Nature in the City

With my teen in drivers ed, it leaves me with a couple hours every morning to find something to do. I started walking near there and after a couple days found this trail through the busy city blocks. It's only about 1.2 miles long and about 2/3 of a mile away from my daughters class but long enough to go down and back a time or two during my daughters two hour class. It took nearly 40 min down and 40 back when I had my little guy in the carrier strapped to my chest, about 3.6 miles that day. I go much slower when he's strapped to me rather than on wheels :).

There are dandelions along the path as well as clover. Lil guy has torn apart multiple dandelions yellow and fluffy ones. Probably eaten a bit of them too. Right now absolutely everything seems to go into his mouth. After a bit of research, clovers are entirely edible too. Tomorrow, we're giving him tons of clovers to tear to shreds and I don't have to worry about him being poisoned since they are safe. Apparently only the flowers taste good and not the leaves.

Somehow though, I managed to sprain my instep. Tomorrow I'm going to try to jog again and hope it doesn't kill me. I had another great walk with a girl from my mom's group this past weekend but my foot hurt after pretty badly so I skipped the run the next day. To her if she see's this post, it was great meeting you! And I hope we get out there again soon once we're both healed :).

7 Miles Today!

I've had a few personal struggles this weekend. It has been pretty crappy here but that's a post for a week or two down the line if ever. 

Despite the rough weekend, I got out there with my sister and our jogging strollers. With the stroller I can only run 2-3 minutes at a time with a 2 min walk. The first 45-60 minutes is almost all 3 min runs followed by two minutes walking. I didn't do really great today and it took us a bit over an hour and a half to do the full seven miles. 

We ran the East River Trail. It was very pretty! The trail is much more narrow then the one I usually run on. It runs along a very slow moving river and there were some wooden trails over the marshy area of it. The larger trail runs along a residential area and faster river; this one runs through woods and along parks as well as the slow river on the other side. The woods we did have to battle the mosquitoes and I did not survive unscathed. 

Overall, I'm glad I even just made the seven miles tonight. I'm probably a little dehydrated and definitely over stressed. With two runs to prepare for, I really couldn't afford to miss the run today. The Tough Mudder is coming up in 76 days! Just over 2 months to prepare. And the half marathon is about three months away. 

Not only did I need the run, I needed the company. It was nice to have some distraction for a part of today. And the nice nap afterwards with Baby Muddy was quite nice. He curled up on my lap and fell right asleep after my sis and her kids headed home. He was quite tired out too!