Life Is Like A Helix

Today I went for a run. I like to say run, but really it was a walk/jog/run. It felt good. I know I will sleep much better than I did last week when I was shut in and sick.

So thoughts for today. I reread my old posts when I was doing my blog redesign and I wanted to share that I have simplified my liquids in take. Now every morning I have 32oz. of warm to hot water with a lemon slice before I eat anything. Some mornings if I get up early enough I drink it leisurely, other mornings it might be gulped. For pre-breakfast and what I run on I have a muffin tin frittata.* Now I'm drinking my second 32 oz. of lemon water and then I will have one more mini frittata.

Also today with my running I am also adding in doing the "plank." I happen to read about the plank last year and felt that core strengthening is something that I need. The first time I tried to do the plank I lasted about 15 seconds. Today I did it for 1 minute. By Wednesday I will really feel it in my abdomen, but I think that is good. (One can Google the plank and find out more about benefits and draw backs. The link above is just the one I picked to highlight the exercise.)

The Helix

After my run, I pulled out my training binder, which had my training dairy sheets in it. The top sheet was my best day way back in May 2013. That really put a smile on my face. So while I feel like I'm starting over, I'm not really. Once along time ago when I was complaining to a friend about starting something over, they said that I wasn't. Really instead of thinking that I was in loop or trapped in circle, the situation was like a helix. I may have circled around but I was higher. Opening my binder and seeing my previous accomplishment noted on a training dairy sheet felt good and helped me to see the helix of this moment.

Lastly, I got out my stickers. What is that? I have little stickers that I used to use to highlight all the tasks that my daughter had completed during the day. It was part of process that I called Operation Cooperation. I started it because one night when my daughter was in kindergarten she told me that all I ever do is tell her what she hasn't done. I felt really sad about that, so I figured out the list process so that we could both see all that had been accomplished in the day towards the formation of good habits.

Now today I am going to use the little stickers to put on my calendar when I run, do the plank, and write at this blog. That way on the days when life intervenes and things don't go quite as I planned, besides the training dairy, I will have visual record of what I am doing. It really helps to track the habit making process. My goal beyond doing a marathon and also a triathlon is to have the habit of exercise.

Here's to the helix and continuing my process.

*One can Google muffin tin frittata and find many variations. I follow the base of six eggs and 20 minutes of baking at 350º F from the recipe link above, but after that I like to be creative. I make mine with broccoli and my daughter likes bacon and cheddar cheese. Room temperature or 20 seconds in the microwave make them great for traveling. I make up the tin and then refrigerate and eat them for the week. Also size-wise they are perfect for the whole family. For breakfast my daughter eats one, I sometimes eat two and my husband will have two to four. 

The Persistence Of Desire

 Persistence [noun]
1. the act or fact of persisting

2. the quality of being persistent: "You have persistence, I'll say that for you."

3. continued existence or occurrence: "the persistence of smallpox."

4. the continuance of an effect after its cause is removed.

It's late tonight and I thought my blog needed some love in the form of a design update and a new post. A great many ideas run through my head for this blog, but they don't often make it into fully articulated posts. 

A lot has happen since I started writing here. One thing that has not happened: I have not yet made my goal of running a marathon and my envisioned deadline has come and gone. BUT I am persistent. Since it's late I was double checking the spelling of the word persistence and I thought the four definitions above fit my situation perfectly. 

First, let me say that even though my stated goal of running a marathon has not yet happened, my secondary goal of changing my life has, but not necessarily as I had planned. Isn't that always the case. Number one: I don't live in Prescott, AZ anymore. And in changing my address I have traveled about with the family and had some great fun exploring the Southwest. Number two: my family and I downsized our life into a fifth wheel trailer, with just a footprint of stored things in a space that is 10' x 10' x 16'. When we left Goldwater Lake we had two storage units that were 10' x 20' x 12'. Basically, my husband, daughter and I got rid of a third our stuff, which turned out to be a six-month cathartic process. Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui by Karen Kingston was the most helpful book in the process. In the clean out I did say good bye to my old "used" walking shoes that started me on my journey.

When my husband left his job we had ten days to vacate the residence that we had lived in for seven years. Needlessly to say it was really stressful. For the entire process my main goal was that it be a great adventure for my daughter (and that all the upheaval transform into fun for her). That did happen. The irony for me was that on the day that my life got thrown into the blender, I had my very best running day ever, which meant that I had run for nearly a continuous twenty minutes. I was pretty proud of myself. And then by the late afternoon of that day, life was suddenly like having everything thrown up in the air.

In the months that ensued over this past year and half, I doggedly kept trying to keep up my marathon goal. In fits and spurts, which I logged here I kept "trying to run." I did two races with my daughter.

Left is evidence from my very first race. I was just happy to finish. I did it with my friend Gina and her daughter (and her husband, the runner who was really off running). Gina's husband has been a great encourager for me. They moved  to Oregon last year.

Then my daughter and I did another race with Gina and her daughter and her running husband, which I am proud of doing because it was in Groom Creek at 7000 ft. and hilly. I finished and really got a sense of the fun and excitement generated around runners. A few people I know from my past regularly post running/marathon race pictures and now I get why. It is fun to race and to finish.

 

H. was into playing around as we got ready for the Groom Creek race. It has been great to have her in the races with me. She loves to run and I hope that by racing in the same races she gets that running is for a lifetime.

Last August we landed in Santa Fe and decided to hang out and have H. go to a private school we really wanted her to experience. Just before school started, the school sponsored a race, which H. and I did participated in, but my heart was not in it. It had been a year of upheaval and traveling and I just couldn't get into a rhythm of running. I kept trying, but trying is the key word. Finally, I just sort of gave up. My back was bothering me and the habit of running nor the need to run didn't seem to be completely gelled in me.

In November my husband's trucking job finally settled down and now he works for long stretches at a time in North Dakota. H. and I live across the street from her school, which has been lovely. For the fall we biked to school and through this winter we have walked.

Another of my goals when I started this blog was to develop my writing. Again I imagined it would happen mainly through this blog, but instead it has developed in other ways and through other endeavors particularly related to my filmmaking passions, which continue to be developed and move out into the world. I admit I miss the beauty of my office, but have to say that the need to write did take hold. I no longer need "my office" to really write. I can write anywhere anytime. That feels great. And that is my goal for my running, which brings me up to date.

Some time in January I woke up mentally to the fact that where I live—just beyond H.'s school—is an amazing place to run and start my training again. So I started walking everyday after I dropped off my daughter in the mornings. That felt good. I started sleeping better, which meant that my back started feeling a whole lot better and then at the end of February I decided to pull out my running shoes and gear and really go for it. Once I got started I realized that maybe running wasn't so foreign to me after all. I had two weeks that started my training, which felt great. Then I got a cold this past week, but by this Monday I should be back to normal. 

I feel excited. I feel like my best quality is my persistence, which has served me well in every undertaking I have pursued. Now my task is to sign up for some races. Half-marathon I am coming for you this summer!