{keep going}

I have been back at work for one full week now and I am starting week number two and I am still alive and functioning. Still alive and well, and well managing to still function somehow, haha! The drive in this morning was rough. Have I mentioned that I have a 45 minute drive to and from work? It gets long when you are tired! Thank goodness for my energy drink that I’ve been having! No more soda, almost two months soda free!

How was leaving Xander and returning to work you ask?! What, you didn’t ask? Well, I’m going to tell you anyways. It was alright. No tears were shed. I survived. It was a little rough. I got up that morning and managed to get everyone ready in time and was off to work. I am officially part of the 5am club, but just not for working out. Wish it could be for that. Maybe in a few weeks once I feel more confident about being able to get ready and out the door on time I’ll work that in. I had a really good week being back at work and besides missing the tiny man like crazy, it went well. I was pretty busy all week so the days just flew by and before I knew it, I was headed back home to cuddle with the Xan-man! I think in the ideal world I’d love to work only part-time (as I really did enjoy that last summer), but student loans and other bills kind of prevent that right now. Oh well. It really isn’t as if I am going to ‘work’ because I do like what I do. It doesn’t seem like work for me. Are all days peachy perfect? Of course not, but for the most part it doesn’t feel like work per se. If that makes sense.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I’ve officially run my first (and now second) 5k since Xander was born. On Memorial Day weekend, Victoria (because we hardly ever do runs without each other anymore), Ayden, Xander, and myself all packed up and headed off to Fond Du Lac for my first post baby run. I don’t necessarily count the Color Run I did three weeks after Xander was born because I walked the whole thing. We had (mostly me) big goals of finishing this run in less than 45 minutes. It was no easy feat, let me tell you. I was pushing the jogging stroller, and have you ever tried running with one of those?!

Needless to say, Ayden rocked the run and actually ended up finishing about three minutes before me. We all stuck together until about the last half mile-ish. I pushed myself and Victoria throughout the whole thing. Ask her, I was being the bitchy bestie who wouldn’t let her walk! Hehe! We did walk/run intervals and Ayden had no trouble at all! Little stink butt! Xander slept the whole time so we didn’t even get cheered on by him, haha! I came in shortly after 44 minutes and Victoria finished just before 45 minutes. We all hit our goal and were damn proud of ourselves. I mean, at that point I was just shy of six weeks post-partum. Hells yeah!

That run took care of our May ‘obligation’ so it was then time to find one for June and I happened to find one in a city pretty close to us. It was an uber small event with maybe 100 walkers (if that) and probably only about 20 runners. This time I was sans kiddos and my goal was to finish in less than 40 minutes and Victoria’s was to finish in less than 44 and wouldn’t you know it… we both hit our goals again! Rock it! The course ended up being more like 3.25 miles instead of 3.1, but I checked my Garmin at 3.1 and I was at 37 minutes and about 30 seconds. Oh yeah! I felt good! It was a hard run because I was pushing myself, but you don’t get better by just sitting around not pushing yourself! And I know that I’ll get back to where I was at some point!

Victoria and I have now officially run in 11 ‘races’ together. I use the term race loosely as we don’t actually race, we just run. And I’ve also discovered that we have a knack for always standing on the same side when we take our after run picture together. Too funny! Never would I have thought that by starting out running to just finish a 5k back in October 2012 that I would have somehow become addicted to it, gotten my best friend addicted to it, and be training for my first marathon! It is completely insane if you ask me! But that is what Victoria and I do best… we do insane and I don’t think either of us would have it any other way!

CIAO! LOVE ME!