Nurturing Their Gifts

A best friend's daughter.  She demonstrated signs of being an extraordinary swimmer at a very young age.  I'm  convinced that because of the fact that her parents have recognized, nurtured and supported her in her gift, that she very well  just might grow up to be an Olympian!  No matter what, and most important, she will grow up knowing that she had the opportunity to discover her talent.

As parents, I think we'd all agree that our children are gifts.  They are our biggest treasures. We had dreams of them before they were even born and we continue to dream for them as they grow. I also think we'd agree that every child is unique.  They are unique in their personalities, interests, and talents.  And I consider it one of my greatest roles as a mother to help my children grow with, discover, and nurture their talents and gifts.  It is up to me to help provide opportunities for them to be their best selves and do what they are most alive doing.  


I don't think we need to look too terribly hard to figure out what our childrens' gifts are.  We don't have to think too long to know what things our children find the most meaning and joy in. Most likely, they will discover what makes their heart sing just through normal daily activities. And then it is up to us to help them continue to find ways to nurture their gifts, talents and make their interests part of their daily life so they can thrive.  


I saw this picture (see above) on facebook today and it made me so happy...So happy to see know this little girl and know how amazingly talented she is at swimming.  Truly gifted.  A natural.  I first saw her swim as a very young child (a toddler) and I was in awe of how naturally her body moved through the water.  More importantly, I noticed how much her little soul was lit up when she was moving in the water.  It gave her joy.  It was as if it was what she was meant to do from the start.  And it has been incredible to watch her grow up, so beautifully use her gifts and develop her talents for swimming.  It has been inspiring to say the least.


But what has been even more inspiring to me is to see how wonderfully this little girl's mom and dad have embraced her gifts and provided opportunities for her to grow in them.  They were/are young parents and like all of us, they don't have all the answers. What they did have from the start is the ability to love, encourage and support their children in their interests.  They recognized their daughter's gift for swimming and they acknowledged the joy and love that radiated from her when she was in the water.  Despite the fact that neither one of them had much experience with the sport of swimming, they knew that it was up to them to nurture this obvious talent and help her grow into her best self.  And that they did!  They gently encouraged her, paid for swim classes, and provided opportunities for her to shine.  It has been so fun to see.  


I've often thought of my friend and her daughter as I raise my children and help nurture their gifts.  I try to listen to what brings them joy and what they are most drawn to rather than what I WANT them to like.  I try my best to provide opportunities for them to grow in their gifts.  This isn't always easy or cost effective, I don't always make the best choices for them, but I'm doing the best I can and I hope that by exposing them to a variety of things and building on the things that they show talents in, that they will grow up to discover themselves fully and wonderfully.  They won't all grow up to be Olympic athletes, famous artists, or nationally recognized ________.  But rather, my hope for my children is that they WILL grow up feeling a sense of joy and awareness of who they are.  I want them to grow up knowing what their gifts are, how to use them and that they were supported and encouraged.  Who knows what a little bit of nurturing and exposure can lead to for them.  At the very least, they will grow up feeling appreciated and supported in the things that make them MOST alive.  


A few questions I ask myself as a mother when it comes to my children and recognizing their gifts:

• What brings them the greatest joy?
• What activities/interests are they most drawn to?
• Am I encouraging and supporting them in the things they are drawn to and enjoy?  Or am putting too much of my own standards and interests into the mix when I decide what direction to push them?  
• Am I being cognitive of the fact that all of my children are UNIQUE and that they won't all have the same talents, interests, and abilities?  
• Am I celebrating my children's accomplishments and praising them for their unique ideas and contributions to our family in a way makes them feel loved and valued?  
• What kind of classes, after school programs, sports and learning opportunities am I seeking out for my kids so that their gifts are being nurtured and they can grow in what brings them the most joy?  
• Do I provide a wide variety of things for my children to be exposed to?  Even things that I might just assume they won't like?  

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a mother.  And I knew that with motherhood comes great responsibility and the gift of helping my children grow in their gifts.  I'm far far from perfect in this area but I continue to be inspired by my friends and the kids like this amazing little girl that has been born to swim.  I hope you go far in life Keleigh Shai!  You've been given some pretty special parents to help you soar.  I'm so thankful that I know them.  And you. You are an inspiration.  

1.  What are your children's gifts?  Do they stand out strongly or have you had to help them discover them a bit more? 

2.  How do you help your child grow in their talents and gifts?  
3.  Did you parents  help you discover and use your gifts?  

