A Little Deceiving...

Curly hair, that is. Why? Because it's a lot longer than it looks. I was flat-ironing my hair today and decided to see how long my curly-cutie's hair was really getting...

Curly.

Straight.

Look how long it is! (Like the mohawk?)

A note on the shirt: For those who don't know, 4 months after Brian and I got married we moved to El Paso, Texas and Brian worked across the border in Juarez, Mexico. On one of our many trips across the border, we bought this shirt for a future daughter. Today, I decided I'd better put it on Sydney before it got too cold out there! Viva Mexico! :)

This Little Piggy...

My kids generally alternate nap times during the day, so I get some alone time with each of them. When Wes is awake and Sydney's asleep, he's good about letting me get some stuff done around the house. When Sydney's awake and Wes is asleep, she doesn't really let me get anything done. She likes to crawl all over me and make sure I'm paying attention to what she's doing. I told Brian the other day that it was like she wanted to make sure we had our "girl time". So today during our girl time I decided we should paint our toenails! There isn't much cuter than tiny toenails painted pink!

Marathon Training - Week 13

Monday: 5 miles

Tuesday: 7 miles

Thursday: 5 miles

Saturday: 20 miles

Total for the week: 37 miles (81.2 miles to go!)

This past week was our last long-run week! This week we start to taper. Three weeks until marathon day!!! It's a little bit scary since we've only run 20 miles...not 26. But people always tell me that if you can run 20, you can run 26! I don't get it, but apparently it can be done!

On Friday, we had the kids spend the night at Jonelle's house and then Brian and I figured out a 20-mile route, dropped Gatorade and water along our route, and then got to bed. We got up around 6:30am, got our stuff together and headed out the door. It was 44 degrees when we left a little after 7:00am. Pretty cold!

We ran to a great park just under 5 miles from our place called Gallup Park and did a few out-and-backs there. The picture above is of the park. It was really nice to be off the road for the majority of our run.

Brian and I chatted for the first 10 miles and then decided to listen to our Ipods for a bit (he: the new Dan Brown; me: running tunes). This was a good motivator for me. I put a couple new songs on my Ipod last week so I was really enjoying listening to my music. I actually sing and dance some as I run. Silly, I know, but I just get pumped up! Some of my recent favorites: "I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)" (Pitbull), "Circus" (Britney Spears), "Battlefield" and "One Step at a Time" (Jordin Sparks), "Waking Up in Vegas" (Katy Perry), "No Boundaries" (Kris Allen), "4 Minutes" (Madonna and J. Timberlake), "When I Grow Up" (Pussycat Dolls), and "So What" (Pink).

At our last Gatorade stop - about mile 17.5 - we ran without the Ipods again. We just had to push it out the last 2.5 miles back to our house and we did it! (It was 58 degrees when we got back, by the way...we're definitely into fall around here!) I think it went pretty well. We both had a couple blisters (mine all on my right foot...it's smaller than my left), but they weren't bad (and we did use mole skin, too). Neither of us were very sore today though, which is nice. Tired? Yep! But not really sore. Our bodies are really adapting, which is pretty exciting!

I am glad to be in the home stretch! I was kind of dreading the 20-miler, but looking back, it really wasn't so bad. It doesn't feel like I ran for 3 1/2 hours yesterday. (Crazy, I know.) I told Brian that one of the biggest downsides to running so many miles is that you leave before breakfast and get home in time for lunch. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day and I miss it on Saturdays! I'll be glad to get my Saturday breakfasts back. :)