run log: May 2011

I will not whine throughout this post.

I ran 20 miles this month bringing my 2011 total to 210.75 miles.
I biked 47.5 miles this month.

I will run again.  I will be healthy and fast.  I will enjoy myself while I run.  I will wear my skirts!!  I am looking forward to morning runs this summer.  I am looking forward to long bike rides this summer also.

My favorite place remains the Geneva State Park bike path.  I just think the lake is beautiful and I enjoy watching all the activity going on...beach goers, boaters, fishermen, vacationers at the Lodge...

I turn the calendar page to June.  I will enjoy each day.

Ohio Tour

150 seventh graders loaded on three buses (2 at first due to a broken-down bus) and headed to Columbus.  I love to take class trips.  There's a special feeling that comes with the adventure!  Kids behave differently ~ some better and some worse ~ but it's cool to get to see kids in this different element.

Our first stop was COSI; when we pulled into the parking lot a kid asked, "Why are there so many school buses here?"  Really?  "Gee, maybe they are on a field trip, like you."  We saw the IMAX movie "The Mystery of the Great Lakes".  In it we learned all sorts of interesting facts about our Great Lakes, but it's main plot was saving the sturgeon.  Movie time has historically been nap time for me (this being my third Ohio Tour), but it was the first stop this time around so I watched the whole thing.

After COSI we went to the State House where one of the teachers in my group corrected the Tour Guide ~ may just have been the highlight of the trip.  She was telling the kids that it takes a 3/4 majority vote to pass a bill into law, and he said, "That's not right.  It's a simple majority vote."  She hemmed and hawed and went on with the tour.

The next stop was The Shot at Ohio State.  We toured all the rooms and saw the basketball floor all loaded onto pallets.  We even saw the dressing room where JUSTIN BIEBER was last August.  There were a few girls who were all about that.  Our poor tour guide..."Did you meet Justin?"  "Did you get your picture taken with him?"  "Did get an autograph?" ( Kinda like how I'd be if he talked about Bruce.)  After OSU came dinner at Dave & Busters ~ and then swimming at the rec center.  They have a great pool with a lazy river (that's really pretty fast) and a water slide. The kids had a great time and it was good to sit and relax for a while. 

Most of the kids slept and all were ready to go the next morning when we went to the Columbus Zoo.  It had rained all Friday and sure looked like it would on Saturday.  I got on the mic and told the kids it wouldn't rain at the zoo because I said so ~ and it didn't.  (I also said a few prayers.)  The Columbus Zoo is really cool.  I'd like to spend more than 2 hours there at a time.  The 2 year-old elephant is adorable and they have a great monkey exhibit. 

After the zoo we had a great tour of the Mansfield Reformatory. Our tour guide was a former inmate.  (He even showed us his cell.)  Such a place of despair and hopelessness.  Interesting to hear about it from the point-of-view of an inmate.  I'd love to go on a ghost hunt there (but I probably wouldn't sleep for years!)
Favorite trip quote:  from superstitious teacher to student who opened his umbrella in the prison, "Why don't you go find a mirror and break it, and walk under a ladder while you're at it.  Just break every rule of luck, why don't ya?"

friends

The first time to eat at Old Firehouse Winery for 2011.  Finally a BEAUTIFUL 80 degree day and dinner on the deck looking out at calm Lake Erie.  So much fun to spend time with old friends.  It's hard to believe that Anita and I have been friends since fall of 1986 ~ what's that?  working on 25 years of friendship ~ I consider that a blessing!
Mike and Anita had the steak salad and both prayed not to have a "bad salad" night.  We even asked for a case of empties and Mike is going to make them into candles.  Seems Anita thinks he'll get them done faster than I will.  Well, ain't that a kick in the pants.  Nothing like a friend who knows you too well!  (Can she see the mountain of beer bottles in my basement?  I'm becoming a hoarder of sorts.)
Here's to the start of a great summer.

Need a little spring

This weather is KILLING me.  It's MAY 18 and it's in the 40's and it's rained for a week straight.  I need a little sunshine!  So I will share some spring pictures from my garden:



Tulips (the few that the dogs didn't trample!)



Bleeding heart ~ last year they didn't bloom,
so it's an extra treat this year

10K

The forecast for Sunday, May 15, 2011 ~ 100% chance of precipitation, 54 degrees.

Excitement for running in the rain ~ only enough to have the story to tell.

But we don't have that story to tell because it was just a foggy misty morning in Downtown Cleveland for the 34th annual running of the Cleveland Marathon, Half, and 10K.  Just doing the 10K this year...
After running 12 miles in the last two weeks I was a little nervous, but I woke up at 4:55 this morning to my legs feeling good.  (I think the injury is more due to oldness than anything major)

Mike and I started together, and that was the last I saw of him.  Unofficial time (according the the results page on the website) for Mike: 48:12 ~ for me: 52:37.  {official time ~ according to the results on the website a few days later ~ Mike: 47:37 and me: 52:02} Running felt fun today for the first time in a long time.  It was a most awesome 6.2 miles.  (I pretended that the blue 26 mile marker next to the green 6 mile marker was really mine ~ but only for a second.)  Yep, I have zero desire to run a full marathon.  I repeat, zero.

