Frostbite Footrace 5k

A Rondy tradition, last weekend I competed in the annual Frostbite Footrace 5k.  This race occurs during our Fur Rondy festival which is two weeks of fun winter events that culminate with the ceremonial start of the Iditarod.  It is a really fun and crazy festival that usually is accompanied with lots of snow and cold winter weather.

Ready to run!

My vote for the winner Aily Zirkle

Immunize your kids!

Not this year.  This year the snow had to be brought in for the mushers, another dog race was canceled and the snowshoe softball was just softball.

Snowshoe softball minus the snowshoes

Nevertheless again this year I got my costume ready to run a completely untrained 5k.  Its a fun family tradition and also the first 5k I ever did, so there is some sentiment there.

Frostbite 5k

This year my sister and I spent more time on our costumes than we did training for the race. We were really awesome scuba divers complete with air tanks, flippers and a mask.  It was awesome.

Scuba!

The actual race was pretty close to normal for me.  I think every year when I run this my race time is similar, its my untrained 5k time which is pretty consistently around 36 minutes.  I finished the race melting hot due to the warm weather and my costume requiring a black ski hat with goggles to hold the heat in, but good times were had by all.

Ready to swim

I have another 5k coming up which I am similarly untrained for but what the heck, racing around here is fun no matter if you are fast or slow.  At least I think it is... I always fall into the latter category!

Run Happy :)

Planning to Plan to Plan...

I always have a plan, do they work out?  Not always, but in the past probably more did workout than didn't.  I don't believe that is because of anything more than the fact I am pigheaded and stubborn.  Now days my plans work out less and I am working on being okay with that.  My life has not ended up where I thought it would and that is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Anyways I'll stop from getting too philosophical about life and say that I am in a moment of planning.  This planning may deviate from my big plan but I think this detour will in the end make the big plan better. 

Planning to eat healthy

Do you all have big plans?  Am I just nuts?  I feel like probably not everybody knows when they want to have a dog, kids, job change, big dream race, etc.

Never mind don't answer that, I prefer ignorance over the realization that I am truly nuts.

Back to the plan.  I haven't been able to say it aloud but we are all friends right?  Or at least if we are not than maybe we are nothing but internet air and my mind and that would be okay as well.

I am planning to commit the next 6 - 9 months to health.  You may ask how this is different from anything else.  Hear me, I did not say running or training or racing, I said health.  I am feeling unhealthy and I dont like it.  I am feeling physically uncomfortable which is impacting my mental well being.  I also think this will get in the way of my larger goals over the next few years (Ironman,kids etc.).

Planning to stay active!

Most people probably think my training and racing fit well into a plan of overall wellness but for some reason for me they do not.  I am still open to the option of racing but it will not be my number one training goal.  My exercise will be focused on strength and losing body weight and then with any extra time I will continue to bike and run at much lesser amounts.

Typical race planning

I think overall improved strength and less weight will be just as beneficial to my training as running more frequently.  If not its one year of missed races in exchange for many years of overall health, wellness and increased performance in future races.

Introduce WODs

How does that sound?  Sounds pretty good to me.  Wish me luck and I will keep you updated on my progress on the "Plan"

Still Here...

Hello,

I know it has been a while since I last posted something.  I started a few blog posts but didn't follow through.  Maybe I'll do a couple wrap ups of the last two months, but right now I want to talk about what I am currently up to and 'Ill get to the past events later on....

Okay so I'll start with the honest truth, January sucked.  While I love fresh starts as much as I love blank planners and new notebooks, I seem to get in a funk every year at this time.  Last year I really thought it was just the post wedding resettling of life but this year its the same.  It didn't help that I came home from my vacation to find out one of my staff had died.   Long sad story short not only did we lose a friend and coworker who was with our company for 25 years, I also became solely responsible for a job I didn't know very well which included large financial implications for our already very tight federal grant budget.  So for the last two months I have put in insane hours, forgone workouts all while trying to work through my normal slump month.  Folks its been rough.

