Balance

I’m grateful for laughter.

 

So, we talked about goals on Friday, today I have been thinking about balance. Balance when it comes to eating, training, personal life, work etc. How do we become an expert juggler in our life? How do we stop ourselves from becoming overwhelmed and anxious to the point that we give up? My advice, look at the things in your life and decide what is important. Whether it be friends, children, husband, training, writing, training, etc. When you really look at your life you will be able to decide what is important pretty quickly. We are all different as far as what is important.

Once you decide what is important to you take what is important and go for it!!  Absolutely do what is important to YOU.  Always keep in mind though what is important to you may be different than what is important to others and that is fine. If we were all the same, well, life would be pretty boring. Really what fun would that be?

So balance…. Take what is important in your life and juggle accordingly. Become a world class juggler and in the long run you will become a much happier person.  Honestly, what more is there in life than to be happy? To be able to look back at your life and smile with satisfaction knowing you did what made you happy because if we are honest with ourselves no one can make you happy; you are the only one that can do that. True, your life, will be enhanced by the people you bring into your life, but it all comes down to the choices you make.  Be happy that is my motto for the New Year, be happy. J

Just for reinforcement remember look at your life and what is important to you and balance it accordingly. In the long run you will be a happy person and therefore have a happy and more fulfilling life.

As always enjoy the journey.

 

 

 

Goals

Thankful for positive thinking

 

With the start of the new year everyone will be starting their New Year’s Resolutions. For me I call them a different name. I call them goals.  If I think of goals earlier I don’t want to wait till the new year to start making them come true. You don’t need to wait for a holiday to start something that will better yourself. In fact I started mine mid 2013 when I decided to do 3 half marathons in a year and now I have an additional goal of a full marathon in October of 2014.  It is easy to set a goal I have done that many times the hard part is following thru. So, when thinking of goals ask yourself what drives you. Why do you want this goal so bad?

So, let’s look at my goals. Why do I want to finish such a physically demanding race? A full marathon is no joke; you have to have the dedication to follow through.  So, why do I want to do this? Because it is something that I have thought about doing for about 5 years now, and something I have allowed negative thoughts to talk me out of because, guess what? I am scared. Being scared though is not a reason; it is an excuse, and an excuse to not live the life that you want to live. Do I want to look back on my life and have regrets or look back and say DAMN look what I have achieved!! I like the later of those 2; regrets are not for me and never have been.  I have pushed forward even when I don’t want to or life sends you difficult times I have persevered.  If I hadn’t pushed through I would never have gotten my Masters degree and that is something I am proud of.  The idea of not pushing through during that difficult time (it was when dad died) was not an option.

Just like in that case quitting was not an option; it is not an option in this case either.  I’m going through a bit of a melancholy time today, but tomorrow is another day and another day for reinforcement, another day to say I am worth it and another day to continue to work toward my goals for the coming year.  So if you really want to follow through with your goals or resolutions whatever you want to call them, go for it! I’d rather deal with fear and feel alive than deal with regret of what might have been. To me that is not even a choice. J

 

Have a great weekend everyone, and as always enjoy the journey.

 

No excuses

 I am thankful for having Christmas shopping done.

 

OK so I am one day late with writing my blog.  I won’t make any excuses just work on not doing that again. I am just going to write a really short post as it is Christmas.

Just some musings on my part:

In Christmas day past I would have thrown all my training out the window during the holidays with the excuse that it is Christmas and I have no time. This is not the case this year.  I am not saying you have to be perfect during Christmas time I am suggesting that if you do workout try to get some quality workouts in during this time. You will feel so much better that you didn’t make an excuse and you can enjoy the holidays. Christmas is I time to spend time with family so enjoy that!!

Well, that is all I wanted to say other than have a Merry Christmas, and as always enjoy the journey.

J

 

 

 

Depression

I am grateful for the ability to rebound from an episode more quickly

 I know I didn’t write a blog post on Sunday last week. Unfortunately, from Saturday till about Wednesday this week I didn’t realize it, but I was going thru a mild depressive episode. I didn’t feel like doing ANYTHING. I forced myself to train on Tuesday and did a real quick Slim & 6 workout. Then Wednesday I realized I was just down lately. This happens sometimes. For me, when I get this way the best thing is to get to sleep early and just do an inventory on how I was feeling on Thursday. I woke up feeling better, but still not feeling great. I forced myself to get up get a run in and do some weight training. Once I forced myself to do that I was feeling much better. Then that night I went to bed early again and got up and got a run in this morning.  Tomorrow morning I will get up and get some cross training in.  I think if I can continue with these morning workouts I can keep my depression at bay.

It happens every time during the holiday season.  I am sure we all are missing someone special in our life that is either not there due to distance or death, but we have to figure out what helps you during that time. For me I miss my dad but I know training daily in the morning is the best things I can do for myself right now. I didn’t always know this and there were times I didn’t catch an episode till it was too late and the depression would last for over a week. Living with clinical depression means being aware of your body and what helps you mentally when you need it. For me it is running, and training in general.

Although I was feeling really awful earlier in the week I am feeling much better just in time for the holidays! To spend time with those who mean the most to me.  Training in the morning is a big part of why I feel better. And now I get to enjoy my Christmas. I am one happy girl. J

So, my next post won’t come till Monday because due to Christmas I will be unavailable. This time it will just be late because I don’t want to interrupt my time with my family not because I had fallen into a depressive episode.


Everyone enjoy your Holidays whatever it may be and as always enjoy the journey.

