Category Archives: Soft Star Shoes

A Watered-Down Splash Pad Outing

07/16/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Hot weather and a toddler too energetic to keep indoors gave me the bright idea of bringing Avery to a nearby splash pad yesterday. It was the same one my wife and I brought her to a few months ago, and I was hoping she’d be more into it this time.

That time, I ran and met my favorite ladies there to play together in the assortment of shooting water structures. We took turns swinging her in the air to go in and out of water streams, but ultimately, she seemed unimpressed with the whole ordeal.

This time, I thought I’d get my workout “fix” in and run the 2+ miles in my Soft Star Shoes again, but also pushing Avery in the stroller. Not surprisingly, the Texas sun and weight of a toddler in a stroller made the run a little more difficult.

By the time we arrived, I was more excited about getting in the water than any of the other kids around. Which, by the way, there were a lot of kids. I saw two daycare vans in the parking lot and would’ve turned right around to go home if I were driving. But, the need to cool down and my determination to see Avery run around having a blast kept me from leaving. I took her out and set her down prepared to watch her run amok.

This picture look familiar? Pretty much the same spot and stance from her first visit to the pad. My heart started slowly sinking…..or maybe it was just slowing down to normal after running. Either way, her non-action was not the reaction I was hoping for. At least she turned around and smiled for the camera when I asked…

I tried running through the water obstacles in hopes she would follow suit, but no luck. She did, however, take a few steps and watch the fountains spit shots of water out.

Meanwhile, kids are running all around her screaming and having fun. Except for one boy who ran around and threw water from a bottle on me and then hit another boy in the face with the empty bottle. Yeah, he went to time-out after that.

The first trip with Going Mom was more fun than this. At least I had a beautiful wife to keep me company and help toss Avery around to get her to do something. I lifted her over my head and ran circles and went through a few sprayers which got her to laugh. Then I set her down thinking that might’ve warmed her up and she would be ready to go, but….

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And that pretty much sums up our lackluster outing to the splash pad. Guess we’ll stick to bounce houses for a bit longer.

I finally gave up with the splash pad and prepared to run back home. Not surprisingly, Avery never made a fuss about getting back in the stroller and she had a fun time shouting out “car” or “tree” at every car or tree we passed. There were a lot of both.

Feeling unsatisfied with our watered down water fun, I thought it best to stop by our neighborhood pool since we know how much she loves that! I guess no one wanted to come outside at that time, so we had the pool all to ourselves.

We “swam” in the big pool for a bit, and then migrated over to the kiddie pool so she could stand all by herself.

Kelley and I will ask if she can do high knees in the water and she does it every time. Pretty cute to watch, obviously. I made the mistake of asking if she can do squats in the water, in which she promptly showed she could, but came close to going under. #ParentingFail

After playing around in the kid pool and snapping a selfie with Avery, we were ready to head home. Hey, she smiled!

Despite the uneventful splash pad experience, I still think we had a good time. Maybe I’m just trying to be optimistic, okay, I am being optimistic, but these make for good memories nonetheless. Plus, the pool was our savior for a fun day!

At what age would you expect kids to be into the splash pad?

What’s better, swimming at the pool or a splash pad? Or both?

Going Strong, Life, Parenting, Soft Star Shoes

3rd Place in our Fourth of July 5k Race

07/07/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

We made it through the Fourth of July weekend, but what I feared most became a reality. The good news is my wife and I kicked the day off with a bang by placing in our Fourth of July 5k!

The night before the race, we brought Avery up the road in our neighborhood to see the local fireworks. It was past her bedtime before they even started and we were getting eaten by bugs, but I’d say she still had a great time.

Okay, maybe “great” is an exaggeration, but it was officially her first time to see fireworks since last year I don’t think she was too aware. Either shame on us for keeping her up so late when we had to wake her up extra early the next day or….no, never mind, just shame on us.

