May 03, 2013

Kittens and ice cream and an evening stroll

So right after I posted about Eli losing his tooth a couple of days ago, he came into the living room just before bed and told me that his other bottom front tooth was wiggly. I wiggled it, and said, "Do you want me to try and pull this one, too?" He said yes, so I wiggled it kind of hard and heard a pop--then I just pulled it right out!

Eli has been wanting to lose his first tooth for a couple of YEARS now, and then he went and lost TWO teeth within a matter of hours. Now Noah is missing his top two teeth, and Eli is missing his bottom two.

When Eli went to school, he got his name on the tooth chart, which he was really excited about. The teacher has a chart to keep track of how many teeth each kid has lost, and Eli was the only one NOT on the chart.


Last night, my friend Sarah was on the news to share her story about having melanoma! May is National Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and I'm really glad that Sarah got to share her story. Like most people, she thought that it couldn't (or wouldn't) happen to her.

The lovely Sarah
Melanoma is the deadliest of skin cancers, and Sarah's started as what she thought was "just a mole" on her calf. It had spread to her lymph nodes before she was even diagnosed (she was diagnosed with stage 3C, which is pretty far along). She had to have a large part of her calf removed, as well as lymph nodes, and is just starting to walk again. Unfortunately, she's still not in the clear, however.

I ignorantly used to think of melanoma as "just skin cancer", and I had no idea how deadly it was until Sarah was diagnosed. Now I am extra cautious about being in the sun (I stay out of the sun as much as possible, and wear sunscreen when I run or have to be in the sun). Jerry had a couple of spots on his skin that were a little odd, and a couple of years ago, I would have just thought, "Oh, it's nothing." But after seeing what Sarah has gone through, I urged him to go to the dermatologist immediately, to get it checked out. Thankfully, his biopsies were normal.

This Monday is "Melanoma Monday", a day dedicated to raising awareness about melanoma. To show your support in raising awareness, the American Academy of Dermatology encourages everyone to wear orange on the first Monday in May (the 6th). On their website, you can also find a free skin cancer screening in your area, so there is no excuse not to get those spots checked out.



Today was my long run day, and after running outside yesterday, I decided to run on the treadmill today. I am not a baby about running in the cold, or the rain, or the snow--but I HATE running in the heat! Yesterday, it was 65 when I was running, which I know most people don't consider "hot", but to me it is. This morning, it was 67, and I decided to do the treadmill.

My sister sent me a text saying that she ran 11 miles this morning! She's running her first half-marathon in two weeks in Rockford, IL (any of my readers running there?). She just started running at the end of last year, in order to train for and run my Virtual 5K in January. I am so excited that she kept at it, and is up to 11 miles now!

After reading her text, I quit procrastinating and got on the treadmill. I decided to run through two full episodes of Sons of Anarchy, regardless of how far that was. I also decided to try and keep my heart rate below 145. For some reason, I was thinking 145 was my maximum for Zone 3--I later learned I was wrong ;)
This app is called HR Zones, free from Runner's Ally
After the whole run, my average pace was 9:00/mi, and I kept my heart rate below 145. It was kind of fun to focus more on my heart rate than on my pace. Now that I've completed my goal races, I feel like I need something else to focus on, so I think I may try heart rate training, just for something different. I would basically be doing the same type of running schedule I'm doing now, only trying to stay within certain heart rate zones (rather than certain paces) for each run.

For my long run treat, I decided to take the whole fam with me to a local dairy farm for ice cream after dinner. They make their own ice cream on site, and it's delicious! I got a single scoop (we'll pretend that she actually gave me a single, because, well, just look at the size of it!) of half Maple Nut and half Cake Batter ice cream. Mmmm, so good.


We looked around at the animals, and I realized that this is the best time of year to go to the farm--there were baby animals everywhere! The baby goats were the cutest things I'd ever seen. It was impossible to get a good picture of them, but see how tiny? They were smaller than my cats! And they were chasing around a chicken.


There were four kittens hanging out in the goat area, playing together. They were so adorable!


On the way home, I was feeling pretty full from the ice cream, and it was so nice outside, that I told Jerry to drop me off when we were three miles from home. He said he felt so guilty just stopping the car and letting me out, but I wanted to walk. The sun was setting and it was gorgeous!


I never really took note of just how fast I walk, but I've been using the Map My Walk app on my phone when I go out for a stroll, and I'm pretty fast! Today, my average pace was 13:13/mi. When I first started RUNNING, my pace wasn't even that fast. It's interesting to see how far I've come in just a few years' time. I would NEVER have asked Jerry to drop me off three miles from home, that's for sure!

