A week off....

Well, it's been like a friggin week since I've worked out at all. Started with a party weekend where I was too hung over each day to do my long run and kept getting pushed out. A day of beer drinking and TV on Sunday didn't help set me up for success on Monday... but I had a lot of fun :-)
And then... I guess I've basically been low-grade sick since then cause it's been like waking the dead every morning this week. I kept 'snoozing' till 10AM (yeah... the alarm starts at 6:30am!). But today I was able to roll out of bed at 9 so I think I'm on the road to return. I guess I have to be gentle and keep giving my body the sleep and nurturing it needs so that's what I'm doing. Unfortunately, we have about 4 weeks till the run so I'm a bit stressed about that. I guess I just have to keep moving forward...
So I hope everyone is healthy or getting there and that your training is going well. Wishing everyone good health and good luck! see ya in a month :-)
-t

Halloween Training

Teresa the Dark Fairy Makes All Your Dark Wishes Come True...

5th Chakra and Marlena Dietrich Get Busy


Our little fallen angel....

Flaming Fires

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure you all have heard about the crazy fires that are happening all over SoCal. Kevin and I are fine and don't think we are in any immediate danger. This is the first time we've been happy to be surrounded by concrete. The air is completely toxic and visibility is horrible. Our school is closed for the week and I am doing some work from home.

We have been watching the news throughout the day to stay informed and trying to diffuse our anxious boredom.

Please join me in a rain dance!

my longest (and hardest) run ever

yay- i did 6.5 miles today! the best motivator for me now is saying that i will do something and then i do it - or do more! i did the treadmill at the gym at the hotel on friday - i told myself i was going to run saturday morning, but i found time in between the meeting and dinner out on friday. after sitting so long on the plane and in the meeting it felt good. my goal was 2 miles, but i felt so good that i did 3.5. the other factor is continuing to stretch myself - especially since that 13 mi goal is looming. today my goal was 5 mi - although when i got in my groove on mi 2 i thought i might be able to do 7, but after mi 3.5 - holy crap did it get hard!! - but it really helped to walk a minute every mile like hal higgens said. i did this by time, since my usual pace is 16 min. At mile 4 I found i had some new time/distance related issues including: my left arm got incredible tired, i got chafey under my right arm, and i got pretty snotty as my head was draining. At around mile 5 i bonked and stopped running nonvolitionally - it was weird that i stopped even though i didn't tell myself to stop. i let myself walk for 1.5 min then got back to running - slowly (oh also the sun was BLAZING). after that i walked a little after every half mile. i thought i had hit 6, so i was surprised that when i mapped it - 6.5 - whew. the trouble with out and back is that i wanted to leave room to do more, so i went out 4. when i got back - i still had to walk about a mile and a half. i'm so glad to be HOME! - i feel good for the accomplishment. tomorrow i rest, but i think i should start a light weight routine to assist my training. might help with the arm thing.
we can do it!!

Weekend Survival Guide

I have been struggling with weekend eating. I get regular emails fro Spark People and thought that it really hit home for me.

Please read the article. I even printed out the little Weekend Survival Guide to stick in my purse.

Also, I am starting to go to Weight Watchers meetings. I've reached a lifetime goal with Weight Watchers before and I really feel like I need something to push me along.

also checking in

Hi guys -
I'm getting back into running - i did 2 miles on Saturday - trail run, and went to the gym on monday evening and did 2 miles. knee gives me twinges, but is holding out. i thought the germ battle was over, but in fact is still ongoing -- i had to get up early tues and today, so less sleep and drained - teaching the new sales reps - takes a lot out of me and my throat is sore and i'm stuffed up - slight fever. still can't get rid of the bug - or keep getting new ones? AND - flying tomorrow for business, back Saturday (not as glamorous as one would think, jet-setting around, although i will be staying at a nice hotel). i went to east west bookstore and check me out - i bought a travel neti pot made out of space-age plastic! so i'm packing. i pray that my health will improve and not get worse and i will try to be gentle with myself. i plan on using the hotel gym on saturday morning. great work you guys - you inspire me!! in fact, you ROCK - Lisa and Michelle and Amy and Tom !!

Just Checking In...