Naps with your nephew are required

But in the realm of moving on, I am pushing forward and focusing on what I need to do to be happy and healthy.  My usual response to issues like above is to make a plan.  I love plans and lists, they focus me and help push me through the fog.  My plan right now has multiple facets including both physical and mental health.  I am a believer of using visual ques so I often use a calendar and stickers to see my progress on training plans, this time I also have reminders set in my phone to help me with my progress as well as a journal to chart and document my course. 

Physically my goals have not changed, I feel best when I put whole clean foods in my body when I am actually hungry (ie no eating cookies cause your sad) and moving my body frequently through out the day as well as using it to lift heavy things :)  Eat clean, move your legs, lift...repeat.  While I do have weight loss goals I do not want to spend my life analyzing the calories in a food product.  I want to build healthy habits and eat the fresh foods that my body craves. 

Healthy food prepped and ready

I slapped my fit bit back on my wrist yesterday to help me get my legs moving and see how my desk job affects my health.  I also started going to a weight lifting class to build muscles and begin to remember what it is like to feel strong.

It may not be vitamin D I'm getting, but definitely some fresh (brisk) air!

All of this fun coupled with some vitamin D, lots of water and positive self talk will hopefully even out some of my recent ups and downs and help me to feel calmer and more like myself. 

I chose what I do with my body
I chose to be my truest self

Relaxing is good, stop feeling guilty about it!

I suppose its always a journey and I would like to think I have learned from each bump in the road, I guess I will only see the growth when I get up again.

Step Challenge & Christmas Cookie Extravaganza!

Good Morning,

10 more days to Christmas if anyone is counting :)  I am not really counting the days until Christmas this year because I just love the season so much I dont want it to be over!  I am however counting the days until Christmas Eve (9 days) because that is when I finish my challenge!  I am so proud of my progress right now, I have been killing it!

Yay!

This morning even though my fitbit said I slept a ridiculously small number of hours I got up and had my quality time with Jillian.  My husband laughed the other day when he walked by and heard her say "I want you to feel like your going to die"  She's such a sweetie :)  I think tomorrow I will switch to level 3, so I'll be ready for a new burn!  Otherwise progress is still going well with the exception that my extremities are so tired I am not running or swimming very fast right now.  I ran 3 painfully slow miles at the Pub run on Tuesday and added .45 seconds to my timed swim on Wednesday.  Bummer :(  But I am so proud of myself for sticking through this, Ill have to post my sticker chart that I use to motivate myself for my Challenge Wrap up blog.

In addition to Jillian I also have my step challenge which has been going well, lots of quality time on the treadmill which led me to say yes to an additional weekend fit bit challenge that my friend invited me to.  Oh my goodness I dont think I should do those in the future.  If your not a fit bit person let me explain, fit bit allows users to invite their friends to these small challenges, they can be workweek, weekend, one day challenges etc.  So my friend invited me and since I have been leading my step leaderboard lately I confidently said yes.  Saturday was good, I ran and skated and then was just super active as per normal Saturdays so I got over 20k steps.  Then I realized Saturday night that my friend was also at 20k steps and the next morning she got all of her step goal before 8am.  What the heck?  By now I felt too committed to bag out so away I went walking and running around like a crazy person until I had what I hoped was a sizable lead.  My husband laughed at me as I ran in circles around our house while my cookies baked.  Am I competitive?  Nah!  It wont declare the winner until 12pm today but I am fairly certain I blistered my way to a weekend victory.  Next time I swear I will say no.

Weekend Warrior Challenge

I did it!

On the sugar front I baked about 12 batches of cookies to deliver to our friends and family this weekend.  One of our favorite Christmas traditions is going door to door with cookies and seeing the look of surprise and delight on peoples faces as we drop off sugared goodness.  Its a really good way to get in the holiday spirit! I think I still have a few more batches to go, but majority of the hard work is done!

Yum!

