Election day

Don't let the title mislead you, this has nothing to do with voting.  I mean, I did it, but that's probably the only reference you'll find in here.  Basically this is just a catch up post.  This past weekend I was lazy.  The weather was sub-par and I just did not feel like running, so, I didn't. Unfortunately, that meant I had to find another day to struggle through my 15 miles. Today was that day.  After professional development, but before my regular boxing class, I went and ran my 15 miles. I'll be honest here, it wasn't the greatest.  Partly I was bored and partly I just didn't really feel like doing it. So it was a struggle, even with the Tailwind.  It was an even bigger struggle when the Tailwind ran out at mile 13 :(
All I did was follow the Danvers Rail Trail up to Topsfield and then turn around.  Seriously boring.  The trail was nice enough, but I don't think I'll be taking that route again anytime soon.  It's just so straight and boring.  Nothing but nature to look at, which is nice, but I was getting lonely running by myself and not seeing anyone else on the trail.  I think that was a major reason why the 15 miles seemed so long.  Those first 7 miles really seemed like they were taking hours.  In reality, they took AN hour.  Obviously my mental game was not on today, but it did pick up a little bit when I turned around.  The last 8 seemed faster, even though they really weren't.  I could definitely feel when I was running low on Tailwind though.  You can see it in my splits too.  They went from low 8s to high 9s.  Funny though, I still managed to get my fastest half marathon time today.  Not by a lot, and I certainly wasn't aiming for that, but it made me feel a little bit better about the run.  Boxing was definitely harder after the 15 miles, but not too bad. I skipped doing the warm up and jumped in for the 8 rounds and the abs.  My only regret in that was that I didn't bring a banana or any type of recovery food.  Luckily, one of the girls who works the front desk gave me a Lara Bar which helped get me through the power hour. The run is below, followed by more blogging excitement.





We also had PD today at work, which I mentioned above. Nothing too exciting there, just more ways to add stuff to lesson plans and prove that we know what we're doing. Because the degrees, evaluations, tests, and observations aren't enough.  But I did get to put my November door, so that was helpful.  Plus, I laminated all the MCAS accommodation sheets for the classrooms and made about a million copies of plans for the week.

Here's my door

And here's a photo from Halloween last Friday, because I know you wanted to see my fantastic home-made Skeleton costume. I can't remember if I wrote about what it was, so in case I didn't, here's a recap.  Black t-shirt - $3 at Michael's.  Black tights cut into sleeves - free.  Black running pants from Old Navy - no idea what they cost when I bought them two years ago, but I don't use them for running anymore, so they were just going to waste. I'd guess around $15. Black gloves - $1. Glow in the dark paint - $0.99.  White paint - I had at home. It couldn't have been any easier.  Paint bones on the black clothes. Let dry.  Wear.

My arm bones didn't match up, I had to safety pin the sleeves together in the end to fix that problem. That minion costume is homemade too. We're a crafty bunch.

A minion, a skeleton, and a princess. Only on Halloween.