Today was a great day--kittens and ice cream and an evening stroll. Now I'm going to complete it with a glass of red wine :)

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like a pretty great day!
    I hate running in the heat too.. it reached 24C this week and it made me dread the coming running months :s

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  2. My poor Isabelle just turned 7 and has only lost one tooth. It drives her nuts!

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  3. Ahhh - the baby animals! They are so cute. I might have taken a kitten home, sucker that I am.

    My mom freaks out when I ask her to drop me off so I can walk the rest of the way home sometimes. It's usually about a mile and she says "But it is so far!" LOL! She doesn't walk much.

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  4. I'm so nervous to be a mom cause I'm not sure I'll be able to pull a tooth out of a child's face! Just the thought of it make my knees feel like jelly!

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  5. I was born & raised a farm girl, so I really love this post! Brings back so many great memories!

    Sarah
    www.thinfluenced.com

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  6. I am SO GLAD that you said you hate running in the heat! We've had a 4 day heat wave here, and I tried to run when it was 80 degrees out and HATED it. There may have been other contributing factors, but I've also ran in the rain (not my favorite thing, but I didn't hate it) and really prefer to run when it's in the 50s. It's been stressing me out a little as I took the past few days off of running, but it's cooled down a lot now so I'm going to go for a run tomorrow morning. I thought maybe I was being a wimp about the whole thing. :)

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  7. AnonymousMay 04, 2013

    I am sorry to hear about your friend Sarah. I, too, have had 3 malignant melanomas. On me, fortunately, I thought the first mole "looked odd". The doctors told me that it looked OK to them, but they would take it off to be cautious, and I should hear back in 2-3 weeks. 2 days later they called me and asked me to stop by whenever it worked for me, no appointment needed. (NOT A GOOD SIGN!) Sure enough, it had come back as a malignant melanoma. It was only on my skin at that point, so they took more skin, and called it good. I also had a few other spots removed, none interesting. :)
    3 years later (and 7.5 months pregnant with my second child) I found another 2 spots that looked odd. Sure enough, they were both melanomas, again only on the top layers of the skin. Today I am 5 years out from the last "bad spots". I am thankful that I caught it before it turned into more. I am also thankful that I am still here. (I am now 35, I was 26 when I found the first one.)
    My advice (for those still reading this epic, sorry!) is get to know what the moles on YOUR body look like. If you have a small number, get to know them individually. I have too many for that, I just know what they "should" look like, on me. The ones that have been "bad" were the ones that did not look like the rest.
    Katie- thanks for bringing attention to this subject.
    -NNMSunshine @sparkpeople.

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  8. Wow, you are a speedy walker! Maybe if you ever get sick of running you can be a competitive speed walker. :P

    Running the heat does suck, it makes things way harder. When I start my run tomorrow it will likely be about 66 and when I'm done like 74... I could start at 7am and be out of the heat, but nawwwww.

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  9. What a lovely day.
    My youngest lost his 2 front top and 2 front bottom teeth within a month. He looked and sounded so cute. :D

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  10. You should take the boys in for portraits with their teeth like that. Seriously the cutest thing ever!

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  11. It was in the 60s here yesterday, and sunny and my run felt hard because of it. For some reason if it's like 60-70s and not very sunny, I am ok. I hate when the sun is in my face unless it's freezing outside. I've also had my husband drop me off on the way home..usually just at the outskirts of our neighborhood. :) Your walk is super fast! I normally walk at a 16-17 minute mile if I walk briskly and I run about a 10 minute mile.

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  12. Melanoma is deadly. My husband had a bad spot on his leg removed about 7 years ago that was melanoma. But it hadn't spread to his lymph nodes--thank God. Course now we're dealing with Stage 4 Prostate Cancer. But we'll wear orange Monday! Thanks for telling us, I hadn't seen anything about it. Melanoma is kind of ignored. I think most people think it's not serious, that it's just skin cancer....but we know how deadly this form is!!

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  13. Dude...why has it never occurred to me to have my fiancé drop me off early when going home?!? And to use a phone app while doing so is just genius. I rely so heavily on my garmin forerunner watch that I never would have thought to do some small exercise when I don't have it with me and just use my phone! I am *so* going to have to get an app for that! Is Map My Walk the one you'd recommend, or are there any other good ones for me to look into as well?

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