Life

It occurs to me that I am not expected to come up with exciting content for this space like I am everywhere else I have to write, but that most of my “readers” (all 3 of you – thanks Mom!) are simply checking in to hear what I’m up to, have a little laugh at my expense, and be able to take a breather from the important Facebook surfing we all do.  Yes, admit it, you do it, too.

So here’s what I’ve been up to, in handy bite-sized bullets that you can enjoy while you watch TV:

• writing zombie Haikus with my new fridge magnet set.  The Captain bought me a set of 200 magnetized words about zombies earlier this week, and I have spent an astounding amount of time composing ridiculous 17-syllable poems about flesh eating chases.  It’s fun.  Over the past year, I have become quite nearly obsessed with impending zombie apocalypses (even though, for the life of me, I can NOT pronounce that word without sounding like I am making a bowl of popcorn in my mouth)  And I haven’t even attempted to do so after a couple of glasses of wine.  Yet.  In any case, zombies are things I think about, so much so that I am considering talking to my landlord about the lack of escape options from my apartment, particularly if they are the fast-moving sort.  Forget being able to escape from a fire, I am not interested in becoming zombie food.
• not running as much as I should be.  My right knee is, oh, a bit screwed.  I am downing glucosamine-whatever like Pez, I rested, I stretch, I ice, I rub, I whine, I wine.  It doesn’t feel nice, and I’m guessing that in a few weeks that 42k won’t, either, but I persevere.  Even if I have to half-crawl that marathon, I will do it.  It will make for a crazy improvement in my PB on my NEXT one, so it’s all good.  I am still gathering donations, and will be until May 30th (perhaps some of you need to know I have finished the damn thing before handing over your cash).  Please contact me and I will take your money.  The offer still stands that if you gather TEN donations for me (you might know richer people than I do) that I WILL TAKE YOU OUT FOR DINNER. See?  I’m awesome that way.
• hanging out with The Captain.  I will post photos when I think to find the cord, download them to my computer etc, etc, but suffice it to say, I am dating Dress-Up Guy.  He has outfits that he plans and executes and orders pieces for, and while all this is a little foreign to me, it’s fun to see what he comes up with.  The latest addition is a kilt in his family tartan, and I must say it looks FAB.  We’ve been getting up to all sorts of things and it’s all Fun and Games and Eating.  He’s also brought out some sort of fashionista in ME, and that’s been fun to explore, as well.
• embracing being a Dog Mummy.  Yes, I have been Baxter’s Mum for nearly 7 years, but now that it’s pretty much the 2 of us as a constant, our closeness has reached a new level that I quite like.  I can’t even explain how much I love that little dude.  I tell him every night (as I get on his pillow with him for a good-night belly rub) that I love him the most; that no one in the whole world loves him more than I do.  This little ritual is special to both of us.  Others are free to love him, but no one ever will more than me.
• coaching.  Certification is coming, I have a small roster of clients lined up, and I feel like I’m hitting some kind of groove. Sure, my website STILL isn’t finished, but I am realizing that maybe that doesn’t matter as much as I think, although, let’s be clear, it will be done at some point prior to June 1.
• getting rich.  I now have a Financial Planner, her name is Connor Brodie (just ASK me how awesome she is and I will talk and talk for days!), and she has drawn up a money plan for me that has me downright excited and saving surprisingly little as I get my coaching practice off the ground (PHEW!  I hate saving!)  As someone who doesn’t think about this stuff beyond just wanting to know I have Enough, I am suddenly very Invested (pun totally intended) in my financial future.  I thought I would have to have High Finance already in order for someone like Connor to help me, but that wasn’t so – she handles whatever money stuff you’ve got (or don’t). She and I are planning a VERY expensive trip to Italy in a few years, to which we’ve both allocated FIVE FIGURES for shopping.  For shoes.  And really good pizza.  We both plan to power-diet before stepping on the plan so as to be at a size deficit.  We have a plan.  See?  Amazing.
• not cooking.  I still manage to make eggs, but I leave a lot of the cooking to The Captain, even when he is in my kitchen at 10:30 making (yummy) soft tacos and it seems way to late to eat.  I do okay at filling the food hole, so you need not worry, I am not about to fade away to nothing.  Unlike Baxter, who would have you believe that he is deprived and starved and beaten and that you should immediately call the SPCA on his behalf.  Trust me.  He eats JUST fine.

