Our Day {Friday Edition}

Yesterday morning I had an easy 10 miles to run. I distinctly remember doing my first 10-miler in college, and I thought it was SO far. Now to think that’s a medium distance run for me!

I started at 5:45 a.m. and a fresh layer of snow had fallen the night before. It was quite pristine and calm running at that time of the day. The run went fine, and I felt okay–nothing great, nothing terrible. I was a little sore from Thursday’s speed workout.

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After I got back, Cullen was still sleeping, so I took advantage of my time to foam roll, stretch, and shower. He woke up at 8:00 a.m., and he played while I finished getting ready.

Breakfast was up next. I had two eggs with an English muffin–one half with mashed avocado and the other with almond butter. Usually I would opt for peanut butter, but I haven’t been craving peanut butter as much. I have a piece of bread with mashed avocado almost every day. So good!

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It was also a weight lifting day for me, so we headed to the gym. I lifted for 45 minutes and made sure to focus on some good core workouts. My postpartum abs aren’t completely healed, but they are very close. I only have about half of a finger-width gap. I also did some more stretching and foam rolling. I’m pretty sure I could stretch and foam roll all day and still feel tight.

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Then it was time to finish up my Christmas shopping at the mall. I only had to get three more small items, and I am so glad I am officially done Christmas shopping! Someone in my family got an iconic Alaska gift from the mall gift store, but I’m not saying who.

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When we got back home, I put Cullen down for his nap and worked on my athlete plans. I was lucky he slept for 2 hours, which isn’t usually the case. It is amazing how much you can accomplish in two hours.

When he got up, we played. Cullen finds the smallest pieces of random things on the floor and gives them to me as if it were a present. He thinks it is so fun. This time is was a small piece of an onion peel.

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I thought about going for a walk, but I was running short of time before I had to be to work. (I ended up working for just a couple of hours last night to cover for someone.) But on our walk yesterday, I discovered this tree trimmed for the holidays in the middle of the woods. How cute!

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When I got home from work, Cullen was in his ‘car’ scooting around. (He loves this thing!) He insisted on having some freeze-dried strawberries for a snack. Classic Cullen: sticking his tongue out while trying to open the bag.

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He absolutely loves these freeze-dried strawberries from Target. I am actually going to wrap some packages up for his Christmas gift. Ha! Does that make me a bad mom if that’s all I give him for Christmas. (It does seem kind of nice I don’t have to get him anything for Christmas since he has no idea what’s going on.)

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After a bath, books, and a bottle, Cullen decided he wasn’t tired and stayed up for another two hours until he fell asleep at almost 10 p.m. I was wiped from being up since 4:30 a.m. that morning. He’s getting his molars, so I am hoping that is the reason for his late-night shenanigans. Right now he has 15 teeth!! Crazy boy.

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Questions

What seems like a long distance to you?

What is one food item you have almost every day?

What are your weekend plans?

Hi, I'm Michelle

I love running around the lakes of Minnesota, running after my two boys, and racing anything from the 5K to the marathon. I have been blogging here since 2010 when I ran my first marathon. I finally secured my sub-3 hour marathon after trying for 8 years.

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11 Comments

  1. 12.6.15
    Kim said:

    So would that iconic Alaskan gift be something made with moose nuggets? 😉

    • 12.9.15
      Michelle said:

      Oh yeah. . . .

  2. 12.6.15
    Katie J said:

    Eggs. I have eggs every morning if I can. Sometimes with a bit of ham or turkey. Otherwise I don’t have enough lasting energy!

  3. 12.7.15
    Liz said:

    I’m so curious about your postpartum abs! I’m 27 weeks pregnant and have just over 3 fingertips between my abs now! I had still been working out regularly and doing ab work, but I’ve quit that all together and am now really limiting activities that strain my abs. How far apart did yours separate and what did you do to get them back to normal afterwards?

    • 12.8.15
      Jade said:

      If you are pregnant, don’t worry about it. Your body is doing this because it needs to allow the baby to grow. I don’t have much tips besides do what you are doing right now which is no ab work. I did a lot of ab work with my first which caused a huge separation, which I didn’t do much to bring it together and then got prego with #2 and now i have a horrible separation which gets worse when I do typical ab work.

      So long answer short, don’t worry about the separation now, you are PREGNANT.

      • 12.10.15
        Liz said:

        I had read quite a bit of stuff about how abs are not actually supposed to separate during pregnancy, although it is more common with multiple births, births close together, or in petite women, and I am a petite woman! I figured a little separation was natural, but it’s definitely getting quite a bit worse. My OB got onto me for sitting up on her table without rolling onto my side because of the separation! But I read it can make a vaginal delivery more difficult because you’ve weakened the abs, which need to be strong to push a baby out! I’m not trying to close up the gap now, but I know it can take work after delivering to get it back to normal!

        • 12.11.15
          Michelle said:

          I thought the ab separation was just part of the pregnancy. I don’t follow into any of those categories, but I still had some separation. Hmmm. . . .

    • 12.9.15
      Michelle said:

      At first I was doing regular crunches not knowing any better. Then I started doing pilates which really helped. I’ve also done YouTube videos on proper ab routines for postpartum abs. I don’t think they separated more than about 2 finger widths.

      • 12.10.15
        Liz said:

        I’ll have to look at some of the YouTube videos for postpartum abs! Never even thought about that! Thanks 🙂

  4. 12.7.15
    mkjedi777 said:

    Hi Michelle,

    What is one food item you have almost every day? -I can’t think of any food I would want every day, but I can safely say my common favorites are:

    *Peanut butter
    *Cheeses -my fav
    *Milk
    *Crackers
    *Avocado
    *Tomato (slice into 1″ slices, lightly cover in grated Parmesan, four dashes of Worcestershire -cut into quarters and eat with a fork -yummy!)
    *Spaghetti
    *Salmon
    *Bagels
    *Green tea (a sharp mint is my favorite)

    Love your blog and glad all is well with you, Craig and Cullen!
    Matthew

  5. 12.8.15
    Jade said:

    I look perma-pregnant due to my ab separation. I’m not helping my situation by getting pregnant back to back to back and then not really doing anything in between to help. But after this last pregnancy which will be the last, then I’ll do something that is hopefully not surgical to help. I do find though that my back hurts a lot more because I don’t have that ab support!