How I hate those hills!

Well, I am very sad to say that vacation is over, and I am back to reality with the rest of the working world. One of the best things about vacation is that I am able to walk whenever I want--the benefit of having a husband as a teacher as well. This weekend was absolutely beautiful and I did lots of walking, which makes it even more difficult to go back into a building with little, to no, ventilation. Hopefully this will all change once the new Newton North High School is completed in 2010. Don't get me going about this project--this blog is intended to be about my walk with Trace this weekend, but if you really need to hear about our new school, check out the new NNHS website for progress on the "Taj Mahal," as it has been deemed. http://www.newnnhs.com/

Back to training...
On Saturday morning we were all up for the Amesbury Little League Opening Day parade--AT 6:45AM!!! Who does this, really? Are people going to come out of their warm, comfy slumber to watch a couple hundred 5-12 year olds walk down the street in baseball uniforms, with their parents straggling behind? I don't think so. The good news was that for the first time since my kids have been doing this parade, we were not freezing. It was absolutely gorgeous. After the festivities were over, I decided I would stay uptown and go for a nice long walk. I did about 7 miles and it felt great to be outside and in the warm air. The rest of the day was spent watching baseball games. Maddie and Mia had their first coach pitch game, and they both got hits every at bat. What did I expect? They are Ziomeks, of course. Zach is now in his first year of true Little League. As a parent, these games are much more difficult to watch. I will expand on them more in another blog.

I apologize, but it seems like this blog is all over the place. I feel like one of my students where I am continually going off on tangents and not following my thesis statement. Is it summer yet?

On Sunday Tracy and I met at Bentley College for the 3Day Expo. We met at 8:45AM so that we could do a nice long walk before the event. When I arrived, Tracy was dressed in an adorable pink t-shirt she created. For those of you who don't know Tracy, she is famous for designing t-shirts and burp cloths, among many other things. (When I was having my mastectomies, Tracy made a shirt for me that looked like it was a sign you might see in a building that said, "PLEASE PARDON OUR APPEARANCE WHILE UNDER RECONSTRUCTION.") She is too funny. The shirt she had on yesterday said, "lost 100+ pounds" and "cure cancer" with little boxes next to them with a check mark in the "100+ lbs." box. The "curing cancer" box was yet to be checked off. On the back she included her blog address and her before and after pictures. The transformation is pretty unbelievable. If you haven't read her blog yet, be sure to make the time to do so: http://www.tracys3day.blogspot.com/

So we started on our 7 mile walk. I was doing great until we reached about 3.5 miles in Belmont. I now understand why they call it Belmont Hill. We started walking up a large hill, and of course I started complaining. I know that hills are good for me, but I hate them. I just had a friend run the Boston Marathon and I am completely amazed that anyone can run up Heartbreak Hill. As I panted my way to the top of the hill, Tracy assured me that going the way we were, was much better than going the other direction. As we turned right and I saw, yet another hill, I was not sure whether I believed her. At this point I imagined she was fed up with my complaining, but I still continued. I REALLY HATE HILLS! Once we were at the top I understood what she was talking about. I felt like I could see all the way to the ocean. We never could have made it the other direction--well at least I couldn't have.

The rest of the walk continued without incident until mile 6.5. At this point we were reaching Bentley and the end of our walk. I had no idea that Bentley was so high up on a hill. Remember, I drove by it every day for 5 years when I taught at Waltham High. I obviously didn't pay much attention to my surroundings. Again we start, and so does the complaining. That hill really kicked my butt, but it was so worth it.

The Expo itself was pretty uneventful. Having done the walk once before I didn't really learn much, other than the fact that we will be camping on Astro Turf this year, which sounds fine except that we cannot leave the tents up during the day. Coming back to camp on Day 2 knowing that your tent was set up, was one of the only things that would keep you going at mile 20! We'll have to see how that works out. We'll keep you posted!

TA-TA for now!