If you think I am leading an ultra-exciting-hold-on-to-your-panties life here, you might be a little off.  I’m just live a life.  It’s big, and I love it, but it’s pretty level and even and perfect.  Finally.

Have a great weekend.  Let me know what you’ve been up to.  Send me your donations.

On goals and Lady Gaga

Four things are on the agenda for today – chomp in:

• Back in the fall, when my marriage hadn’t quite had its plug pulled, I set a goal for myself to cut down on my Day Job hours by January in order to be able to spend dedicated time each week on my coaching practice.  Well, it’s March, but it’s happened.  I have been able to make it so I can take some time each week to work on that part of my life, and still make enough to pay for Baxter and I to eat.  It’s a corner I was very happy to turn, and you can expect some big things to be coming outa this little coach.  I talk about balance with my clients a lot, and it sometimes seems like the brass ring we all reach and reach for, but I finally feel like I have a bit more of it.  See that?  It’s the grin on my face.
• I don’t understand Lady Gaga.  Or is it Man Gaga?  I hear rumors, I see beautiful photos, and I see photos that make me recoil.  Last summer, I thought she looked like someone I knew, which is to say I thought she was fairly attractive, but now?  Whoa.  I actually saw a bus shelter ad featuring her (?) and felt a little ill.  At the same time, the person I thought she looked like has grown less attractive to me (some people become less beautiful to me when I see them carrying on in ways that aren’t flattering to them)(I hate watching women sell out and try to become someone they’re not in hopes of getting something they want)   In any case,  I’m not convinced Gaga was the most sane person to begin with; I read an article with her (Rolling Stone?) and had to constantly re-read paragraphs to even get a general idea of what she was talking about.  It was like having a conversation with a crazy person on a bus.  I’m not sure what machinery there is at work there.  Bottom line, while I like to run to Lady Gaga songs (with the exception of her newest one), that is where the admiration ends.
• I am in love with my 5-year Journal It’s a nifty thing: 1 page per day of the year (including Leapyear), separated into 5 years per page.  There are about 5 lines to write for each day, then you go to the next page for the next day and so on.  I love it because it makes me be brief. I don’t get mired in the pressure of being brilliant and poetic.  I am simply leaving behind some words about this day so that a year from now, I will remember the big idea I had, the shitty day I survived, the moments I had.  It can be used to record what you’re grateful for, what you did, what you accomplished, or whatever you wish.  It’s your journal and you get to to be the bosserooni.  Try it.
• I am still in (somewhat lazy) training for my marathon (all part of finding this elusive balance I speak about), but it is coming along.  I am allowing for the possibility that simply finishing the marathon will be enough; I have a lot of stress and things in the air, and I seem to constantly misjudge the impact on my time and energy.  I am still completely and utterly committed to my fundraising goal and have set up a website to collect donations.  PLEASE, PLEASE, pass it along and spread the word.  Special bonus: if you collect 10 donations from your network and hand them over to me, I will TAKE YOU OUT FOR DINNER.  Seriously.  Although it might be soup, I hope that counts as a meal.

So that’s it for today.  See?  I told you I’d be here more often.

 

Ode to Running

Running is on my mind this week.  I am running my third half marathon of the year in 2 days and I’m pretty excited.  Man and are heading to Kelowna tomorrow for a small getaway, and I am quietly hoping for a wicked PB.  My only regret is that Baxter is staying behind, as he’s my most fun cheerleader on any course and makes it go that much faster. 

