31 degrees + No wind + 3.5 miles = Magic

(I wrote this on Thursday but ran out of time to post it....)

So yesterday was a bit of a rough day. Sophie woke up dizzy and I was PMS'ing, big time. I still hadn't run or worked out (my Tuesday night run got derailed because Sophie was feeling sick after school). And I felt like I was behind in everything. After all, the Christmas decorations are all still up.

I spent the day at home with Sophie, and Mark took Luke to day care. It wasn't a very productive day, I was pretty out of it. By the time Mark got home with Luke, I had at least done a load of laundry & made dinner from scratch (nothing frozen or processed, woohoo!).

Mark knew something was wrong with me, but there wasn't really any one specific thing "wrong." I just needed to go running.

And that's what I told him. I need to run. But I can't run. Because I'm stuck here with kids. And he said--just go run, now.

So I did.

By the time I was dressed and had my iPod in my ears playing Jack Ingram, I was already feeling better before I'd even turned on my Garmin.

I checked the weather before I got my running stuff on to see how many layers I needed. 31 degrees and no wind = base layer of tech fabrics + fleece + hat & gloves. I left around 20 minutes to 7 p.m., so I figured I'd run a few laps around the neighborhood and see how many miles I could put in before 7:30.

By the end of the first lap (1.1 miles around our neighborhood), I took off my fleece pants. I was starting to feel more human. By the second lap, I took off my hat & gloves. By the end of the third lap and the end of my run, which I added a few tenths to so I could finish at 3.5 miles, I felt 100% better.

And I also felt silly for not getting out there sooner.

Now I want to run again tonight.
***
Friday's addition: No running last night. Sophie was dizzy again Thursday, but not horribly. She stayed at my sister's who lives 25 minutes north of us and we didn't get home until almost 7 p.m. And she's better today. Made it to school, even though an hour late because I have to give her time to adjust and move slowly on days when she wakes up a little dizzy but it goes away.

I'm still really really in need of more running. I can feel myself losing my mind because I've not gotten in enough mileage. I have yet to figure out a cure. I know I could get up early. I know I could run after the kids are in bed. But neither time is ideal and it's more of a force myself thing at those times. I may be getting close, though, to needing to force myself.

Tonight we are taking the kids to the Monster Truck rally. We've never been before, but thought Luke would like it. We have got earplugs and ear "muffs" before you warn me it's loud! I hope we all have fun.

A note on Sophie's dizzy spells for Helen and anyone else who's interested: We've had Sophie tested for the major dizzy causers--BPPV, menier's, brain tumor, other inner ear stuff, seizures (although there is one more EEG we'll probably do this summer after school's out for more on this type of thing). Nothing is positive, which is good and bad. The bad news is that we have no way to cure it. The Epley maneuver unfortunately only works with BPPV and she doesn't have it, so that is no help. Thankfully the episodes at least seem to be lessening in severity and duration as she gets older, and we've found that a small dose of ativan seems to help somewhat (although not completely, 100% of the time). Perhaps we'll do more testing. I'm just not sure how much I want to put us all through just to have the doctors tell us they still can't figure it out.