On To the Next Physical Challenge

 

The morning air was only somewhat hot and sticky when my Friend, E, picked me up to drive to the Jan Peek race on Saturday.

Our sleep the night before had been merely mediocre, as we were both a bit apprehensive and nervous about the impending race. She, because she hadn’t run in a couple of weeks; me, because I’d never run a 10K before. We’d both gotten up at 6:00 am and pinged each other on Facebook. It felt like an early morning high five – we’re up; we’re nearly heading out; yay!

We wanted to make sure we got there with time to casually check in (and get free t-shirts), so we ended up arriving about 40 minutes early. As the race start time was postponed 15 minutes, we had a ton of time to spare. Runners big and small, stylish and not so much so, all milled about in lose groups, some coming up to ask us about our shoes and their comparative performance.  We were both wearing our Merrell Barefoot Foot Gloves. Hers are a lovely shade of violet and mine are pink. Our feet looked like the happy lady sisters that they were.  E answered most of the questions, as she has much more experience than me.

It was lovely doing the race with a friend. The experience gave us some down time to simply chat, which is generally hard to carve out, as we both juggling work, home, and motherhood. While we didn’t run together very long, as her pace is far beyond mine, it was pleasant going to and through the process together. Jan Peek was a back and return race this year, so we passed each other mid-way through the course, which was neat. I hope we’re able to do more races together.

The next thing we knew, the race organizers asked us all to gather in the street, and we all started to run as a pack. Some peeled away quickly, then others’ paces took them around a corner, and then the back of the pack moved on. After a quick chat, E moved along finding someone else farther up to pace herself with, which was great. I knew I would be one of the slowest, and was totally okay with that. I wasn’t there to try to best any time or try to be Wild E Coyote. I was there to run the entire course and finish it, regardless of time.

For most of the race, I was one of the final five. There was the woman with the earphones, the couple running together, the woman in pink and me (the lady in red). On the down slopes they’d try to outpace one of us, but they’d generally slow down on the up slopes and a new order would emerge. My pace felt like it remained constant on the ups and downs. Generally, I’d pull ahead on the ups and fall behind one or more on the downs, and I realized that they had trained to be able to do that and I hadn’t. It gave me something to think about for future training.

Ultimately, while I was the final person to complete the race, I did complete it, and I approached the finish line with a police escort, which was neat. I also learned that I’d bested my prior 10K run number by 15 minutes, which shows me that I can push myself harder on my normal runs than I thought possible.

E and I have already discussed other 10Ks we can do locally this fall, as well as other race options. How is your training going?

###

In other news, check back tomorrow for our first guest blogger! My friend, and author, Christina Bost Seaton will be discussing balance and her book Say Ciao to Chow Mein: Conquering Career Burnout.

Rest Day

Image by Roslan Tangah (aka Rasso) via Flickr

This is my first post about inactivity. I thought I should make note of it, because, unlike the rest of my blog, it’s about intentional inaction, which does not come easily to me. And, please note, this picture (-->) is not me...but it sure looks like she's reaxing, doesn't it?

Basically, I’ve always been the type of person who has very intense periods of relaxation when they do in fact happen.  Friends who have travelled with me on vacation have been shocked at how inactive I can become, because I’m normally multi-tasking up a storm. Once someone I was travelling with threw a hairbrush at me in order to try to rouse me from lying on my bed in utter exhaustion so that we could go bar hopping. It didn’t work.

Not that the rest of life stops when I take a moment out of one aspect of the daily/weekly/whatever grind/plan/whatever. I still have work, chores and fun activities planned for the day, but there will consciously be no planned exercise.

I’m taking the time out because tomorrow morning I’m running my first 10K (6.2 mile) ever. It’s stunning to me that this is in fact happening, because up until a couple of months ago, I couldn’t run more than a mile without dropping. A friend and I signed up for the race and are carpooling. Our Dear Husbands and Dear Children will be there to greet us at the finish line. My goal is simply to finish while still moving forward. Wish me luck!

 ***

In other news, next Tuesday my friend and author Christina Bost Seaton will be posting a guest blog post here! Come check it out! It’s all about finding balance in life, which is also the subject of her book Say Ciao to Chow Mein: Conquering Career Burnout.

Related articles

• On relaxation (mavenlinks.wordpress.com)
• Relax Already: Make a Cup of Tea (fitsugar.com)
• 8-Week Beginner 10K Running Schedule (fitsugar.com)
• 8/5/11 - Friday - Importance of Rest and Recovery/Avoid Overtraining (midwestfit.com)

Kate Middleton's Bod



Ok, so since I'm on a diet, body conscience kick with the celebrity coverage, I had to opine on Kate Middleton’s diet, wardrobe, hotness, etc.

I grew up in a family who’s women folk have always discussed two other families as though they live(d) down the block: the Kennedys and the Royals.  The Kennedys seem to have moved away to a not-so-cool town, and we all stopped discussing them, when Andrew Cuomo divorced one about a decade ago. The divorce had nothing to do with our communal ditching of Kennedy discussions; it was simply around that time that it happened.

The Royals, on the other hand, continue to intrigue. Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings are always filled with new nuggets of Fergy, Wills, Harry, Charles, Camilla, Kate and their goings on. From hideous hat incidents to stunts that are simply not done dear, this cast of characters (aka royal family) warm our hearts.

As the newest edition to the group, Kate Middleton offers much to discuss. She’s beautiful, slender and has a great stylist. Plus, she's (gasp!) a commoner just like us. We also know that we’ll have her around for a long, long time as maybe even one day a (gulp) queen!

Her big coming out was definitely her recent wedding to William, future King of England (natch). We learned about her jewelry, her clothing, her background, and her diet. While she claims that she forgets to eat sometimes, one wonders, how is that even possible when she has personal servants who schedule her meals for her?

Officially, she espouses a healthy diet and exercise. According to sources, she works out approximately 1 hour a day five days a week, which is really quite good and should help her stay healthy. She enjoys cycling, strength training, and running. Her body shows it (see pic above).

The net has been abuzz that to get super-slimmed down for her wedding, she tried the Dukan diet, which her mom uses to watch her weight. So that you don’t need to read the entire book, the Dukan diet, which French folks swear by, consists of two phases, one allows you to only eat lean meat for a short period of time and the second encourages you to incorporate vegetables into the diet on a rotating basis, like every other day or five days on and five days off. It sounds mighty similar to the Atkins diet, which many in the States have tried. As with the Atkins diet, and starvation discussed yesterday, the weight seems to creep back (plus some), once one steps away from the diet. So if you want to keep the weight off, you kind of need to stay on the diet indefinitely, which is hard on a number of levels, and may not even be healthy.

Have any of you tried the Atkins or Dukan diet? Have you kept the weight off long term?

Related articles

• The Lowdown on the Dukan Diet (fitsugar.com)
• Kate Middleton Looks Svelte Before the Big Day (fitsugar.com)