Fresh Start and Breaking Up The Big Picture With Some Weekly Goals.

I suppose every day can be a fresh start if we want it to be.  We don't have to wait until the New Year to make lofty resolutions or attempt to make our dreams come true.  We don't have to wait until our birthday to celebrate our life and truly pamper ourselves.  Just as we don't have to wait until Valentine's Day and anniversaries to celebrate love.  But these dates certainly are nice to have in place as a reminder that these things do matter...love, life, fresh starts...they matter GREATLY!  They are huge parts of what make life great and I'm thankful for the special occasions to celebrate these things and more.  


As I said, I didn't make 2012 resolutions yet but I still plan on setting goals for my days, weeks, and longer spans of time as I am ready.  Here are just a few short goals and a list of gratitude to start my day before I wake my kids for their first day of school in 2012.  


Thankful for:

• Being up early before everyone else.  Although I couldn't bring myself to run yet, I have enjoyed some personal time.  It is nice to be back on routine. 
• Starting the year with a PR in the 10k even though I expected and wanted a faster time.  It was still a PR and an AG win...reason to celebrate and focus on getting faster.
• The past week of vacation.  I slept until 10 once or twice and I felt like a lazy college kid again (minus the three kids I was responsible for).  
• Fresh starts and goals
• Coffee
• I'm feeling my writing itch return to me.  I've missed it.
• Training is going well.
• Ice to sit on while I type so that I can ice my sore bum.
• A family that is all safe, healthy, and here with me today.  Every day is a gift and it is so easy to take for granted sometimes.  Just takes a few nights of crazy dreams to make me wake up more thankful than ever for just the simple things....the basics.

Motherhood/Personal Goals for THIS WEEK:

• Work on the way I respond to my children.  I've gotten so lazy with this.  The more stressful it gets and the more my kids fight and react in awful ways to each other, the more I find myself reacting in ways that are not so stellar.  They sound just like me!  We model for our children how to respond to stress and frustrating situations.  I'm really needing to get my act together with this one!!  Instead of reacting in a way that involves yelling, talking to them in a nagging and whiney voice, and talking over them, I'm trying hard to respond with a sense of calm and control.  This is so much harder said than done for me.  
• To spend more time with God.
• Read more. This will involve shutting off distractions and finding the time to sit down and really read something.  Right now, I'm into reading mostly nonfiction...things I will learn from and be able to take away from immediately.  A perfect time to do this would be after school where we all sit down together and have a 20 minute reading time. Good modeling for my kids.  However, my 2 year old son might not think this is such a stellar idea.  I might be managing him instead of reading.  Better yet, I suppose reading to him would be a good idea.  Can't get enough of Bear Hunt and Diego.  

Running Goals:

• Haven't officially followed a week of plans in my Run Faster book by Brad Hudson.  I've used the bones of the plan. I like this...adapting a plan to my needs is easier than I thought and I trust myself here.  I like the freedom of being able to switch things around based on my needs and my goal is to keep doing this and being conscious of what I need as an athlete.  This involves listening to my body, thinking ahead, and bouncing ideas off of running friends.
• Race more often.  Although the marathon is my main goal, I do think that there is a certain physical and mental benefit to finding opportunities to race.  However, this involves moving other things around in my plan so that I replace key workouts with the race. Not sure how much I will race but I'm not closing the door to racing just because my plan doesn't call for it.  
• Keep making more time for core work and strength training even if it is a little here and there.  
• Diet awareness!  Being conscious of what I'm stuffing my face with is crucial at this point when I'm trying to run higher mileage.  The past two weeks have been AWFUL and I'm ready to get back on track.  

Amanda

Glorified Tempo, PR, and Time For Some New Brooks!

I don't have one of those "Reflections and Recaps of 2011" posts for you.  Nor do I have any New Year Resolutions to share yet.  No goals and reflections for Runninghood?!  What is this blog world coming to?  I suppose I reflected and set goals so often in 2011 that I'm all reflected and goaled out for the time being.  No, never.  I'm just a little mentally tired.  I'm sure the 2012 goal post will come soon.


No resolutions but I did start my year off right! My first day of the new year was actually a pretty awesome way to start 2012.  I made the decision last week to sign up for a 10k just for fun and to see if I could start the year with a PR.  Well, it wasn't really fun but I did set a small PR so I have to take that as a reason to celebrate.  

Out with the old and in with the new!  These shoes have seen their last race.  Now time for some real racing shoes!  Can't wait for a new pair of Brooks!

