I’m happy with what I accomplished this week in light of starting work again and taking Alex to daycare for the first time.

• Monday: 1 mile walk
• Tuesday: 11 miles on the FitDesk, Core Challenge
• Wednesday: 3.4 mile run
• Thursday: 3.57 mile run, 1.04 mile walk, Core Challenge
• Friday: 3.25 mile run
• Saturday: Core Challenge
• Sunday: 5.2 mile run (plus a 1 mile walk not counted on the graph)

My knees were starting to feel a little crunchy and a familiar ache when I walked down the stairs was returning. I haven’t felt that pain in a LOOOOONG time. I started rubbing Topricin into my knees after each run beginning on Thursday. That combined with stretching and some focused strength training should hopefully keep serious pain at bay.

I’ve mainly been a morning runner during my running career… I’m a morning person by nature. I like getting up early and I have trouble staying up late. But like I mentioned last week, with starting back to work and running with Alex I had to adjust. Running later in the day definitely affects me differently, one way is that I tend to overheat a lot easier.

I learned about a product called HeadCoolie, it comes with small gel packs you stick in the freezer. The packs fit right inside an incredibly dorky looking, yet incredibly effective headband. I just put it on after my run, wear it around the house for a half-hour or so and my face doesn’t stay red as long. And I’ve had a red face for hours after exercise or even just blushing from embarrassment before, so I’ll take what I can to alleviate that!

The plan for this next week is to increase my run/walk intervals to 4/1. I’m ready for that, I even skipped some of my walk intervals during these runs and I felt fine. But I’m still trying to progress carefully, especially in light of the crunchy knee feeling.

I need to get better about stretching. I used to be really good at stretching, but now I feel like I do everything in hyper speed trying to take care of Alex’s needs. Sometimes I just skip taking care of some of my own needs to attend to the baby. Stretching and strength training are some of those (as well as doing my hair and wearing makeup…) things that I just brush off now. I’m sure over time I’ll figure out how to take care of myself and take care of my child! Still learning!