Who's the Baby?

***** Whining alert. Whining alert. Whining alert. *****

I realize that it's only my 3rd entry of the year, so I really shouldn't resort to the complaining post quite yet. I understand I need to build up some goodwill and then maybe after a few months I can go to the whining and the poor me stuff. Too bad. My blog. My rules. I feel like whining today.

January running in Chicago, with 4 kids/germ collectors, is just tough. This weekend was freezing, and of course my treadmill at home decided to stop working, so I was forced to the outdoors. Saturday run of 11 miles was pretty traumatic as the windchill was somewhere south of 0 and I just couldn't bare to head back out for very long on Sunday. I did make it out for a quick 5 miler to bring my total for the week to 76 miles. I was hoping for more, but sometimes you just have to play the hand your dealt.

Saturday night we were awoken by my daughter in the middle of the night, complaining that she had a tummy ache. Being the nice daddy that I am, I let her climb into bed with me, which she graciously accepted and then proceeded to throw up all over my pillow. I guess we need to work on our please and thank-yous. Luckily, she's the tough one of the bunch and she handled it like a champ that night and the next day and was almost back to normal by Monday. I did manage a decent 9 mile run at 6:20 overall pace during lunch.

Then last night, my oldest son, awoke us in the middle of the night with the same tummy ache complaints. Having learned my lesson, we headed straight to the bathroom, but he threw up before we could make it. After a quick clean-up and some more puking everyone was back sleeping, but I just didn't have the heart to duck out of the house early for my run, leaving my wife with one and a half sick kids. The boy doesn't handle sickness quite as good as his sister, so this could be challenging. Luckily things fell into place this afternoon where I was able to squeeze in a nicely paced 12 miler on the treadmill around 6:35 pace. I'm still holding out hope I'll have the energy to get out for a short run this evening, once the kids are sleeping. We'll see how that goes.

I'm sure this little bug will make it's way through the rest of the house in due time. So I'll just keep surviving. I have a feeling that might become a them this year. I am trying to become more stubborn about not skipping runs this year. Missing runs can turn into a slippery slope so I'd prefer to just not let it happen. We'll see if the kids cooperate. Scary. I know.

This ends today's whining session. Please carry-on with whatever you were doing prior to reading this.

Here's last weeks runs…for prosperity sake:

Monday: 8 w/ 6 @ 6 Min/Mile
Tues: 9 Morning, 6 Evening
Wed: 7
Thurs: 9 Morning, 6 Evening
Fri: 16
Sat: 11
Sun: 5
Total: 77 Miles
YTD: 191 Miles