Disappointment

I had to officially pull out of the Shamrock Half-Marathon. I am getting things changed to a new venue to be decided.

Ugh.

I was kinda ready to be done training and just go for fun runs of 3-4 miles for a while.

I am currently still stretching the ligament so I can start to run again. The information I have read says that recovery is different for everyone. It could be relatively quick - 1-2 months and others have had issues for 6 months or so. I'll keep you all posted and try to not let my frustration and disappointment show through.

Here's the back story and details on the weekend.

I went to go see a specialist and after some pushing and prodding(5 minutes after waiting 1.5hrs) he said I have runners knee or IT Band Syndrome. It's where the ligament that runs on the exterior of your legs becomes inflamed due to rubbing against a bone in your knee. Apparently stretching is key. So he is sending me to physical therapy so I can learn some stretches to keep this from happening again. I've called the therapist and haven't heard back yet. I've taken it upon myself to go to the Internet and look up the stretches that I would be paying the therapist to show me. If I ever get a call back I guess I'll go but I don't have time to wait around. When I told the Dr. that I was training for a 1/2 marathon and the run was that coming Sunday, he stopped writing and looked at me like I was nuts and said "Well, you're not running in that". I of course pushed the matter and asked if there was anything I could do. He said matter-of-factly that it was up to me and how I felt but I took a great risk in injuring it further and causing more damage. I decided to follow his advice. Like a good friend of mine said after he inquired about the run - You only have one set of knees and you're not 18 anymore. Getting old stinks.

We decided to go on down to the race since the hotel was already paid and I had the time off to make it a mini vacation. That was an excellent decision. We made it down there just in time for me to go pick up my Shamrock shirt that I got for registering and my runners number. We then checked into the hotel (a Sheraton - we were spying on the competition). Steph had called ahead to see if we could get an ocean view room and they said there were none avialable. When we got there she turned on the charm and got one anyway. The room had a balcony that looked onto the beach/ocean and the boarwalk right below was on the final .25 miles of the race so we got to see runners filing by on their way to the finish. It was pretty cool.

Saturday night we met up with Vic & Jen Ferson and Dave & Jenny Huisenga for dinner. Our hotel had a pasta buffett so we just stayed there then headed to bed since the race began at 7am. I made plans to meet them all the next morning for the start. Fersons were walking and Huisengas were running.

I didn't bring my running clothes at all because I knew I would be tempted to just go run/walk with them. I almost did the walk with Fersons just to do it. I am kinda glad I didn't because with all the walking I did I was beginning to feel the knee again by the end of the day. I probably could have made it OK but would have been icing my knee still today.

I watched the start of the 1/2 Marathon at 7am then walked down to see the start of the full Marathon at 8am. I got there just as they were starting a special ceremony for a guy who was doing his re-enlistment to the Navy prior to the race. Then he hugged and kissed his wife and ran the Marathon. It was pretty touching to see that. It makes me appreciate all those who serve and have served just a little bit more. Thanks to you all.

After the start of the full race I heard the announcements over by the finish line that was about a block away that the first 1/2 Marathon runners were finishing. It had been about 1:05 from their start. They were bookin. I went back to the room to help get the kids up and ready. They had already ordered room service and were enjoying the fresh ocean breeze by the time I got there. I took Dylan & Chloe with me to head down to the finish line to try and see the Huisengas come across. I think I bent down to talk to one of the kids and missed Dave and I'm not sure where I was when Jenny came across. We did meet up with them after as they were walking to their hotel across the street from the finish line. Dave looked tired and Jenny was limping with a sore hip. They headed off for a soak in the tub and rest. We walked around a bit then went to the beach side of the race lane so the kids could go to the water and I could watch for the Fersons. I somehow missed them too but the kids got soaked in the freezing water...