Amanda

Summer Hydration FOR YOU from ME

Many of you still might be wondering what all this Nuun Hydration (pronounced Noon) stuff is all about.  If you're like me, you might have just heard about Nuun a year or so ago.  Some of you have been using it for years and some of you are just now hearing about it.  Here are just a few Amanda facts:

• I first heard of about Nuun sometime last year in the spring.  I had no clue how to pronounce it and I simply thought the Nuun tubes looked pretty.  
• I started using Nuun more regularly before during and after races when I had the opportunity to try it out in the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon last year.  They served it on the course and I LOVED it!  The flavor, the way it made me feel, the way it is zero calorie so that I could still use whatever fuel I wanted.  
• Recently, Nuun has come out with Nuun All-Day.  This has been used frequently in our house.  Especially leading up to my marathon last Wednesday.  Both my husband and I are runners and involved in endurance activities so we've appreciated the added hydration and vitamins that Nuun has provided.  
• I love my blue Nuun waterbottle.  It comes with me everywhere.  Even when I'm dressed up for weddings, concerts, and other events.  It seems to be THE fashion accessory for me lately.  Kind of funny really...seeing all my summer pictures...there is almost always a blue Nuun bottle somewhere in the shot. It makes for good conversation about Nuun too. I took it with me the Ben Harper concert this past week and had some good conversations because of it.  
• Nuun comes in all kinds of fun flavors.  And they are such pretty looking tubes.  
• Nuun isn't just for athletes.  It is for all of us.  Even kids like Nuun...and it is safe for them. 

So, really, I could write this huge post telling you all about Nuun, what it is made of, why it is awesome, what it is good for, blah blah blah.  But honestly, the Nuun website does all that way better than I would so I'll just tell you that:

1.  I love it

2.  It works

3.  I use it regularly

4.  I think you'd like it too

So, I want to send one of you a Nuun Water bottle and Tube of Nuun to try for yourself.  

Something you see at my house almost daily now.

See, I told you my blue Nuun waterbottle was a main accessory these days.  

I'll send  you on on to my facebook link to give you more information:

Runninghood · 646 like this

54 minutes ago · 

• Summer Sunday Giveaway: Hydration is essential for athletes to perform efficiently. Let's face it, staying hydrated is essential for all of us...athlete or not. As a fun Summer Sunday giveaway, I want to give a tube of Nuun Hydration and a Nuun Waterbottle away to one of you so you can see for yourself how it works (And the water bottle seems to go with me EVERYWHERE these days..it is practically a fashion accessory). A more official post on the blog coming soon but to get the party started...all you have to do is visit the link below and then comment on here or write on my Runninghood wall telling me 1. One new fact you read about a Nuun product (you can literally copy and paste people) and 2. Why you want to try Nuun or if you've already tried it, tell me what you like the most about it. Bonus: Tell me a creative idea to do with empty Nuun tubes. Easy Peezy!

  

  Nuun | Optimal Hydration

  www.nuun.com

  Nuun is hydration. Nuun turns water into an optimally balanced electrolyte drink. Unlike any other sports drinks, Nuun is less than eight calories and hydrates without sugars. Find out what Nuun is, and discover what Nuun can do for you.

Since I use my Runninghood facebook as my mini-blog these days for when I don't have a blog post in me but still have things to say/share, I'm doing this giveaway through my Runninghood facebook so just 

click HERE and leave a comment on the facebook link or write on my facebook wall with your comment.  It is truly EASY.  No time consuming, eye poking, and stupid giveaway hoops to jump through.  Just my way of sharing something I truly love.  

Amanda

Sauvie Island's Foot Traffic Flat Marathon 2012...Recap in Bullets and Pictures

Mile 21ish.  Thanks for all of your comments on this picture on my Runninghood facebook.  They made me smile.   And several of you have asked about the purple shoes.  They are the Brooks Pure Flows. Great shoe.  Great company.  Run Happy!  

Waking up the morning after a marathon has always been the same for me.  I've only run six of them unlike some of you maniacs who are at 50 plus and counting.  Ha!  But so far, whether I ran a great race or one that I'm less than proud of, I wake up with a heavy load of race residue to process.  Oh, and my body usually feels like I got hit by a truck.  Although I agree with one of my good friends who believes you should wait 48 hours before you honestly evaluate and discuss your race performance, I also think that I need an outlet to process, share, and work through some of that heavy race residue BEFORE the 48 hours.  But I promise not to judge myself too harshly before the 48 hour mark.  