I’ve been an on-an-off runner for about 20 years.  I picked it up briefly in highschool, but it never took because I was forced to do it in gym class, so it wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of.  I know now I would have been good at it, but I couldn’t bring myself to join track or anything scary like that.  I can still remember Mrs. Howard saying “If you’re going to run slow, you might as well be in a field picking daisies!”  It wasn’t safe to try it and grow at it.  Once I moved away to school, I ran more, but I was also a bit of a smoker then (oh, yes I was!), so obviously I wasn’t super serious about it.  I would go out a couple days a week to try and ward off some of the pounds that were sneaking on. 

When I met Man (and had long since quit smoking) I really got a little more serious about it.  I remember our first run together along the water in Victoria; it was the longest 20 minutes of my life and I whined and bitched the whole way.  I think I even cried.  I persevered and kept at it, running my routes and celebrating as I reached milestones: 10 minutes without stopping, 20 minutes without stopping, my first 5k, my first 8k, quitting, re-starting etc etc.  I would run in the dark so people couldn’t see my jiggly ass and purple face, then graduated to not giving a crap what people thought as they drove by.  At least I was DOING it, and it was more than than they were doing, sitting in their cars.  I ran but it’s truly been an evolution to call myself a Runner and appreciate just what this little body is really capable of.  Today, I know I’m suited to long distance running; my lungs love it (I can almost run with my mouth closed!), my body seems to roll with it, and my soul aches to do it.  Gone is the purple face, not gone is the jiggly ass (it just refused to go!), and always usually there is a smile on my face. 

My first 10k was an hour and 8 minutes around Elk Lake in Victoria.  I cried when I finished, I was so proud of myself.  This was the first glimmer of becoming a Runner.  It was magic.

Over the years, I’ve picked it up and dropped it a number of times.  I’ve missed it, I’ve hated it.  But I always seem to come back.  Running is like that, it’s always there, and you can’t beat the price.  For the cost of shoes and something to wear, you’re in the game.  Sure, it’s frustrating to start at the beginning after a break to get back up to speed, but it’s satisfying, and my hours of training have come to be some of my favorite workouts.   I like competing with myself and pushing myself.  There is a hill near my house that always killed me, so I never added it to my route, and now I do it almost every time I go out.  I use Nine Inch Nails “Closer” to get up it, but I do it and am still standing at the end.

My first half, in 2005 (the same year I turned 30) was slow…my goal was to complete it without any mediacal intervention, and I did, in 2:38:11.  I walked like a zombie for 4 days and had trouble sitting, but I did it.

Nowadays, I’m faster, and halfs don’t make me sore at all.  I have my system down with energy gels and what not, although I still tend to struggle with pacing.  I’m like Baxter that way, I get caught up in whoever’s passing me and speed up (he thinks he’s a sprinter when people run past us as we walk – cute!) and then die in a few minutes.  Like my work life, it’s about pacing myself.

Running is a group sport that’s individual; I get support from every other runner on on the road, but I don’t have to work out with them.  No one questions that I run when I go to buy new shoes.  No one ever says, “You gained 15 pounds, you can’t possibly be a runner!” Instead, they ask what kind of mileage I do in a week.  Anyone can do it. 

As I move into this next race, I’m optimistic for a PB, I’m proud of myself for sticking with it and pushing through a pretty bad last-race, and looking so forward to wearing my medal for the day.  Perhaps the whole week.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Wednesday Woes II

I love Diary of a Modern Matriarch.  She posted this today at her Primal site, so I jumped right on the complainy bandwagon and well, here we are.  Life is good, blah, blah, blah…and it goes against all my Pollyanna training from my childhood, but I feel like bitching it out.  I refuse to look at the bright side, I refuse to put my chin up.  I am just going to enjoy the suckitude.

