14 Miles, 20 Miles, and a Wedding!

This post will cover the past two weeks since I couldn't find the time to write last week.  Well, it's not really that I didn't have ANY time, but at night when the kids went to sleep I was too sleepy to write.  My week of running wasn't too exciting anyway.  I did a 14 mile long run and again it was a perfect fall day.  I did a part of my hilly hills run and included some roads that I had never been on before.  It was a great run.  There was one hill that was HUGE.  I usually don't mind running up hills, but this was just so long and steep...kind of more like running up a mountain.  I am so glad that I've been training on all these hills though.  I missed some miles in the middle of the week again.  It is getting harder to do all the miles, not physically harder, just finding the time to do it.  When it is 3-5 miles I can squeeze it in easily, but now that it is up to 9-10  miles on a Wednesday and Dom has to go in for overtime so I can't always do it.

  

We had a really fun fall weekend though with the family.  We went apple picking at a beautiful farm north of Concord.  They had goats, horses and chickens and platform to enjoy the amazing view.  Aurelia was very happy holding and eating two little apples she picked and Constantine enjoyed some licks off my apple (he is so easily pleased).  We also went to the pumpkin festival in Milford with Pepere and Oma.  They got to see the pumpkin launch into the river, which C loved.  They got balloons and saw the fire truck and just enjoyed all the people and activities.  We also carved our pumpkin and painted pumpkins and made applesauce, which Constantine could actually eat a little bit of.

This past week I switched up my running schedule so I wouldn't have to run over the weekend.  I did 5 miles on Tuesday then did my 20 MILES on Thursday.  Constantine has his feeding and swallowing appointment and aqua-therapy in Manchester on Thursday mornings so we all went in to Manchester and Dom took the kids to his appointments while I did my run on the marathon route.  I feel a little redundant saying this, but it was again a great day for a run.  My hilly hills training definitely paid off because, while Manchester is definitely hilly, Hillsborough is more so.  The run was challenging, but I felt awesome when I was done.  It was almost weird how good I felt.  Maybe I expected to be much worse off, but even my feet felt okay.  I was a little frustrated because there was a bridge that was closed to pedestrians and I waited for a little bit to cross on the shuttle bus to finish the marathon route, but instead I stretched out while waiting then decided to do the remaining miles by backtracking the route.  When I was done Dom and the kids met me and we went to the mall to get my dress and shoes for the wedding (and of course to see the animals in the pet store).

Now the wedding stuff!  On Friday Pepere and Oma came over to hang out with Constantine for the weekend.  My mom (Memere) came over to pick up Aurelia to take her to Vermont for the weekend.  I am so thankful to them for watching them and making me feel comfortable leaving for so long.  My dad has been learning the ins and outs of caring for Constantine for months now.  Every week he comes over to go through the routine of his care so he was prepared to do it without me there.  I'm sure it was a challenge to wake up during the night to turn him over.  I know they both had a great time which allowed Dom and I to have a great 5 year anniversary/ wedding weekend away. Bryan and Alyssa, whose wedding we went to were so kind to make a donation to Constantine's medical fund in honor of their guests instead of wedding favors.  We are so thankful to them for that!!  It was a great weekend.

Us with the bride at the rehearsal dinner