3 Miles on the Treadmill

The plan was to run 5 or 6 miles, but the ligaments in my stomach were hurting again. It just didn't feel good to run. Even walking wasn't feeling great at first, though towards the end it felt better. I managed to run about .25 miles, but it hurt and I had to walk again. This was when I really started questioning my decision to run the half marathon the following Saturday. All together, I only did 3.46 miles on the treadmill.

I was planning on getting my belly taped* on Wednesday and trying one more time to run. I was going to wait till then to decide if I was or wasn't running the half on Saturday.

However, after a lot of thought and consideration and prayer Saturday and Sunday, I've decided I'm not doing the half. I hate quitting, especially since I actually trained for this half. Usually I don't get my long runs in and squeeze in whatever workouts I can. I was actually diligent this time, since I knew I had to be properly trained. The reality is that I peaked a month ago at about 20 weeks- all the aches and pains I've been experiencing didn't surface until after then. So frustrating. If the race allowed walkers, I would just walk the whole thing, but they specifically say no walkers, so I'd have to run most of it to finish in the time limit.

At the same time, I'm not willing to risk injury to myself or the baby, so better part of valor, and all that. And once I finally made the decision not to run the half, I felt so much better- like a weight had been lifted off my mind. So definitely a good decision.

Walking is better than nothing, so it's not like I'm going to stop being active all together. And I'll keep attempting to run. When I was pregnant with River, I ran part of a 5k at 23 weeks and part of a 4 miler at 36 weeks, so I have hopes that I'll be able to manage short runs here and there. Looking back at my post about the 5k at 23 weeks, I mentioned then that I had ligament pain during that race, so apparently this time frame (20ish weeks on) isn't a great one for me and my ligaments.

In order to keep my goal of one race per month, I'll be doing a local fundraiser towards the end of April. I ran this race last year, but they've changed the location this year so it's not quite as convenient. It's very walker-friendly, though, so my plan is to walk most of it and jog any downhills that are present.

*After last week's painful ligaments during my long run, I researched taping pregnant bellies.  A friend of mine ran a half a year ago while 29 weeks pregnant (!) and she mentioned getting her belly taped beforehand. I had my knee taped with kinesio tape before I ran the Disney half the first time, so I know it can be helpful. Unfortunately, it's not something I can do to myself. So I stopped in and talked to my old physical therapist about taping my tummy for the half marathon to see if they felt comfortable doing it. They'd never done it, but were willing to give it a try. I'm sure it would help, I just don't think it would help enough for me to be able to run the race without pain.  Here's what I was planning on having done (the criss-cross pieces circle around and end at the top of the opposite shoulder on the back):

image source

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I actually got outside two days this week, and it was wonderful. Tuesday I pushed River on the bike path while Sunshine was at her Irish music class. I walked most of it, but did manage some running. My ligaments didn't enjoy it though :( Wednesday I pushed River to the library and back while our car was getting some maintenance work done. This was a much more leisurely walk since Sunshine was walking next to me.

Monday- rest day
Tuesday- 3.64 miles outside, pushed River in the jogger on a bike path, walking with some running
Wednesday- 2.08 miles outside, pushed River in the jogger, walked the whole way
Thursday- busy day, so no workout
Friday- even busier, so no workout
Saturday- 3.46 miles on the treadmill- mostly walking

A total of 9.19 miles for the week, most of which were walked.

Sunday Funny

River likes to help Sunshine unload the dishwasher. Unfortunately, he also likes to help me unload it, even though I'm actually putting dirty dishes in, not taking clean ones out. We'll work on that one. In the meantime, it's cute that he wants to help.

Friday I talked about feeling stressed out, part of which was due to our schedule.

Monday this week was the opposite of all that I've been feeling lately. It was a rest day, so I didn't have to squeeze in treadmill time. We got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and did Sunshine's schoolwork. After that, we ate lunch and River went down for a nap. I worked on the double welt cording I needed to finish the chair I'm re-covering. One of my visiting teachers stopped by for a little while, then I went back to my double welt. Shortly after River woke up from his nap I got dinner started (it needed two hours to cook), then finished my double welt. We ate at a decent time, the kids got to bed on time, and I went to bed earlier than I have in awhile.

We didn't have to go anywhere or be anywhere at a certain time and I wasn't trying to squeeze multiple things into the same time period. Did you know that walking on the treadmill is a great time to respond to emails and start blog posts? I frequently do both while on the treadmill, stopping only while I run, then starting up again when I start walking again.

It was such a nice, relaxing day. And I felt super productive since I managed to work on my double welt during the day, instead of at night after the kids went to bed. Lately I haven't had enough energy after lunch to work on projects, so I twiddle around online while resting on the couch.

While it was exactly the kind of day I've been craving, it was overshadowed by the knowledge that the rest of the week was going to be crazy busy. Though that knowledge is exactly why I didn't try to move some of the things on my to-do list to Monday- I knew I needed a low-key day with no running around.

I don't get nearly enough low-key days, but after this week's experience, I will be making them more of a priority.

St. Patrick's Day Performances

I mentioned at the end of my post on Monday that Wednesday was a rest day because my glute was bothering me after standing and carrying River for hours. This is why.