• my hips HURT.  My long run on the weekend left my left hip very sore, and now the right is joining in on the fun.  I am just trying to get through to the race before completely falling apart.
• A friend of mine is dating someone that he thinks I “hate” – and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  I like to see him in the company of people he enjoys and I LOVE to see him happy and the few times I’ve met her, I’ve found her to be wicked-smart, articulate and positively lovely – they’re great together – I don’t waste my time hating anyone because it’s a big fat waste of my time, I just don’t like that it’s affected our friendship in unexpected ways.  He seems to have changed and taken his friendship away since meeting her, and that’s my issue with it.  Doesn’t he know there can be room for everyone?
• Our Dog Nanny has left us, which means I spend lunchtime bolting home to let the cross-legged dog out for a pee.  It also means he is way less socialized lately.  Looking for a new one is making me want to drink.
• It isn’t Friday yet.
• I am not likely to go on a vacation with Man until February of next year.  He is going away in November (on a trip I likely wouldn’t enjoy) and while I know he needs a sunny holiday,  I’m going to miss him like crazy (we’ve never spent more than a week apart in 14 years!) and I wish there had been a little more intention to his vacation planning.  It’s water under the bridge, but it still sucks.
• Tyler Clementi’s story makes me sick.  So does bullying.  I wish he didn’t have to jump from a bridge for us all to realize what needs to be done.
• It looks my last living Gramma has a big tumor in her brain and that she might not be around much longer.
• There are giant spiders in my basement.  Seriously.  I deal with them, but I scream the whole time.

Ok, so maybe I didn’t have that many woes.  In true Me fashion, I will now flip it, even though I didn’t want to do so:

• it is so sunny out that I have trouble dressing in the morning; I bundle up for the morning, but my noon, I’m gleefully ipping off my clothes and opening the sun roof on my car….weeeee!
• I get to go away with Man this weekend to Kelowna for the race.
• Race will be over in 4 sleeps.  Holy crap.
• Man is able to peek in on the dog today, so I can have lunch the way I like it; seated at my desk working
• I ran the fastest 5K in a long time last night. 
• I’m having dinner with a dear friend tonight and I can’t wait to see her
• We have a big exciting month to look forward to: dinners in, dinners out, weekend guests, hot tub soaks, cozy fall stuff.
• I am sure I’ll be getting a PB at the race this weekend, by more than ever before.
• It’s flannel pj season again!
• I’m writing again and it feels good
• I sourced out the perfect furniture for my home office, and it’s even affordable!
• I start my 30 day yoga challenge tomorrow…wee!

What about you? What’s going wrong and right for you?

How Running = Life

I read a great post the other day over at Bodies in Motivation (one of my favorite sites, EVAR) and it’s stuck with me, I’ve even used it in a couple coaching sessions with clients.  It’s about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and as I am apt to do with most nuggests of wisdom, I carried it from applying to running to applying it to life and realized I do that with LOTS of things:

• So yeah, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a great idea.  In running, it means pushing your body till it is in that stretching/growing place and it means you’re getting faster and stronger while you are wondering if, in fact, your lungs actually will exit out your ears as you do it.  It also applies to most things: being uncomfortable isn’t always a bad thing.  It can mean you’re being stretched and that you’re learning something about what you’re capable of.  How’s that!
• Another thing I repeat to myself often as I approach a big hill: hills only seem big until you’re on them.  Looking ahead, everything unknown seems daunting; a big move to a new city, a new job, suddenly finding yourself single, but once you’re IN it, and just doing it, instead of looking ahead and whining about how scary it looks, I promise it won’t seem so bad.  I used to be the worst hill runner.  I would make up my mind at the bottom that it was too hard and resolve to making my way half way up before stopping.  Would that have served me getting through life?  NO.  I couldn’t stop midway through any crisis, and a hill is the same.  Now, I power through them and realize on the way up that it’s not as bad as it looked at the bottom.  Once I have reached the top, though, I do stop to allow my lungs to exit through my ears. 
• In training for my races, I am very often met with people who are astounded at my (somehow superhuman?) ability to run 21.1 km in a single shot, and not to be arrogant, but it actually doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me anymore.  I train for them, I know what it feels like, I know my body is capable of it if I just treat it right and listen to it.  My nugget of wisdom around this one?  Nothing is that hard if you’re prepared for it.  It’s that simple.  If I talked to a super-smart engineer and they told me they were going to build some sort of fancy whatsit that would do my laundry for me, then I would be astounded at their skill.  But if I had studied and prepared and figured out all the mathematical shit to go along with such a feat, it wouldn’t seem so freaky.  Ok, perhaps imagining me as an engineer is a poor example, but you get the picture.  Throw anyone into completely unknown territory and of course it looks like a big challenge, but train and prepare, and nothing is that hard.  Taking the unknown out of anything makes it manageable.
• It took me a long time to figure out that I wanted to be a coach, and along the way I floundered and fumbled a lot.  A lot.  Just ask my super-patient husband and family – it was the flavor-of-the-year as far as careers for the longest time).  It also took me a long time to make some sort of peace with my body and start treating it right.  About this I always said “Slow and Steady finishes the race” and I still believe that.  I don’t always practice it when I run or when I operate my coaching practice (preferring instead the race, race, race, crash method of operating which I am working on) but it’s a good lesson for lots of things.  Have patience with yourself, it will pay off in the end.  Bad pacing will kill you in a race, and it will also fail to serve you in life.

