Back to School!

I LOVE the start of a new school year. Love love love it. Driving through town, all of the kids excitedly waiting for their bus, kindergartners getting their picture taken, brand new lunch box in hand and back pack bigger than them on their back. Frantic 7th graders looking for rooms entirely across the school in between class periods, and your own classes attentive, excited, and eager. It's a blank slate. A fresh start. A whole new year. It's so much fun.

It's also so exhausting. Teaching, I was reminded this week in the whole two days students were in the building, is its own form of cross training. Swim, bike, run, schlep chairs and music stands, load marching band van, (and unload, load, unload again...though I didn't do much of the unloading or last load thanks to great helpers), run around football field yelling "left...left...LEFT", singing, bouncing, dancing, directing, and bus riding. Oh, and being peppy. Albeit regularly caffeine and allergy med induced, there's a lot of peppy going on in the world of music education.

And so the lazy summer days of swim, bike, run, relax, are officially over. And the days of squeeze running (and now also swimming and biking) into the fantastically fun chaos of commandeering a marching band and performing head cheerleading duty for the NEB cross country team commences. It's the greatest time of year. It may not bode well for the upkeep of our house or my sleep patterns, but I couldn't be more excited that it's here.

After a late night Friday with an away football game and the first invitational of the cross country season Saturday, we spent our Sunday biking 57 and running 8. The original plan was bike 60, run 10. I didn't used to be so "eh" about shirking mileage. I also didn't used to feel like such garbage while running. Wow, what is it that bike does to you? Moving right along, "soft pedaling", arrogantly assuming that any activity in which you can consume a Clif bar, six fig newtons, and lots of water while in the act of can't be that taxing, and then BAM! You go to run and your legs just don't work!

Our run wrapped up in the middle of the craziest thunder storm I've ever been inside of. A half mile from the car, the storm was so close that lightning and loud, cracking, rips of thunder were happening simultaneously. Thankfully Mike's speedier than me and had already made it to the car and came back to pick me up. I almost declined the ride, but seeing as he'd sacrificed his Cervelo, sitting on top of the car and getting soaked for the first time in the new bike's life, to come out and save me, I jumped in. Good thing too. By the time we pulled under the gas pump awning at the Sunoco, hail the size of junior mints was flying in sideways.

I also love that the first week of school is always followed by a three day weekend. Labor Day allowing us to make baby steps back into the insanity. A long run, a lake swim, cleaning, and sleeping are all on the agenda.