Great weekend!

This was a fantastic weekend of exercise in the Schneiter household! At nearly 6 months postpartum, I think I am finally feeling fit. El and I have been talking about a 100 miler next summer and we are both getting really excited and motivated. The progression should look like this: marathon this winter (probably Vegas), Desert RATS 25 mile trail run in April, a return to the Squaw Peak 50 in June, and hopefully Wasatch in September (assuming I am accepted in the lottery). El is going to do Leadville, which I would love to do as well, but can't due to a big day at work when the race begins. The good news about not being able to do Leadville myself is that I am going to get to pace El through the night!

We got together last night for 3 hours (~17 miles) of running on rocky, hilly terrain while Mike watched the babies. Today, we thought we'd go on a "recovery ride" that didn't end up feeling very "recovery" at all. We rode with babies in tow from Basalt to Aspen and back, just over 40 miles. After last night's run, which was about an hour longer than any run I've done lately, my legs suffered a little on the climbs today (just what I was going for). What really made the day special was the perfectly blue sky, 65 degree air and well behaved babies. It's so funny, neither of us really thinks of biking as real exercise, not that it can't be, we probably just don't push that hard while biking. Running is so much harder, it's hard to think of biking as difficult. We left Basalt with one water bottle each and no food and by the time we got to Aspen, which is uphill the whole way, we were hungry, thirsty and worked! I have a little more respect for biking now. We bought snacks and cold drinks and let the babes roll around in the grass a bit before heading back home on the much appreciated downhill.

        

          Other News...

I am the school nurse at a boarding school. A couple of weeks ago, I got a phone call from a parent expressing concern about his daughter's apparent weight gain. He wanted me to put her on a restrictive diet, weigh her every week, and take her to a weight watcher's meeting 30 miles away one night a week. Yikes! Not only did I see an eating disorder in the making, I saw a lot of work for me and some inappropriate expectations by the father. But, something very positive came out of it. I spoke with her about the possibility of getting together with a couple other girls to start a club or group whose intention would be to support eachother in healthy life habits. The next day, she talked to 3 of her friends and we had our first meeting last week. The girls are excited and motivated and truly should lose from about 20 to 60 pounds. I had them over to my house and we talked about what their goals for the group were. They brought up wanting to get together to run before class and on weekends, they talked about having weight charts and cheering each other on to reach their healthy weight goals, they talked about needing support in avoiding the junk food that fills their dorms on the weekends, and they talked about the confidence they would have after acheiving something they thought they never could. I brought up the idea of running a race at the end of the year, which they thought was fantastic. I looked up races and found the Bolder Boulder--55,000 runners, 150,000 spectators, 30 bands, 6.2 miles. The girls can't wait to participate and I can't wait to help them develop healthy habits that will, hopefully, last their whole lives.

If you have any great ideas about things to do together or what I could teach them, please pass them on!