my littlest running buddy

This is my littlest running buddy (a.k.a. my son, Jaron).  His training wheels came off in July and he has been riding his bike almost every day since.  He especially loves to ride next to me while I run.  I especially love this too!  For one, it allows me to get a little workout in during the day, before hubby and big sis get home.  For two, I allows me to be right next to him as he rides and correct his steering when he gets a little distracted (like when he looks straight up into the sky to see a bird, or to the left to see a dog, or to the right to see what's in the ditch, or straight down to swerve around a pine cone...).

Don't let his 12-inch rims fool you, he has already biked over 30 miles this month!

P.S. Is there anything more adorable than the sound effects of a 4-year old boy on his motorcycle, truck, train, bike?

Should I give him the credit?

Maybe.

A few weeks ago, I ran the You Go Girl 10K in Tacoma, WA placing 2nd in my age group, 7th overall, and with the fastest race pace I’ve ever ran, scored myself this adorable pearl bracelet!

I was quickly humbled, however, for the following reasons:

1) The race officials misspelled my last name, so the race results have no record of me running by my real name.
2) My personal info. (City & State) was not included in the results listing, either.
3) When searching my bib number, there is not a single race photo of me (This one is my fault. I overdressed, as usual, and took my top layer displaying my number off in the 2nd mile…tying it around my waist and out of camera shot for the rest of the race).
4) Lastly, my husband was late getting to the finish line (so I don’t even have an eyewitness that I finished!).

If it wasn’t for the bracelet (and a sore hamstring), I might think the whole thing was just a dream! I mean, honestly, if I had a Google-stalker, he (or she) wouldn’t even know I ran this race…and certainly wouldn’t know to be proud of me and want to Google-stalk me all the more. How frustrating!

Anyway, getting back on track: I spent the majority of the summer running sporadically, with very little direction. With 6 weeks to go before the race, I asked my hubby, Dave, to write me a training program that could whip my butt into shape, quickly! He did just that. He wrote me a killer workout schedule (I mean, it almost killed me). But, it also helped me focus, kept me motivated and even got me excited to work hard!

So, should he get the credit for the end result? He’s a teacher, so he would probably expect partial credit, at least. Yeah, I’ll give him that. I’ll give him partial credit…but I won’t give him my bracelet.

btw:  The 6-week 10K workout is posted on a tab above.  That's not like sharing test answers, is it? I can't get in trouble for this, right?

Let's hear it for "the girls!"

The idea for this post came to me today, partly because October is breast cancer awareness month and partly because I watched the movie Footloose last night and have been humming “Let’s hear it for the boy” most of the day (never mind that Kevin Bacon’s co-star, Lori Singer, doesn’t appear to own a bra during the filming of that slightly controversial, very sweaty blockbuster hit). Myth #1: Wearing a bra causes breast cancer. Myth #2: Wearing deodorant causes breast cancer.

I think that everyone who has seen the film would agree that there is an awful lot of moving going on and not enough hydrating (unless you count the few scenes where the actors are drinking beer). Myth #3: Drinking water from plastic bottles (especially those left in a hot car) causes breast cancer. Myth #4: Drinking red wine can prevent breast cancer.

Like the well-intentioned folks of Beaumont, TX, we tend to create our own solutions to hard-to-answer problems. In Footloose, the town made it illegal to dance, believing this was the solution that would keep the youth of the community from becoming corrupt. Similarly, it is out of fear that we create our own myths and rumors about how to prevent a disease we feel we have very little control over. In both cases, the plan backfires. Myth #5: A diagnosis of breast cancer is an automatic death sentence.

In the movie, corruption spreads throughout the town. Teachers are burning books and teens are driving across the state line to party. Even the pastor’s daughter “has been kissed a lot.” Myth #6: Birth control pills cause breast cancer. Myth #7: Breast cancer is determined by breast size.

It’s true that many of the risk factors associated with the development of breast cancer are out of our control to prevent (genetics, age, etc…). However, there are a few things every person (Myth #8: Only women can develop breast cancer) can do to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer as well as other forms of disease:

Eat healthy
Exercise
Control your weight
Don’t smoke
Limit alcohol intake
Routine screening (Myth #9: Mammograms cause breast cancer)

Seems fairly obvious, right? If you want to be healthy, act healthy. That’s not a guilt-trip, nor is it a demand or command. It’s an invitation to get up…it’s our time to dance!

Oh yeah and one last thing, having a risk factor for breast cancer does not mean you will get the disease (that’s myth #10 and my personal favorite to debunk!).