Long may you run (in your sneakers and in life).

Busy Bullets

• On the house-selling front, we’ve been cleaning, and showing, and cleaning, and showing…and sadly, not selling.  Eveytime someone wants to see the palace, we have to clear the dog out, which means he has been spending a lot of time with me at work.  No one seems to mind him, and he spends a great deal of time trying to make me think he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. 
• On the running front, I am in a bit of a funk.  My last race felt like such a hellish form of torture that I was left not loving it.  My job now is to suck it up and start training again, trusting that the love will return.  In any case, I’ve lost my way a little and have been living like a frat boy with the munchies.  Not good.
• We’ve been enjoying summer around here: camping, hiking, riding the motorcycles…yay for the heat!
• Spending the day at the beach is way under-rated.  I did it yesterday, and I am still basking in the glow.
• I am planning a few coachy-type things for the fall…stay tuned.
• We are heading to a family reunion this weekend.  It’s going to be a long drive, but it will likely be fun.  Better be, anyway.
• I am  in a huge state of transition with a lot of things I do: running, coaching, working, schoolwork etc etc…expect there to words about this soon.
• My trip to Vancouver Island to visit the lavender farms was lovely – I will leave you with a photo:

Listy Loo Weekend Goo

Yay!  It’s the weekend!  Here’s what’s happening at Chez Big Life:

• dog walks, lots of ‘em.
• Sarah and Zoltan’s Wedding!
• Dinner Date with Man
• Hike with Lovely Katesy, avoiding the Sun Run
• 3 mile run
• 8 mile run
• grocery shopping
• cleaning the house
• cooking for the work week – no more not eating lunch for me!
• Coaching work, coaching work, and a little more coaching work.  I have my eye on the prize.
• Sleeping, napping, and dozing.

Sounds like bliss.  What are you up to?

Half #1 – April Fool’s Run (Sunshine Coast)

Pre-race: Baxi and Me

You’ll recall that I only really had 6 weeks to train for this one; it was the running equivalent of cramming for an exam.  I stuck to the training schedule the whole way; running 3-4 times per week, weights and stretching on non-running days with 1 day off per week.  I slipped into a great groove, and only a few of the runs were those dreadful sort that make me sure I’m going to barf up my lung along the way.  I even had a few runs that were the Best Ever, leaving me wanting to go on another right away.  Wicked.

There was one horrible run, my longest in the training process, about a week before the race.  I ran 17km – the first 7 were brilliant, I was ahead of pace and feeling great, then I got to that STUPID loop around the lake that I always hate.  I always think it’s going to be different, but it just never is.  I think it’s just boring, and that makes my mind go to all the various shit that’s going on in my body…”Oh, crap, my hip hurts…what’s wrong with my calf?  Is my ass jiggling?  Shit, that old man just passed me!  Oh, no…now I’m behind pace.  Maybe I should just walk the WHOLE THING.  I’m such a loser.  What the hell I am thinking?? Maybe I shouldn’t even show up for the race.  I already paid for it though…I want some ice cream.  I have never been so bored in my life.  I wonder what Man’s doing right now…”

It was torture to taper the week before; I had tremendous amounts of guilt and it felt so odd to not be running.  Man came home late one night and found me fretting over the overlap of training for the next race and I’m quite sure he was about to ask me who I was and what I had done with his wife.  I was a teeny bit obsessed.  I stopped pressuring myself, though, and just remembered that I would be fine on race day, and that I was as ready as I could be.

