Goal Check & New Goal Setting!

Now that I’ve finished my walking half marathon, it’s time to check in on my other goals for the year and set some new activity goals going forward. Having that race to train for DEFINITELY helped keep me moving, so I want to be sure I have a new goal to chase.

• • From my 40 by 40 list, I’ve been doing a lot of fun things, including dates with both of my guys, breaking out my jewelry/fashion comfort zone, mastering a couple of new foods (pancakes!) and having adventures like my river float, hiking and others. I’m loving this time of more fully embracing life!

• • One specific fun thing in my 40 by 40 list was baking my way through my Great British Bakeoff Cookbook with Darrell and we tackled the Battenburg cake over the weekend. It turned out really well and wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be!

• All of the things I’ve been doing for 40 by 40 have also served my word of the year: FEED. I’ve embraced the joy of cooking again and really become more thoughtful about how I’ve fed my spirit and my brain through my 40 by 40 list.
• I’ve also really thought about how I’m eating and have a confession: You know how I told you I’d lost some weight recently? Want to know how I did it? Cut out that three pounds of grapes I was eating a day. That’s essentially it. Turns out, a bowl full of grapes at bedtime and with breakfast may have health benefits, but isn’t scale friendly for me at this age.

New goal for the rest of fall: Resume running GENTLY. I went out to run yesterday and just threw in the occasional spurt of running as I walked. Thanks to the walking I’ve been doing lately, it felt really easy from a cardiovascular and musculoskeletal perspective. I was only stopping to walk because I was forcing myself to take it easy.

• I’ll run no more often than every other day.
• I’ll run no farther than a 5K for the next year. Keeping my goal small will hopefully keep me from pushing too fast.
• I’ll embrace every step I get to run with gratitude. Yesterday, every step was a joy because I was just so glad to be running again without pain. I want to hold onto that joy and appreciate how fortunate I am to run at all.

I also want to keep moving enough that I can walk or run my own Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. No sitting around and getting lazy now that my half marathon is done!

Cute family photo of the day to share: Family date to the botanical gardens for pumpkin carving! This was seriously the best $10 I’d ever spent. They provided the pumpkins and supplies and CLEANED UP THE MESS! Wins all around!

What are you looking forward now that we’re truly into fall? How are you doing for your fall goals? 

Weekly Wrap-Up: Feels Like I’m Training Again!

There’s something about checking off all of the workouts on a calendar that makes me feel like I’m REALLY on a training plan. It feels great to have met my goals for the week!

Workouts

Monday  Rest day!

Tuesday Speed work: 15 minutes easy warm-up followed by 3 cycles of 45 seconds of speedy walking and 2 minutes easy recovery, with 5 minutes of cool down. It is so tempting to shorten those 2 minute recovery periods (which seem SO long!) to 1 minute, but I’m respecting the plan and sticking to it. I do like the slightly longer “speed” intervals as I at least feel like I can get up to speed in that time. It’s still hard not to run though!

Wednesday I flew into Chicago late Tuesday night for an all day meeting in the Chicago airport Hilton, followed by a flight back home at 10 pm Wednesday night (ugh!). I’m very proud of myself for not letting travel disrupt the plan: 25 minutes easy walking, in the Chicago airport. I got dressed to go work out and couldn’t bring myself to walk on the treadmill in my hotel. Instead, I headed out to the airport walkways (hotel in the airport) to get in my 25 minutes and some early morning people watching.

Thursday No workout because I had a 7 am meeting (after getting home after midnight from Chicago!) followed by a 3+ hour Thai cooking class immediately after work. It was so fun to go to cooking class with Darrell and learn all of these yummy recipes! If you’re in Omaha, this was at Creme de la Creme and  I highly recommend it!

(Pic from the Creme de la Creme site – rolling spring rolls)

Friday I meant to wake up early for my tempo walk but was wiped out from Thursday and Friday. Boo! However, I did end the day with a surprising workout: tubing down the Elkhorn River. This was my first experience tubing and I will say, it is more of an ab workout than you’d expect -holding yourself steady in that tube – based on how sore my abs were all weekend! I had a great time with my team on our first group retreat. It also checked the box of my “adventure a month” from my 40 by 40 list!

