What a horrific day...

This morning at 4:56 AM and EF 4 tornado hit my hometown, where I still live with my family, Harrisburg, IL.  Winds were reported at 170 mph.  It has just been devastating.  There are so many people that I know personally who have been affected by this.  It's one of those things that you just don't know what it's like until you see it in person.  It's truly the saddest thing I've ever seen.  For those of you that follow me and aren't aware of where this is, it's a pretty rural town deep in Southern Illinois.  In my town of Harrisburg, we are a pretty tight knit group.  Everyone and then some have come to volunteer in many different aspects.

All I can say at this point is if you find yourself reading this blog tonight, tomorrow, next wee, next month, or even next year, please please please pray for us.  We will come through this and Harrisburg will be bigger and stronger than it was before.  It is our job to rebuild Harrisburg and we will do it.

There are so many volunteers at this point, that many people are on wait lists.  This is the most helpless I've ever felt.  You are there, you can see the damage, but you can't get there to help people directly.  What's most important for people like me is to remember that we CAN help people indirectly if that's the only means we have.  Prayers, food/clothes/household item donations, etc.  Prayers are the biggest thing right now.

Since I was not able to get to anyone to help this evening, I went on my 6 mile run that was scheduled in my marathon training plan.  I was surprised to find that the officers let me on the bike trail that was closed just hours before.  It was so saddening.  I just can't get through my head that this is my town that this is happening to.  I just wanted to reach in and help everyone.  I'm hoping that the next few days will provide a little more organization so many more of us can help!

You know it's big when Al Roker, Jim Cantore, Anderson Cooper, and many many more are covering it.  I never wished that Harrisburg would be in the news like this, but at least this will put us on many other peoples' prayer lists.

I'm going to try to provide as many pictures and videos/links as possible for you to check out what's going on.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/harrisburg-illinois-pictures




http://www.dailyregister.com/photos/x132506778/Aerial-photos-of-Harrisburgs-damage

http://www.wsiltv.com/news/local/H-140961203.html


Videos seems the easiest at this point.  It's just crazy right now.

Follow me on Twitter if you would like to see more photos.  ljatkins10 is my Twitter name.  I'll be retweeting many pics that others in my hometown have taken.  I have not been able to take any at this point.

Again, thanks for the prayers, thoughts, and concerns.  We appreciate them more than you could ever ever imagine!

Blog Ideas

So I know there are a few of you out there who follow me on a regular basis.  I've posted a poll to the right so you can tell me what you would like to see me blog about more.  I typically just tell you what's going on in my life at the time I'm writing, but I'm going to try to switch it up a little.  Comment here and take the poll!  Tell me what you want to hear!  This is really exciting for me.  I can't wait to see what y'all tell me!

Spring? Maybe???

The weather has been so great lately.  We have been able to go to the park a couple times this year and play outside a lot.  Yesterday we worked in our back yard to make it look a little bit better.  Man, the leaves got so bad this winter and we even raked this fall when they were bad.  We've decided that we're going to have to plant a lot of grass this spring in order for our yard to look like a yard again.  Hopefully it will all turn out well, but we do have three "diggers" that live in our back yard.  All three of them have been caught at least once, so we know we can't just blame one.  UGH!!!  Anyone know how to break a dog from digging? :)

Something else that occurred to me yesterday is that we have failed Lila as parents.  We have no, I repeat NO outside toys for her to play on.  What were we thinking?!  After she followed me around raking up leaves for about 10 minutes, she was bored.  She wanted to be held or at least something to keep her busy.  We have got to get a slide or some kind of play toy thing for her...stat!

So this past Saturday I ran my 18 miler.  WOW!  I actually felt pretty good.  That being said, it was so freaking cold outside that morning I knew I wouldn't be able to feel any pain anywhere because my whole body was numb.  I think I could've handled the temperature alone, but the wind gusts were 15-20mph.  When I got on a road that was in the middle of two open fields, watch out.  I ran backwards, I ran sideways, I ran with my chin tucked to my chest.  I think I can honestly say it was the worst conditions that I've ever run in.  I never thought I'd say I was ready to get to the bike trail.  If you're not a runner, you won't understand this next comment.  If you are, you'll probably appreciate it.  I am proud to say, I didn't have to stop and poop this time.  I thought I did and you can even see on my chart that I have 2 really slow miles in the run.  One was because I thought I had to go and had to seek refuge in a patch of woods and then other was when I slowed down a bit to gulp my PowerGel and rehydrate.  

I use the Adidas miCoach app on my phone that uses GPS to track my mileage and pace.  I can then see what my run looked like afterwards.  I can see a graph of my pace and the elevation.  I get a little confused on the pace chart, however, because it's all over the place.  I'm not sure if it loses the GPS signal every once in a while and then just logs that time as a slower pace or what, but my pace is almost always very very steady and usually at a 9:20-9:30 min/mi.  There are many places where it shows a 0.00 mph.  Here's the graph with the elevation behind it so you can try to figure out what I'm missing.

