Training with Charlie

My wife was supposed to go back from maternity leave this past Monday, but after her heart procedure 10 days ago, she was given a few days more to rest. She went back on Thursday. Henry went to Grandmas for a few days (he's still there), so Charlie and I have been getting used to life together.

On Thursday, I took him for our first run together (just shy of his 3-month birthday). I hadn't ran with him yet because I didn't want to hurt my ankle by pushing a heavy stroller. But it's been getting better. (And Charlie doesn't care for the car seat / stroller like Henry did - Henry was a much crabbier baby, but his saving grace was that he'd calm down and nap on runs.) I got Charlie in the car seat as he was still smiley:

We stopped to talk to some neighbors, and then we started running. I heard NO peeps from him. I stopped running and opened the canopy a bit at mile 1 expecting to see him passed out, but he was just zoned out:

At mile 2, I didn't stop running, but I peeked in to look. Success:

(But I need to slide his headrest up and prop his head a little better with some rolled up burp cloths.)

I got no more than 2 miles from home in case he woke up and started crabbing. So I went back-and-forth along River Road on a kinda hilly stretch because it's the closest to home. Charlie was passed out the whole time. I figured I'd try an easy run with him, but because it was going so well, I kept running hard. I wasn't going "all out" by any means, but we ran a 10K in 43:19 which is just under 7 minute pace (half mile splits: 3:58, 3:34, 3:28, 3:29, 3:29, 3:31, 3:27, 3:32, 3:21, 3:20, 3:19, 3:26, and 1:19 for final 0.2). Then we walked over a mile as a cool down.

Yesterday, Charlie and I did a lot of housework, including laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, and adding some weather stripping to one of our doors:

Trimming the weather stripping in the garage.

Then earlier today, Charlie and I went on another run. This one was an easy 5 miler. He didn't nap so well on this one, but he didn't crab either - he just relaxed. Here he is ready to run:

Clockwise from the top: Charlie, my bottle, his bottle.
Oh, and notice I raised and supported his headrest better.

Back Monday with some recent workouts leading up to a possible race next weekend!

p.s. Just to balance out this Charlie-heavy post, here's a photo of Henry from a few days ago that Instagram took down:

That's m' boy.