Wednesday, March 23, 2016

St. Patrick's Day and a Return to Running

After my doctor gave me the go-ahead to return to normal activities, I didn't waste too much time. Saturday the 12th was the St. Patrick's Day parade. Though I felt it was too early to walk the parade route, my husband, son, and I were out to see the parade. My dance classmates were happy to see us, though I didn't really get to pay too much attention to the parade as our school was dancing by, because wouldn't you know, that was the only time during the whole parade that a random person came up to talk to me about my son. I know he's cute, but that was the main parade entry I wanted to see, and I missed it. Later that night, we went to a local restaurant where my dance mates and some of the younger kids did a performance. I figured it was too soon for me to join in, but we had fun, and the camaraderie among the adult class is awesome. It is nice to feel like I am already making friends in our new town. Plus, my son seemed so happy and at ease. Everyone remarked on how much he seemed to enjoy just hanging out, listening to the music :) 

On the actual St. Patrick's Day, I volunteered for two performances. My parents watched my son as I ventured out for a lunch performance and supper performance. The lunchtime one was really relaxed. I had to drive into town alone (which I hate doing), missed my exit, ended up in downtown traffic, and I finally arrived after more than an hour in the car. The group was just going around the restaurant, stopping in various spots to do treble reels. I hadn't performed a treble reel in a long time, and hadn't learned one from my new school yet. I tried to make up something, and it sort of worked once, but most of the time I just ended up reverting back to one of the treble reels from my old school. Thanks, muscle memory. My teacher said it was okay, but I still felt bad about it. At the start of the performance, I was wearing a black maternity T-shirt that I tucked in to my skirt so you couldn't tell it was a maternity shirt. Fortunately I had bought a "one-size-fits-most" elastic waist skirt at an Irish fest back when I was too pregnant to fit in most of my regular clothes, but not far enough along to feel comfortable announcing it. The gray skirt worked well enough until a classmate got there and loaned me one of the adult class performance skirts. I finally felt all official :) I danced a couple of Fairy Reels, and they felt pretty good. My form isn't what it used to be, and I am so glad I bought a new sports bra for the occasion, as the nursing sports bras would just not have given me enough support, but overall, I felt pretty good.

The evening performance wasn't so great. Between the unpredictability of an infant, coupled with evening traffic, I barely made it for the start of the performance. The dancing area was super-tiny, and I totally messed up my reel. My teacher didn't seem to mind, as the adult class is all about having fun, but I certainly cared :( I've decided to do a feis in mid-June, so I have a little less than 3 months to get back into shape and get myself ready. No more blatant mistakes.

In other exercise news, I started jogging today. Jog a minute, walk a minute....I did this for half an hour, plus did a warm up walk of 5 minutes and walked to cool down, too. It felt good, with hardly any joint pain. The worst part was my sore, non-existant lower abs. I'm pretty much doing the Couch to 5K, but jumping in at week 3. It feels like such a remedial plan for me, but then I remind myself that I haven't run since October, so I've got to gradually work my way back up.

There's a lot of work to be done, but I can do it!

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