CPRMom

The past 2 races I started to think about which mile is the worst of the race.  Is the first mile? The last mile? One in the middle? I've settled on a mile in the middle. A few weeks ago I did the Runner's Alley Redhook 5K .  I think the 2nd mile was the worst, at least it felt that way.  I am so thankful for the additional unofficial water stop after the first mile. Last year I took the entire season off.  My mom had become ill and it was terminal cancer.  I posted a bit about it last year.  We spent several months driving out of state to visit as much as we could before she passed away.  And then I spent a few months catching up on all the paperwork that didn't happen last summer.  It was an overwhelming time, and I was not racewalking, walking or training all season. I had a late training start for this year.  I'm determined to finish the Seacoast Road Race Series again, and might do an extra race or two.  My part-time busin...

Teaching CPR and First Aid is not a steady business.  I'm either super busy or listening to crickets.  Some months are fairly even with course registrations and scheduled on-site classes.  I've had some  pretty quiet months with almost no one calling, but usually my schedule isn't too crazy-busy. Until now.  Last month my phone and inbox literally started overflowing. In May I taught 26 classes, 13 of those were scheduled on-site courses.  As of June 17th I will have taught 21 classes, traveling on-site to 6 of them.  I still have 2 hospital courses towards the end of June.  8 of those June classes were just this past week.  And yesterday I had 2 emails asking to schedule courses before June 26th. Last night in class suddenly my brain felt like I had hit a wall.  I've hit teaching exhaustion.  I felt like I hit a brick wall. I'm not great at saying to no to scheduling classes, if I can fit it on my calendar I'll usually sch...

Last week I racewalked in the Runner's Alley Redhook 5K .  This race supports the Krempels Center and people recovering from a brain injury.  It's always a great race. It's a 5K with 2 water stops.  Last weekend there were 3 water stops. Between the 2 official water stops was a third one organized by the unionized employees of Westinghouse who are currently locked out of work by their employer. I only know what was posted on WMUR's website .  On the bystander side it looks the union wanted to renew their existing contract and the employer wanted to lower their health benefits.  I'm sure there is more to it than that, but there are not a lot of articles explaining their stalemate. Westinghouse has a facility at the Pease Tradeport where the race was held.  The union set up tables and handed water out to all the runners and walkers.  These are folks who aren't working right now and aren't getting paid.  But they brought water and cups to he...