G-Ma met us at Martin House Brewery, where the race was being hosted, to hang out with Avery as Going Mom and I pushed our legs to the limits in the hot and humid weather. The race started at 8am and it was already sticky with most of the participants sweating from just standing around.

Isn’t my Mom beautiful? I can’t believe she’s turning 60 at this end of this month! Oops, was I not supposed to share that with the blogosphere? Sorry, Mom, I love you!

Before the start, we took turns posing together for pictures with Avery. Any picture with these three lovely ladies is one to cherish forever.

Avery wasn’t sure of what to make with Daddy not having a shirt on, but not like it’s anything new.

By the time we took our family picture, Avery had enough of the posing. She was probably pissed we woke her up so early too.

Kelley snapped a shot of my true fashion sense wearing brown and black. But hey, I was excited to race in my Soft Star Shoes Dash RunAmoc since the last race never panned out. Don’t I look proud?

After a quick warm-up jog, singing the National Anthem alongside 200+ already sweaty runners, and anxious to run, we were finally off. Kelley and I gave each other a good luck kiss and I dashed in the grass to pass slower runners and walkers.

Actually, I had to go off road a few times in order to pass people, and the Dash RunAmocs performed better than expected. With the Bullhide Leather Sole, I was worried traction would be an issue in the grass when I jumped to the side, but I never slipped once. The rest of the race was on a gravel trail, and they felt light with just enough protection from the rocks.

G-Ma was too occupied with an energetic toddler to ask her to take action shots of us racing, so I just have snippets from the Movin’ Pictures. As you can see, they are not paid for, just what you can find online, but I think they’re good enough.

What if, one day, it was cool to buy pictures with the word “Proof” across the entire image? I’d be ahead of the game then!

The shoes were great with their minimal weight and maximum performance. As long as it’s not wet (leather soles and water is like walking on ice), these are awesome. I do have other RunAmocs with a rubber trail sole which feel great when running too, but I like using those for lifting in my garage more.

The race itself was quick but the heat was punishing all of us. But that didn’t stop Going Mom from keeping on course and maintaining composure. I even have “proof” of her solid performance.

Both of us have hardly put enough running training in lately, be we have been rocking intense workouts with the barbell and kettlebells which gave us a great foundation to keep us going strong. And, as a result, our strength training paid off; we both came in 3rd place in our age group!

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It may not seem like anything spectacular to some, but I’m proud of the both of us and think it was a great way to kick off the Fourth of July!

Out of 261 runners, we came in 13th (me) and 59th (wife) place overall. I was hoping for a sub-20 minute run, but I’ll take 20:26. Plus, maybe that’s a positive sign that I’m doing better at my ultimate goal of gaining strength/weight.

Our favorite brewery, Martin House, had free beer for all runners. Kelley and I had a few drinks while sharing some much deserved beer with G-Ma while waited for the Awards to get our medals and take a photo. Of course, Avery had to be in there with both of us. Still rockin’ her “no smile” look.

After taking advantage of free craft beer (#winning), and talking with other runners, some who were quite interested in my brown Soft Star running shoes, we took off to G-Ma’s house. This is where we spent the night what I was scared of happening, happened.

Lets just say that sleep was very rare that night. Of course, our sweet angel did take a nap on the way home the next day.

What a stinker. Details of the rest of the day and tiring night are coming soon. Until then, have a great day!

How was your Fourth of July?

Did you run any races or kick back and enjoy the day in relaxation?

Going Strong, Life, Parenting, Soft Star Shoes

4th of July Brewery 5k and a Rainy Walk to Remember

07/02/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Hopefully our 4th of July 5k won’t get rained out like the Mother’s Day race we were going to do this year. I planned on running a half-marathon, but since it was canceled, I ended up rowing the distance in our garage. Yeah, and that’s when the whole staph butt thing happened….

Moving on, I’m hoping for a good, non-rainy run for our 4th of July 5k. A 5k is great, it gets you up and moving for the day, but doesn’t take forever or zap all of your energy to do anything else the rest of the day. Of course, it is at our favorite craft brewery, Martin House, so if anything, it’s the beer that would zap me.