Race:  Twenty Twelve Resolution Run--Portland Oregon
Weather:  Clear skies, mild temps, windy.  Besides the wind, it was actually some pretty great racing conditions.  I was overdressed by a lot!  
Weekly Mileage before race: 59
Goal:  My biggest goal was to break 42 minutes but hoped for a 6:35-6:40 pace or better.  I feel confident that this was a very realistic goal right now.  
What really happened:


42:09 Chip Time (PR by 10 seconds)
20:54 split
1st in AG out of only 11.
4th woman out of only 65...I could have sworn I only saw 2 women ahead of me.  Weird.  


Some not stellar parts:

• Nerves nerves nerves and self doubt.  Lots of it.  Even during the race I found myself talking all kinds of non-go-getum talk.  I will have to work on this.
• I honestly did run hard even though my splits don't show this to me.  But my body was telling me differently.  
• A 6:40 pace felt like a 6:15 pace today.  
• I really shouldn't eat pizza and sweets all week and then expect to perform efficiently.  Fueling correctly really can't be underestimated. At the same time, we shouldn't be overly concerned with what we eat either.  Definitely didn't have balance this week.  
• My prerace meal was half of a Pizza Schmizza pizza with a beer.  Ha!  I don't think this really had that big of an impact on me to tell you the truth.  Just funny.  
• I think that even though I cut back on the miles towards the end of the week, 59 was still a bigger week considering that I ran a lot of miles at the start of the week and my body is still adjusting to this.  I know this wasn't a peak race so I won't dwell on this too much. My plan was to NOT run this race on totally fresh legs so that was expected.
• Hope this isn't too much information but this weekend does mark ovulating day for me...not sharing this with you for any other reason than to bring up the topic of ovulation and the affect it has on our bodies.  For me, I get very tired, irritable, break out, and just want to stuff my face with food. There are just a couple of positive things about it too but for the most part, I feel pretty drained. Does ovulation affect you in a negative way or do you even notice??    

Positives:

• I ran hard
• I was running alone for most of the race (especially the second half) and I didn't sneak off into the trees and quit like I wanted to when I saw my splits being so much slower than my goal.  ha!  
• Even though my husband claims that I didn't change my stride or pace at the finish line and look like I was working hard, I felt like I was working it.  I didn't have a kick in me but I pushed it.  
• This served as a strong 6.2 mile tempoish run (a bit faster than I'd do my tempo but with a few 7 min miles in there, it felt rather tempoish and less 10k race-like)
• I won a gold medal for first in AG.  Who cares if there wasn't much competition.  AG win is AG win.  I'll take it!  
• I had my kids and husband to greet me at the end.  
• I got an awesome pep talk and pep e-mails from some great running gals!  I feel really blessed with friendships recently. Lots of love and support after the race too.  
• I was inspired by some very beautiful and chiseled bodies at the starting line.  One of them being someone I kind of know...Helen Rarick, who ran an impressive 17:12 in the 5k!  Seriously, sometimes I bend down to stretch at the starting line just so I can check out all the pretty legs around me.  Lots of shorts today too.  I love runner legs!  Helen's got some amazing ones.  
• Waking up to a crayon scribbled note from my husband.  He left it right by the coffee pot.   

Love the way that my four year old is dressed.  If only we were all like four year olds in the way that they just are who they are.

Finish line...overheated and very tired.  Ready to be done!!

1.  How did you start your new year off??
2.  Ladies, curious on your thoughts about ovulation and the affect it has on you?  Do you get overly tired, emotional, or irritable?  Does it make you want to crawl into bed and sleep like it does me?  I usually have one or two days like this.  I'm pretty sure today is one of them.  


Amanda

Training, Racing, and The Purpose It Serves In Your Life

Before I get going on my blog today I have to do a shout out to one of my new Pacific Northwestern blog friends Becca at Frances Kay!  Yesterday on my way to the gym, I checked the mail and got one of my first ever "just because" blog mail gifts.  Becca sent me some awesome tunes to run with!  Can't wait to get my iPod all set up to run with today!  Thank you Becca!  Becca and her husband have their own sandwich shop and catering business in the Northwest.  You can check our her hubby's blog too:    Graze Catering Walla Walla.

I woke up this morning with an e-mail from Kovas at Midwest Multisport Life.  I know many of you may have received the same e-mail.  Anyway these are the questions he asked:


"Why do you race? Why are you willing to pay to run on public streets or trails, sometimes paying large amounts for travel and accommodations? Why are you willing to plan a race around a particular weekend? What ARE your motivators to race?"


I really appreciate his questions.  They made me think and reflect on my running life, as well as helped to get my writing brain flowing.  They served as a great prompt for my morning writing.  After responding to him, I realized that my e-mail was long enough to be a blog post.  So, until I have something better to write about, here is what I sent him:  


Hey Kovas,

Good questions.  Originally, I raced because I was on a cross country and track team.  I raced because it was my way of paying for college and doing my "job".  I hated it really...always sick to my stomach and nervous about how I'd do or what I was "expected" to do.  Because of the pressure and nerves, I never really pushed past my personal barriers.  I could never run like I knew I had the potential to run. More often than not, I was throwing up and crying because of too many nerves to "perform" the way others thought I should. 

