A month ago I ran my third half marathon, the Indianapolis Monumental. For the record, I not only ran it, I crushed it! I shaved more than 30 minutes off my previous half and this was the first one I ran completely. No run walking, no stops for pain or needing to stretch. I just kept going and going. At mile 10 I actually texted my husband and parents with “Oh Shit, there are only 3 miles left!” I felt so good at that point I knew I was going to finish strong. I had no idea I was going to finish as well as I did but I was confident enough to be dancing and pumping my fist to my punk rock playlist all the way to the finish line!

Today I am stuck in a chair staring at my medals with hip and back pain unable to run. I am trying to remain calm and tell myself that I will be up and running again soon. That my new and surprisingly most rewarding pastime isn’t gone it is just on an injury timeout. I am vowing that this delay is going to make me finally take care of myself and build that core strength I swore I would build before my daughter arrived. Oh if only I had done that. Hindsight is a tough teacher.

When I crushed my personal record (PR) on my last half I got the running bug. I am not even sure that bug is a strong enough term for what this is. All my goals right now center around running. I am trying to think of ways I can run more. Looking for runs I might be able to squeeze in on vacations. Wondering if my husband would be willing to put up with this. Thinking of ways to afford this new hobby. On the plus side with all the race shirts I could get I won’t have to buy workout clothes for a while! My next race is March 30th. The Allstate Hot Chocolate 15k in Indianapolis. A perfect warm-up race for my second attempt at the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon, known in Indy as The Mini. Now I just need to get healthy and ready to train again. I have so much to learn about truly doing this running thing properly and in a way that will keep me injury free and getting stronger.

• May 7, 2016, Indy Mini 3:03:45

• October 6, 2018, Ft Ben Half Marathon 3:08:50

• November 3, 2018, Indianapolis Monumental 2:37:08

Drinking water is an important part of a healthy lifestyle and life in general. Ya know, hydrate or die. My problem was our tap water doesn’t taste great. It is probably fine, but if it doesn’t taste as good as bottled water I am probably not going to drink it. I say probably fine, I really should just get it tested to make sure as some contaminants, like lead, can be extremely dangerous to everyone in the house. Now that we have a little one that is formula fed we actually need filtered water to make her bottles. Simple enough right, buy bottled water. I just can’t do it. All that plastic. Plus the extra cost all that plastic adds. There had to be a better way. We tried a lot of different things to get filtered water and have finally landed on one that gets us the water without the plastic and for what I think is the lowest price.

*Sidenote: if you want to find out if your tap water is fine you can search here….and get if needed you can get it tested.

 

What we tried before we finally found the solution that worked for us

Brita

This seemed like it would be the easiest way to get water, but it doesn’t get you enough to make coffee and some of those pitchers can take so long to filter that if your pitcher is empty and you are thirsty you might be out of luck. Plus the need to purchase expensive replacement filters didn’t make this the best option for us.

Water Delivery

We have actually done this twice. Once when we lived in California and then again in Indiana. We liked it both times. I think we actually started getting it because I wanted the handy hot water spicket that would give me hot tea immediately. Turns out I don’t drink that much tea and that the cost of renting the machine and the high cost of the 5-gallon jugs ($5-7 each) didn’t make it the most feasible solution.

Fill your own

What we finally found that works the best is the fill your own. Maybe you have seen the machines at the grocery store. It is just tap water run through a much larger filter than you could accommodate at your house, but basically does what your Brita does just in much larger quantities. I say basically because the store version is actually more advanced and usually has multiple kinds of filters giving you an even cleaner water.

The biggest benefit to this is the price. At $.39 a gallon, I can get a lot of water for not a lot of money. This makes a 5-gallon container $1.95. That will last many people for almost a week. We probably go through 12 gallons every two weeks. That is using it for drinking water, formula prep, coffee-making and some of my cooking. Compare that to a flat of bottled waters and there is no contest on which is a better buy. A 24-pack of 750ml bottles (they usually have the fancy flip tops) at a good price is about $6, but can be more than that. That case of water is 607 ounces which is 4.75 gallons. So by filling your own, you save $4. Plus you are buying less plastic.

We even took it a step further and started to kick out canned sparkling water habit. We got a soda stream and make our own now. We tried a few of the water flavors and not sure we are too impressed with those, but the plain sparkling water has been great. We just make it when we want it from our fancy filtered water. We buy the CO2 cartridge at Target and get a refund for returning the used cartridge which really keeps the price down.