It's Been A Long While

Wow, it has been a long time since the last post here. My main purpose to this post was to talk about running. In a very condensed short summary, we are back in Hawaii. On Sunday December 8th, I completed my first Marathon in 4:12:10. Alexandra has completed 2 half marathons this year, and Maggie has completed multiple 5ks and a 10k. How did we get here? I hadn't ran much since joining the Navy, once every 6 months for 1.5 miles and on occasion I would run off and on. I ran a half marathon with Chief Ransdell in 2013, but did not train for it properly and that resulted in me not running much again. Alexandra, to my understanding, did not ever consider herself a runner until this year and here we are cranking out the miles in 2019 in Hawaii. So again, how did this happen? Well I was an instructor at prototype which was a stressful rotating shift work job. One way or another medical noticed on multiple occasions that my blood pressure was borderline hypertension. Had I been drinking coffee, yes. Had I been very active and probably stressed about getting back to work, yes. So they wanted to monitor me, they also recommended eating healthier, cutting out fast food, drinking less alcohol and coffee. But I already did not eat much fast food, at most a couple times a month. I wasn't really into the other options, but I did try them out, by the way a week without coffee sucks. Oh and they recommended more exercise. I tried running more, but my knee just didn't want to hack it for anything over 2 miles. So I turned to biking and started going for bike rides a couple times a week for anything from 2 - 10 miles. My theory was this would strengthen my knees. It seemed to work and I was able to start running more. I barely got the doctors off my back, and when I arrived in Hawaii they were also interested in my blood pressure, so I started running more and more. 2-3 times per week, and I successfully got my blood pressure where it needed to be. But I kept running. Now Alexandra was looking for mom friends and discovered Stroller Warriors, and began their Couch to 5K program, and as the running progressed with these new friends she began enjoying the running as well as the company. She graduated from Couch to 5k to the Bridge to 10k. She was now a full fledged runner, and volunteered to coach the next couch to 5k and bridge to 10k groups. Like I said before she has ran 2 half marathons and multiple 10ks and 5ks now. She is planning on running the Honolulu Marathon 2020. Through stroller warriors the kids got involved in a fun Mini-Miles program. This is how we discovered Maggie is a running machine, she can just run and run and run. We decided to sign her up for a 5k. Which she won for her age group, and by age group I mean she won the 14 and under girls. She is 7. So wow, she won another 5k later. We did a bigger (bigger scale, more people) trail style 5k and she came in 2nd, she was bummed, but we are still impressed. She is motivated and wants to get faster! So now I have Alexandra and Maggie both motivating me to be a better runner. For one, I just want stay faster than Maggie as long as I can hang, so for now I am her pacer on her 5ks. So all of this has happened in about a year of moving back to the island. It has been nuts and life changing. Nolan is also getting into running, and Max a little bit as well. Carson is chomping at the bit for his chance as well, he ran a mile with me at his little tiny legs pace. With all this running and the hiking we are doing, we are being a very outdoor and fit family and I am loving it, who would have thought this is where we would be and what we would be doing at this point in our lives, but its been awesome! I almost started a brand new blog for this, but realized I might as well continue the story where I left off.