 After college I began to run for ME.  I ran because I loved the feeling it gave me.  Eventually I started racing again but instead of racing against others or for a team, I raced only against myself and for myself.  My times were the best they had ever been and I finally felt what it was like to be in a zone.  I felt an ease to running that I had never felt before and I discovered that I was better than I ever realized I would be.  I ran my first marathon not knowing what the Boston Marathon was or even having an expectation for a time....my only goal was to finish and have fun.  When I ran a 3:22, I had people telling me that I qualified for Boston.  Boston?  why not.  Now that I am trying to get back in to racing again after kids and a serious injury, I realize what I had then and how I took it all for granted.  I hope to run again like that or even better.  So now, I race because it gives me a personal goal to work towards.  It gives me structure in my life and I feel that it makes me a stronger person.  Working towards a racing goal does this for me:

*  Allows me to do something for just ME.  (this is important right now as a Stay at home mom who misses her career a bit).

*  It is a Model for my kids to show them that we can do anything and keep striving to conquer big goals and work on improving our self.  

*  Allows me to live a healthy lifestyle

*  When I am training and running, I am more focused on believing in the reality of my other dreams in life.

*  Mood Booster.

*  Personal Satisfaction of knowing that I'm Mentally and Physically strong and doing something only a small percentage of the population can and do do.  

*  OH, another big motivator is VANITY....gotta say that racing and training helps me stay in awesome shape and have a great body.  Love the way my buns look in my favorite jeans when I'm in training.  :)  Hey, that's a big reason why many many women race....having a nice ass.  :)  

So, here are a few of my thoughts off the cuff....had to type fast since i have little kids at my feet....off to get some order to this house!  :)  Gee, this should be my blog for today.  I should just copy and paste.  hmmm, maybe...

Amanda 

Thanks again Kovas.  Loved your questions this morning and excited to see what kind of responses you get.  Eager to read your post when you've compiled it all and put it into something for us all to read (whatever you have planned).  
Just for fun, I'll leave you with this college cross country picture.  This was after a race in Kansas.  Must have been in 1999 or 2000.  Gosh, I'm making myself sound old.  

1.  Do you think it is important for your kids to see you set big goals for your life?  And do you make time for personal ambitions in your busy life?  


2.  If you are a runner, when did you start running?


3.  What is are a few things on your bucket list and/or some big life dreams you have? (this will be asked again in my next blog post...)   
Longer term:  Ironman (haven't even tried a sprit tri yet), Travel the world, spend a summer in Italy, learn a second and third language, Run the NYC marathon.... Midlife:  Many big goals related to early literacy, creating a nonprofit parent group, publishing a children's book, opening my own children's bookstore....this will be my next blog post....to be continued....

Amanda

Reminiscing About Boston 2004

Apparently, midriff tops were acceptable in 2004.

There have been so many blogs I've read lately that have mentioned the Boston Marathon.  So many runners are starting to get ready for their 2011 Boston training, some are making plans to have a blog meet up there, and so many are just so excited!  I'm so excited for them!

 A shout out to two of my favorite blog friends who will be running Boston :  The Hungry Runner Girl and Elkton Runner.  Reading their blogs tonight got me thinking about when I ran Boston in 2004 and made me want to go through old pictures and remember that time in my life. 

 I was 25 years old in 2004 and I was teaching 3rd grade at the time.  My husband and I were newly weds living in a cute little apartment in a trendy neighborhood in the city.  Life was full of adventure, travel and and possibilities!

When I qualified for Boston at my first marathon, I had no idea what it really meant or what to expect.  I just knew that I should probably  take advantage of the opportunity to run it when I could because who knew what turns life would take and when I'd have the chance again.  I am so glad I decided to run it!  It is one of my favorite memories and tonight I've decided to celebrate my memory of Boston by sharing some pictures to go along with this post. 

But first....HOW did 7 years already pass by since I ran this race??!  What?!  It seems like just yesterday!  I don't feel older than I did at 25.  I don't look any older either.  Ha, okay, so maybe a little bit but I can  tell myself whatever I want, right?  And nothing in life has really changed unless you count the 3 kids I've popped out, our move to the suburbs, our 7 years of marriage, my career change, and just a few major traveling experiences.  Not much at all.  I might as well still be 25! 