Since it was a late night of fireworks for the kids, they are still soundly sleeping.  I would have been too if it weren't for my middle daughter, the cuddle bug of the family, crawling into bed at 7:30 to wake me up.  Luckily she fell back asleep so that I have time to post here before all three of them are up and tearing through the house with their usual high energy.  So, to save time, this will be a race recap of sorts in bullets and pics. Besides, most of you say you like bullets anyway.  

• I ran a marathon yesterday.  This one:  Foot Traffic Flat Marathon on Sauvie Island
• It was my second time running this marathon.  Last year my husband and I ran it for a fun progressive run four weeks after my Newport flop of a marathon where I went for a 3:15 and ended up with a 3:30.  It was his first marathon (untrained) and we ran a fun progressive 3:24 that felt happy and dare I say easy.  
• This was not the same.  However, my 3:28:40 isn't something for me to hang my head about.  It's what I came to do.  Exactly what I said I wanted.  However, I wish that a few things had gone differently.  As is usually the case after a race.  
• I don't care for flat courses.  I would much rather have hills to break things up.  I probably won't run this race again.
• As most of you know, I ran Boston 2012.  I finished.  Enough said.  I was also injured and my hamstring injury was much worse AFTER running a marathon in 90 degree heat that left me at my lowest I've ever been during a race.  You can read more about that in this Sparrow article HERE.
• I will never again take it as a given that I will BQ for sure.  Boston was NOT another BQ for me.  Rather it was a life lesson that I will forever be thankful for. 
• After Boston, I took quite a bit of time off.  I had 2 weeks of NO exercise.  Then I very very slowly worked my way into running.  The goal was that I would do just enough to try to hold on to as much as my Boston base and get UNINJURED so that I could run another marathon to Boston Qualify and have the opportunity to go in 2013. It was agreed that the safest way to do that was to shoot for a BQ minus 5 minutes ...so a 3:30.  
• As training went on, our goals started to shift a bit.  The 3:30 goal was now widened to a possible 3:20-3:25 range if everything went perfectly up to race day (which it didn't...I'll explain below).  It was agreed that if I was sick, injured or if anything was happening on the morning of a race that would keep me from that strong, safe BQ, then I wasn't going to run.  After all, that was the ONLY reason I was racing this race.  No point in injuring myself again.  
• Speaking of injury.  A lot of the time since Boston has been a slow recovery for me.  I haven't had any serious injuries that have kept me from being active but my hamstring and pelvic pain from back in January were still not healed.  I had an MRI to rule out a pelvic SF before I started running again.  Then I babied my hamstring as if it was my job....heat, massage, ice, rolling, taking days off if I was hurting.  The goal again:  Get to Sauvie Island Marathon healthy and WHOLE with just enough fitness to qualify for Boston and move on to more optimal training.  My training to get here was very safe and gradual.  It was low mileage, plenty of days off, and just enough workouts to keep me sharp and strong.  I even had several half marathon races as workouts that left me feeling really confident.  
• Week Lead-Up to July 4th race:  Beginning of week was crazy stressful with my son's birthday party, his actual birthday, piano and swim lessons starting, normal race worries, etc.  
• Because of this stress that didn't seem all that stressful at the time, I wasn't drinking enough or relaxing enough.  My right leg rebelled and cramped up like never before.  I had knots in my muscles from my butt to my foot.  Once the party was over and I could relax and focus on my body and the race, things got better.  I drank Nuun All Day, ate the right foots, massaged like crazy, and got enough sleep.
• Things got better and I started feeling like a champ!  
• Last workout before race day besides just some slow easy runs...just getting my body used to the gradual progression that I'd hope it would do on race day:  5.89 miles  7:36 pace.  5 min@7:49; 5 min@7:36; 5 min@7:45; 1 mile@7:32; 1 mile@7:39; 1 mile@7:35 and almost a mile @7:26.  
• This workout felt great.  Easy really. Strong.  Happy.  Confident that these paces would come naturally for me on race day.  Things were coming together and really I had confidence that I could do MORE than that safe BQ.  In my head, I still had plans to keep things safe but I expected it to feel way easier based on my workouts.  I figured a 3:20 wasn't outside my reach at all!  
• I continued to get good sleep and be smart with hydration.  
• Then on Monday (52 hours before the race) at 2a.m I woke up (EXCUSE the TMI) in pain and peeing blood!  WTH ?  This had NEVER happened to me even though so many women say that it is common with a UTI.  But freaked me out!  And hurt like heck.  I lost that night of sleep and started antibiotics later on Monday morning.  I was in bed with low low fever and just fatigue all day on Monday. Luckily, I had my husband to stay home and care for me so I felt pretty recovered by Tuesday.  But still recovering from UTI.  
• Who knows how much of a hit my body took from this.  I felt pretty darn good by race morning though.  