Saturday I know I said I’d stick to the schedule for which days were assigned to which workouts, but it is just easier for me to get a workout in on both weekend days than it is on three weekdays. If I’m going to do that, I need to shuffle things so that I’m doing an easy walk on Saturday and my tempo walk a little farther from my long walk. This week’s tempo segment got a little longer: 10 minute warm up; 15 minute tempo walk (17ish minute miles) and 10 minute cool down. I ended my walk at the new ice cream place by my house and stretched out front in the grass while I waited for Darrell and Oliver to join me. Nothing like Saturday afternoon ice cream in the summer. 🙂 (Not that this lactose intolerant girl had ice cream – but it was fun to watch Oliver enjoy himself!)

Sunday It was a beautiful day for a long walk and I headed out for 4 steady miles, at a 18:30(ish) pace. I have a hilly neighborhood, so it felt like a good workout and that was so nice after a relatively lazy few months!
I actually ended up with closer to 5 miles, since I ended my 4 miles by meeting Darrell and Oliver at a park and then walking another mile home with them. It’s so nice that we have parks we can walk to!

In terms of meeting last week’s goals, I definitely did all of the workouts as prescribed, if not exactly on the day prescribed, which was an improvement. I also did some stretching on Saturday, but given the way my legs feel today I should definitely be doing more of that. I’m working out more than I have in a while and need to be careful or I’ll hobble myself. I confess there’s part of my mind that says “this is just walking” – ie nowhere near as strenuous as running, but I still have to be careful because a) I’m not in the physical condition I was in as a runner and b) 13.1 miles is a LOT, whether you’re walking or running. I have to respect my body and treat it well.

This week is built into the training plan as a recovery week, with all easy walks. I’ll have to shuffle the days so that I can be sure to get everything done as I have a SUPER early flight to New Hampshire on Sunday morning. Fortunately, with 4 easy walks and a 2 mile “long” walk, that shouldn’t be too taxing to move around. I’ll plan on walking the easy walks on Tuesday-Friday and the 2 miles on Saturday and leave Sunday for rest. I’m looking forward to next week’s walks being among the forests of New Hampshire. I’ll be at a work meeting in Waterville Valley in an off season ski resort all week. I’m sure there will be adventures to be had!

Have you ever done a river float? It was fun to just float, drink and chat – aside from the utter clumsiness of getting myself into and out of my tube!

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Mama’s Mystery Medal Half Marathon Week #2

Apparently to make Mama’s Mystery Medal Oliver needs cardboard, glitter, markers and a picture of me. It should be interesting. 🙂

This walking half marathon plan is the BEST idea I’ve had in a while. After years of training for running races, I’m very accustomed to having a plan to follow and workouts to hit each week. Working out falls to the bottom of my to-do list without a set goal (as I’ve learned over the last 6 months – and 30 pounds). Even this solo walking half marathon is enough to get me up and moving! I stayed up way too late last night rewatching Sherlock and still, when the alarm went off at 5:40 this morning, I hauled myself up to get out and do “speed” work. I definitely wouldn’t have been that ready to go if I didn’t have a race deadline.

Workouts

Monday Rest day

Tuesday Speed day: 30 second speed walk/2 minutes easy walk. The intervals got a little longer, which was good. With last week’s 10 second intervals, things were too short to feel like I was doing anything. This week, it bumped up to 30 seconds and that felt a little more like I could speed up and maintain it for a bit like a true interval.

Wednesday 20 minutes easy walking – I am loving easy walks during this super summer weather!

Thursday/Friday I was supposed to do my power walk but missed it between life and heat and who knows what.

Saturday Oliver & I walked a mile and a half from Village Inn to Hy Vee after breakfast while Darrell drove home to get some things we needed for our day of errands. It was mostly uphill, but because I was occasionally pausing to encourage the small fry to come along, I don’t think I can count it as the “Power Walk” it should have been. It was worth it though, to see how excited Oliver was to help me get my sticker for the day. 🙂

He’s used lots of sticker charts in his little life, so he’s definitely used to this and gets excited every time I get a sticker.

Sunday 3 miles easy walking, with my missed 10 minutes of “Power Walk” thrown in the middle. This time, the Power Walk portion was in the 16-17 minute mile range, which is a little faster than last week. Progress!