Sunshine takes classes at an Irish music school, so naturally St. Patrick's Day is celebrated. Because she's in the kids group that sometimes plays with the adult group, she got to play at a couple restaurants that night as part of their Irish music lineup.

We parked near the second venue and walked several blocks to the first venue. I strapped River into the Boba and carried him around all evening. I carried him on my front because it's easier to feed him, but his baby brother wasn't too happy about having his older brother squished against him. I really need to move him to my back, but having him pull my hair has (and still does) held me back. Sunshine used to pull my hair when she was on my back, and my hair was a lot shorter then.

The first venue was an Italian restaurant with a tiny space for performers. Not sure why the Italian restaurant wanted Irish music, but I'm guessing they were capitalizing on all the drinking that goes on on St. Patrick's Day. I was able to sit for part of the time, but could already feel my glute hurting.

Crappy indoor picture of the tiny space. The guitar player closest to me was standing in the doorway.

After the performance, we walked several blocks to the second venue. It's a small place as well, but they had space for the performers out in the courtyard, so we were outside. This meant I stood the whole time, while carrying River. I was in a lot of pain by the time Sunshine was done. Once I've aggravated the nerve, things seem to go downhill fairly quickly. Luckily we were parked right across the street and didn't have a lot more walking to do.

the preferred spacing between musicians- much better than before

Sunshine only knows a few of the songs that the adult group does, but she played the ones she knew and tried to follow along on a couple of the others. It's fun to see her play in a group and get that group experience- it's very different than playing by yourself.

Apparently We Weren't Done With Our Maple Trees

I thought we were done collecting sap from our maples, but when Sunshine and I went around and took down the bags and spiles, two of the bags had a good amount of sap in them. In fact, we collected almost 3 quarts of sap.

I wasn't sure if it would be usable since I read somewhere that sap from budded trees smells terrible when boiled down. I'm not sure if our trees have budded out, but they've got to be close. We decided to start boiling the sap and see what happened. It didn't smell bad, so we continued boiling it down for candy. I wanted to try a molded candy this time, so I only cooked it to 215* and then cooled to under 100*.

Cooking to 215* didn't allow the syrup to thicken, so I brought it back up to 225* and then cooled to less than 100*. It still wasn't thick enough, so I put it back on the stove. I was aiming for 230*, but got distracted watching Sunshine do something and wasn't watching the thermometer. Next thing we knew, the small amount of sap in the pot had scorched and burned. Oops.

3 quarts of sap boils down to only about 1/4 cup or so of syrup, so it didn't take long to get the temperature up, and I should have been watching it like a hawk. Lesson learned.

Below is all that survived- kind of a maple taffy, but with very strong scorched undertones. It would have been quite edible if it hadn't burned. We'll try again next year.

I mentioned last time that our two syrup batches were different. After making blueberry pancakes (gluten free of course!) and pouring both syrups over them, I think the lighter, thinner first batch should have been cooked down more. Compared to the second batch it was watery, not thick and syrupy. Another lesson learned.

9 Miles on the Treadmill

the grungy chair from the library that I'm almost finished recovering

Saturday was two weeks from my half marathon and I was supposed to do a 13 mile long run, but since I decided to back off on my long run mileage, I only did 9 miles. I had planned on incorporating hills, but that didn't end up happening. This ended up being a tough workout: my left glute was bothering me and I kept having ligament pain in my side. Even strapping everything down with two maternity belts wasn't enough to make my run pain-free. That, and I'm 23 weeks pregnant. Note to self: If I ever get pregnant again, I will NOT run a half marathon after 20 weeks. 

I hadn't planned on running one at 25 weeks, but this was the earliest and closest I could find, so I didn't have much choice. Well, other than not doing it at all, but at the time that I decided to do it and registered for the race, that wasn't an option. Backing out at this point would make all those long workouts for nothing. I don't need long mileage to stay healthy while pregnant- I could have gotten away with much shorter workouts if I wasn't training for a half marathon. Needless to say, after the half marathon I will be massively scaling back on my mileage.

Back to my long run: it was mostly a long walk. Running was just too painful for most of my workout, so I walked the majority of the mileage. It was a fast walk, so I was able to maintain a decent pace, but it was definitely not race pace.

I started with a 10 minute walking warmup and ended with a 15 minute walking cool down. In between I alternated 30 minutes running with 10 minutes of walking, though like I said, the running portions ended up being mostly walking also. I ran when I could, but didn't push it.

In the end, it took me 2 hours, 26 min, 6 sec to complete 9.01 miles, which is a 16:12 min/mile pace. My warmup and cool down added another 1.15 miles, for a total of 10.16 miles for the day.

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While running the 5k last week, I realized that since the half marathon is local I should take advantage of that and drive the course ahead of time. I wanted to get an idea of hills and such so I knew what to expect.

Monday we were in town for my chiro appt, so we drove the course. It's a scenic course through town, hitting a lot of the historically significant areas. Most of the hills are rolling hills- long and not too steep, though there's a couple shorter, much steeper hills right towards the end. Those are going to suck. It's hard to judge accurately when driving, but my impression is that the first part of the course shouldn't be too bad, the middle-ish will get harder, there's a couple miles that run on a nice flat bike path along the river, and then the last couple miles have some steep hills that are not going to be fun, especially so late in the race. My goal is just to finish in less than 3 hours, and to still be able to move afterward.

