Listening To Your Mind and Body

For the past week and ½ I’ve been at war with my brain about running.

Last week it was extremely hot and humid where I live so running outside wasn’t an option. I could’ve gotten up early and gone but chose not to. I have a gym membership, yet didn’t use it but once during the week.

Maybe it’s because I’m not a morning person. I’m not one at all. I’ve never been and have finally accepted the fact that I need to stop stressing about it and just deal with it. I’m married to a man who is a morning person and my in-laws are morning people but I am not.

So why have I not run?

The answer is simple. I don’t have one.

I love to run. I don’t know why exactly but I do. I think it might be a combination of always thinking when I was young that I would see someone running outside and think that it was amazing that their body could do that and that it took discipline. I also love the way it make me feels after I run but not so much during it.

So why I haven’t I been out there? I still don’t know. I do know that I get lazy like the next person and running is hard. Yup, if you never really thought about it and just spend time beating yourself up mentally for not lacing up and getting out there, just remember: running is freaking hard! As the saying goes, “If running wasn’t hard, everyone would be doing it.” I’m not sure how true it is that everyone would be doing it but you get the idea.

With that said, I’ve decided to work with what I’ve got, which is a non-morning body and mind and just plain being human. There is no point to beating myself up for not getting out there. There is no point in thinking that I can become a morning person and make myself miserable trying.

What there is a point to is I love running and I need to make it enjoyable for ME because I’m not going to be a sponsored or elite athlete, well, ever, so who else am I doing this for? No one.

So don’t beat yourself up if you miss some runs. Don’t beat yourself up if you think you should be getting up early or anything else that you think “everyone else” is doing because they are having the same mental battles you are and there is no point to them. Make things as easy for yourself as you can (but not so easy that you aren’t challenging yourself) and get out there and enjoy yourself!

Ok, tonight when I get home from work I’m going to take my own advice.

Happy running everyone!

I Got Out There!

Yup! I got out there for the first time in over 4 months!

I'm VERY happy too! I got 2 miles under my belt and yes, that belt is now got some extra holes added but I know running will help me get some of this weight off that I've gained during the past 6 months or so.

As I said in my last post, there were a lot of obstacles that got in the way of my running. I need to start getting it through my head that running will actually help me deal with obstacles, not get in the way. So, that's my new goal. To use running as a tool to deal with life.

Wish me luck. I'll be back to report soon!

We Are Only Human

My life has been for lack of a better term, topsy-turvy since the beginning of March.

A quick recap includes my trying to trade in my leased car 3 months early to a very, very crooked dealership, a trip to Ireland and getting ready to move. It’s been a stressful whirlwind to say the least.

Because of all this craziness, I haven’t been taking care of myself. Are these excuses? No, just facts. I find myself over-doing things and when I get into extremely stressful situations, I get emotional and don’t eat well or exercise. I also get sick or have severe back pain. This time it was sick and I’m just starting to get over it now. I’m also just now coming to terms with the fact that this is part of life. Maybe not everyone’s life but definitely mine and I’m sure there are others out there as well.

We are human. I am human, and with this realization, I know that I can only do what I can do and that means forgiving myself and moving on.

My point is that we all need to be kinder to ourselves. Not everything can go as planned. You have to roll with the punches and when the punches bring you down, you need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start a new day. If that new day means starting to take better care of yourself, then do the best you can and move on.

My plan now is to get over this sickness and start to get moving again. I’ve already started eating better but I miss running. I’m going to start by walk/running and go from there.

Who else is with me?!?

10k Recap and Other Stuff

I wanted to post something about my interesting 10k on 1/10 and I’m finally getting the chance.

It took place in Central Park in New York City. I was looking forward to running it for weeks and then as the day got closer, I found myself almost dreading it because of how cold I heard it was going to be. Yup, cold as hell in my opinion. It was 15 degrees with a windchill making it feel like 2 degrees. So no, I wasn’t looking forward to it but I knew when I got up that morning in our hotel room that I would regret not running it in a major way if I backed out. I’m not sure why but I just had this feeling that I would’ve looked back on it and been very upset about it.

Besides the cold it was a beautiful, sunny morning. The race was sold out and there was somewhere around 4500 runners there. I think that’s amazing considering the conditions including the frostbite warnings. Runners are an unbelievably resilient group.

I was dressed well for the conditions, even wearing a balaclava or face/head mask kind of thing which I’m VERY happy I did. I went along with the group, running most of it and walking up the hills. It was very emotional for me in some places because New York City holds a special place in my heart and since losing my mom last year, I was thinking about her as well. I got through it though and even though I had never done a 10k, I was hoping for a time of 1:20-1:30. I finished in 1:23 which I’m very happy about.

I’m going to be doing another 10k in Central Park at the end of March. It’s the NYRR Spring 10k Meltdown. I joined NYRR since I’ve already run two of their races. It’s kind of funny that I did that considering I live almost 200 miles away from New York City but I love going down there and joining their club made my registration for the upcoming 10k only $10 which is pretty cool!

So, about my New Year’s resolutions, I’m still trying to get my act together with losing weight. I just have to cut back on the bread. I love bread. Bread is just my comfort food. Oh well, I’m working on it slowly but surely. I still need to sign up for school for the summer session and as for the marathon, I need to think about that.

I’ll keep you posted!

Checking In

I think one of my New Year’s resolutions should be to be more consistent with things. I seem to lose focus and/or interest with some things including not being very good at updating this blog.

Well, it’s past New Year’s and I already have some resolutions so I guess I’ll add this to the list. I’m not sure how I feel about resolutions. I’m always trying to improve or make changes in myself anyway but I guess this is a way to jump start it.

I think it’s a good idea that I post my resolutions/goals for improvement on this blog to help keep myself accountable. So here goes…

1. I want to finally get to my goal weight since I had my gastric bypass surgery over 3 years ago. I would like to lose 46 lbs by 7/4/15. I am going to start next week so I can get past not only my husband’s birthday today (and the cake I made) but also I’m running a 10k this coming weekend and I don’t think it’s a good idea to change my eating too much before that.
2. Another goal is to go back to school for Psychology. I will need to start nearly from scratch but that’s ok. It’s a goal I’ve wanted to work toward for a long time and it finally feels like the right time. I’m planning to start in the summer semester.
3. I’m not 100% positive about this one but I think I would like to run the Adirondack Marathon in September. I was going to run the one in New Orleans at the end of this month but I decided not to. More on that below.

So those are my very do-able goals for 2015. I’m very excited to accomplish them and I promise I will be better at updating this blog to show my progress!

As for not running the New Orleans marathon, I decided last month that it just wasn’t the right time. After my 12-mile run I was dreading even going out at all to run any amount. Add that to the short amount of time we were going to be able to stay in New Orleans (a city I’ve wanted to go to my whole life which deserves A LOT more time) and money in general (we are going back to Ireland in April) and it just wasn’t right. I’m not upset about it all which is really another sign that I made the right decision.

I’ll update more soon. Happy Tuesday!