Young Party of Four

We did it again! For my third time and Mom and Danielle's second, we tackled the Clearwater Memorial Causeway. And it was no less foreboding this time staring up to it's peak as you round the corner at about .5 miles into the Iron Girl 5k. Saturday we were supposed to go to a friend's kiddo's bday party, but unfortunately there was a time change and we were unable to make it as the time the party was changed to was the same time we had to meet Mom and Danielle in Clearwater for packet pick-up. So, since we had to go to Clearwater anyway, we figured we would go ahead and go to Honeymoon Island State Park. HI is one of our favorite beaches in all of Florida. It is gorgeous and being a state park, is not as crowded as some public beaches. We knew the weather may not cooperate with us and as we got near Tampa, we saw some serious rain clouds. Luckily, the skies cleared as we went closer to the water and when we got to the beach, it was a gorgeous day... with a crazy st...

Well, last Saturday we did it again. Almost a full year after our last 10K, we took on our second one. And this one we did with far less training. Last year we were both doing so well in our training, but this year... not as much. I think both of us topped out at 3.5 to 4 miles over the last month or so leading up to this race. That was for a few reasons. One was timing. It felt like with Steven's work schedule and him traveling so much combined with all we had going on as a family and some things I had going on over the last month that we just couldn't find time to run more than that. It's hard to train for longer distances when there are two of you and you have small children that can't stay home alone and are too big (and way too heavy) to push in a double (not even a jogging) stroller for any exceptionally long distances. Also, we have both been dealing with some aches and pains over the last month or so. They aren't enough to sideline us entirely, but they d...

So, in the next couple of weeks we will be running our first race of the season. We have a few races planned out over the next few months already and have even already registered for a couple. Let's back up though. I think I have covered this before but "race season" is not something set in stone but it sort of follows a school type calendar around here, it seems. At least that is how I think of it. It starts in the fall and goes through to spring. You find races in the summer, but they are fewer and farther between. That's fine though because for anyone that has run in Florida in the summer... that time of the year is torture. I would make the assumption that race season changes based on where you are located as I would think running in summer in places like Minnesota is more preferred to running in the winter. I can only speak for our local "season". This summer has been... iffy... for us. We didn't really do the things I think we planned as far...

This weekend was so much fun and I wanted to take a few minutes to document it. Before I do though, I want to mention that we have finally started making it back to the pool! I'm so excited. I love this time of year. Back BC (Before Children) we used to go almost every evening to the pool after dinner. We haven't done the same since having kids because life is far busier with them around but we are going to be trying to get back into going frequently this summer. Kenzie's first summer (the year she turned 1) I took her alone a lot but we want to try to get there with Daddy more often. More often than just weekends. Our first visit of the season was last Sunday. Usually we bring out our kiddie pool in the front yard but we thought it might be warm enough finally (at least the water) to chance the pool in the neighborhood. And we were right! It was perfect! It was little windy so getting out of the pool was less comfortable but the water was PERFECT! Slightly cool but no...