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Monday- rest day after Saturday's 5k
Tuesday- treadmill
Wednesday- rest day after standing and carrying River for hours Tuesday night- massive glute pain
Thursday- rest day- dentist appointments
Friday- treadmill walk hills
Saturday- treadmill long run/walk

Total mileage for the week: 13.75 miles. Better than last week, though if you look at my workouts, you can see that most of that mileage came Saturday.

Sunday Funny

Look at the smile on River's face!

Our neighbors are selling their house (boo!) and asked for Sunshine's help with their dogs. They both work, and were afraid they wouldn't always be able to get home and move one dog to a crate on the screened-in porch and bring the other prone-to-barking-at-strangers dog to our house for a showing. So Sunshine, who likes their dogs, was enlisted to help. We only ended up needing to help on one occasion (they went under contract the first weekend!), but River sure enjoyed having the dog over. Luckily the dog is older and doesn't have tons of energy and is used to small children (the neighbors have a 4 and 2 year old), and was very long-suffering with River.

River isn't so sure about large dogs that are taller than him, but he likes small dogs and thought it was lots of fun "leading" the dog on a leash.

And it's very encouraging that they went under contract so quickly. If we need to sell our house, hopefully we'll have a similar experience.

Life Lately

River and his friend before a recent Irish music school fundraiser

I've been feeling super exhausted lately, and I've had a lingering sore throat since I got sick around Valentine's Day. Tuesday I realized I'd had the sore throat off and on for more than a month and finally made a doctor appointment. Wednesday I went in and got swabbed, but the doc didn't see anything obviously wrong. It was negative for strep, so there's that at least.

I'm sure my sore throat has nothing to do with being pregnant, having a family to take care of, training for a half marathon, and having a healthy (or rather, unhealthy) dose of stress in my life regarding Mr M's job situation {sarcasm}. Because we don't know where or when we might need to move, I've been trying to get the house finished (all those little details that never quite got taken care of), but I physically just haven't had the energy to do more, faster, which further stresses me out.

I've been thinking about it all this past week and have come to some conclusions regarding what I need to be focusing on and what I don't need to be worrying about.

* Time sucks. As in, things that take up a lot of time. They may be good things, but they still take a lot of time and/or energy and add to my stress level. This is something I've been working on since Christmas. When classes started up again, Sunshine didn't sign up for the Irish dance class because it made Thursdays too crazy busy with my Cub Scout obligations. Soccer just started, and we're not participating this season. We've done soccer spring and fall since we moved here 5 years ago, and we're all burnt out on it. Making a conscientious effort to not try to do everything has been helpful, but is an on-going struggle.

* School work. We've changed up Sunshine's curriculum a bit this semester, and while it feels a little "lightweight" to me, it's working for her, and it's helping with some weak points we've identified. Being the overachiever that I am, I've been struggling with the lighter course load, but I've decided not to anymore. Everyone learns at a different pace and I'd rather go slower and lighter and have her enjoy what she's learning than go faster and heavier and have her hate school. There's a whole post on this subject coming once the end of the school year is closer.

* Running. Finding time to run has been stressful, just as the physical act of running is tiring. Usually running is a stress-relieving for me, and if I wasn't doing the half marathon, I'd be a lot more lackadaisical about my training, but the stupid time limit has me worried. Though I don't see how they can assign a three hour time limit for the half marathoners when miles 7-13.1 are shared with the marathoners and we all start at the same time (and the marathoners have 6 hours to complete the course). In my mind, as long as I run the first 7 miles at a decent pace, I should be good. But I don't know that for sure, so I'm still worried about it.

I've decided to stick with shorter races for the next year or so. 5ks don't require a lot of training, distance-wise, so if my training slacks off, I'll still be able to complete them. Obviously I want to stay active, but I don't want it to increase my stress levels. I'm getting closer to the start of my 40 by 40 goal and I will be tweaking my expectations for that, which I'll post more about in another month or so when some things are more solidified. Right now, running shorter distances is proving to be less stressful and more stress-relieving than longer distances.

In the meantime, today is only the second day this week that I've managed to hit the treadmill, and I'm completely ok with that. Between recovery days and dentist appointments, I needed to allow my body to rest and not fret about missing workouts, and I managed it. I feel less exhausted and better able to handle life because I haven't been stressing about fitting one more thing into our already-hectic schedule.

* House projects. I'm still figuring these out. The projects have to be done to make the house sale-ready, so I need to make them more of a priority than I have been. At the same time, finding the time and energy (and money, in some cases) hasn't been easy.

* Family. I need to be more present and involve the kids in my projects more, when possible. We have some yard work to do and I fully expect Sunshine to help. River won't be a help, but he'll be out with us.

* Mr M's job situation. He still doesn't have a full-time job, but he has been able to pick up some work with his guard unit that has helped pay the bills. It involves him being gone a lot, which puts all the stuff at home on me. I think I'm finally accepting the fact that this may be ongoing for awhile, which somehow makes it easier to deal with. I'm not sure why....

