Treking for four

Yesterday was my planned long run, 22km on the Guelph Radial trail and the connecting roads. I was really looking forward to my run and I headed out from the house around 9:30 am. I was feeling bgood, reminding myself to keep the run easy and my heart rate in zone 3. It had been a while since I had run the third line to hwy 25 section of the radial trail and I was enjoying the changes that fall s brought. This is a pretty hilly section and I like to use these hills to work on my power hiking which helps keep the run nice and easy. My run went off the rails about 400 metres from where the trail turns and heads out through a field to the highway. Out of nowhere my hear began racing and jumped from zone 2 to zone 6. I immediately stopped running and started walking hoping to slow my pounding racing heart. I have experienced this before, I am never sure if the cause is a panic attack or something related to the electrical signal in my heart. The last couple of weeks have not been easy, I h...

Thursday was a hard day, Mark and I had the final meeting with Isaac's neuropsychologist to receive the results of Isaac's testing. We have been concerned about Isaac's progress in school since he was in JK, he struggled to attain fundamental skills related to literacy and numeracy despite his efforts. By grade 2 he was significantly behind his peers academically.  Learning disabilities are common diagnoses for kiddos with DMD, the dystrophin that is missing in his muscle cells also plays a role in the brain. We learned during our appointment that Isaac has a learning disability and likely also an expressive language disorder. He has ideas and is capable of being successful in school but because of the learning disability and language disorder he can't express his understanding and knowledge. We see the effects of both of these challenges not only in Isaac's academic progress but also in his frustration level. Imagine not being able to communicate you thoughts and i...

  My children are a major influence in my running, I run both to model for them a healthy lifestyle that includes being physically active and taking time to care for yourself.  I also run because being a parent is hard and running is an opportunity to escape some of that stress and take time for myself to renew.  I thought I would share a little about each of my children in the next couple of posts (with their permission).  My oldest is Luke, he is 11 and in grade 6, he is my serious child, from a young age he was asking big questions and thinking deeply about the world around him.  At home Luke is quiet and thoughtful, at school he is a bit of a class clown.  Luke's passion is soccer and he has worked hard to play for one of our local rep soccer teams, Norval Croatia.   Luke is a wonderful big brother and excitedly welcomed each of his siblings, when we were expecting our youngest Evelyn Anne, he told his Nana that he loved her already even thoug...