Eat-Climb-Run . . . Sleep . . . Repeat: Life After Birth

Wow, what a busy four weeks it's been!

Our son, Maxwell Le Harelson was born on Saturday April 5, 2014. Neither my wife nor I had any idea what to expect. Our combined baby experience involved nervously holding someone else's infant for a few seconds once or twice in our lives. Neither of us had seen an a real diaper in person, let alone changed one!

Me and Maxwell Le Harelson

Mister Max

After a couple days in the hospital, we brought Max home and discovered that changing diapers isn't so bad after all. He's a cute little fellow, and we've had a good time getting to know him.

One of the things I had been worried about was many people's smug comments during Thy's pregnancy to the effect of, "Well, now you're finally going to have to quit all this crazy [climbing/running/skiing/etc.] since you won't have time for that stuff anymore!" It seems that lots of people like to join forces with the universe and root against one getting to spend any time doing what he/she loves. Obviously having a child changes things, and Max is now my #1 priority; however, I could not bear the thought of my life coming to an end just as his was beginning.

After bringing Max home from the hospital, I decided to prove to myself that my glory days are not yet behind me, despite not having slept more than a couple hours over the course of 3 days. With my wife and both our moms at home with Max, there seemed to be "too many cooks in the kitchen" anyway. The dogs were hyper from not having seen us for a few days, so I volunteered to take the dogs and wear them out.

I grabbed my running shoes and the pups, hopped in the car, and drove to the Dry Creek trailhead. We jumped out of the car and proceeded to put one foot in front of the other. The weather was gorgeous! Max's birth seemed to have signaled the arrival of spring. The skies were blue and the creeks were swollen with the now fast-melting snow. The warm weather prompted me to loose the shirt for the first time this year.

Ky and Puck playful and happy to be outside again

After a couple miles the trail came to a fork and we took the right option for Shingle Creek. as we climbed higher, the brush turned to pines, and we began to see a few patches of snow.

Pucky cools off in a patch of snow

After reaching the top of the shingle creek trail at the Boise Ridge Road, we dropped down the other side of the ridge onto the Dry Creek Trail, and immediately found ourselves knee deep in the cool white stuff.

Although I was tired from lack of sleep, I found that our 13 mile jaunt in the mountains left my mind and mood refreshed, happy, and ready to cope with the ongoing sleepless demands of being a new parent. Plus the pups crashed out and slept the rest of the day, rather than trying to jump up and say hello to the new resident in the house :).

Since then I've managed to keep up my running. One friend who also has a young baby asked how I could manage this on so little sleep. My response was to ask in return how you could NOT get out and get some exercise and fresh air. It is currently the only thing keeping me sane, and I find myself looking forward to my next big runs, and dreading the thought of rest days.

Here are a few other pictures from the past few weeks...