* Sleep. I have a very bad habit of staying up late working on projects. It gets my projects done, but I don't get the rest I need. Luckily our kiddos have never been super-early risers, but they still expect to get up and eat breakfast at a decent time. I've been making more of an effort to get to bed earlier (and gradually moving my bedtime earlier and earlier) and I've been feeling a lot better rested. On the other hand, my projects haven't been getting done, so I need to find a good balance between the two.

* Scheduling. I try to keep mornings open for treadmill time and schoolwork, but being pregnant adds doctor appointments that also require babysitters. My friends who can watch the kiddos need to be able to watch them before lunch rather than after. Car appointments also go quicker when done in the morning. But all this throws off my schedule. Once the baby's born it won't be so bad, but right now it makes my life more difficult.

Thinking through all this has helped me figure out some areas I could improve in, but it also helped me realize that I've already been changing things to alleviate the stress. Sometimes just writing things out is enough to clarify what's going on in my head and around me.

March 5k Recap

Saturday I ran my March 5k. It was warmer than the February 5k, but the temps were still only mid to high 40's. A bit chilly starting out, so I left my long sleeve shirt on and I never got too hot. The course was run on some of the same roads as the February 5k, but in a different order and direction in some cases. Both courses had long hills in them and I ended up walking about a quarter mile total during the second mile and another quarter mile total during the third mile.

Overall, I felt rather blah. My intestines weren't happy that morning (I blame Easter candy- peanut butter M&M eggs, while yummy, apparently do not agree with me), so that might have sapped my energy. I'm not sure exactly, but I know I didn't feel energetic and it showed as I ran. All I could think of while I ran was "I really hope I feel better when I do the half marathon in three weeks".

So I did end up walking some of the race as I mentioned above, but I kept it to the uphills and kept going and finished the race. It wasn't quite as fast as I'd hoped, but definitely not the slowest I've ever run a 5k, so I really can't complain too much.

I ran 3.09 miles in 35:32 min, which comes to an 11:30 min/mile pace.
mile 1: 10:46 min.
mile 2: 12:08 min.
mile 3: 11:55 min.

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The results from the February 5k were finally posted, and there were only 67 finishers. Unfortunately they didn't list ages, but I'm pretty sure I won my age group since there were only 3 or 4 women older than 25 and the others were all older than me :)  This race only had 111 finishers and they didn't list ages either. There was a more even age spread, but it still skewed heavily towards college age runners, so I might still have placed in my age group :)

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I had my 22 week checkup and my ultrasound last week. The little guy is looking good, though the placenta is in the front again (we actually found this out at 18 weeks when the OB had a hard time finding the heartbeat). This was the case with River, also, and for the most part it's not too problematic. The main issues are that it makes it harder to find the heartbeat with the doppler thingy and it's harder to feel the baby kick. A secondary issue that's not a problem until delivery is that the baby could try to come out face up instead of face down. River was face up but they had me switch positions to encourage him to roll over, which he did before it was time to push and he came out without any problems.

The OB was not able to offer any helpful solutions for the glute pain, other than to be patient. Soon enough something else will be hurting :) Not sure if my chiropractor will be any more helpful...

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Resting Mondays when I had a hard workout on Saturday really seems to work for me. I feel less exhausted, less stressed out by the exhaustion, and better able to handle things. This is a case of avoiding too much of a good thing. Running is stress-relieving, but while pregnant it is also physically draining, which in turn ratchets up my stress levels.

Tuesday and Wednesday my glute was bothering me, but for some reason Thursday it didn't hurt much at all. Until that evening when I ended up holding River on my hip during most of Cub Scouts. It didn't take too long for it to start hurting again and Friday it was quite unhappy. With the race planned for Saturday morning I decided to take the day off rather than aggravate it worse.

Monday- rested
Tuesday- treadmill walk
Wednesday- treadmill run
Thursday- treadmill walk
Friday- rest
Saturday- March 5k

Total mileage: 7.62 miles.  Another low mileage week, but hopefully it won't be a problem come half marathon time.

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2015 races
March 5k        35:32          22 weeks pregnant
February 5k  33:55          20 weeks pregnant
January 5k    33:25          12 weeks pregnant

Sunday Funny

River having fun in the kitchen

We've been using Prima Latina for Sunshine's Latin curriculum this year, and at the beginning of the lesson we listen to the audio portion that reviews pronunciations and definitions of that lesson's vocabulary words.

As soon as River hears the narrator's voice, he comes running over and asks to sit on my lap (we listen to it on my laptop) so he can listen to the lesson as well.

I'm not sure if he likes her voice or the sound of Latin, but it is amusing. Hopefully he'll continue to be excited about Latin since it'll be part of his curriculum as well.

Our 2015 Maple Syrup Haul

I think our sugaring season is over. We've had temps in the 50s and 60s during the day and it hasn't been below freezing at night. So, not the right weather for tapping trees. We did manage to collect 86 cups (~ 5.38 gallons) over three days over the weekend before it warmed up too much. It was too much to boil down at one time on our stove, so I split the batch and boiled down the first two days' worth of sap into syrup. I'm not sure if I boiled it longer, or if it just had a higher water content, but there was less of it and it ended up thicker and darker than the first batch. In the end we got another 200ml (between 3/4 and 1 cup) of syrup.

