Training to Live

out of the 13 races i’ve done in the last 6 years, there have been only two occasions when i have raced a distance and performed worse than i had in the past.

the first time was my 5th half marathon that i ran last spring – it was much hotter than i expected and i was unprepared. i wasn’t drinking enough and i likely hadn’t trained properly. i ran the course 4 minutes slower than i had the year before, and for some reason, it didn’t really bother me. by the fall, i bounced back to my old time (almost a minute faster) and a few weeks later, took 3 more minutes off.

(this was taken at that race, early on before things got really rough)

the second time was this weekend. half marathon #8. it was on a course i had never done before (this year i purposefully sought out new, interesting races to do. i’d seen this one on angela’s blog – she did the 10K last year). the race was super small (only a few hundred people) and not as well organized as most of the other races i do (my race kit had 4 boxes of triscuit crackers and a whole bunch of wrist and menstrual cramp tummy heat packs. random!). there was no elevation map on the race website, so i had no idea how many hills there would be! i knew it would be hilly-ish, but i wasn’t ready for steep hills in kilometre 2. at kilometre 16, it started to POUR. thunderstorms. i was soaked in an instant (squishy shoes), which didn’t help my defeated attitude. i made the same mistakes i’ve made many many times in the past: i didn’t drink enough and i didn’t take in enough calories, and you better believe i hit the wall. my splits were getting slower, i was getting tireder (is that a word?), and i just wanted the whole thing to be over! i had enough energy at the end to sprint the last kilometre and pass a bunch of people, which made it obvious that i hadn’t run hard enough during the rest of the race.

.

gretchen rubin says that people feel happier when they are improving and this is true for me! she talks about how having an atmosphere of growth is important. i don’t have any more races until august, but i will take this lesson and work towards growing and improving, not only my time, but my attitude and outlook on myself too! i know i can’t get faster each and every race forever because that is obviously unsustainable. from now on, i will embrace my body for what it can do, even if it’s not always as fast as i wish it were!

although i’ve had a lot of fun with a busy spring racing season, i am happy that i have a few months of “breather” time to refocus and really work hard on my speed and hills without the pressure of getting a long long run in every single weekend.

until then, here are some funny pictures.

i am wearing a bondi band that says yoga on it and has a stick figure in tree pose. i am trying to imitate that here.

although these were taken pre-race, this pretty much sums up how i would feel after!

can you see the pain in my eyes? my legs look so slow, i may as well be walking (oh and i did half to stop and walk a few times up parts of those killer hills). i look a tiny bit deranged on the right, no? it kind of felt awesome passing some people at the end.

i am recommitting to this blogging thing. again. promise.

here’s what happened in february:

-i went to an awesome book event for one of my newest favourite books, that i have talked about here already: the happiness project. a conversation with the author, the amazing gretchen rubin, and heather from indigo.

i had just gotten to almost the end of my library copy by the time the book event happened, and i knew i wanted to buy my own copy. luckily this was the perfect time because i could have a chat with gretchen and get my copy signed! excuse the terrible pictures! it wasn’t me.

i am taking part in the 2010 happiness challenge, which comes with a monthly theme and weekly things to do (described in 2 minute videos by gretchen, every monday). so far we’ve done things like tackle nagging tasks, fight right, stop expecting praise and appreciation (the hardest), hug more, kiss more, touch more (my favourite). i can feel myself becoming a more pleasant person.

-i started seriously training for around the bay (which is in 21 days!!!) 30k race i am doing at the end of this month.

i’ve gone on 2+ hour training runs, i have done strength training a couple times each week, i’ve started interval training (yasso 800s!) and i have gone swimming once a week, every week since i last posted that i was going to try and get back into swimming.

our winter has been mild – perfect for outdoor runs but not so perfect for snowshoeing. we only have gotten out once so far (i fear this will be our only snowshoe adventure of 2010), but it was epic. 2.5 hours on the mountain biking trails of waterloo. my muscles ached the following two days!

today i’m up to a 21-25k run. i’ve got one more distance week left, and then i cut back in preparation of my taper before the race. edited to add- i ended up being out for 3 hours this morning. brutal. my knees hurt. happily i probably won’t have to do any more ridiculously long runs this year because this 30k race is the longest i am signing up for. everything else is half marathon and below.

soon i will start spending a bit more time on my bike, as the following race is the cyclocross st george to ancaster, where i will ride 35k through mud, rail trails, roads, single track and farm land.

-i went to a wake for a 16 year old who lost a battle with cancer. it was decidedly one of the most sad things i have done. my heart broke for his parents; no one should ever have to go through that.

-i got to interview and help select our summer intern for work. this was particularly exciting, as we went back to my alma mater for the interviews AND i was that summer intern myself, not too many years ago. we didn’t get our first pick, but i am pretty happy with the person who will be showing up in may. it definitely was an experience that made me feel old though!

