a little of this and a little of that...

I was quite excited on Thursday when I filled up with gas and paid 87 cents a gallon for gas!!! Yes, that is 87 cents! I love my Schnuck's gas card! I know I pay a little more for food to get the discount, but it sure is fun paying WAY less for gas than I should. :-) $16 to fill my tank!

We had our last regular season meet today. The kids swam pretty well, but not quite as good as on Thursday night. It's tough to swim two meets so close together! Our County Championship Meet is next Saturday. Then 2 weeks until STATE. It's almost done..... the season went by so fast this year!

We decided to buy a new TV. Our old one is starting to go flaky on us, so we "bit the bullet" and ordered a new one on line. Of course it is a flat screen, but I talked Nigel down to a 52 inch! :-) We are expecting it to arrive on Wednesday and will put it up next weekend.

Chelsea is doing so well at track. She is in the distance group, so runs and trains for the 1 mile and 1/2 mile. She has not "made" the team officially yet, but I can't imagine the coach would cut her now. She is very faithful about going to practice EVERYDAY - even over Christmas break! I really think she will at least make the JV team. She finds out for sure on Feb 9.

School is going well. We finished our 3 weeks of health and will begin Basketball on Monday. I will have the girls lift weights 2 days a week also. Some of them have never even seen the weight room - so it should be interesting.... :-)

Oh yes, one more thing about Chelsea. Her birthday is in a few weeks - she could tell you exactly... She will be 15 and will get her driving permit! ARG!!! I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!!!!!!!!

Lastly, I'm still running. I'm quite proud that I am still going. It's been almost 3 months! YAY me! :-)

back to running

After taking a week off I went running last night with my group. It's not exactly running - more like walking then jogging. But I am getting more of the jogging in. My goal last night was 2 min of jogging 1 min of walking. It was kind of sporadic, I think. It ended up being more like 1:45 of jogging and 1:30 of walking. Since I have my new Forerunner (!) I can keep track of my heart rate also. So now I have been trying to keep my heart rate in "the zone", but also trying to jog longer. It hasn't really worked yet. My heart rate goes too high - at least according to all the heart rate training info I have read. I'm supposed to be at 135bpm, but I am more like 155bpm when I jog. I don't really feel bad training that high, but I'm not sure it's "good for me". So I'll keep researching that. I guess I should check with my running coach, Mark. He seems pretty knowledgeable....
So my question is: should I follow my heart rate OR should I try to follow the time? My very experienced sister, Debi, would know.... :-)
The other really cool thing about the Forerunner is it tracks the distance I run. Last night it was 4 miles in 1 hour. Pretty slow, but really cool!!!!! Love it!!!

what's happening around here

I'm back at school, teaching and coaching. It's been a good week for both of these! My classes are going well - the students are great! We did an activity today where each girl has a piece of paper with their name on it. Everyone sits in a cirlce and passes their paper to the right. When you receive a paper you write something positive/encouraging on their paper, then pass it on to the next person. When you get your own paper back you have 20 - 25 positive comments about how great you are. It's a great emotional booster for everyone! Teenagers can be so demeaning to themselves and hopefully this is one thing they can hold on to when they feel like dog doodoo! The girls love this activity. Of course I do too - imagine 60 comments about what a great teacher I am.... :-) It makes me smile all day!!!!
Swimming is going great also! We had our second "B" meet last night and all the kids dropped time - again! It's amazing! They have worked so hard and it is paying off for most of them! One swimmer, Marshall, qualified in the 100 backstroke last night! He was sooooooo excited!! We had been working really hard this week on his technique, turns and start and it payed off - until I went to the scorers table to get his "official" time. When I got there I found out he was disqualified - OH NO!!!! I felt horrible!!! Then I had to go tell him!!!! That was really bad. I thought he was going to cry! That was one of the low points last night..... But he has 2 more meets to "really qualify" so I think after he thought about that - it was all good. He was at weights this morning quite happy again. Way to bounce back, Marshall! I love this team this year. They are great kids, cheer for each other and like spending time with each other. That makes for a very fun season! I have 6 Seniors this year and they have done a great job leading this team. I will miss them next year....
My running has not been good this week - like I haven't done it at all!!! So I'll head out tomorrow for a nice long, slow jog/walk with my new Forerunner (thanks for telling me about that Becca) and try and get back with my running group next Monday and Thursday.
That's it for now....