My best friend and love of my life!  He's ALWAYS there for me.  

Beautiful on race morning.  So EARLY.  This was at 5a.m.  Race started at 6:30!  

I couldn't feel my toes at the start.  It wasn't cold.  I was just having circulation issues.  Weird.  

• But I didn't feel as good as I should have while racing.  Or as I'd hoped.  
• I'm not quite ready to post my splits. I was smart at the start.  I did just as I said I'd do and I kept my miles between 7:45 and 8.  Well there were no 8's for the first 17 miles and I think I ran 1 or 2 7:40's at mile 5/6ish.  

First half of the race.  In the zone.  Right on.  

• The second half of the race wasn't horrible...I was just MENTALLY done!  My miles were all falling right around 8:05-8:15 at the very end there and despite my husband telling me to dig deep and stop wussing out, I just wanted to be finished.  
• It was pretty windy for many of the miles during the first half of the race (as expected on an island), so I did as I was reminded to do and drafted off of a group of big guys.  They were very funny too.  And keeping at a pretty consistent 7:49ish pace.  
• At the turn around at mile 11 we passed a woman as a pack.  She asked if we'd all started late or something.  I just said:  "Nope...my motto for today is from a friend and it is "First half, don't be a hero.  Second half, don't be a zero." so we're just picking up the pace a bit.  She and the guys thought it was a good motto for a marathon.  

Drafting = smart idea!  Should have done it for the entire race. 

• The second half of the race was run mostly alone.  Boo.  Nobody is out there.  Crickets...you can hear them.  
• SOOOO Thankful for my husband.  He rode the course and had water, fuel, encouragement and loving energy.  He was a support to all the other runners too.  
• I felt like puking most of the second half of the race so not sure what that was all about.  I couldn't stomach a third Clif Gel (I took one at mile 7 and 16) so I used a PowerBar Gel since they are more watery and go down quicker.  Almost came back up though.  I'm thinking I need to do my fuel differently next time.  I have success in the past with the gradual fueling and I think I'll try that again:  1 gel slowly over 2-4 miles.  The beans do the same for me.  It almost helps me mentally too.  
• At around mile 21?, a woman passed me.  I eventually caught up to her at around mile 23?  So glad I found you Julie!  Julie was running Sauvie after Boston for a better BQ time since she didn't get the time she wanted at Boston.  She still qualified there though so that makes her a badass in my book!  I've never really had an experience where I've worked with a stranger in a race but we encouraged, pushed, and pulled each other to that finish.  We were both so done but we picked up the pace and both finished sub 3:30.  If we hadn't found each other, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had that sub 3:30.  As a way to motivate me even more she told me that I was the one she'd picked out at the start to beat.  :)  Ha!  That just made me want to make sure she met her goal...little did she know that my mentality as a runner isn't all that competitive when it comes to racing at the end.  ;)  I did end up finishing before her but barely.  So thankful for her.  Being encouraging to her made me tell myself the messages that I should have told myself all along.  INstead, I was fighting a mental battle from mile 17 on.  

The very end of the race.  Maybe last mile?  The half marathoners were finishing at the same time so it made us feel like we were passing more people than we really were.  Julie, my angel for the day, is on my left in the white hat.  

• Overall, I'm proud of yesterday.  I did EXACTLY what I said I would do despite my secret thoughts about what I hoped might be the case.  I said I was going for a safe and smart BQ with a time under 3:30.  I said I was going to be conservative with my paces so that I didn't end up coming home having fallen on my face and with no BQ.  And I came home a winner.  My stats:  8th woman overall.  1st in my AG. Too bad Sauvie doesn't give AG awards.  Official time: 3:28:40
• I finished so happy to be DONE.  I was all smiles and jokes.  The job was done!!  I did what I had come to do and even though the race residue would set in later, I felt GREAT then.  I ate some salt n' vinegar chips, checked e-mail, sent messages to friends, took pictures, iced, indulged in the Sauvie Island Berries and had some of the famous strawberry shortcake that is offered.  I'm not sure when my next marathon will be.  Definitely not until Boston 2013 if I decide to do it.  Right now I'm excited to rest up, get strong and ready for Hood to Coast so I can represent for my team for After Nuun Delight.

Happy to represent Brooks.  And HAPPY to be done!!!  

Big Medal and yummy strawberry shortcake.  And yes, Run Happy in the background.  Nice pic hon.  

Amanda