I talked with Ferson's and Huisenga's and they were going to get cleaned up and meet up for lunch. They were heading off that day while we were sticking around and heading back home on Monday. Steph was exhausted and crashed with Addie so Dylan and Chloe and I headed to lunch. After we met up with everyone we were walking to the diner. Dylan was walking along the sidewalk in front of a laudromat. He and Chloe were playing the 'don't step on a crack' game. Then all of a sudden the door opened and smacked Dylan right in the head. He stepped back a couple of steps and had a smile on his face for a couple of seconds. The guy coming out apologized profusely and Dylan seemed to be OK. He then came to me and buried his head in my side. He was hurt a lot more than he let on and he was embarassed too. He did get tears in his eyes but didn't make much of a fuss about it though he did have a big red mark for a couple of hours on his forehead. Poor guy.

After lunch we said our goodbye's to Fersons and Huisengas and headed back to the hotel to watch the Jayhawks play in the NCAA Tournament. The kids and I then went to the pool to play for a little while. They are tougher than me as they would jump from the hot tub into the big pool multiple times. I did that once and I thought the regular pool was a little chilly even without hitting the hot tub first. I guess I do have a bit if Dad in me. He doesn't like getting in the water unless you can see the steam rising. That night we went out for sushi and tried to teach the kids to use chopsticks. It's a work in progress. With all the walking and swimming we had done the kids were tired. Chloe even finished eating and laid down on the bench to sleep. We only let her because there were only about 5 other people in the whole place and we were about to go anyway. She wouldn't wake up really so I had to carry her about 5 blocks back to our hotel.

Monday morning we went for breakfast at Pocahontas Pancakes... Interesting but pretty good pancakes. I do have a tough time going out to eat pancakes. I have a tough time spending $10 on a meal I can make twice as good myself. The buscuits and gravy weren't bad either. We walked around a bit after that and ended up in one of those beach side tourist shops that sells everything with Virginia Beach on it. The kids talked Steph into getting them hermit crabs. We got a boy and a girl that share a cage. Soooo now I have two more pets to take care of. At least the hermit crabs don't meow all night long and shed everywhere.

Before heading home we drove up to the Old Cape Henry lighthouse at Fort Story - it was the turnaround point for the 1/2 marathon. We got to meek the lighthouse keeper and he gave Dylan and Chloe special coins that you can only get from the lighthouse keeper. To show it's a small world. John, the keeper, went to church at the Redland Baptist Church when he was young - it's about a mile away from our house. We got to climg a bunch of stairs to the top of the the old lighthouse which was the first government paid for building. The kids did it twice - once with me and then again with Steph. Oh to be young again. They wouldn't let us take Addison up because of the steepness/liability.

Though it was very frustrating to me not to be able to run it was all in all a great weekend. I look forward to running it next year so I can get my beer and Irish Stew.

9110

9110 - That's my race number for the Shamrock 1/2 Marathon.

I'm hoping it's not an omen...

51

51 - That's the age that Wii Fit assigned to me last night. What a crock! Though I do feel old at times but 51!! Come on. I think it's faulty for it's basis as it uses BMI as a barometer. BMI has me at borderline obese. It doesn't take in the fact that I lifted weights for years and have muscle mass that weighs more than fat. Don't get me wrong I have a little junk in the trunk. I know I need to lose about 10 pounds but according to BMI I would still be drastically overweight even for that. So I get the BMI skewed weight thing but based on some agility and balance tests they put me at age 51. Even though I haven't run in about a week I feel pretty good. maybe 42 but not 51. Maybe I'll lay off second helpings for a while.

Knee update. I am still sore from who knows what went wrong on my 13 mile run. I am able to go up and down stairs with no problems now. I did go out on Saturday to test it out. I got about a block before it started hurting. I turned around and went to the top of my hill thinking I just needed to work it out a bit - kinda like walking off a charley horse or a near sprained ankle. No good. I headed inside put the brace back on and did some stretching. It does feel even a bit better each day so I'll probably try to run with a brace this week.

