It was dark out but not super dark, and I planned a route that didn’t stray from major roads with sidewalks.  I didn’t bother to bring my headlamp with me, thinking the streetlights would be enough to keep me visible.  I did, however, pin on my sexy reflective sash:

Oh, neon yellow sash, how I have missed you!  Instantly I felt like a hardcore runner.  A hardcore, safe runner. 

This sash and I were good friends last year when I would leave before sunrise for morning runs or after dark for some evening miles.  For the past few months, I’ve been running when it’s convenient – and darkness hasn’t been in that category for me.  But tonight, I enjoyed my sweet reunion with an old friend.

It’s kind of embarrassing how nice it is to feel like myself again.  Sash and all!

A few minutes into the run I felt so good that I decided to skip my usual walk breaks.  I ended up doing 3.5 miles at a 10:20/mile pace – which I am thrilled with! 

I did wish I had my headlamp after all.  I didn’t feel in danger of being hit by a car, but in some places the sidewalk wasn’t lit at all, and there were lots of sections covered in slick leaves or with uneven pavement.  I’d feel awfully silly taking a tumble along such a major road.  Especially wearing my sash!

Like it was today:

Nine minutes and 30 seconds later, I feel great.  I also did about 40 minutes of light cardio this morning so I think I’m ready for my nap.

It was fun.  It was hard.  It was sweaty.  My hip muscles are complaining now.  But I am so proud of myself! 

Six miles is the farthest I have run since last July.  Since then I’ve only done one five miler, one four, and several 3’s.  Plus, I was able to keep a pretty respectable pace for someone who is 22 weeks pregnant.

Feeling pretty large.    But I’m still running!

My toddler is almost old enough to use a pillow, and I wanted to make his very first pillow case because I’m corny like that and I’m sure he’ll treasure it always.

If you want to make your own, all you’ll need is a basic sewing machine, enough fabric to cover your pillow, and a few typical sewing tools.  (And junior-high home-ec sewing skills like mine.)

First, wash and iron your fabric and lay it out on a large work surface:

You’ll cut three pieces out of the fabric: one piece to cover the front of the pillow, and two smaller pieces that overlap and form the back side.  Cut the first piece about 1” larger on all sides than your actual pillow dimensions.  I made a template out of newspaper and cut around it:

Then cut the two back pieces.  Since they are the same size you can fold the fabric over and cut both layers at once so they’re exactly the same:

These should be the same height as your front piece, and about 5 inches wider than half of your pillow.  My pillow is 14” square, so my front piece was 16” x 16” and my back pieces were 16” x 12”.

Now you can lay out the pieces and see how the two back pieces overlap quite a bit:

The front piece is underneath them:

Now take one of your back pieces and find the middle edge – the one that will be at the middle of the pillow.  Fold up 1/4” and iron it flat:

You can see that my fold isn’t a straight 1/4” line all the way across:

I knew that my edges weren’t perfectly straight (because I can’t cut straight lines to save my life) so I decided that making the pattern line up visually was more important than keeping an even seam.

Next, fold the same edge up again, 1” this time.  Iron flat:

Done!

Repeat with the other back piece.

Sew a straight line down the fold.  Your stitches should be right in the middle of the 1/4” folded section.  You can feel where the doubled fabric is, and keep your stitches about 1/8” from the edge to hit the middle of that:

Repeat with the other back piece, lay them out on top of the front (wrong sides together) and pin around the edges:

Flip the whole thing over to make sure your edges line up on the other side as well.  Mine did NOT:

So I just trimmed the excess:

Perfecto!:

Flip the whole thing over again and sew along all four edges, about 1/4” in:

When you get to the place where the back pieces overlap, just make sure they tuck flatly under the presser foot and don’t get bunched up while you stitch:

Once you’ve sewn around the entire piece, trim the corners.  This is what they look like before:

And after you cut off a bit of fabric, making sure not to get close to the stitch line:

You just want to remove some extra material so that the corners stay nice and tight when you turn the pillow case inside out.  Do that now and push something narrow into the corners to get them all the way out.  I used my closed scissors:

Lay it out flat and pin around the edges again.  Then sew around the perimeter again, this time just inside the seam allowance from last time.  (Last time you stayed about 1/4” from the edge, so this time stay a bit further, about 3/8”.)  Feel with your fingers as you guide the fabric and stay far enough from the edge that you only ever have two layers.  The very edge of the pillow case is now four layers but you want to sew inside of that:

It should look like this:

Flip it right side out:

And put your pillow inside:

Here’s the finished back side:

Here you can see how much the flaps overlap:

Ta da!

Though Margaret did make a kitty friend:

She was having a tough run today because she ran five miles last night, and I was having a tough run because I just like to complain a lot.  We ended up doing the hill only 7 or 8 times and then exploring the rest of the path which was either gently uphill or gently down.  So 2.5 miles of hill repeats became about .6 miles instead.

We tried!

As I was buckling the little guy into his jogging stroller, I realized that it’s been a long freaking time since we ran together.  I use that stroller occasionally for walks where I’ll need to off-road a bit, but it’s not our everyday, around-town stroller.  So it felt a little unfamiliar and exciting.  That stroller reunion alone made today’s run feel a little special, but in combo with the terrific sunshine it was just absolute perfection.