I prepped my fuel the night before, laid out the running outfit, the change-into after outfit, the paraphernalia for the dog to come along, and ate some carbs – a bowl of perogies and some salmon.  I’ve never felt so bloated and gross.

We were up at 5am, caught the 7 am ferry (for which I reserved a spot that I didn’t even have to – THAT’s sure satisfying!), and after much strategic bathrooming (the very definition of my worst nightmare is having to GO during the race) I was at the start line waiting to go.  Pre-race food: I ate oatmeal at home, and a banana, and then had black coffee on the ferry boat (I normally use creamer, but I couldn’t bear to ingest their powdery whitener.)(Ick.)

In any case, the race went really well.  The first 8k or so was great, then my knee started to feel tired – not aching, just fatigued.  I pushed through and was right on pace until the Hills.  3km of Hills between 14 and 17k.  That’s what did me in.  I recovered okay, tried not to beat myself up when I realized I was nowhere near finishing when I thought I would.  I had aimed for 2:25, but finished in 2:29:50.  A Personal Best, but still.

The best part of the day was Man and Baxter meeting me all over the course and cheering me on like I was a rockstar.  They seemed to know just where to appear to tell me I looked great and lift my spirits a little.  Baxter could be heard from miles away and was inconsolable as I ran away from him.  As they drove past, I could hear him howling in the truck allllllll the way down the road.  Cute.

Mid-race...

I didn’t need my energy gel during the race, but I wonder if I should have used it anyway…maybe it would have been like jet fuel on those hills!  I did get Gatorade and water at every aid station, and that seemed to work well for me.  I chuckle at these people who carry enough fuel for a week in the woods, or run with their keys and change jinglin’ about in their pockets (would make me CRAZY!  Are they gonna buy something?) I just hate carrying stuff, so that tends to drive my race attire.  Perhaps if I had a wee sherpa, I wouldn’t pack so light.

The race was Gibsons to Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast, and the people there are SO lovely!  They were encouraging and supportive and very sweet.  It’s totally a run I would do again.  The only thing that threw me was the number of people in the race;  I guess I’m just used to bigger races, and I am almost always a mid-pack runner, which is just fine with me.  With this one, I was very near the back, which was unnerving.  I guess there are a lot of elite/fast-as-shit runners in this one.  The winner did it in an HOUR.  I had just hit the 10k ish mark at that point.  Oh dear.

The important part of the race is looking great as you cross the finish.  Great photos, I just refuse to buy images of myself looking like this!

I was really proud of myself.  I have left old expectations of me behind, I trained faithfully.  In the past, I would have realized I was behind, then just given up and resigned to having a bad run.  This time, I really feel like I did as well as I could have.  It made me realize that I really have made changes in my life, and that I am destined for whatever I bloody decide I am.

A medal.  Bragging rights.  A well-deserved nap.  A great run with zero soreness the next day.  The next one is in 11 weeks.  Here we go.

Biting the medal...just like an Olympian! HA

Reality Check

Where to even start…I have lost about 18 lbs since January of this year, 6 of these in the last month, and I would like to be able to shout it from the rooftops, but the truth is, I feel like a bit of a fraud right now.

I actually can’t tell you how exactly those pounds went away; it certainly wasn’t from exercise, because aside from 2 half-assed runs in the past 2 weeks, I’ve barely moved, insisting that dog walks and my commute to transit on foot each morning counts; it hasn’t been my diet, which has been lacking, non-existent, or closer to what a frat boy would grab on the way to a kegger than what someone who has come to appreciate and honor her body would consume.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve been happy and busy. 

