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.

Halloween!

So, this post is unrelated to running, which is why it's separate from the previous post! But, since it's basically October at this point, I wanted to share my new classroom door for the month.  My goal is to change the door monthly this year, just to add a little pep to the third floor hallway. If you recall, my September door was a Minion from Despicable Me.  This month, I had to go Halloween themed, obviously.

Meet Frank. He's my newest creation using only fadeless bulletin board paper, some scissors, and a black marker. I added the bowtie because I like my door to have some class. (hahaha, get it!) Anyways, this was actually even easier than the Minion, believe it or not.  All I did was layer two long strips of green paper down the door for the base and cut out a handle hole.  Then I flipped the scraps over and cut out two eyes. Luckily the back of the paper is white, so it makes everything easier.  For the hair I took pieces of construction paper and cut out random chunks. I used the scraps from that to make the eyebrows, bolts, and scars on his face.  Then I used a separate piece to make two eyes, and a another piece for the mouth background.  The teeth are the leftover scraps from Frankie's bowtie, and I drew the nose on with a sharpie. Seriously, so easy, a caveman could do it. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with a cute saying to go with it this time, so it's just Frank hanging out.  Stayed tuned for next month, I already have something in mind!

Tailwind

I've been hearing a lot about this product lately and perhaps you have too.  I'm not sure how far out of the running circle it has gotten, so if you haven't heard of it yet, don't be surprised.  The only reason I've been hearing so much about it is because it seems like everyone in the running group I'm part of on FB is talking about it.  Normally I'm not one to follow trends (or maybe I am, when it comes to running, I don't know) but I really wanted to try this one. Tailwind is a nutritional supplement that you mix in with water.  It's supposed to increase endurance and lower the need for mid-run snacks like GUs or sports beans.  So far, everyone in the running group has only good things to say about the stuff, so I figured I would give a try myself.  Unfortunately, it's hard to find in stores, so I had to order it online.  Not that it's not sold in stores, but, for example, the closest store to me was way out in the Worcester area, which is a good hour from my house.  At that point, it was just easier to order it online.  I put my order in on Sunday and the package arrived via regular old mail yesterday.  So as far as shipping turnaround goes, not too bad.  Now, I ordered a 5 pack variety because I didn't want to buy a giant bag of one flavor and then find out that I hated that flavor.  Seemed like that would be a poor choice when a variety pack was an option.  The variety pack came with the five flavors; lemon, mandarin orange, raspberry buzz (which is caffeinated), naked unflavored, and berry. Each one is a 200 calorie pack with the option to shake out only half for 100 calories.  So far it seems like a good investment.  However, I have yet to actually put this in my water and try it out, because yesterday was my off day and today I'm only doing 3 miles. Saturday is our long run, so I plan to try it out then.  Not sure which flavor I'm going with though.  Actually I'm not sure how to determine how much to put in the water.  The website recommended putting it in a 20 - 24 oz bottle.  Obviously I have a bottle this size for running, as every long runner usually does, but I'm a little nervous about the flavor.  Some people have mentioned that it's a little milky or chalky.  I don't want to pour the whole pack into the water and then end up stuck trying to force down a drink that makes me gag.  I'm sure you're all thinking that the obvious solution is to just pour in half and then go from there, which is accurate.  That doesn't mean that the flavor will be better though, because I don't know how much other people have put in their water that led to the milk/chalk flavor.  As always though, live and learn.  No way to know until I try it, so after tomorrow, keep an eye out for a review of how the product actually works, as opposed to what the product is and how fast it shipped!

And here's a picture of my new Hoka shoe(s) and one of the tailwind.  I will say that I expected a little better packaging on the Tailwind.  I figured they would at least come wrapped in a bag or something.  Instead I got a priority mail box with 5 loose packets.  Not the end of the world, I just figured they would have been slightly more protected than they were.

Oh yea, and since the new school year starts next week, I thought I'd throw in a picture of my back to school door.  It was fairly easy to create, just some blue and yellow fadeless paper, a set of die-cut letters that I got for $1 at Target, a piece of white copy paper, crayons, and some black construction paper. All I did was cut out two circles for the eyes and color in brown pupils. I also drew a mouth, but I"m sure you could just print one out if you have a color printer.  Then I cut out some larger black circles for the goggles and taped the eyes on.  Using scraps I made the goggle straps and the minion hair.  After that, stick the eyes and mouth on the yellow, measure out the blue, and just tape it all together on the door.  The emblem in the middle is an M for math, with both teacher names on it.  The hardest part of all was coming up with a saying to put on the door.  I really wanted to relate it to math facts, as well as a new year, but I couldn't come up with anything specifically math related.  This was the closest I came, but it still works.  When fall rolls around next month, I intend to change the door into something fall or Halloween related.  I'll probably go Halloween related first, and then fall for the month of November.  We'll see how that works out though.  It's always easier to think about this before the year actually starts and the work takes over.