Spring Break Finale + Chicken Arms When I Run.

Good morning!  We are back home and attempting to catch up on life but I’m setting low expectations for myself with the laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping today… those things will eventually happen but not anytime soon;)

Let’s chat about the last little bit of time in Arizona.  I set out for my Saturday run not really knowing what I was going to do.   In Utah it has been about 30-40 degrees for my morning runs so the Arizona 70 degree thing was a shock to my system.  Don’t let yourself forget over the next few months how much warmer temperatures effect our running.  Be kind to yourself and let your body acclimate!  It usually takes me about 2 weeks of running in hotter temperatures to feel more normal.

I did a 3.3ish mile warm-up and then came back to my brother’s house to switch shoes (Ghosts —> Hyperions) and drink up the ice water I left outside.  I then decided to do a few mile repeats with shortish recoveries and the mile repeats were 6:45, 6:30 & 6:18.   Once I finished the third one I knew that’s all I had in me for the day with that heat so I finished up with a cool-down for a few miles.

When I looked at my run afterwards it was so crazy to me that I could run 10 miles with only gaining 98 ft the entire time.  At home a ten mile run would at least include a few hundred ft of climbing.  My brother said I would have to drive a good amount of time away from his house to have a hill to climb.

I was reminded at the end why I switched over to wireless headphones…  or I guess I could remember to take my necklace off before a run.

When I got home the kids were already out and playing

Skye is convinced we need to buy our own golf cart.

Andrew drove out to a mountain biking spot in Phoenix and had a blast.

The goal was for the kids to get out as much energy as possible before we started the drive back.

I swear my bother and I were just at college together meeting for lunch on campus every day and now we have nine kids between our two families.

My sis-in-law picked up some farewell burritos for us.  We are already missing the Mexican food there so badly.

And then we packed up the car and got going.  Beck was having a really good hair day;)

The total drive home is about 10 hours and we originally planned to stop in Vegas for the night but the kids were SO over the car so once they fell asleep we just kept driving all of the way home which meant they were asleep for half of the drive.   It felt like we were in the car for so so long but it made it so much easier to have the kids just sleep through a lot of it.   When they were awake I sat in the back for a while with the kids and we just took a bunch of stops for Skye and Beck to be out of their carseats.

I finally found the Nerds that many of you told me to try and these things are incredible.

And just a few more things from Arizona.

*On Friday I came home from my run and ate chips and salsa at 9 a.m. and it was fantastic.  The salsa from Jalapeño Bucks in Mesa will be part of my dreams for a while, it is the best salsa I have ever had.

*After a few days of going to bed past midnight, I’m going to have to go to bed at 7 every night this week.

*On one of my runs I realized how much my chicken arms have returned (one of my coaches called them chicken arms about 8 years ago:) when I saw my shadow.  I waste a lot of energy when I swing my arms in front of my body and let my elbows go out to my sides… Time to work on keeping them at a 90 degree angle swinging at my sides instead of in front of me.

*Behind the scenes for Andrew… he is working SO hard on a lot of papers for school and just brings the laptop with us so that he doesn’t miss out on things but can also fit it all in.

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Anything with your running form that you are working on or need to work on?

Salsa—> chunky, not chunky, hot, medium, mild… tell me your favorites!

Who is in school now or recently?  What are you studying?  When you were in school last what were your favorite type of classes?

A question from Gillian and I would love your tips too because I also had some problems when pushing Brooke in a jogging stroller often!  “I’ve been running with a jogging stroller lately (only way I can get my runs in!) and I find my shins and shoulders ache after the run.  Any tips?  I’m not sure if my running posture is out of alignment due to pushing the stroller but any tips would be appreciated!