Steph, Chloe and Addison went back to KC/Beloit for Steph's friend's baby shower. They spent a few days in KC with Mom & Dad and a few more days in Beloit with Rod & Bonnie. Sunday they went to see Michelle at the hospital after the baby was born (about a month early but healthy). All day Chloe was complaining of a stomach ache but with all the chaos of traveling and visiting not much attention was paid. On the way home she got sick in the van. Steph, of course, felt horrible for not listening to her earlier. I felt bad because she had to clean it up as best she could on the side of the road and then had to do a deeper clean when they got home that night. She also would have to be up with Addie when she gets hungry at night. I knew she wasn't going to get much sleep then. It breaks your heart when kids tell you something and you don't pay much attention to it then something bad happens. You feel like if you would have paid more attention to their needs then you could have prevented it - even if nothing would have stopped it. They get back on Wednesday night so hopefully we can all settle back into life and get some rest. Or at least what we call rest in our house.

Paternity Leave

So here I am nearing my month off work for Paternity Leave and I've not posted anything the whole time. Hmmm, why is it that I can find 20 minutes to write something during the day while I'm working but not while I'm at home? The biggest thing we've realized this past month is that we forgot just how much work newborns really are. We had these grandiose plans for what I would do during my time off. Not many of those things have been completed unfortunately. It's pretty frustrating for both Steph and I. To be fair we had a lot of company with Rod, Bonnie, Amber, Ryan, Lainie, Mom & Dad. We've really only been sans company for a couple of weeks. Having them all visit was great and I wouldn't trade it. Getting into our own regular routine has taken a bit longer than I remember though.
The Shamrock 1/2 Marathon is coming up quickly. I can't believe how much progress I've made. When I started I could barely run 2 miles now I go out for short runs of 3-4 miles. A couple of weeks ago I did 12 miles and felt pretty good after then the next weekend I dropped down to 8 miles. Just this past weekend I did 13! That is the longest I've ever run - EVER. There is a downside though. My left knee started hurting just a bit off and on about mile 3. At about 11.5 it really started to hurt with each step just under and to the left of my kneecap. I powered through pretty good but did have to walk a bit then sucked it up for the last .7 mile. I came home to ice, shower and go to a party (nothing much keeps me from a party). I did dig up a knee brace that I've been wearing nearly constantly. I was able to keep the pain away for the first couple days by not bending my let which is a bit difficult in a house with lots of steps. Sunday I did stay off my feet pretty well and Steph took on extra duty of getting me things. She's a saint. I can now walk up steps without wincing. I will take it easy this week as far as running. I'll do some cross training and hopefully not lose much stamina. If it does not keep healing I'll get it checked out. I also need to check out what happens to the race if I can't run. I seem to recall that if you get injured you can apply your fundraising amount to another run so I still plan to raise the amount needed. If you have not had a chance to donate you still are able. Send me a check or go to http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/shamrock09/breeve .

Addie is getting so big. You can tell she's a Reeve baby because she's now got her cheeks. She has a little cold that keeps her nose pretty stuffy. It also drains into her chest so she coughs quite a bit. She is doing well though and only cries when she's hungry or tired. Dylan and Chloe are doing well with her too. Chloe is still a helicopter. She wants to be involved as much as possible. We think they were both a little jelous for a while but that has been going away recently. Chloe's been going to her school part time for the past month so she stays home with us on Tues/Thurs. She loves it but Dylan is jelous of her. Dylan is doing OK at school. He has another slight bully incident but we believe it has been resolved. He was not getting some of his school work done and we think it was because of the bullying and jelousy at home. Now that those are going away his work is improving.
Steph and the girls are heading to KC/Beloit for a week leaving tomorrow. Dylan was pretty upset that he couldn't go with them when he found out. I tried to explain that with the girls gone we get to do some cool guy stuff. Like no bathing, watching Star Wars in our underwear and burp and fart without saying excuse me. Those plans were going well until someone reminded me that Carrie would still be here so we may have to curtail some of those things. We'll see. I may have to come up with something else equally as cool. I already have offers for sleepovers for Friday and Saturday nights so I'm not sure what we'll do.
I do have pictures of the family and I know I've had lots of requests for pictures of Addison. They are still on the camera and I'll get them on here in the next couple of days. I also go back to work soon so my postings won't be so far apart...