30 Day Challenge Update

Good Morning,

I am on day 14 of my 30 day challenge, almost half way through so I thought I would do an update as to my progress.  I completed 12 days of the Shred DVD level 1 before I was pretty bored and decided to move to the next level.  I wasn't sure when to make this jump as I was not "perfect" at level one, but now seeing level two I understand that the idea is not to be perfect at any of the levels before I move on, or I would never move on!  Having said that, level 2 is a real ass kicker!  I did it yesterday and this morning and I am one hurting lady!

Yesterdays stats, no actual exercise just a busy day

So half way into this process, I haven't lost 10lbs yet (the claim is you will lose 20lbs in 30 days), but I do feel stronger and that is what I was looking for.  I am never going to be a waif, nor would I want to be.  I feel best when I feel strong and with this extra bit of weight I am carrying I have been missing that feeling of strength. 

Last week I was at 110k, but now my husband is beating me!

The other half of my challenge is to get 12k steps each day.  This has been the easier side of the challenge in that it is more enjoyable but does take up more time.  However I love to walk so I dont mind spending an hour on the treadmill walking and watching TV.  I am really proud that I have kept this up for 14 days when I looked back at my daily steps for the past few month and saw how low they had gotten!  This challenge is just what I needed to pick me up and get me going!  I have had a few days in a row where due to illness or forgetting my fitbit, I went into the evening with 2k steps so I basically spent my entire evening on the treadmill, but I got it done!  The only downside I have seen to the new fitbit charge is that it is not waterproof so none of my swimming counts :( 

Some Scandal with my walk/run

I also mentioned I had two other sideline goals and those were to track my food every day at least in my journal and 5 days a week in my Spark People.  I also wanted to drink at least 64oz of water a day.  I have not been highly successful at these goals, but I am thinking that now that I am in a groove with the exercise maybe this is the time to spark the food motivation!  So mini goal time, for the next 5 days I will track my food and drink my water!  I proclaim it aloud so it shall be!

Any one else like to do personal challenges?

Thankful for Fun

Good Morning,

I am absolutely exhausted this Monday morning after the long weekend.  Not to be too cheesy but I had so much to be thankful for this weekend.  We had an absolute blast, let me recap.

I completely agree!

On Wednesday I was really thankful that I work for such a great company that cares about the moral of its employees.  One of the ways they do this is to call "Sun Days' which are essentially extra bonus hours of paid leave that our Executive Director grants us unexpectedly a few times a year.  It is so much fun, everyone cheers when he comes on the intercom and announces a paid afternoon off.  So on Wednesday I used my time off to finish cleaning and making my pies and stuffing for Thanksgiving.  I am also so excited that the rest of the world is now ready for Christmas (like I have been for a month) we were naughty already and opened the double wedding ring quilt my grandma made us for our wedding and put it on our bed.  We were supposed to wait until Christmas but I was too excited, isn't it beautiful!

Double Wedding Ring Quilt

She makes such nice labels!

On Thursday I woke up early and went off to complete my 30 day shred before cuddling in with some coffee and the Thanksgiving Day Parade.  My husband joined me on the couch for a while before we got ourselves together and went out for a nice 3 mile Thanksgiving Day run. This year we decided to save the 70$ and forgo the organized turkey trot for a cheaper version of our own.  Since both of us are on the 30 day fit bit challenge and we knew getting the rest of our steps may be tough that day we finished our 3 mile run with a 3 mile walk. 

My first ever apple pie

We spent Thanksgiving dinner with some good friends and their children.  It was pretty wonderfully typical of Thanksgiving, good food, good company and lots to be grateful for.  After dinner we came back to our home and welcomed some friends over for an evening of games, pie and cocktails.  It was an absolute blast, we played a new game called Concept and ended the evening with some long deep conversations on life.

This picture was actually earlier in the week, but my second week playing poker and look what I won!