-i went to a custom bike shop with jon to get his new bike spec-ed out, measured and designed. it was sooo cool! i wanted to share some pictures, but when we arrived, i discovered that my battery was completely out of juice maybe i’ll go back when we pick up the finished product and get some good shots. custom bikes are sweet, but i am definitely not enough of a for real biker to justify getting one, nor would i fully appreciate all the features. i would love a custom paint job though!

-last night, for the first time ever, i drove jon’s standard car home (about 12km) all by myself with no supervision – my maiden voyage. it was a little harrowing at times, since i’m a pretty new driver to begin with, and i’m still learning how to operate the standard vehicle. i stalled only once, drove in the wrong gear once or twice, but, all in all, it wasn’t too bad and i did not crash or die! someday soon i will get more comfortable doing this.

-i proofread jon’s mechanical engineering master’s thesis on deep drawing of warm formed aluminum. “what?” you say. yeah, that’s what i said too. after going through the 100+ pages a few times, combing carefully for missing commas and misplaced subordinating conjunctions, i still don’t really know what deep drawing is all about. that’s ok with me.

-i’m working on my mighty life list, inspired by maggie and karen. i’ll post it when i’m done. so far everything on the list (i’m up to #28 so far) is kind of epic. i think i need a few things that i can get started on right now. ideas?

-i pulled the ice cream maker out of hibernation for a batch of homemade cookies and cream (david lebovitz’s philidelphia vanilla with crushed oreos swirled in at the end). let me tell you, i have missssed ice cream. since we stopped buying it at the store, when i removed the freezer bowl from our freezer, our connection to the creamy cold treat was severed. i’m happy to have it back in my life.

-tomorrow i’m going to my first ever blog meetup (aside from the healthy living summit, which i guess was sort of blog meetup like) that angela is organizing in kensington market, a super cute area of toronto. i’m excited to meet new people, make some new friends (hopefully) and spend some time exploring the city. the weather is supposed to be gorge!

whew. that was long.

getting things done in november is going pretty well so far. while yoga has not exactly become a habit (it will be going on my december chart. and january and february. until it does become a habit) but i have blogged every day, i have gone out and been active in someway every single day (minus one) and i’ve become much better about going to bed with nothing hanging over me in the mornings. i no longer come home from work and curl up on the couch and veg for the evening. i take the hour and a half to shower, make supper and eat, and watch a short show or do some internetting and then spend some quality time doing responsible things. this has made me far less stressed out come the weekend because things haven’t piled up. i like this kind of living.

i am starting to think ahead to what i want to accomplish next month. we are going to be away for 1/3 of the month, so my priorities will be less home-life centric. instead i think i want to work on goals like taking a picture every day (i think i might try and do this for the whole year), doing more yoga (see above), and doing at least one thing every day that contributes to my happiness. although i have not been a student for over a year and a half now, sometimes i still think in the student mindset that i have no money and therefore i shouldn’t spend money. now, since i have a great job, an excellent living setup that allows me to save loads, and don’t currently have any expensive hobbies, i definitely have the extra income to put towards the little things in life that make my whole life better. for example, instead of buying the cheapest brand of toilet paper, i will spend a few extra dollars and get one that is softer & nicer. instead of keeping my house at 19° (68F) when i’m home and away, which is actually kind of chilly, i will keep it at 20 or 21, much more comfortable, even if it means a slightly higher gas bill. i don’t need to live like a hobo in my house with rough toilet paper, shivering in a corner. that is no way to pass the days.

sometimes money CAN buy happiness. have i mentioned how much i love that blog? it is changing my life!

on another happy note, this video made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy. (she said yes)

one of the happiness project tips that i am trying out this month is gretchen’s personal commandment #4: do it now. she says if you have trouble doing something, you should try doing it every day. getting into a routine makes going with the flow easier. it makes it more difficult to back out if you’ve made the tasks part of your schedule. this month, i am attempting blogging and yoga. so far the blogging has gone ok and i have done yoga 5 out of the 9 days. they are starting to become ingrained in my evenings. both blogging and yoga contribute to my overall happiness, so doing them every day is moving in the right direction.

i used to get all my yoga material from yogadownload, directly. i mostly stuck to the free 20 minute classes, but found the odd pay class during a sale that i particularly enjoyed. yoga for cyclists is still my absolute favourite. dawnelle is a great instructor (yoga for runners is my other favourite class by her) and i can often convince jon to do yoga with me! (we need to get him his own mat though) recently in itunes, i discovered the yogadownload podcast that has a huge selection of free 20 minute classes that are really easy/quick to download (and they go directly into itunes, so there’s no misplacing the file or losing the pose guide). i’ve been doing a different one every day.

so far:

sun salutations #1

hip opening

yoga for buns (so many utkatasanas!! my quads burned)

office yoga (this one is only 5 minutes and is done in a chair!)

detox yoga

and heart opening yoga

i have loved them all, though some are a little too advanced for me. i can’t do some of the crazy stuff yet, but i’ve noticed immense improvement in my flexibility over the past ~9 months or so that i have casually been practicing.

yogadownload recently redesigned their website. i just checked it out and it looks really cool! much more user friendly. have a look and check out the podcasts in itunes! your muscles will be glad.