Thank You God!

A funny story was relayed to me after I posted last and need to share it with you regarding our ever quotable kids.
Apparently, when Wendy was bringing our kids to the hospital when Addison was born Chloe asked how her new baby sister got in Mommy's tummy. I'm sure the frozen look of fear on Wendy's face was priceless and I wish I could have seen it. How do you answer that question from someone else's kids? Luckily she didn't have to do that as Dylan piped up. "Well, God makes the baby, lets it grow a little bit then put it in Mommy's tummy to finish growing." Overexcited Chloe with her eyes looking toward heaven I'm sure, yells out "Thank You God!"

Truer words have never been spoken.

As we are now a week and a half into newborn parenting you would think things might settle down a bit. Well, you'd be wrong. Things are as crazy as ever and I'm pretty sure it's not going to change any time soon. While we are getting the hang of having a newborn again and recalling some things we had long forgotten there is just enough chaos to keep us on our toes. We have not had visitors over mostly due to Steph and Addison getting used to each other and feeding. Steph also has a bit of a cold and just is exhausted. The house is a mess and we have family in town. I think we will be open to visitations next week as I begin my paternity leave then and can be around to help a bit. We will be guest free for a couple of weeks until my parents come in the middle of February. Rod and Bonnie were here for 10 days and left on Tuesday morning. That time went way too fast and they both helped out a tremendous amount with food, cooking, cleaning and mostly support. Bonnie's main project this visit was a success - helping Steph with Addison. Amber, Ryan and Lainey came in on Wednesday night and will be here until Sunday. Amber planned the trip as they came were flying here during a KU game and will be taking off to go home about the time the Super Bowl Kick-Off. We're glad they are here as we haven't seen them since their visit last Summer when Lainey was just a couple of month old. She is getting so big it's kinda funny to see her compared to Addison - What a difference 9 months makes.

My running is going well. A couple of weeks ago was a 7 mile run on a Saturday. I just couldn't get a rhythm going so I was uncomfortable for the entire run. It's no fun to feel bad for a hour and a half. My times were slower and even when I thought that if I could speed up I wouldn't have to be out there as long it didn't help. I powered through and made it. I wasn't sure how things would progress. Then last Saturday was the 8 mile trip. It was a bit cold and windy with gusts up to about 30 mph at times. I got into my cadence early and felt good the whole run. Except that I kept burping up the lasagna I had for lunch for the first 4 miles. Ugh. Even with the 30 mph headwind I had my fastest sustained run ever for my longest run ever. After that I felt like I could definately do this thing. This weekend I have a 10 mile run scheduled. I'm not sure how that will go. I only got a short weekday run in last night due to the ice and snow we got. I know all of you in the Mid-West think that's a bit silly but remember - this is DC. They don't prep the side roads or shovel the sidewalks here. It was complete ice for a couple of days. When I went for my 'short' 4 miler last night I was running on the streets in the neighborhood and thought everytime a car came by that I'd have to jump into the ice to dodge it or that I would hit an ice patch and fall in front of the car - it was kinda dark out too. I also had my left shoe jabbing something into the top of my big toe that started early. They about 2 miles in I stepped in a pothole, jammed my knee wierd and pulled a muscle in my lower back. I headed home after that and called it a night. This morning my back is in sorry shape and I'm going to the store where I bought my shoes in hopes they can help me figure out what is causing my toe so much pain. Hopefully I can get this all cleared up so I can put the in the 10 miles I need this weekend.

I also had to put in my recommitment form for the fundraising and race. I'm about $825 into my necessary $1900. If you are planning to donate and haven't yet please do so soon. I really need your help to reach that number.

Addison Marie

It's been a busy week.