 But seriously, life goes by before we know it and it really is too short to not do what we love.  For so many of us on here, Running is a passion and when we can't run, life isn't as enjoyable.  Coming back from injury makes me so much more aware of what a special gift running is.  I understand now (after my first major injury) just how difficult it is for runners who can't run due to injury.  I'm also beyond thankful to be back and I'm excited to train for another marathon and hopefully run Boston again in 2012 or 2013.  I have not run a marathon since Boston.  Portland Marathon was going to be my 3rd and I was hoping to be in Boston in 2011.  I'm okay with everything that has happened though.  In fact, I'm convinced that my injury was a blessing in disguise (as most things in life are).  Because of my injury, I was challenged to truly reflect on my life, think about things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and realize the things that matter most.  I also learned some new things in the process, found other ways to exercise that I hadn't tried before, and I started this blog as an outlet!  So glad I did!  Oh, and because of my injury, I have a fire and determination in me that I never before had as an athlete...It will fun to see what I can do with it! 

Enough of the almost midnight ramblings.  Here are some photos of my Boston 2004 experience. 

Getting ready to head to the bus that took us to the holding area before the start.  I wish I still had some of that muscle in my quads!  Oh, and forget the muscle...where the heck did my boobs go?!  The ones in this picture are so far gone it isn't even funny!  Yes, that's right, nursing three kids and not having much to begin with really sucks it out of a girl!  Good thing my husband didn't marry me me for my perfect B cups because those are history folks!

Ha!  Check out those stylin' shorts!  

I'm pretty sure this is at the top of Heartbreak Hill.  My husband had the perfect spot!  I still can't get over how amazing it was to have sooooo many people cheering on the sidelines.  Every single step was filled with so much energy.  My first marathon was The Napa Valley Marathon where I pretty much ran alone on open roads through vineyards so this was such a different experience. 

So proud and JOYFUL to have finished!  3:32:35.   It was so fun to return to my third grade class on Monday.  They thought I was a superstar!  So cute.  The entire school had announced my progress throughout the race as they received news of it from my timing chip.  The librarian even taped it for the kids to watch.  The kids seriously thought that I was waaaaay better than I really was.  They thought that I won it or something and that they would actually see me on the race coverage!  So funny.   Adorable.  I loved seeing those little faces light up and hearing their shouts and cheers when I walked in the room.  It was all icing on the entire Boston experience. 

Getting dressed after the race.  So HIGH on Running!  Before the race, someone was passing around a marker and we all wrote our names on our body.  It was so cool to hear my name being shouted out from people along the sidelines.  It was as if they were all there just for me!

Ewwww, bloody shoes!  Definitely time to get some new ones! Shoes, not boobs. 

 And this is when I should have gone directly back to the hotel to take an ICE bath!  Instead I took a warm bath and went out on the town for the night.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I almost had to use a wheel chair in the airport on my way home because I hurt so badly but pride got in the way and I made my way onto the plane!  Next time...Ice bath!

A close up of my shoes.  I'm kind of glad that my toes were bleeding because doesn't the blood just look cool?! 

Okay, we really do look way younger here than we do now.  At least by a few years. 

And this one is just funny because woah, who dresses like that?  What a dork!  Really?  A jean jacket with jeans?  hmmm.  But note that I wore my medal out on the town.  Damn right!  I worked hard for that medal.  Ask me where it is now though and I probably couldn't tell you. 

Thanks for letting me share!  Thinking of all you blogger friends out there that are gearing up for Boston 2011 or working to qualify in the future! 

What is one of your favorite running or race memories?  Please share! 

Amanda

Injury Milestone

I'm thinking it is a little ridiculous that I've posted a blog every day since starting this thing.  Mostly feeling ridiculous because besides one or two people (including my mom), I might be the only one reading it.  I know I have to start somewhere and I guess since this blog is partly to help me grow and reflect on my life as a runner and mother, then I shouldn't worry about how often I post. Blogging has really been something I look forward to at the end of the day.  It is a way for me to reflect on my day, set some goals as a runner and mother, share creative things I've done, etc.  So, blog again I will!

Tonight I'm staying up until midnight so I can register for the Hippie Chick Half Marathon.  It is a race that fills up quickly and I never remember to register in time.  The exciting thing for me is that this marks my return to running!  I'm so excited to be registering for a race considering that just nine weeks ago I was barely walking normal!  Another special thing about this marathon is that it will be on Mother's Day.  What a great way for me to celebrate motherhood and running together! 

My training and personal goals for this week:
*  Continue to take it easy
*  Run 1-2 miles each day, hoping to be up to 3 without pain by the end of the week
*  Continue to cross train on the elliptical and bike
*  Yoga
*  Eating Healthy...lots of water, fruits and veggies
*  Positive thinking and being in the moment with my kids.


3 more hours until I can register for the Hippie Chick Half! 

Amanda