morning. It was 80degrees by 9am. Whew. But, I am so grateful for the fantastic group of women that I train with.  If it wasn't for a few of them I'd never get out and do it.

Looking forward to the rest of summer!! Off to the beach tomorrow! My big guy has Jr. Guard. I can't believe he is going to be 8 years old in less than 3 weeks!!

Kevin's 5K Race Recap

I have been swimming a lot lately. Hubby and I joined a local gym that has a pool and it has been amazing! I love heading over there and pushing out 500-750 yds in about 30-40 minutes and then sit in the hot tub. heehee. I ride my bike the 3.5 miles there today and I actually did 1000 yds! Longest swim ever! It took 38 minutes and it's so weird when I see that is just over only a half a mile when I add it to my dailymile!
And the kids LOVE the child care room. They beg to go there. They also have family swim times, so Hubby and I can bring them there and I can get my laps in. It's so nice to have our kids see us so active.

Which brings me to this past weekend's run. I'll start with Ryan. We got up early, so he was acting so tired before the race started. But those little legs blazed into 10th place with 8:35 ! There were over 90 people running/walking the 1 mile. I am SO proud of him!!











Logan and I started out good. His little 3 yr old legs made it about a quarter of a mile until he said he was tired. Instead of him hating it and never doing it again, I offered for him to go on my back. He loved it! I went most of the way like that and at the end he got down and ran through the finish. It took us about 16 min. I was afraid I wouldn't make it back for the 5K if I let him walk the whole thing.



Race photos courtesy of my mom-in-law with my good Canon camera.

Hubby and I lined up for the 5K. He stayed with me for the first half of the race. I felt really good. Then Kevin's brother ran by us and I told Hubby he could go and run with him. They finished together which was really nice.
Last year I ran 32:33 and it was brutal hot! This year I am thrilled with a 30:47 (Garmin time)

Mile 1- 9:55
Mile 2- 10:04
Mile 3- 10:06
Last .1- 7:11 pace! Wish I could keep that up more! HAHA!

At the finish they gave out small subs that were amazing! There was lots of water, bagels, bananas and oranges. It is such a well run race and it was an honor to run the Kevin A Brue Melanoma Awareness Father's Day 5K (and 1 miler!)  xoxox  Plus, Kevin's brother is in a band that was the entertainment for the race, and he wrote a song for Kevin after he passed away and he sang it before the awards were given out. Let's just say there wasn't a dry eye in the field.

Happy Father's Day

Here are just some great pictures of my kids with their grandpas and great grandpas. Can't post the daddy picture because, well, he is police and likes to remain anonymous in my bloggy world.

This is Great Grandpa Bob- aka POP (my mom's dad)

He turned 80 last Jan.

My step-dad, Grandpa Dave

My step-dad's dad, Great Grandpa Bill

This is the picture I took of the boys right before daddy got in there.

This is Great Grandpa George. He will be 86 yrs old this Aug! 

My daddy, Grandpa John

3 generations...well, if I was in the picture it would have been 4. 

Darn, I should have handed off the camera.

We didn't see my father-in-law today because he was on vacation. It was such a nice day...except for the part when hubby had to sleep all morning and we had about an hour with him before he had to go back to work night shift.

Please Protect Your Skin

Tomorrow is a memorial 5K that we ran last year.

Almost 2 years ago my Hubby's very dear friend passed away from Melanoma. He was 39 years old and left behind a wife and 3 children under the age of 10. It was a very sad time. The Rotary that his father is in has a Father's Day 5K every year...and last year it was named the Kevin A Brue Melanoma Awareness Father's Day 5K. And this year they are doing it again. This year Ryan AND Logan are running the 1 mile fun run. Logan saw a little friend of his from school running a 1 mile a few weeks ago that Ryan was running, and has it in his head that he can do it too. He is 3. Hubby will be flying along with Ryan in a 8 min/mile pace and I will be dragging along with our little guy. I hope we can finish in less than a half an hour so I can get to the 5K. LOL!!

It will be a tough day. I still can't believe it's been 2 years since he passed. I am proud to say the wife of another friend of Kevin's will be running her very first 5K tomorrow! I know he'd be proud.

Please please please wear sunblock. Everyday. Drench your kids in sunblock. Any color can damage your skin. Even a 'nice tan' can do damage. Another friend of mine has had cancer cut out of her body a few times this year. But she was lucky, everything that was cut out was early enough. It never made it to another organ. Kevin didn't have that time. By the time he got his spot on his back checked, it was too late. They tried everything.