Next week I have my first 20 miler.  I have to admit, I'm kinda excited about it, that is, if the weather is going to be nice to me this week.  The other great thing about my 20 miler is that I get to go get a massage the following Monday!  WOOO HOOOOO!  I'm so stoked for this!

One Hell of a Weekend

This weekend has just been absolutely crazy.  My Dad got so sick that he was admitted into the hospital Friday afternoon.  After four days in the hospital and about a million milligrams of one of the strongest IV pain meds there are, he's still not better.  If you read this, just send up a prayer for him.  Hoping that a spinal tap this afternoon will give us some answers.  He's also been in isolation this entire time which is very hard for him.  All he wants to do is to leave his room.  :(

On a happier note, the Bulldogs came away with two conference wins this weekend.  One more big game this weekend and then it'll be post-season time!  Woo hoo!!!  As Lila would say "chew 'em up chew 'em up HHS!!"  As best as she can!  :)

Connor stayed with us this weekend for a couple of days and it was a lot of fun.  He helped keep Lila busy while I got some stuff done.  On the downside of this, I didn't get all of my runs in this last week.  I'm ready to get back at it this week though.  I have a tough 16 miler this weekend and it's going to take a lot of psyching myself up.  Thankfully I just got another new iTunes gift card from a friend of mine, who just so knows how much motivation you need to run a marathon.  Thanks girly!

I also got to help Connor with a Valentine's Day box this weekend.  I think it turned out great!!

Last night, about as last minute as you can get, I made Lila a little Valentine's shirt.  I was inspired by a Christmas tree shirt that I saw on Pinterest.  I thought...I can make something like that for Vday!  I got the shirt at Wal-Mart for $2.50.  I already had the ribbon.  It turned out pretty good.

It's a marathon, not a sprint

I have to keep telling myself this.  As I'm getting into my higher mileage runs, I am noticing myself just wanting to get it over with in the beginning.  Once I get into it about 45 minutes, I settle down and just put it on cruise control.  It's actually been very peaceful and gives me time to think about all kinds of stuff.  I'm also noticing that I'm wearing down a lot quicker than I did the last time I trained for a marathon.  It's not been that hard to squeeze in the workouts...at least not as hard as I thought it would be.  What IS harder is the recovery.  Last time, I could go run my workouts or do my cross training exercises and come home and veg out on the couch with my supper and some TV or reading.  Now it's go to work, workout, come home and go go go.  Toddlers make this hard!

I'm so determined to do this though.  After running my last marathon in 2009, I knew immediately, despite the pain, that I wanted to run another one.  This was mostly because, while just finishing my first 26.2 was a goal, I wanted to finish sub 4:00.  Well....I ran it in 4:02.

Most people would say this was a good time for my first marathon, especially a hilly race like Nashville.  I still wanted to do that.  I was planning on running it the next year, but then found out I was pregnant in February.  I didn't think it would be smart to attempt training for a marathon during the first months of my first pregnancy.  So I pushed it back.

2011 came and I still knew I didn't have the motivation or dedication level I needed to train for 26.2.  I knew I could probably half-ass train for the half-marathon, but I also didn't want to settle (and the half costs almost as much as the full).

So here we are in 2012.  I thought about it, I prayed about it, I discussed with Neil whether or not we had the time for this.  I knew I needed his support 100% and couldn't do it without him.  It wasn't just because I needed someone to watch Lila, I have family members lining up at my door still waiting to watch her, it was the fact that I knew there would be days I didn't want to go and he would have to kick my butt out the door.  I knew there would be days, just like this past Sunday, when I ran 14 and REALLY felt it.  I need him to continue to encourage me to go out and do this, not tell me, "of course you're hurting, you did this to yourself".  Thankfully, I have an amazing husband who knows that I have a mind that wants to continue to push myself in ways that most would think I am a crazy, psycho path that WANTS to go out and run 26.2 miles and even more so, would pay to do it (except for this year...Thanks Mom for the donation to my marathon).

I also knew that we want to have more children when he gets out of school and that could potentially push running another marathon back 3-5 years even...maybe more.  I didn't want to pass it up this year.

This all being said, I have to say, I don't remember it hurting this bad during training.  I am training hard on hills this time, something I didn't do until the very end in my last training.  I need to continue this, I know, since the race is VERY ELEVATED, (click here for a look at the elevation chart from my 14 miler) but I also don't want to burn myself out or hurt myself.  Thankfully this week is an easy, back it off a little week.  I'm hoping to do some recovering and make next week's long run of 16 miles a good one.  So far my training pace has been close to my race time from last year, but you never know how that will go when you really start packin' on the mileage.  I'm going to try to keep everyone (who cares) updated through this blog, but with being so busy and then the exhaustion, it may not get done every week.  :)

I do have to mention Lila because some of you will get upset if i don't at least say something.  She is now trying to climb up on things and jump off.  If this happens when we're not around, this outcome will not be good.  Heaven help us.

Crazy Girl

The other night, Lila was being crazy.  She talked all night and then proceeded to put on a little show for us in the kitchen.  She's a nut!

She is really into dancing right now.


We've done a spin off on the Capital One commercial.  She doesn't want money, but new toys...yes!