1.25 cups + ~.85 cups= just over 2 cups of maple syrup, from our own trees!

The last of the sap was half the amount I boiled down on both previous occasions. I knew it wouldn't yield much syrup, and I hadn't tried making maple candy yet, so I decided to give that a go. Since I was dealing with a small amount of sap it wouldn't be disastrous if it didn't work out and I wouldn't feel like it was a total waste.

As the sap boiled down, I kept transferring it to smaller pots, but ended up with too small of a pot- even though there wasn't much of it, the sap bubbled up over the edge and I had to transfer it quickly to a larger pot. I had consulted several sites and decided to bring the sap up to 230-235*. At that point I turned off the heat and let it sit until it cooled down to less than 100*. What surprised me was that the temperature continued to rise before it fell. Probably a side effect of using a gas stove rather than an electric stove.       please excuse the next two crappy nighttime photos

in the bowl, just before I started stirring

After the syrup had cooled to less than 100*, I poured it into a small metal bowl and started stirring. I stopped a couple times to take pictures, but since there wasn't much, it didn't take long at all for the syrup to lighten and thicken.

syrup is lighter in color and a little more volume because of the air I stirred into it

Seconds after the above picture, the syrup seized up and turned solid. It's not pretty, but it is yummy. I think I could have gotten a result closer to store-bought maple candy if I had cooked the syrup to a lower temp. That would have allowed me to pour it into molds before it finished solidifying.

 I wasn't sure what to expect with the whole process, but I'm happy we got an edible result :)

Sunshine doesn't care for store-bought maple candy, but she declared that our homemade maple candy was yummy. Success!

maple sugar chunks

Next year I'll definitely start earlier in the season so we can collect more sap. Apparently the sap you collect earlier in the season is what yields Grade A syrup and the sap from later in the season yields Grade B syrup. So I guess what we have is Grade B syrup.

This year over 5 days we gathered about 8.25 gallons of sap that boiled down to just over 2 cups of syrup and 1/3 cup of maple candy. Considering the price of maple syrup, that's actually not too bad for a few hours of work.

While the process may seem like a lot of work, it's not hard work, it just takes a bit of time.

Time to identify the trees
Time to tap the trees
Time to collect the sap every day
Time to boil down the sap

Boiling the sap takes the longest, but can mostly be done while doing other things. I only had to keep a closer eye on it as it got close to being done. Figuring out how long to cook down the sap will get easier with time as I learn what to expect and learn how the sap changes as it cooks down. Taking notes will also help me keep track of things from year to year :)

Have I inspired you to give sugaring your trees a try next year?

And We're Having a.....

A few months ago when we announced our pregnancy, we shared this picture:

Today I had my ultrasound. 

So will Sunshine be getting the little sister she really wants, 

or will River be getting a partner in crime?

And the verdict:

A partner in crime for River!

Sunshine's a bit disappointed, but Mr M and I didn't have a preference one way or the other (there's advantages to both). However, since we

had a hard time deciding on a name for River, we need to get going on that now :)

8 Miles on the Treadmill

Sunshine and a friend playing in the fresh snow Thursday afternoon

Saturday I was supposed to run an 8 mile race, but after being rescheduled from the previous week, they ended up canceling it completely because of the ground conditions. It was a trail run (supposedly fairly flat, even trails, unlike that 15k trail run last summer), but we got 4-5" of snow Thursday, and it hadn't melted by Saturday morning. Of course, if it had started melting, the trails would have been a muddy mess.

Mr M was on kiddo duty, and I really wanted to run outside, but there was too much snow on the sides of the roads. With our narrow roads, being able to get off the road is important, and I didn't want to be jumping into snow drifts. So, I hit the treadmill yet again.

I started with a 15 min walking warmup, then ran for 16 min, walked for 5 min, ran for 31 min, walked for 10 min, ran for 30 min, walked for 10 min, ran for 25 min, and cooled down with a 10 min walk. The run/walk portion of my workout totaled 8.16 miles and the warmup/cool down added 1.19 miles for a total of 9.35 miles. I gradually increased, held, then decreased the incline during the 31 min section. It made the rest of the workout harder, but it felt good while I did it. My pace was 15:33, which is a lot slower than my recent treadmill long runs, but between the hill work and the longer walk breaks (10 min instead of 5 in), the slower pace is not unexpected or worrisome.

I need to incorporate more hillwork in my workouts, and even though it was tough to include it in a long run, it's important. The half is in four more weeks, so I'll be doing more and more hills between now and then. I don't enjoy them, but they're a necessary part of preparing for the race. And it will also help with the 5k I'm running this Saturday. Its course covers a lot of the same roads as my February 5k, which definitely had some hills I wasn't quite ready for.

I'm mostly over my cold, but I haven't been sleeping well and I was feeling pretty tired Saturday morning. Despite that, I pushed through and got my mileage in. So that's a win for me.

