Miles at 10 months

My First 10k With Miles

Since Miles was born, I have had a rocky relationship with running. Running and I started out so great. Before Miles turned 3 months, I was back up to over 5 miles. Then I got sick and had a very unfortunate reaction to antibiotics that took me back down to my pre-pregnancy weight but zapped any engergy I may have had to excercise. So running and I had to break up. But I am back on the wagon and slowly working back up to the point that I can start to think about marathon training so I can join my brother in the Santa Barabara marathon.

Today, thanks to Jenne, I took a large leap forward. We met to run around 12:30. It was WINDY. The run started out tough with a hill into the wind that managed to make the jog stroller feel like it was full of bricks rather than precious Miles. Luckily, we turned and got a nice tail wind that made me feel like I could run forever. That was around the point where Jenne asked if I could run a 10k. "Sure", I said. Even though I had not run over 4 miles since July. Miles got fussy around the 5k point, but then cooperated by falling asleep. That is when we had to turn around and finish the final 3 miles running against the wind. Thank God for Jenne's toughness and volunteering to trade off pushing the stroller for me (her little cutie was in child care, so we only had one stroller between the two of us). We managed to push through, although I swear the at some points I felt like we were moving backwards. The run culminated with both Jenne and I pushing the stroller together up the final hill (into the wind). We must have looked hilarious to those driving by. Particularly since we had running form but we were barely inching along. Once it was over, I felt great and now my goal is to get back to running double digit milage before April.

In addition to her heroic effort with the jog stroller, Jenne also maganed to spot a shoe that Miles lost on our outbound journey.

Agua Caliente "Hill" on Valentine's Day

For the record I want to kick the jerk that decided to name this a "hill" rather than a mountain. That aside, this was a lovely way to spend Valentine's Day. Drew posted the pictures and I added the captions.

A view of the Santa Rita's and Elephant head (on the right).

The trail split before what I expected to be the last push to the top. The mileage was off so we actually had over 2 miles to go.
Me at the trail split.
A picture of the false summit. False summits hurt my feelings. There was actually around 700ft more elevation to climb before the true summit.
A picture of the other side of the false summit and a beautiful ridge that we hiked across. We named it respite ridge because it was the only part of the trail that was relatively flat.
On the actual final push to the top.
A picture of me in which my arms look oddly long.
A nice peak to the north with lots of green on the north face.
At the top with Mica Mountain in the back. Notice that there is still snow on Mica.
My handsome husband with the Catalinas in the back.
More views of the Catalinas.
The Southern view from the top of Agua Caliente. Hard to believe that this trailhead is only a 20 minute drive from our house.
Mica Mountian.
A nice view of the trail.
A glider we saw on our way down. He was circling is lift and climbing.
A view of Agua Caliente from ~3 miles out.
The stats.
The topo and our path.
When we were done we ate fried chicken and waffles! It was awesome and well-deserved.

Some movies

Miles is starting to figure out finger food. He is pretty enthusiastic about the whole process of feeding himself even if only 1 out 10 atempts ends up with food being transferred from hand to mouth.


Miles loves it when I immitate the dogs. I guess the little guy already has a descent sense of humor.

We've been busy...

...but here are a few photos of Miles