 

Food

Thankful for my husband

 

So my training went ok this week. Missed about 2 workouts, but I’m okay with that. Today though, I am going to talk about a different topic, food. Food has always been the harder thing for me to do for my health. I can workout all day long but when it comes to food, well I always have excuses. Eating healthy and clean is something that is very difficult for me, and I will freely admit I am a junk food addict. So, what I am going to do is start by gradually introducing healthier foods in my diet week by week. In the past I have done it half ass but now I am going to, constructively, add healthy foods every week and my hope is to gradually be eating clean/healthy in a couple months.

So with each healthy habit I add to my daily diet (veggies, fruits, water, complex carbs) I will then get rid of unhealthy habits.  Chips, fast food, candy, diet pop etc… I am not going to do it all at once because I know myself and I know I would just be setting myself up to fail.  I refuse to do that again a gradual journey that is what I am going for with changes in my eating.

I also refuse to be a slave to the scale. I have a habit of becoming obsessive when it comes to the scale so I will only be weighing myself once a month. I do best with my diet and training when I am not zeroing in on a number on the scale.  Everyone is different but I feel this is the healthiest way for me to start to live a healthy lifestyle.  Not a diet, I despise that word, but a healthy lifestyle that will continue to help me with my journey.

Below I am listing a blog website entry that I read today and it seemed to resonate with me much more than other entries I have read about food in the past and I thought those who read my blog might enjoy it also. This blogger puts into words many things that I have thought in the past, but was unable to communicate it.  I thought listing her blog would be the better way to go rather than regurgitate what she says. Enjoy!

I have Christmas festivities this weekend but will write again on Sunday. Until then as always enjoy the journey.

Here is the link to Sophie’s blog entry.

http://sophieologie.me/2013/09/26/1200-calories/

 

 

 

 

 

Grateful for learning from my mistakes

 

With the start of training again I am adding something different to my running training. Something called Les Mills Combat. It is workout DVD from the same folks that brought you P90X and Insanity. I noticed when I was training for my first half-marathon last time that I needed more spice as running alone got to be a bit boring. Yes, I did add cross training but I changed it up I think too much at times.  This time I am going with the more organized approach by having a set schedule, not just with my running, but with my cross training also. So, the first month I will be adding Les Mills Combat to my training and then after the first month we will go from there. So, for accountability here is my first week of training, I plan to get up each morning and get this done.

 

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
LM Combat 30	LM Hiit Power 30	Combat 45	Hiit:Plyo	45 min run	Hiit: Power	rest day
	30 min run		30 min run

 

I learned a lot of things from that first half marathon. Although I have done a half marathon in the past; I did not document it in a blog like this. Therefore I didn’t learn as much. This blog has allowed me to put my thoughts down and really learn from my training. This is something I am very thankful for. Which is why I will be continuing with my blog I will need to continue to learn with each race to improve and that is my ultimate goal to improve with every race. Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend and as always enjoy the journey.

 

Lessons learned part 2

Grateful for recovery weeks

So I didn’t write until today because this has been a week of lessons. I started working out 2 days after my half marathon, big mistake. I didn’t realize you should really give yourself anywhere from 5-7 days off after a half marathon depending on how well your recovery rate is. Well needless to say after I worked out pretty intensely on Tuesday I was worn out the next day and couldn’t figure out why. So, I looked up recovery after a half marathon. I learned I did 2 things wrong. 1.) I didn’t give myself the necessary rest on my body before I started training again and 2.) Although I was drinking water I should have also been drinking some Gatorade to replenish electrolytes. Well, what do you do but live and learn.

I am finally starting to feel better and much stronger ready to tackle training again. I will admit making such a big mistake upset me. I kept telling myself, rookie mistake, and I should have known better.  It did depress me a bit and made me undermine myself some but I am better now. No one is right all the time and I have to keep telling myself that. I can be a bit (ok a lot) of a controlling person when it comes to myself therefore I am harder on myself. This is something I am constantly working on. It is not easy though. So, I will tell you what I tell myself constantly be kind to yourself no one is perfectJ. I will write more about my upcoming training with Les Mills Combat tomorrow but until then enjoy the rest of your weekend and as always enjoy the journey.

Lessons Learned

I am grateful for soreness after a half marathon

(because it means I did it!)

 

I did my first of 3 half marathons. The next 2 I will be doing in May of 2014. This is not my first ever half marathon or my best timed half marathon, but it is the first one that I have been in the right frame of mind to do a half marathon.

Lets back up first I finished my half marathon in the Twin Cities on Saturday, and for MN weather this time of year, it was a pretty mild 32-35 degrees. This is still the coldest I have run a long race in though. My time was over my 3 hour goal mark. At around the 10 mile mark my exercise induced asthma kicked in due to the cold. I had my inhaler with so I was ok but because of that those last 3 miles were brutal and slowed down my time considerably. Am I upset? After all I trained for months for this only to have this happen. No, I am not upset and the main reason is that I am at a much better place mentally than I have ever been in my life. I can look at what I did and say holy crap I just did 13.1 miles!!  It doesn’t matter if I ran, walked, jogged, shuffled, skipped etc to the finish line I did it!  I committed to this months ago put in the training and did it!

I also learned a very valuable lesson. I need to stick to warmer races for long races. Shorter races I can and have done in cooler months but long races stick to warmer months.  Now I look to future races.

I said I was going to do Insanity but I still want to run 3 times a week and I think the better program for that is Les Mills Combat which are fitness dvd’s that are martial arts, weight training, and HIIT(High Interval Intensity Training) not as intense as Insanity but will give me a good workout and I will be able to run 3 times a week.

Just a quick thank you to my accountability partner Pam whose daily emails helped me out tremendously and my friend Trish Blackwell whose weekly podcast were amazing. The positive feedback from both of them was essential to my training. Again anyone who wants a great podcast and inspirational website go here http://www.trishblackwell.com/.

Well everyone have a great week I will write more on Les Mills Combat later and as always enjoy the journey.