Man, does it feel good for my legs to work again. However, going forward I need to be better about:

1. Follow the schedule – Keep easy walks and rest days in between the long walks and speed/power walks. I’m not in the shape I was 6 months ago and should respect the plan.
2. Don’t combine workouts – Each one serves a purpose. Counting 3 miles as my long walk and Power Walk isn’t the same as doing those separately and I know that. I can get away with this kind of “cheating” early but will regret it later if I don’t follow the plan!

This week, I have a little travel but it shouldn’t throw things off too much. I’m flying to Chicago tonight for a meeting in the airport Hilton all day tomorrow and flying back home again tomorrow night. Happily, I already know that the food that’s going to be ordered for lunch is healthy (grilled chicken salad) and I’m in that airport enough that I know I can find a healthy dinner too.

I’m bringing one of my favorite birthday presents with me to wear tomorrow to remind me that I can do anything I put my mind to – big leadership meetings or making healthy food choices or squeezing in quality mom moments among the work.

My goals for this week are to start incorporating some yoga and stretching into my week. Using these muscles again to train, I’m going to get stiff before I know it. I’m also going to follow the training plan as it is written – no combining things or cheating!

What are your goals for the week?

 

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Finding a new summer workout plan

I’m in the market of new summer workout ideas! I’m already losing motivation to workout when the only thing I’ve really got on my docket is walking. Don’t get me wrong – I love a nice walk, but I’m finding it hard to get myself motivated to get up in the morning to work out. I can already feel all of the stamina I’ve lost. Ugh. I’ve got some ideas, but I’m interested in yours. I need something that’s low impact and doesn’t strain my neck too much. Swimming is out per the physical therapist and I just find the elliptical mind-numbing. Time to find some other options.

Here are my ideas to find some mojo this summer:

• Try at least one workout that isn’t walking each week. This week, my goal is to get to Zumba at the gym. I’ve also got a ton of workout DVDs I can try and other classes at the gym. I’m also looking for opportunities to try things like kayaking and stand up paddleboarding (which I loved in Montana last summer!), as well as hiking when I go to New Hampshire later this summer.
• Sign up for a karate/similar class. Learning something new would be a great way to get engaged again. Karate or some similar martial art seems like it would be good for stress relief, the challenge of learning something new and a different kind of exercise than usual. A dance class might also be a good idea.

• Re-enlist with a trainer at the gym. The trainers at my gym are expensive so I’d keep the appointment not to waste money. Plus, they could help me find exercises that feel safe for my neck.
• Train to walk a half marathon. I could walk a half marathon in Des Moines. It’s a very walker friendly course as the half marathon course is open as long as the marathon course (or at least it has been in the past). Maybe checking boxes to train to walk a half marathon would get me up in the morning . . .

Des Moines HM 2015

Getting more active is essential so I can lose some of this weight I’ve regained, so I get my stamina and cardiovascular health back and to keep my lupus under control a bit. I think my cranky hands might be more than a little bit related to my lack of running for the last couple of months.

Any other ideas for low impact exercises that don’t require a lot of sudden movements or twisting of my neck?

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Weekly Wrap Up: A return of neck pain . . . And running hiatus

Good news, bad news.

Good news:

• • First half of last week was great in terms of my fitness goals! Lots of walks and a 9-interval running workout.
  • I stayed on track with my food choices all week despite lots of travel. I made good choices and tracked everything, including some indulgences.

A healthy room service breakfast left room for yummy lemon cake!

• I didn’t let the stress of travel throw me off plan!

Bad news:

• During that run Wednesday, my neck pain came back with a vengeance – and has stayed. It hurt worse than it has since February and still hurts. Even worse, I also had an increase in my thumb pain, which means this wasn’t just muscular. The nerve was irritated again too.
• The neck pain freaked me out so much that I was pretty much a slug for the last half of the week. Food choices were good, but my step counts and workouts were minimal.

I’ll admit, the neck pain got me down and there were some cookies that weren’t tracked on Memorial Day. However, Tuesday I was right back on the horse, weighing in and tracking again. I’m beyond frustrated with this neck pain, but I knew this was a possibility. The physical therapist seemed wary of me trying to run at all because of the impact and inflammation. Turns out she was right – at least for now.