Overall, the workout felt good, even though I was tired and felt sluggish and my left glute was hurting again. I'm not sure if it's a pinched nerve or what, but it does make moving a lot more painful when it's acting up. My old standby rolling doesn't help, which is what makes me think it's a pinched nerve.

I did a bit of research into the pain I've been dealing with the last few weeks (it's getting worse as time goes by), and it seems there's two probable causes: sciatica caused by the pregnancy or pelvic girdle pain, also caused by the pregnancy. So probably the changes to my body caused by the pregnancy, and exacerbated by my training, have pinched a nerve. I've got an OB appointment this week and a chiropractor appointment next Monday, and I'm hoping that between the two I'll get some ideas of how to limit the pain.

I may need to find a maternity support belt that covers/supports more of my stomach- I feel like I'm jostling around too much, which does not feel good. Holding everything in place makes it feel better, but I'm now too big for the postpartum binder to go around my stomach. I don't remember feeling like this when running while pregnant with River, but I think my ligaments are a bit looser this time around since the pregnancies are so close together.

On the other hand, my endurance is improving. I was not nearly as wiped out Saturday and Sunday as  I have been in the past, despite being further along in my pregnancy. And I'm loving my compression socks for recovery post run.

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Monday- tired and feeling worse (I don't think the sub-freezing temps on Saturday helped my recovery from my cold), so I took the day off
Tuesday- treadmill walk
Wednesday- busy day running around and my glute was bothering me, so I took the day off again
Thursday- treadmill walk
Friday- treadmill walk
Saturday- treadmill long run with hills

Lots of walking, but I figured walking was better than nothing. Hopefully next week I'll get more running in since I am feeling a lot better now. Total mileage for the week was 15.48 miles, which is a lot closer to where it should be than what it's been the last couple weeks.

Sunday Funny

who needs toys when there's cups and food containers to play with?

I've mentioned that River likes hiding from me.

He's expanding his repertoire. He'll hide behind anything he can find: behind chairs, behind beds, behind doors, in closets. Since he does this with a great big smile and lots of giggles it's super easy to find him, which always elicits more giggles.

His nightly routine is to run into his room and hide between the bed and the wall. Since I'm right behind him, I watch him do this and he knows I'm watching him, which makes him run faster. He's now tall enough that I can see the top of his head when he's standing on the other side of the bed and he'll peek over the mattress at me, which brings on more giggles.

He also thinks peek-a-boo is hilarious. He covers his face with a towel or playsilk and giggles while we ask where he is. Then he uncovers his face with a great big smile and giggles some more. He re-covers his face and we repeat the process.

Like most small kiddos, River has such a cute, infectious laugh that is so fun to hear.

Tapping Our Maple Trees

fresh maple syrup

Several years ago Sunshine and I read the Little House books, and the first one, Little House in the Big Woods, talks about maple sugaring. At the time, it reminded me of when I was in first grade and we lived in New York state for a year. That winter we tapped some of the trees on the property we were renting and boiled the sap into maple syrup. I don't remember much of the tapping itself, but I do remember my dad boiling down the sap on top of the wood-burning stove in the scary cellar of the old Victorian we were living in.

Last spring I realized that we have maple trees and we should try tapping them. I wasn't sure how many we had, but I knew we had some. When we were visiting my parents for Sunshine's baptism I mentioned it to my dad and he dug out their old spiles and collecting bags so we could borrow them. Yes, my dad has hung onto them for 30 years. Have I mentioned that he likes to hang on to things "just in case"? Though in this case, I do appreciate his pack rat tendencies :)

the obsolete 12" floppy disk (with a drive to go with it) "just in case"

At the end of October Sunshine and I tramped around our property, looking for maple trees. You could do this in the winter by looking at the bark, but we did it when the leaves were still on the trees since leaves are easier to identify. We found lots of baby trees, but only four that were of a decent size. I have a terrible memory, so I sprayed each with a small circle of orange spray paint and wrote a description of where to find each.

Our winters are usually on the mild side, but this winter was supposed to be hard, so I wanted to be prepared if the weather cooperated and got the sap running. It's been cold, but I don't think it's been colder than usual, and we've gotten less snow than past winters. Until the middle of February, when all that changed.

In the middle of February, I realized I needed to figure out when to tap the trees. From what I could find, it seems like we could have started in January since we live in a milder climate. Oops. Next year we'll start in January. But waiting worked in our favor this year. Just after I pulled the bags and spiles out of storage in the basement we got hit with a cold snap and lots of snow, so we ended up waiting two weeks before heading out to tap our trees.

Actually, I think waiting until after the cold snap was a good idea. We had about a week of temps in the low teens at night and in the twenties during the day, and then day time temperatures warmed up. Perfect tapping weather.

Tapping time is when the temperature gets above freezing during the day, but stays below freezing at night. You have to stop collecting sap when the trees bud out, so if spring comes early, it cuts your tapping season short, which is why starting earlier is usually a good idea in milder climates like ours.

Monday the temperatures were forecast to reach the low 50's, so I decided to move forward with our project. Below are our bags, spiles, mallet, drill, and extra bit since I wasn't sure what size I'd need. I only cleaned four bags and spiles, but ended up going back inside to clean the other two bags and spiles. We only have four trees, but two of them are forked, so I decided to tap both forks of those trees.