Not much - feeling kinda poopy, but just started my period (TMI?) so that's probably to be expected. Positive note: I ran 9.5 miles on Saturday and Tom ran 10! Not so positive news - ended up totally gluttoning on food and alcohol Saturday and Sunday.

Have to have a new routine for these long runs and my recovery afterwards. Anyways, kinda depressed but I just wanted to see how everyone was doing and let you all know I'm still here.

Love AMY

PS - Lisa, I have a crazy long post in response to your question, but I haven't finished and right now I don't have the energy to do it - but hang in there and I hear you, that's the question right? More in detail to follow. ;-)

Checkin' in and Re-Evaluating

Hi Everyone,

First off, some really good news: Kevin and I will definitely be moving up to your neck of the woods by year's end. Both of us have officially been offered amazing jobs and are really excited to be heading out of San Diego. I will be up in Scotts Valley in mid-November for a week-long training and looking for housing and then working from San Diego until we move in December. Kevin is going to be working in Moss Landing at the Marine Laboratory/Station starting the first of 2008! I know that several of you have been keeping your fingers crossed for us, so I wanted to thank you for your support over the last month or so.

Amy's last post really motivated me to re-evaluate my health and fitness goals. So I'm going to put it out there for ya'll to read.

Lisa's Number Goals:

• Lose 12-15 pounds
• Achieve and maintain 15% body fat

Lisa's Eating Goals:

• Drink more water
• Add more fiber to my diet
• Eat less beef
• Limit my frozen yogurt treats to once a week
  
• Eat more veggies
• Eat consistently
• Track calories consistently
  

Lisa's Fitness Goals:

• Strength train 2 times a week
• Two 30-40 minute runs a week
• One long run/hike a week
• Cross train 2 times a week
• Ideally I would like to move my body 30-40 minutes everyday.
• Sign up for another half-marathon

Overall, I just want to be happy in my own skin and push my body, within reason, to do the things that I know I am capable of doing. I don't want the way my body feels to hinder me from doing the things that my mind wants to do. I want to build a strong foundation so that I can continue to achieve my health and fitness goals throughout my life. I want to keep evolving!

Question for you all: Why is it that exercise and eating healthy are the first two things that we choose to let go of during times of high stress/travel/when we're tired, {insert any feeling here}? For me personally, I know that even though I know how good exercise makes me feel, I still won't go to the gym when I've got a busy schedule. I'll push everything else in front of exercise without thinking twice about it. I know what it feels like to accomplish my eating and fitness goals and I've been proud of every single one I've accomplished, but that alone isn't enough to keep me motivated to commit to making regular exercise and healthy eating a lifestyle. Do you guys have any thoughts about this? How do I make these two things a priority with myself?

Changing the Focus (this is a long one, but I hope you read it)

Hello all,

First a check-in - where's everyone at? I didn't work out Monday or Tuesday morning but then Tom poked me into getting on the treadmill last night while we watched The Biggest Loser, so I ended up walking for 51 minutes, which was great. This morning we went to the gym (its been really hard to motivate myself to wake up in the morning recently - but I made myself turn on the light when the alarm went off which helped) and I did a super-hard, super-fast upper body workout BodyForLife style and walked 15 minutes on the treadmill. It felt really good to push myself and reminded me of why I started this whole process in the first place - to feel better!

My goal for this week is to lose 4 lbs. That sounds like a lot, but when I weighed in Sunday at 153.5 I hadn't been drinking enough water for 2 days, so I was retaining a lot. So I'm positive that with accountability, eating well and exercising I can achieve my goal of 149(.5?) by next Monday.

Which brings me to my next item of business - it sounds like we have ALL been struggling with our motivation and bodies recently. I know Michelle has been feeling like she has to completely get out of the process, and I know Teresa has been battling several colds, Tom and I have been feeling poopy and stressed and Lisa has been traveling.... so........ I want to put out a clarification on what I would like this blog to be.