So, my second please please please, is to get to a dermatologist and get ALL your freckles checked.  A mom of a girls in Ryan's class in Kindergarden had a spot on the back of her leg. She showed it to me right around the time that Kevin was starting hospice. She went and got it checked after I told her his story, and it turned out to be melanoma!! He literally saved her life! One spot removed might just save your life!!!!

I buy my boys UV Skinz every year. They are never outside without a shirt. We pride ourselves and being whiter than white. No child should ever know what a sunburn feels like. It breaks my heart when I hear friends tell me they went to the tanning salon. Because I can promise you, Kevin's family wishes he NEVER got sunburn, always wore a shirt and was still here with them today.

Kevin was an avid runner. The very last big race that he ran was the Marine Corps Marathon. He ran it 7 months before he died. His time was 3:35. He was FAST! He also thought, at that time, he had beat the melanoma. It was a short 4 months after the race that he learned it has spread to his brain and he didn't have much time left. That is why Hubby signed up for it last year and a huge reason he is running it this year. The MCM is Oct 28. That is my Hubby's 40th birthday.
....A birthday that Kevin never got to see.

Kids Triathlon

There was a kids triathlon last Sunday that Ryan has been looking forward to for months.

These last 2 weeks I've been bringing him to the pool to do laps (he got up to 125 yds - with stops at each wall) and we went on bike rides and even did a BRICK workout (bike then run). I told him my mommy hat was off and I put my coach hat on and you aren't allowed to whine to a coach. heehee. He did it all in fun!

The race was AMAZING! I was tearing up watching the bigs kids start. There were 2 age groups. Ryan was in the 8 and under group. They had to swim 75 yds, bike 2.5 miles and run a half a mile. I met up with a girl from my tri group to help her 2 kids (and mine) learn how to do transition from each event. They did a fantastic job!

Here are a few pics waiting for the swim. The let the 9 and over kids completely finish the bike before they let the 8 and under kids start swimming. It was about a 40 min wait. And they waited so patiently in the water most of the time.

And then off they went. It was so shallow they ALL walked the entire swim!! It was hilarious!

In transition. I knew he was having a great time when he stopped to take a sip of his water. He wasn't rushing and got his shoes, shirt and helmet on without a problem.

 Love this one of him getting out on the bike course.

 Coming in...

Speedy heading out for the run.

Flying in for the finish. His feet aren't even touching the ground...AGAIN!

He looked SO calm and like he really had a great time! That made me so happy!

All done! And he can't wait to do another one!!

They even had timing chips on their ankles like the grown ups! The results went online this morning and he did it in 18:50. There were 41 boys in his age group (8 and under) and he came in 21st. There were 20 boys ahead of him and 20 boys behind him. He really thought that this was the coolest thing ever. I am so proud of my 'middle of the pack' baby. xoxo

Spring Lake 5 Race Report, sort of

Not much to report for this 5 miler. It was on May 26, so I am a bit behind on posts. It was hot hot hot. My time sucked. Because it was hot hot hot. 59:10. 

Mile 1 - 11:35

Mile 2 - 11:14

Mile 3 - 11:53

Mile 4 - 12:11

Mile 5 - 12:06

I was pretty happy that I stayed pretty consistent on my miles. I was so thankful for the fire trucks squirting water. I didn't have my iPod so I could get nice and wet and not worry about it.

And the best was that we had a TON of my triathlon group running this too.

Last Sunday my AMAZING 7 year old son did his very first triathlon!! I will share all of that very soon! And this weekend coming up we have a 5K that is in memory of our dear friend Kevin who passed away 2 summers ago from melanoma. Ryan will be running the 1 miler with hubby and our little 3 year old wants to do the 1 mile too!! He saw a friend from his school do the 1 mile at the last race Ryan ran. So I will go with him and walk most of it. heehee. Then Hubby and I will do the 5K. Hoping for nice weather! And not the HEAT that was last year.

Logan is done with his first year of nursery school. My baby is heading to pre-k in Sept. Ryan still has 1 more full day and 3 half days and he is done and will be a 3rd grader! Summer is here at the Jersey Shore. BEACH TIME! Although, we've already been a few times on some nice days. Those are the best before school is out and all the visitors aren't here yet. I LOVE living here!!