After drilling a shallow hole, the sap immediately started flowing. I hadn't expected such an immediate reaction, so this was quite cool.

I used the mallet to tap the spile in, then waited for a minute for the sap to run clear (the wood bits from drilling needed to be flushed out).

First bag hung and ready to collect sap.

These bags and spiles have been in storage for 30 years, but they're still in great condition. It's nice to be able to experiment without having to spend a lot (or any) money. Below you can see the sap is already dripping into the bag.

The rigid plastic portion of the bag rests behind the hook on the top of the spile. The flap covers the top to keep debris out and also acts as a funnel when emptying the bag into a larger bucket. The way the bag attaches to the spile makes it hard to get it off, especially when it's got sap in it. I don't take the bag off the hook, I just rotate it sideways to empty it.

This tree has two good-sized forks, so I tapped both of them. This tree has been our best producer so far, after two days of collecting.

When we tapped the trees on Monday, there was still snow on the ground. When we collected sap Thursday evening, most of it had melted.

When we went back to finish tapping the trees after cleaning the last two bags and spiles, we found a good amount of sap already filling our bags. So cool! Sunshine thinks the whole thing is quite interesting, so I think we're going to do a small unit study on trees and sap.

1st day- temps in low 50's.  We collected 17.5 cups of sap (plus some lost to spillage).
                 16 cups = 1 gallon, so just over 1 gallon of sap
2nd day- temps below freezing, so we didn't bother collecting sap.
3rd day- temps back up to low 50's. We collected 28.25 cups of sap.
4th day- temps back below freezing with ice followed by 4-5 inches of snow, so we took the time to boil down the collected sap.

there's ice under all that snow- glad we don't have to go anywhere for a few days

I filtered the sap as I put it in the pots since I didn't filter before storing in the frig. I used a coffee filter from a package I bought years ago for a project. The coffee filter works, but it's slow. If we do this again I'll get a sap-specific filter. 17.5 cups + 28.25 cups = 45.75 cups = 2.86 gallons

glad I filtered those bark bits out

Almost 3 gallons of sap filled my two stock pots, so it's a good thing I didn't wait to collect more sap before boiling it down. Sap is mostly water, so 3 gallons of sap doesn't yield very much maple syrup.

After two and a half hours the sap had boiled down enough for me to combine the sap into the larger pot. I didn't take the pots to a rolling boil, which probably would have made the process go faster. I kept the pots just below a rolling boil since I wasn't keeping a super close eye on them. I ended up filtering the syrup several more times with coffee filters (I poured the sap from one pot to the other) to eliminate random floaties and scum that floated to the top. The hot sap went through the filters much quicker than the cold sap.

becoming more concentrated and darker in color

It took about 5 hours to boil down almost 3 gallons of sap to about 1.25 cups of syrup.  I used the directions here to know when the syrup was done.

now I need to make some gluten free pancakes to pour our syrup on

I found this post in January about tapping other trees. It was too late to mark our black walnut trees, but it's definitely something to try next year, especially since we have so few maples.

I also found a post about building an outdoor wood-burning evaporator to boil down sap. If we were to collect larger amounts of sap, we would totally do this. Since we're dealing with smaller amounts, I didn't worry about it this year, especially since the moisture generated while boiling down the sap helps rehydrate our super-dry house (I do not like heat pumps- they are very inefficient and drying in colder weather).

We will continue to collect sap as long as the weather cooperates- I'll post an update later with how much syrup we end up with. If we're still here next winter I'll need to purchase more spiles and a filter so we can tap our black walnut trees also.

The weather is supposed to be warmer this weekend, so we'll be able to collect sap again. I'm thinking of cooking the sap a little further to make maple candy. Yum!

Have you made your own maple syrup?

Celiac and Children's Growth

I recently read an article about a study done in children with celiac disease. The researchers were able to track the children's growth (or lack thereof) and identify those who had celiac.

When I read this, I thought "of course growth is related to celiac." I've known this for years- Sunshine stopped growing for a couple years before we figured out that she also had celiac. Even after she started a gluten free diet she didn't start growing until after she'd done GAPS for awhile and healed some of the damage done to her intestines.

The study touts growth measurements as a non-invasive and inexpensive screening tool, which is great. The only issue I have with it is that it only works on kids with active celiac disease, not just the potential for celiac. This is a concern for us right now since River is getting older and will be in situations where we have to determine how he will eat (nursery at church and so on). Will he be gluten free just in case? Will we allow him to eat gluten and then just wait and see if he develops it (and the host of other problems that inevitably go with celiac)?

We've spent the last couple months trying to get the needed referrals and appointments to get a genetic test done to see if he has the markers for celiac. We finally got in, but the pediatric geneticist said the HLA marker test isn't very accurate and did a different test instead. Unfortunately, it's one that tests to see if you have full-blown celiac (the doctor didn't actually know much about celiac). Since River doesn't currently have celiac, the test didn't show anything. We were offered a referral to a pediatric gastroenterologist who actually treats a number of children with celiac (and therefor presumable knows what they're doing) We'll take him up on the referral in the hopes that the pediatric gastroenterologist has other ideas or is more supportive of the HLA marker test.