Except that I’m pretty out of shape.  And chose a downhill out, uphill back route.  And am pretty out of shape.  But still, it was so fun being on the road again and out of the gym.  I spent 15 minutes daydreaming about my next planned race (the Corvallis Half Marathon in April) and 15 remembering the last one (our local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day).

Oh yeah, we used to do this all the time!

Today’s distance: 3.0 miles.

Total time: 31:13; avg pace 10:24/mile.

Twice a week we meet before dawn and run/walk 3.5 miles.  The route is out-and-back, downhill and then back up the the finish.  That’s more running than we’ll have to do – total – during the race, and we’ll get to break it up with biking segments and obstacles, so I’m not at all worried about us.  We got this.

It has been so much fun running with Anne.  I love getting up before the sun to run before the day gets away from me, and having a friend to talk to and laugh with makes it go so much faster.

Plus, if I were alone, I would feel silly doing cartwheels in the park to cool down.  But if you do things like that with a buddy, it makes you hip and trendy.  All the cool kids are doing it!

That might be the first cartwheel I’ve done in my life.  Luckily I had Anne to show me how it’s done:

If we’re lucky, this will be one of the challenges at the race.

Muddy Buddy, here we come!

Yow.

Anne and I are in the early stages of training for the Columbia Muddy Buddy race near Portland on September 18.  What’s that?  Just beginning to train for a race that’s less than a month out?  Yep, we are pretty much winging it, and I think it will make the race even more fun to be at the back of the pack wheezing and crawling.  Right?

Katy ran an incredible 25 minutes in a row and had the glistening forehead to prove it!  She is amazing!

P.S. I thought it might feel weird taking my stroller to the track, but it didn’t.  At 8:30 on a weekday morning we saw some parents and kids, some older folks, and a pregnant woman.  The only “serious” runner we saw there didn’t bat an eye at us.  Now I remember that I’ve seen people running at this track with their dogs, and even people on bicycles (why??) … so the atmosphere here is pretty chill.  We didn’t stick out as much as I thought we would.

I know I’ve been mega-absent lately, and yep, it’s because I haven’t been running much.  I’ve been out maybe a half dozen times since my last race in July, and only doing 3-4 miles when I do run.  Maybe I’ll get into my running burnout and alternate exercises in another post…

But I can’t keep quiet about the amazing time I had at the gym tonight!  Now, I am normally a morning exerciser.  I like to get my sweat in early in the day so that I can shower, tame the wild beast that is my hair, and get on with my day.  I also like to go to bed early (Kevin finds 9:30 bedtimes hilarious but to me they are heaven) so I don’t dig the endorphins and energy that come with PM workouts.  But I’m going to be away from my gym and my beloved spin class for a couple of weeks, and needed to get in some quality time with the good ol’ bike before I go.  I ran this morning, so an evening spin session it was.

I waited till our tiny dude went to bed, and headed to the gym around 8:30.  It was fairly quiet and I had the spin room to myself for a while.  I listened to my most upbeat music and cranked out 12.2 miles in 30 minutes.  The best part was that the fans were off so the room was extra warm.  Sweat was pouring off me like never before.  I love it!  I mean really, I was disgusting.  It was awesome!

After my ride I changed into my swimsuit and headed toward the hot tub to relax.  But when I saw that there was only one person in the lap pool, I couldn’t resist.  (I am a sucker for solitary exercise!)  I swam six laps at a pretty slow pace…but then again, even 100% effort is a slow pace for me.  I’m a terrible swimmer, and even with a professional instructor’s help I just can’t get all those silly limbs coordinated.  How do swimmers make it look so easy???  But I have a clumsy method all my own and it‘s comfortable and fun.  I’ll probably never do a triathlon because I would be the last person out of the swim leg, but then again, who cares?

A few minutes in the hot tub, a shower in the deserted locker room, and a spell in the dry sauna, and I’m a new woman.  I have never been so relaxed.  This might even be worth staying up late for…you know, until 10:00!

Running

That last one is notable because of my twice-homemade shirt.  Matt sent us t-shirts that he screen printed with his own logo.  How awesome is that?  This one was too small for Kevin and too big for me so I ripped off the sleeves, opened the neckline a little, and made myself a comfy shirt for sweating.  Go team Soupbones!

I hiked with friends:

And took a second spin class:

Spin was just as fun today as Monday.  I officially love it!  I took this photo before class so that nobody was in the frame and fewer people were around to think I was weird.  The only bad part about today’s class was the girl on the bike in front of me.  Every time I looked into the mirror, I caught her staring at me.  Every single time!  I have no idea what she would be looking at, so I’ll just assume she was impressed by my awesomeness.  I get that all the time. 

Kevin and I also took an evening Hydro Fit class (just a cool name for water jogging/aqua aerobics) but thought it was pretty boring this time.

That’s a lot of exercise!  My muscles are all a little sore, which is one of the best feelings ever.  This weekend I’m going to explore Bend, Oregon, so I’ll do some walking but nothing high intensity.  What are y’all up to?