The months of April & May

It's been a minute since I last posted. May is always one of the most eventful months of the year for us. We start off the month with Boys Day, followed by Ryan's birthday (& my brother's). Then the last week of school falls toward the end of the month (it's always very festive), and we wrap up the month celebrating our anniversary. Needless to say, I'm pretty swamped the month of May...but I love it for that same reason.

April is no slouch either. We returned from our trip to Scandinavia and then I had to jump right back into both jobs. This meant lots of 4:30am wake up calls so that I could work a few hours for job #1 before taking Ryan to school and then working at job #2 until I needed to pick him up. It can feel pretty grueling when I'm in the thick of things (especially when I'm also marathon-training), and I won't lie- I get tired, bitter, stressed and easily irritated. It's not pretty. But...beggars can't be choosers. If I want to be able to work around Ryan's school, sports and activities, then I have to suck it up and make it work.

A few pics from the month of April, celebrating Easter with a few of Ry's closest friends:

Ry also had two taiko performances, one at the public library, and another at a community event celebrating Japanese culture:

Those are cookies, if you can believe it. Almost too cute to eat, but well...they decapitated her with glee soon thereafter!

Summertime = weekly movies with dad, mom and friends.

And now, for the month of May:

Boys day kaiten sushi!

The last days of school...

The lazy days of summer have started

For his actual birthday, he was out playing tennis with his school mates...so we celebrated with cold ice cream treats and beverages.

Our 22nd anniversary was spent on the other side of the island, in the middle of a rain forest, in a tiny house with a zipline and swinging bridge. There was also a trip to my new favorite beach, and some laulau and peanut butter mochi at Kuho Grill. Heaven.

And I believe I mentioned here that I've been training for the last few months. It has been rough. My 16 and 18 milers were surprisingly tolerable...allowing me to believe that despite being seven years older and FIFTEEN pounds heavier than my last ultra...that I just might be okay. And then my 20 and 22 milers reminded me that no, my fat a&# is indeed a problem. Both of those long runs imploded at the end, and my poor knees were aching from mile ten on.

Like child birth amnesia, I always forget how awful I feel once I start logging in runs longer than 15-16 miles. In addition to the overall exhaustion, my face is flushed red/warm all day, and I'm a bit weak/shaky (it feels like the beginning of the flu). It isn't fun and you start to feel really dejected at how difficult and painful it is, but I have to remind myself it's part of the process of toughening up and getting stronger, even though it feels like the opposite.

Though 70% of my runs are solo, every so often, I get to sync up my runs with friends:

I'm oddly never really proud after these runs. If anything, they psychologically beat me up. I start to freak out and think I won't be able to get through them, but I also know to ignore the negative anxiety and just keep plowing ahead.

In a few days I'll be sharing my ultra goal here and on Facebook. It's been months in the making. I've been in training since January, and it's taking place in July, finally. I'm both terrified and excited, as well as hopeful and nervous. :-)