who knew i’d ever be doing yoga every day! i used to joke about trying to “live the yoga lifestyle” because i had the pants and the shirts, etc, but i never actually did any practice. now it is my #1 way to start or end any day.

namaste

for the first time ever, ecto has betrayed me! i just wrote an awesome post about a crazy thing i did and then i decided to get all fancy and try and insert my newest favourite song and poof! all my pictures and text gone. just like that. i seem to also be having server issues. double boo!

bah.

i am not a spontaneous person, generally, but here is the crazy that i decided to do this week:

oh yes. march 28. thirty kilometres. in hamilton, ontario (home of dofasco). it will probably still be snowing here at that time! i do not belong to a gym, so i will be doing many outdoor runs this winter. hello, project snow. this is the oldest race in north america! i started 3 years before boston, in 1894. i’m pumped to be part of the history. jon’s office mate has also signed up, but she is a lot faster than i am. i’ve never done a 30k before so as slow as i go, it’ll still be a personal record. (i guess i did run 30km in my marathon, but then i had to run 12 more! i hope that my time next year is at least a bit faster)

the week turned around. surprisingly, the christmas decorations that are popping up everywhere are making me excited about the holidays (more on our plans to come!). i had to pop into babyGap to pick up a few things for some new (and not so new) babies. holy crap the cuteness. i nearly died. few things are as cute as teeny tiny baby sleepers.

happiness project is progressing. i cheated a bit on yoga tonight (only did a 5 minute class!) but i got a huge organizational task out of the way, so i’ll give myself a break. 5 minutes of yoga is better than no yoga! i found this awesome song that i love. it makes me want to dance around. you should listen. it’s called merry happy and it is by kate nash. and it is fun fun!

time for bed.

i’ve been feeling a little blah lately – due to a large number of things like the cold weather, the rain, the dark + dreariness, work stress, the end of my running season, etc etc etc. i try to keep reminding myself that i have things really good. that i have no reason to be sad about stuff (well. i guess i do, see above). maybe what it actually is is that i should be making those little things bring the rest of me down. i stumbled on a blog (can’t remember how, but it’s a valuable part of my google reader now!) called: The Happiness Project – full of tips on how to be happier and create your own happiness. i love it. the author has personal commandments (starting with: “Be Gretchen” and ending with “There is only one love.” with “Do what ought to be done” somewhere in the middle. These are good commandments. It’s a religion I could really get on board with). There are four splendid truths and many inspirational quotes.

although i don’t agree with everything she writes, i have learned some really great, useful things. the post that seems to have stuck with me the most this week (from my perusal of the archives) is the 5 happiness boosters that do more harm than good:

1) comforting yourself with a treat. often the treats aren’t good for us. the pleasure lasts a minute but the feelings of guilt, loss of control and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day.

(i say comfort yourself with some yoga. or a bubble bath)

2) letting yourself of the hook. when you’re trying to create good habits, occassionally you’ll have a bad day – like “i don’t feel like going for a run tonight, so i’ll stay in and watch tv instead.” or, “i can fold the laundry tomorrow night instead” (this one is real). gretchen says: sticking to a resolution will boost your sense of self-esteem and self-control. So NOT letting yourself off the hook might do more to boost your happiness.

i will go fold my laundry when i am done the post.

3) turning off your phone. we all have those days when we don’t really want to talk to anyone, but though it can be tempting to isolate yourself when you’re feeling crappy, you are better off making plans with friends and family.

4) expressing your negative emotions.

Many people believe in the “catharsis hypothesis” and think that expressing anger is healthy-minded and relieves their feelings. Not so. Studies show that expressing anger only aggravates it; as Plutarch observed, “Anger, while in its beginning, often can be ended by silence, or neglect.” I’ve certainly found this to be true; once I get going, I can whip myself into a fury. It’s better to stay calm.

i find this is totally how i make myself feel more sad and upset when i am a little bit sad or upset. i will think about some little thing to tell someone about and then as i keep expanding on it and adding to it, my situation becomes worse. i will try to stay calm more often and focus more on things that make me happy. puppies and sunshine and lollypops.

5) staying in your pyjamas all day. although it can be fun to lounge around all day in your jammies, if you are feeling lethargic, powerless or directionless, not getting dressed will only make it worse!

so true! right? so i’m working on my own happiness project. i’ll share more as it grows. the first part is a resolution chart that i got from gretchen who created a year’s worth of month by month resolutions. (you can email her if you want to see them – the information is at the bottom of every post on her blog). each month had a theme, an inspirational quote to go with the theme and several resolutions for the month. her january (“Clear my closets”) was a perfect model for my november, so i created my very first month.

my plan is that at the end of the month, if i have at least 150 X, i will do something special, just for me. i will also be able to judge, at the end of the month, whether this method works for me. i am hoping that it will help me change and create some new, good habits because god knows, i need to watch less tv, do more yoga, and get better about keeping my house in order.

how are you going to make yourself happier?