Friday we were pretty unimpressive.  I think we needed some recuperating. I honestly cant even remember much of what we did, I believe there was some biking/walking and a little shopping.  We are not black friday people but Kris needed some new swim goggles so we went to REI and he picked those up while I snagged a winter hat that has a pony hole.  We then went to our local running store where I heard smart wool socks were on sale.  I am in love with Smart wool PHD running socks, they are amazing!  Oh and I completely forgot, we got pedis!  Yes I have a husband that will get a pedi with me now and then, he likes how it keeps his feet feeling good for running.  To finish the night we went to our town's annual tree lighting.  Its a bit cheesy but we enjoyed singing Christmas Songs and seeing the lights.  This year due to the lack of snow Santa had to come in on a low budget sleigh with wheels.  Normally we have a beautiful sleigh that is pulled by real reindeer! 

Christmas Tree

Not one of our best pics, but I tried!

Saturday morning brought a wonderful surprise, SNOW!  I was like a little kid who jumped out of bed and flew to the window to see if the weather man was telling the truth and there it was in all its glory.  I got my 30 day shred out  of the way and went out to meet a friend for a run.  We had decided this week to end our 3 mile run with a couple miles of ice skating on the lagoon.  It was absolutely perfect until I got overly confident in my skating abilities and went down. 

Santa! Santa! Santa!

My swollen knee didn't hold me back from trying out my new snow bike for our first actual ride in the snow.  It was so much fun!  It is such a different ride from road biking, I am still getting used to the different feeling, its more like strength training!  We took it really slow as I was nervous for my knee but it was great to just ride around the woods and smile at the snow.

Saturday night we went to some wonderful friends' home for Catan and drinks.  The lady of this couple is from England and is by the best (fanciest) hostess I have ever met.  I tried pate at her house, and actually liked it a bit!

Enjoying the outdoors

A late Saturday night unfortunately didn't translate into a lazy Sunday morning, we got up around 8 to continue our tradition of going out to breakfast before heading out to play again.  Kris has been meeting some guys to go snow biking on trails around town and I have been tagging along then going for a run (I cant keep up with them on bikes yet!) so that I get out on different trails.  This Sunday was a beautiful snowy run through some really fun single track, but I was dragging pretty bad.  I don't deal well without sleep, not sure how I am going to have kids yet!  We came back home and I napped for a few before we had to head out again for a school function with Kris's students.  I finished the day with some cleaning and cooking before heading to bed at 8pm!

Snowy Running

While this weekend was extremely exhausting, it was such a blast.  I am so grateful to have such wonderful friends and family who love being active and outdoors.  I know what a blessing it is that I am able to do all of these fun things and share that time with those that I love!  I am also thankful that I dont work on Tuesdays and before my rolfing and hair appointments I will have time to take a long nap!

30 Day Challenge

Last week I decided I wanted to jump start my fitness and motivation so I came up with a 30 day challenge, well two of them actually that will end on Christmas Eve.  Last week was not an awesome day to start a challenge as I am fighting a cold, but I am way too obsessed with symmetry to have a 29 or 27 day challenge.  So I decided on two main 30 day challenge goals and then I have two other side goals going as well.  Why not go for it, eh?

So my first goal is to complete the Julian Michael's 30 day Shred DVD.  In the past I have had serious issues with this as its not highly sustainable but since i just want a jump start and want to go into the new year (and Mexico) feeling strong I decided to go for it.  I have been in an ongoing debate with myself about strength training, so I thought this may help me get started.  I actually really like how I feel when I strength train and I think my body type is much more suited to strength training rather than running!  I naturally carry more muscle mass than I think most women do, Ive always been good at weight training, so why not use that to my advantage and build back some muscle!

My second goal is to reach my 12,000 step goal every day for the next 30 days.  I just got the new fit bit and now that I have a treadmill in the house this goal shouldn't be extremely hard to reach.  Before I got the treadmill for my birthday this year I used to walk circles in our house to finish up my steps for the day!

I also have two other unofficial challenges to myself but I haven't really gotten started on them yet, one is to drink at least 64 oz of water a day and the other is the track my food in my journal or my food counter on my phone.  My main focus is getting strong and being really active but I know if I want to change my body composition I need to look at my food!

Christmas Countdown!

Wish me luck!