I don't see this blog as only for the Las Vegas Half Marathon training. The whole reason I decided I needed an event-specific goal at all was for motivation to get off my ass and lose weight and get active again. That to me is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS!!! For me, having you all to hash out some of this stuff with (my frustrations with myself and my lack of motivation/ability to wake up in the morning or desire to proceed or body limitations/injuries) is really helpful. I'm wondering if maybe some of you think that you shouldn't post if you aren't training (Tom and me last week) or like Michelle, feel like you can't participate in the LV 1/2 marathon. I think the idea of doing this resonated with all of us because we were all feeling like we wanted to get healthy and in shape and lose extra weight and feel better in our bodies. So... I would like to open up the blog to expand the posts to include WHEREVER we are in our own personal journey of health and wellness. And yes, I want to know about your training. And I also want to know if you realize you can't run but that you CAN do weight workouts and yoga. What is your process like? I also want to encourage all of us to re-examine and share our personal fitness and health goals. Its really helpful to get BACK in touch with WHY we want to do any of this in order to keep up the momentum. I know for me its imperative.

If this is just annoying to you and I'm really pissing you off with all this, you could put that up too. Well, I hope everyone knows I'm not trying to piss them off, but if you are having a strong reaction to this maybe there's something to look at. Personally, I'm noticing that I have been building up this resistance to change the closer it comes - the more I train, the more effect my choices have on my abilities to do the training and the more resistant I've become. For example - not going to bed early, drinking etc., not eating enough food during the day, eating the wrong kind of foods, not drinking water, etc. ad nauseum... Tom was mentioning this feeling that comes up for him whenever he starts to lose belly fat - a deep desire to overstuff himself with food, liquor, drugs, whatever. Its these boundaries that we hold that keep us where we are all at - and changing our actions and bodies brings all of these things to the forefront. And it can be UNCOMFORTABLE when these emotions come up - obviously, I didn't want to address these feelings before, that's why I freaking swallowed them, hello! So I'm trying to be really soft and compassionate with myself on this emotionally by acknowledging that I don't suck because I don't want to get up and work out, that its a part of my emotional process that I can look at and move through if I realize that I really DO want to change. All the while persevering through my internal kicking and screaming to make myself get out there and do SOMETHING even when I don't want to. Maybe its not a fast run or even a run, but its doing SOMETHING to shift my energy, to move my physical body and therefore to move myself forward emotionally.

I hope you find this helpful and that it encourages you to connect with yourself and your community here. I love you all and I really want ALL of us to be successful with EVERYTHING we want to achieve. And I definitely know that this physical energy is one manifestation of our whole lives - one that we actually do have some concrete control over. That can be hugely empowering - and by remembering that, maybe it can help with other areas of your life that you don't feel so empowered by. Ok?

We did it - 8 miles

So despite kind of slacking on our running training the last 2 weeks (we did hiking, walking and weight workouts, but not much actual running), Tom and I made a commitment to ourselves to keep up with the long runs - no matter how long it takes us. So Saturday we ran 8 miles (well, we walked some of it, but we went 8 miles overall). I definitely could feel it, although part of what I was feeling was joy. It was a lot of fun. I listed to Justin Timberlake's FutureSexLoveSounds and just jammed. That is a great album to run to. Towards the very end (last mile) I was getting a not-quite right feeling in my legs (as in injury could happen, better adjust). So I walked some and then changed my stride to really engage my butt and arms to push myself off rather than clodding down with my knees and flat feet (I tend to clunk a lot when I'm tired and don't use my muscles). My legs felt better, and then when I got back to the car I stayed and did a lot of stretching as I cooled down which helped immensely the rest of the weekend. I wore my heart rate monitor and that was a really big help - I wasn't trying to keep myself in a % heart rate, but I did pay attention to my perceived efforts and how that correlated to my heart rate beats-per-minute. And it was nice to see the amount of calories burned at the end.

Hi Everyone

This is way overdue. Life has been tough lately. I went to the doc a few weeks ago about my leg. Nothing too informative. Prescribed some physical therapy that I can't afford, so trying to figure that out. It doesn't look like I'll be running with you in Vegas, which really bums me out more than I can say. I'm still anxious to get back out there and running, but I can't yet :(. Besides that, the rest of my life is all upside down and changing and scary and hard and it freaks me out so I haven't written about it or checked in for a while. I hope everyone is doing great and avoiding injuries and having fun. I've been nursing an injured heart (emotionally, not physically) the last few weeks and I hate to admit that that's interrupted my exercise schedule more than my physical injury. I've been walking and done a lot of garden work and managed to stay physical, but I finally managed to get 30 min on the stairmaster yesterday. That felt good. I want to know how all of you are doing too. Teresa, did you do the 5k? How'd it go? How is everything going for everyone?