I know I haven’t really felt like cooking a lot, haven’t felt like being in my kitchen (to give you an idea, I finally cleaned up this weekend and found a bag of veggies/lunch remnants on the counter in a reusable shopping bag, and everything in it had leaked, FUSING the bag to the countertop.  This explains the smell in the kitchen, the recent fruit fly infestation, what a lazy slob I am, how infrequently I have been making out with my kitchen.  I have gleefully consumed food put in front of me, but I have zero desire to create any of my own.

I dutifully buy the right foods every Sunday, so they can sit in the fridge and go bad.  I carry the water bottle but don’t drink from it.  I put on the sports bras, but only to kick around the house.

This is not how an athlete eats.  And yes, I have come to think of myself this way.  Not because I am a hard-core Iron Woman, but because if I think of myself as an athlete trapped in this body that still carries too much body fat, if I think of myself this way, then I am on the way to being this way.  It makes sense to me. 

This morning, it struck me as I walked up the stairs with my laundry, that I could feel my back JIGGLING.  This is not good.  I feel great, for the most part, about where I’m at and that all my pants can now be removed without undoing them, But (yes, with a capital B) this feels like a hollow victory.  Like I am now one of those skinny people who are in terrible shape.  I want to be a smaller person with a muscular, fit body. 

In a refocus exercise, I jotted down a few things this morning that will get me on my way:

• scheduled exercise: running (C25K) 3x per week, 30 Day Shred or Bikram’s Yoga 3x per week.  I can get in 30 minutes (see below).  I am not that busy.

• resume eating clean and like I am not on vacation – mindfully, several times per day, including protein and complex carbs at each meal etc, etc.  I know this Shit!
• find some races to run in the coming months – my ideal goal is to get to a really fast 5K, leading me to a faster 10K and eventually a really fast half marathon.  I was inspired/smacked in the head this morning when I learnt that a friend of mine had just run a half in her PB of 1:30.  A year ago today, I was sorely walking about my office after completing my 2nd half marathon the day before – today I couldn’t be farther from that.  Lighter than I was then, but farther in every other respect.  Time to get moving!

At one with the Bikrams

So last summer I invested in a 40-class membership to a local Bikrams yoga studio. The thought was to go throughout the summer and into the fall, and use it to augment my running and lose allllll sorts of weight. I went to four classes right after I bought the pass, one in November, and one in December. Yes, quite the commitment. My problem is that I didn’t actually like it all that much. It felt like a chore to go into the (sometimes literally) stinking hot room, contort myself through all the poses, spending 90 minutes that I could be spending elsewhere. Running was faster and I did have a marathon to train for, so I started opting to do that instead.

Fast forward to last week: I gave Bikrams a second thought, as I really want to drop a few more pounds before trashing my knees by running with all this extra bulk….I went to the website, looked around, logged in, and found that HOLY SHIT I have 34 classes to use up by the end of June (or I lose my money). Well, there’s some motivation I can get behind!

So I am back at it – I hit 3 classes last week, and will get to 4 or 5 this week.  The first two classes, I gave myself permission to not like it, and I really didn’t.  But the 3rd class and the class tonight were AWESOME.  I started really getting in tune with myself, and as I learn what is demanded of the poses, I find I can settle into them and meet them, like old adversaries.  I am improving with each class – deeper, longer, harder – it’s fabulous.  Tonight I was able to get into a tree/toe pose, which I had never been able to before, and I suddenly GOT the camel pose – the teacher even remarked that she could tell a light had gone off for me.  Pretty cool.  I do have some limitations that frustrate me (boobs that prevent me from lying flat on my front, a stomach that is still big enough that it physically gets in the way of what I want to do (touch my forehead to my knee). *sigh* I choose to focus on the good parts.

It’s fun to see what I can do and be able to improve so quickly.  It’s satisfying to be in a pose and see the sweat dripping onto my towel, hearing my heart thunder in my body, but my breath rising and falling as it normally does.  I had to be away this past weekend (away from Bikrams) and I dare say, I missed my classes.  I thought about going all day today, looking forward to leaving a crap-awful day behind.

I don’t tend to have the longest of attention spans, so I am anxious to see if my interest remains after the passes are used up…hope so!