I don’t plan on having more than one drink, and that’s only because it’s good quality beer they are giving for free. Why wouldn’t I enjoy a glass after pounding the pavement for 3.2 miles? I don’t have a set goal, and my best time from way back when being under 18 minutes, so that’s not happening again. I’d like to keep it around 20 minutes if possible though. Last year I pushed Avery in a 5k and made first place with a time in the 19 minute mark, so it’s doable.

This will be the first race in my Soft Star Shoes which has me excited to see how they’ll perform. If it’s anything like my regular runs, they’ll be great! Maybe Avery will wear hers so we can be Soft Star Rock Stars!

Going Mom refuses to let out anything about her goal time for the 5k thinking she’ll jinx herself or something. I get it, but I know she’ll do much better than she gives herself credit for. She’s make good use of our squat rack at least 2 times a week and knocks out heavy sets of dead lift and squats. The leg strength alone will prove useful as she races this weekend.

Thanks to my wonderful Mom, Avery won’t be subjected to sitting a stroller to get pushed in a race. This time, she gets to hang with G-Ma and watch from the sidelines to cheer us on. Judging from how she runs to her with open arms, I think Avery will be happy to have the company.

Look for how we did in a post next week. I hope to share some good race times and to let you know that we had a good time.

Speaking of good times, we had a pretty crazy family walk the other evening. It was a typical hot day even as the sun was going down, and we set off like normal with Avery in the stroller. Side note: I always keep 35lbs of kettlebells in the stroller just to make it extra work for myself because, stubborn and strength.

We were relieved to have a big cloud cover the sun for us which meant not battling the bright light in Avery’s eyes and giving her extremely tan legs (from sitting in the stroller on sunny walks) a much needed break. Then a little wind picked up, and then a few fat rain drops started to fall.

Meanwhile, we kept walking and I was saying how refreshing and nice it was to walk in a little shower. Because, at that point, it really was nice. I love walking a light summer sprinkle of rain! But then it got heavier and heavier until we were sloshing in our sandals (Yeah, go us) with our clothes completely drenched.

Kelley mocked me for saying how I enjoyed walking a nice shower as we continued our walk watching the streets already accumulates mini rivers (commonly known as streams) of water. We were right in the middle of our walk, so turning around would be the same as continuing. And continue we did. We had a few neighbors standing in their garage watching the rain and looking at us like we were crazy. In retrospect, I don’t blame them!

As we turned a corner, we faced the heavy rain head-on as the wind whipped it into our face. This set Avery off and she began to cry in fear and probably pain. Despite having flip-flops on, we knew we needed to run to get back as fast as we could, so run we did. It was at this moment when I cursed myself for having those damn 35lbs of weights in the stroller.

Then we hit what I call “the big hill” part of our walk and I seriously questioned what the point of the weights were. Screw you, fitness, I don’t need this! It didn’t help that I started cracking up while trying to breathe when as I watched my wife practically doing a high knee run through a giant river of deep water. Seriously, the view was priceless.

We made it up the hill, increased our speed as the rain poured on and Avery wailed, and finally made it back to our garage/safe haven.

Of course we took the obligatory crazy family picture afterward. Avery quickly calmed down, as you can see, with the help of a towel thanks to Going Mom. We both kissed her and asked for forgiveness too.

And just to be really annoying, we took turns taking a picture with our drenched little girl. She was not that amused.

Still cute as a button though. A really really really cute button! I pretended to hold her back out under the rain because, dad jokes, and she actually gave a little smile. But just a little pity smile.

After our soaked family photo session was over, we went inside for dinner and laughed about a rainy walk we won’t forget any time soon.

Have you even been caught in the rain?

Do your kids love getting drenched in the rain or despise it? Avery loves the water, just not when it’s stinging rain in her face as she sits defenseless. Can’t blame her!