I had the just-right playlist on my ipod too:

1. Thunder Road
2. Let's get it Started ~Black Eyed Peas
3. You Shook me all Night Long
4. Girlfriend ~ Avril Lavigne
5. Firework ~ Katy Perry
6. Single Ladies ~ Beyonce
7. Red Headed Woman
8. Fat Bottomed Girls ~ Queen
9. Raise Your Glass ~ Pink
10. My Life Would Suck Without You ~ Kelly Clarkson
11. Remember the Name ~ Kanye West
12 Spread Your Winds ~ Queen
And that's where I finished.  I had four more songs planned, just in case...
There is such an excitement being a part of that kind of crowd ~ the excitement ~ the challenge ~ the strength you feel.  I'm oh so very glad I have started running these races.  I'm inspired by the people who keep on running and running no matter what the age.  I'm also inspired by the little kids that zoom past me and the crazy fast "kicks" some people put on at the end of the race.  Oh to be able to run like that...

Magnolia

When we lived on Moseley Road I bought two 'sticks' that would, someday, become beautiful magnolia trees.  Unfortunately we moved before they were more than taller sticks, but one of the things that sold me on the Middle Ridge house was the big beautiful magnolia tree in the front yard.  Each year it blooms huge pinkish blooms that lighten my heart.
One spring, probably 5 years ago now, the branches were full of huge buds just ready to spring open.  I awoke one morning to a foot of heavy wet snow and the branches of my magnolia tree cracked in half and laying on the ground buried in the snow.  I stood in my front yard ready to cry.  We hauled the broken limbs into the woods where I watched them bloom ~ dying in the weeds.  Mike did his best to trim the remaining pieces of tree ~ and because my husband is wonderful and God is good ~ the tree is as beautiful today as it was then.  The blooms are so short lived, but for the week or two that they bloom, it is quite glorious.
I am not alone in my magnolia love.  One day last summer the old owners of our house stopped by.  The mother asked me is her ashes could be spread under that magnolia tree when she dies.  And why not?  It would be such a peaceful final resting place.

a new year

Yesterday six teachers in my building were told they do not have a job next year.  Another three are retiring.  My school of just under 50 teachers will be losing 9 of them.  10% of the staff will not be there next year.  Next year.  I don't even want to think about what next year will look like.  We're not losing students, just teachers.
I love my job.  It really is part of who I am.  I do my best for students day in and day out, and I'm not the exception.  All teachers do their best for students, but when we do our best, the school doesn't make more money.  The school's "product" doesn't make the school into a multi-million dollar company.  I am not valuable to my school like a businessman is valuable to his company.  I am valuable to my students, but they don't make the school richer.  Given the chance, schools will get rid of their more experienced teachers.  If they didn't have to follow seniority lists, my school could have let three top-paid, highly-educated, most experienced teachers go instead of six new, lower-paid teachers.  That's a no-brainer ~ but at what cost?
There are flaws in the system.  A union's job is to protect its members.  Even when the member really doesn't deserve protection.  This is wrong.  Administrators should have the ability to let poor-performing teacher go.  But how do we define poor-performing?  There are many problems with answering that question effectively.  The answer can not lie fully with test scores and popularity within the community.  Some of my best teachers were strict and not well liked, but I learned self-discipline and perseverance and, most importantly, I learned that I could achieve way more than I ever thought possible.  Some of my best teachers were kind and loving and supportive and let me know I was a valuable human being.  Students need all types of teachers in their lives; how do we quantify the student-teacher relationship?
I believe that America values teachers, but America is used to getting something for nothing.  America will spend $25/ticket to see a baseball game, but America won't pay $25/student for school fees.  America will buy their 13-year-old a $100 cell phone, but they won't vote to pay $100/year more in school taxes. 
I wish there were easy answers, but destroying the ship is not going to right it.  I will continue to be the best teacher I can be and hope to be part of the solution.

Run Log: April 2011

Total Miles for April ~ 59½
Total Miles for 2011 ~ 190¾

A chest cold (that lasted WAY too long) and vacationing at 9,000 ft cut into the miles this month.  But almost 60 miles is still pretty good.  There are 15 days left until the Cleveland 10K.  What started out as an easy race has suddenly started looming larger than originally thought.  I'm nervous that I won't run my best ~ I'm pushing hurting legs to keep racking up the miles.  Something funny's going on with my right quad ~ it's a moving pain from my hip to my knee.  Feels like  muscle ache so I'm medicating and running.  It's putting a little bit of a hitch to my stride ~ and I'm really working on focusing on form.  It doesn't hurt more when I run and it's not stopping me, but it is slowing my pace.  Then there's my left foot.  Right in the middle of the thing ~ of course, I fear it's a broken bone...but there's no swelling or lack of mobility, just a pain.

I think 2011 is the year of whining.