Busy & Crazy Week!

The first week of school is done and it was a doozy of a start to the school year.  :-)

Tuesday was the first day for 6th graders.  All hands on deck to make sure they had a good day and felt at least a little more comfortable about starting middle school.  I think the parents that came to drop them off were more terrified than the kids.  Having a child go to middle school is a big change for the parents too.  We handed out schedules, we had an assembly, we did tours of the building and grounds, we had lunch with the kids and then the rest of the afternoon they were with their homeroom teacher and we could finish up getting ready for the 7th and 8th graders the next day.

I got my room finished up, made some copies and then changed my clothes.  I needed to do intervals and I had decided to use the track behind the school.  I figured there wouldn't be anyone around and I didn't want to run on the high school tracks because I was pretty sure there would be football practice.  I didn't think about Pop Warner football practice.  I was about half way through my intervals when all these boys start showing up, and parents with lawn chairs.  There were little boys (1st graders maybe) all the way up to 8th graders.  Lucky me, it was the 7th & 8th grade boys who were practicing on the field inside of the track.  There were about five of them that saw me and said "Hi, Mrs. V."  Great.  I'm out here dying in the heat and trying to sprint for two minutes at a time with my students, former and soon to be new watching me.  It was really tempting to quit and call it good.  But I'm trying not to do that anymore so I kept at it.  My training called for 8x2 (eight times sprinting for two minutes) with five minute slow jog in between.  Half mile slow run to warm up and a 1/2 mile slow run to cool down at the end.  I had a really hard time breathing after the first two sets so I was walking the five minutes instead of jogging but I did manage to walk at a brisk pace.  At one point, when I was finishing up my 1/2 mile cool down I heard the coach yelling at the boys.  He said, "You guys aren't even trying hard!  Your teacher is out here working hard, sweating and getting it done!"  I had to laugh.  Overweight, old lady and their teacher besides and the coach is using me to shame his players because they aren't putting in the effort.  I took that as a compliment.  :)

Track work looks funny on the map.

I am pleased with my average pace since I did so much walking.  The sprints were fast!  :-)

Wednesday was the first day with all my regular classes.  I got up early and did my swim.  I was absolutely sure that I wasn't going to feel like it after work.  I swam for 30 minutes and got my 750 yards.  Used the kickboard and fins for the last 15 minutes and worked on my kicking and getting my breathing better.

First day with the kids started out a bit rough because I had emailed some things from my home computer thinking I would print them when I got to school.  That usually works just fine.  But this day the internet was down, which meant no email which meant that I couldn't make the copies I needed.  I had to make some changes to my plans for the day but it was all good.  Just threw me off my groove for a bit.  Loved meeting all my students and starting to put faces with names and all in all it was a good day.  I was very glad that I had done my swim in the morning.  I was tuckered out when I got home.  My legs ached from standing all day and my throat hurt from talking all day.  It might take a bit to get back into my teacher groove.  I did, however, come home and go grocery shopping at Costco with my husband.  Then I crashed.  :-)

Thursday started out better.  I had made sure to do the copies I needed after work on Wednesday (when the internet had finally come back on) because I was taking no chances.  That was a good call because about 3rd period we had no internet again.  lol  Wednesday had been something with our system.  This time Comcast had accidentally cut a line.  Sigh.  Then to add to the excitement we had a tremendous thunder and lightning storm start right at the beginning of 6th period (the last class of the day.)  I know that storms like this are really common in many areas of the United States, even other parts of Oregon.  But they are not common in the Willamette Valley and they usually are not this intense when we get them.  Needless to say my students were either really excited or slightly terrified.  Then, because the internet was down and the office couldn't check schedules to call for students, they had to keep calling student's names over the intercom to come down to the office.  Lots of parents had come to pick up their kids because of the storm, they didn't want the kids to be walking/biking/skateboarding home.  It made for a very interesting end of the day.  I gave up on getting anything accomplished that was productive.  :-)  I was VERY glad that Thursday was a rest day so all I had to do when I got home was post my own homework quickly in case the power went out and then do nothing for the rest of the evening.

Summer Storms.  Photo courtesy Baily Gardner, @ Bayhay32 on Twitter via KVAL News. 

Friday was a good day.  I'm getting to know my students and they are getting to know me.  We had some fun activities to build class unity and help us get to know each other which caused much laughter and fun.  Next week we start really getting into the regular routine.  ;)  I just had to run three miles and although it was hot I really wanted to see if I could do it with an average pace of under 12 min. miles.  It was hard work, breathing was difficult but I did it.  What a good feeling.  I was tired but in the good way that comes after pushing your body hard.

Pretty happy about the negative splits on this one!  :-)

Today was my long run.  I am trying to follow the training plan.  It has me pushing myself during the week.  Hill runs, intervals, tempo runs are all designed to help me increase my speed and stamina.  My long runs are for building up my distance and I am supposed to do them slower than my anticipated race pace.  Sometimes this is really hard because I want to keep trying to improve every time I run.  Today I worked really hard at just keeping a nice steady pace and not killing myself.  I went eight miles and kept a pretty consistent pace.  My average pace was 13'13" which last winter I would have been thrilled to have for a three mile run let alone an eight mile run!  Sometimes it's hard to keep things in perspective but it's good to look back and see how far I have come since last winter.

Really consistent pace!  The slow downs were either cars that I had to step off the road for because they wouldn't go around me or crosswalks.  :-)  Safety first!  I always love it when my last mile is my fastest, especially on my long runs!!

So I made it through my first week of school, I made it through my second week of my own online class AND I did all of my workouts.  Yay me!  I'm pooped!  Hopefully I can keep this up and not drive my family crazy in the meantime.

And speaking of my family.  When I got home on Friday and was going to quickly change my clothes so I could run I got the best surprise!  My husband had done ALL of the laundry, put away all the Costco groceries and cleaned the kitchen.  My man rocks!  Just say'n.  :-)

Tomorrow is a rest day and I think I'm going to rest.  :-)  Gotta gear up for another fun filled week.  Hope you are out doing your thing this next week too.  :-)