The Adventures of Nichole & Greta…

It’s noon on Tuesday and two of my athletes are coming down for workouts. I’m planning to run along with Greta in the stroller, but we just received some snow/ice/slush stuff and the roads are still covered in it. 

Hmm, I think to myself. We don’t have an actual jogging stroller yet because I was told I couldn’t take Greta out in one until she was at least 6 months old. After asking other running moms and doing some research, though, I found that with an infant sling I could start running with her as early as 1 month old. So… all we have is our normal strolling stroller for now. Which I’ve looked silly running with before, but running in the snow and temps in the teens surely changes the way my neighbors describe me: from dedicated to absolutely, positively crazy.

I’ve been told by other moms that Greta should be fine in the cold in her stroller as long as she’s dressed well, has a blanket or two with, and we have the car seat cover on… sooo… I decide to brave it. 

I think I spent ~90 minutes getting ready for this run! Feeding Greta, pumping, getting myself dressed, getting her dressed, putting her in her car seat, putting Mesa in her kennel, finding watch. Uff.

J & C arrive and we head out. I wish I would have taken a picture of our ridiculousness :). Instead, you can just picture me pushing this stroller:

I’m already missing the days where the paths/roads were clear.

Through this:

Yah, call me crazy. I deserve it.

So, needless to say, that sped up my stroller-searching process a bit. Good thing Craigslist is awesome.

Just waiting for Greta’s infant sling to arrive so we can test it out! We also were very lucky to have found a contact that had the ski attachment. Greta is excited for her first ski outing!

My training so far has gone really well. I haven’t had any set backs, which surprises me… no incision pain, no nothing! The only thing is that I’m terribly, horribly out of shape, heavy, and not strong :(. I keep telling myself that it will be a slow, daily process back to it… but it’s still hard.

Week 3:

15.6 miles.

The highlight was a 5 mile run with one of my athletes. It was the first time that I’ve run fast for a LONG time, and wow… was it fun :). Perhaps my excitement was also partially borrowed from my athlete: after I coached her on a few form things, she was running faster than she has EVER run before. *Huge grins all-around*

Meeting another athlete at the Carleton track for a mile time trial. She ran a 16 second PR (hard to do in a mile effort!)! I timed, Nate pushed Greta around the track.

The low-light was a 45 minute elliptical done earlier in the week that was just downright HARD. I just felt how out-of-shape I was. Hate workouts that are supposed to be easy and aren’t 🙁

Week 4:

23.5 miles

This week’s log had a lot of “sooo tired” entries. I try to be a “good wife” and wake up to feed Greta whenever she needs during the night (since Nate is the one that needs to be awake and fully functioning during the day!). After nights where I’m up every hour and a half, though, I just don’t function well :(. I have always needed more sleep, so this sleep deprivation thing really hits me.

I’ve had multiple nights where I’m literally so tired that I feel drunk. Not kidding. I need to get better at sleeping when Greta takes her short cat-naps… I just feel like I should be accomplishing something during that time… coaching, house stuff, errands, etc.

But, when I’m trying to keep my eyes open while feeding her, I stare into her big eyes and immediately forget my insane tiredness :). True love!