Shorts in November

sun rays on my skin

dancing between autumn leaves

Kissing me gently

My haiku. We watched a great movie Saturday night, The Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Great movie!

It inspired me to write a haiku. I think I will be playing around with more of these!

Problems in Paradise.

You know one of the reasons that I love to run? It is to get away. Running is such great therapy.

You know the problem with having your husband run? You can't run away from him, he wants to run with you.

Over 20 years of marriage doesn't make perfection.

Being transparent, we have been on the struggle bus the last couple days. Nit picking, passive aggressive comments, emotions, so many emotions and bad attitudes. And I hate arguing almost as bad as I dislike bad attitudes. And sometimes they go hand in hand, like today.

The sun was shining in November, it was 61 degrees and I couldn't change from my church clothes fast enough.

From my skirt and heels to my shorts and New Balance. Somehow we got in a scuff over running socks, I left Andy at home and headed in the direction of Lacey's house.

Lacey met me half way. I quickly gave Lacey the heads up on what my marital status looked like. She is always very good calming me down and moving forward. As we headed back towards my house to pick up Andy I was over it.

"Anita, is that Andy?" Lacey asked.

I squinted looking down N.Holly rd. "WHAT? He left us? Oh! We will catch him." Andy was about 3 blocks ahead of us. He took off with out us.

"Oh, its like that" I thought, "Ok, OK, I got you.." I thought right before I responded to Lacey "Slowly, we will catch him slowly!"

I think every time I have ran with Lacey I have said "WOW! Can you believe we are in shorts? This is gonna be our last time, we better take advantage of it."

And here we are November 6th in shorts again! Delightful.

We caught up to Andy mostly because he got caught by a train! He told on me to Lacey "Yeah, Anita Left ME!"

I just rolled my eyes. I acted like I was going to leave him again.

The 3 of us picked a route and awkwardly headed down the road together.

It took a few miles, a bunch of hills, and a little elevation whining and we were all in sync.

Lacey picked the route, running in shorts made the hilly route more tolerable. "There goes Anita, showing off." Andy whispered loud enough for me to hear.

"Hey, I am just trying to get over this thing."

I liked Andys response, "You know, these hills are easier to get over when you know they are only making you better."

"YES, Exactly!" I thought, and that's why I wanted to get over it with everything I had.

I hated to drop off Lacey, but all good things come to an end.

I had to chuckle as I heard Andy murmur to Lacey "Well, its gonna be a quiet run home."

PAYBACKS

This past Tuesday was Andy's birthday and he wanted me to run with him. He was running faster than I normally run on the trails and I twisted my ankle 3 times.

Friday, I got out of work early and I was able to lace up and go running with Andy again. Andy is a natural on the trails. He runs them hard. I think he has discovered a way to run with me and not have to listen to me, just run hard enough that I cant talk!

I got my revenge.

We were back on N.Holly Rd. I had 10 miles in me. I was warmed up and ready to go. Andy was breathing pretty heavy. I waited for it to come...

"Anita, are you going to slow down? If you want to run that pace just go without me." And there it was.

I was ahead of him so he couldn't see my smirk. I think I may have secretly giggled. "OK Nita, Be nice." I challenged myself. I can be such a brat.

I slowed down, asking Andy to take the lead to set the pace. And the funny thing is, he barely slowed down.

Andy has gotten so much stronger and faster. I am really proud of him.

RUNDOWN

Pace:9:32/mi

Distance:12 miles

October:

My miles were down due to recovering from Cloudsplitter. That's the thing about races, when you are racing it cuts your miles back.

I was surprised at how many miles I ended up with considering I didn't do a lot of running for two weeks.

Total October Miles:177.7

Trail miles: 106.9

Road miles:44

Treadmill/Track..Remaining miles

It took me almost the entire month of October to put my weight back on. I worked hard at it.

I have been call scrawny, too skinny and even today when I was getting dressed Andy boldy says "NITA, your so skinny."

I have weighed 102-105 for 10 years now. I am skinny. I am a twerp, I am small boned, flat chested and boney. And so was my mother and my mothers mother, my grandma. I have a thyroid problem, I am anemic and sometimes you cant fight genetics.

Its not attractive, but its who I am. I am fine with it so everyone else needs to get over it too. BAM! How ya like me now!

I have my sassy pants on tonight.

Poor Andy~

Austin had his Senior pictures done in October. Like most of us mothers, I was with him. It was a busy day up until the photographer arrived. I spent most of my day in sweat pants and a pony tail. I quickly slapped on a 5 minute make up job, brushed out my hair and changed my clothes to look presentable for the photographer.

Finishing up with taking the pictures the photographer called me over. "Anita, come here, can you sit down there?" I was not planning on having my photo taken. But after seeing it developed this week, I fell in love. Nichole did a beautiful job capturing me and Boy Wonder. It is natural. Some of the best pictures are those you do hardly anything to yourself. It tears me up to see my baby all grown up.

Anita