Why am I so hung up on the HLA marker test? The HLA marker test is a genetic test that shows if you have the markers for celiac disease. If you don't have the markers, you won't get celiac disease. If you do have the markers, there is a chance you could develop celiac at some point in your life. This may seem rather nebulous, but for Mr M and I, it means we could better determine what our children should eat.

If they don't have the markers, they could eat gluten when hanging out with daddy and not Sunshine and me. I'm past the point of caring if someone's eating a sandwich or something in front of me, but there's no need to rub it in Sunshine's face that she can't eat gluten, since she does still miss gluten.

If River or the baby have the markers, we would play it safe and not feed them gluten and when they get older, they can choose for themselves if they want to eat gluten. This would at least give them a good start on life with less chances of developing celiac as a child. I think it's safe to say that Sunshine has not enjoyed dealing with it, and I don't want our other kids to go through the same thing at a young age.

Sure we could just say we don't eat gluten, but people don't always understand just how important it is that they not feed gluten to our kiddos. I blame the fad-dieters and celebrities who have given gluten free people a bad rap. Having a medical reason to back things up underlines how serious we are and makes it more "official".

February 5k Recap

I mentioned last week that I was switching my planned 8 mile race for a 5k. I'm really glad I did, since the 8 mile race got postponed till next week. If I was depending on that for my February race I would have been out of luck. I now have the option of running two races in March- the 8 mile and a 5k, both of which I'm registered for. We'll see what the weather's like next weekend before I commit to the 8 mile race. It would still be a good tune-up for the half, but I don't know that I want to do it if the temps are as low as they were on Saturday or if the ground is muddy and sloppy.

Back to Saturday's 5k. This was a small fundraiser organized by the cross country and track teams of the local university, and the majority of the runners were college students. The girls were all wearing black running tights and dark jackets and actually have runner's bodies (I don't). There were 2 or 3 ladies older than me, but everyone else was almost half my age (eek- what a thought!).

While I had on black running tights too, I also had a silver sparkle skirt and a bright pink jacket :) The skirt is a new one that I purchased to be part of my half marathon outfit. I made my last one, and it was way easier to just buy one on etsy. The pink jacket is my Christmas present from the kiddos- Sunshine picked it out for me.

The temps were in the low 20's, which wasn't quite as problematic as I'd expected. The last snow we received was early Thursday morning, so the roads and sidewalks were clear and dry. Decent running conditions, if a bit (ok, more than a bit) cold. Once we started running it wasn't too bad though.

The first mile pretty much sucked- cold air, two weeks of minimal training, and still recovering from a cold all combined to make my legs feel tired and sluggish and my chest feel heavy and tight. Even on the treadmill the first mile always sucks, so I wasn't caught off guard. It just sucked in a different way. The rest of the race I felt a lot better, but I did struggle a bit with the hills in the second mile.

I've been slacking off on my hill work and speed work in favor of my long runs, and it was obvious. I've got five weeks till the half and I think I'll be focusing more on my hills and speed while backing off a bit on the length of my long runs.

One thing I noticed: my lungs felt ok right up until I got into the car and started breathing the slightly warmer air. Then my "cold air" cough started up. I think it's interesting that it didn't actually start till the warmer air mixed with the colder air. Not a connection I'd made before.

3.02 miles in 33:55, overall pace of 11:14 min/mile
mile 1: 10:56 min
mile 2: 12:17 min
mile 3: 10:30 min

I'm happy with my time. 33:55 is only 30 seconds slower than my January 5k and faster than all but one of my 5ks from last year. Even accounting for the race being a little short I still finished in a very good time. If I'd kept a consistent 11:14 min/mile pace I would have finished 3.1 miles in 34:49, which is still faster than all but three of last year's 5ks. And I did this while 20 weeks pregnant. So yay me! Guess all that mileage really is paying off. My half marathon pace needs to be 13:39 or faster, so even allowing for a slower pace over a longer distance I should be ok. And the temperatures should also be a lot better five weeks from now.

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The week's workouts:
Mon- treadmill walk
Tues- busy and needed a rest
Wed- treadmill walk
Thurs- treadmill run
Fri- treadmill walk
Sat- February 5k race ("long" run)

My total mileage was 10.25 miles. I'm still recovering from my cold, so I took it easy and didn't try to do too much and my "long" run was only 3 miles. While I want to improve my workouts, I also don't want to be so worn out that I don't have energy to do anything else like continue healing. It's a fine line to balance.

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One more thought about my January and February races: my January race was on the 1st, and my February race was on the 28th, which means they were two months apart. While that gave me a nice long period to increase my mileage, I do think it's a bit too long between races. Most of the time they're only 3 or 4 weeks apart, not 8.

Sunday Funny

notice the location of the stools?

Apparently we're raising a family of fort builders. 

Some time ago, Sunshine changed her name to Sunshine Fort Keeper.

Before and after that she has built many forts, even involving River.

Now River has started building his own little forts. They don't involve blankets (yet), but he does like to rearrange the kitchen stools and "hide" behind them. He's not quite 17 months old, but he's got a good start on the fort building.