Addison Marie Reeve was born on Monday January 19, 2009 at 6:53pm. She was 21 inches and 8lbs 6oz.

We went into the hospital about 10am on Monday and by 10:30 Steph was hooked to the IV with a Pitocin drip. Pitocin is the drug that induces labor. She had the amount increased periodically throughout the day. About 6:15 Rod, Carrie and I decided to head to dinner since nothing was really happening. Bonnie was in the room with Steph and we figured we had about an hour before the next check. We were going to go to the hospital cafeteria but then decided to head across the street to Chipotle. What better way to gear up for the birth of my child than a Chipotle Burrito. We got over there and I was finishing my order - Barbacoa, black beans, spicy, corn, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese and lettuce (mmmm Chipotle...) when my phone rang. It was 6:35 and Bonnie was calling to say to hurry back, Steph was at 9 cm so we were getting close. Carrie quickly got back in line to order because we forgot to get something for Bonnie and we headed back to the hospital. They dropped me off at the door and I ran to the elevators, up to the 3rd floor, through the security doors and into the room - it was 6:45. The door to the room was partially blocked because they had the delivery equipment out as the doctor and nurses were quickly getting things ready. Steph apparently had them check her again about 30 seconds after Bonnie called me and she was at 10 cm and ready. The nurses didn't even have the things set up so it was a rush. Bonnie was at her side and stepped back as I manuevered around the tables and people to get to Steph's side. Steph did a great job and 7 minutes later Addison was born. Bonnie stayed in the room to see her first delivery and was in a state of amazement.

It was a little scary for Rod and Carrie in the waiting room though. They called Bonnie when they got to the waiting room while Steph was pushing. The ringing really annoyed Steph so Bonnie was quick to answer it once we figured out whose phone it was and where it was. She quickly said that she couldn't talk and had to go and hung up. Carrie, on the other end, thought she said "I can't talk now, they're doing CPR, gotta go". They were with that belief until Bonnie came out about 30 minutes later. It was even a bit more scary because before they could talk to her Rod and Carrie saw that Bonnie had tears in her eyes and had been crying. All were happy once the communication cleared up a bit.

Shady Grove Hospital now has private recovery rooms after deliveries with no set visiting hours or number of people to visit limits. Wendy Bailey had been watching the kids all day and brought them up to meet their new sister. Chloe was ecstatic and Wendy said she probably would have run to the hospital if she'd let her. Dylan was excited but more reserved about it. Steph did make it into the recovery room in time for the beginning of the KU basketball game vs Texas A&M (they won which is a good omen)

We couldn't decide on a name and had it narrowed down to a short list. Wednesday morning before discharge Steph and I whittled it down even more to 2. Still not able to decide we talked with the nurses and processing and were able to leave without her name. The processing person was going to call us when she was putting the information in the next day. After asking family and friends in a poll on our two names (it was pretty much a tie) we did a complete change and opted for one we crossed off the list (it was the last one we crossed out though). Like I said - Everyone gets a say, just not the final say.

We are all doing well and are adjusting to life with a hungry newborn. Thanks to all for your help and support.

Easy Runnin

I didn't ever think I'd say this but I went out for an easy 3 mile run this morning in 20 degree weather. Also, I now understand what I used to hear from long distance runners about the first couple of miles being warm-up miles. Of course in the cold all the miles help keep you warm.
I do need to start working on my speed a bit now that I have the confidence that I can make it the full 13.1 miles. 7 miles are due this weekend.
Baby news is that Steph went in for her checkup today. The little girl is about 8.5 lbs already. Monday can't come soon enough for Steph now.
Rod & Bonnie come in to town on Saturday morning so it will be nice for them to be here when the baby is born. We tried that with my parents when Chloe was born but she was late and was born a day or two after Mom & Dad left to go back home. I don't think we'll have that problem this time.
The baby is all out front and when Steph was sitting down last night she seriously looked like she had a basketball under her shirt.
Stay Tuned.