I’m re-evaluating my summer plans. No more running for a couple of months – I’ll try again in the fall if the summer goes well. However, without running, I’m going to need to find something that keeps me moving. I need something that gives me the “training for a race” level motivation to keep moving, even if what I’m doing is stationary bike, elliptical and walking. It is amazing the number of things that involve stress to your neck! Biking on the road is out for a while, as is swimming. I’ll have to find fun in low impact things for a while. On the plus side, I have time to finally get good about strength training. Maybe I can work on coming up with a plan and a sticker chart. I’m super motivated by a sticker chart.

I need to view this as an opportunity to try something new and to avoid running in the heat of summer. Always a bright side. 🙂

Also a bright side for me? A date with myself Thursday night for Wonder Woman!!

I am ridiculously excited about this movie!!

Thanks as always to Holly and Tricia for hosting our weekly wrap up! Next week’s weekly wrap up will hopefully include reports of two strength workouts, walks every day and good food choices.

How do you stay motivated to keep moving through an injury?

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Weekly Wrap Up: Slowly but surely!

Slowly but surely I’m getting back on track!!

This week, I met most of my goals from last week:

• Run two times: Done! I did two sets of 7 intervals (30 second run/2 minute walk). It feels so nice to be back to running again that I’m tempted to run longer, but I know slow and steady is the name of the game here to be safe with my neck. Every workout I get through without any neck/arm pain feels like a big win though!
• Four mile long weekend walk: Technically, I did this (well most of it – 3.5 miles) but I combined it with  one of my run workouts. I did a five minute warm up walk, my 7 run/walk intervals and then walked to finish out my miles. Ideally, these would be separate but I slipped in the rain Saturday and couldn’t work out at all that day so I screwed up my schedule. 😦
• Continue tracking: Done and rocking the tracking! Know what I’m really proud of? Mid-week (Wednesday-Thursday) I was down to 222, which is 9 pounds down from my re-gain high. Over the next two to three days I floated back up to 225, probably due to fluid given how quickly it happened and some saltier than usual food. Over the last year, any time I’ve noticed that kind of regain after a half-hearted attempt at righting the ship  I’ve said “screw it” and gone back to eating however I want. This week, not so much. I tracked the number and kept right on tracking my food. I really feel like I’m settling back into my groove with my food and tracking!
• Thirty minutes of exercise a day: Other than Friday, where I just got too immersed in work to do it (or let myself get immersed, rather) and Saturday when I was babying my aching knee in hopes of getting a workout in on Sunday, I hit this mark every day!

Lots of wins for the week! That’s a great feeling after feeling this sense of unsteadiness with my eating and my workouts for the last couple of months. Between guilt about my weight gain and my neck injury, I got totally off kilter. It feels good to get back to “normal.”

The things that are helping are no-brainers, really.

• I’m waking up earlier. If a workout isn’t done in the morning, it doesn’t get done.
• I’m prepping lunches and dinners ahead of time (and pre-tracking!).
• I’m loading up on fruits and veggies and water. Duh.

My lunch this week will be this veggie-full chicken soup!

Why did those things, which seem so obvious now, fall off my radar? Who knows. I know it will be easy for me to fall out of these habits again if I’m not careful, so I’ll keep tracking everything and setting goals here every week so I can navigate summer temptations. I’ve got vacation and the temptation dairy free ice cream (a wonderful and dangerous discovery) to balance after all, along with weather that’s hot enough to make workouts seem like the worst idea EVER.

My goals for this week:

• Make healthy choices at work dinners: I have two work dinners this week, as well as a breakfast/lunch out of town where I’m going to give a lecture. Restaurants are no excuse for bad choices. Lean proteins, veggies sides and coffee instead of dessert are all strategies I used before and can easily adopt again.
• Fruit and veggies are my friends for my road trips: I’m driving down to Kansas City for the lecture I’m giving and will bring along fruits and veggies for snacking on the way. No need to just inhale grapes – I can mix in some sugar snap peas too.
• Two running workouts: Up to nine intervals now! Woo hoo! I’m staying safe and sticking to the plan.
• Thirty minutes a day: Trying again, with including the workouts in my schedule instead of relying on chance. Plan for success!

Wish us luck this week as we navigate the last week of kindergarten! Excitement is running HIGH in that classroom (poor teacher!) and it’s trickling over to lots of bad sleep for O at home.  Transitioning in and out of the structured school schedule is going to be a whole new challenge for us!

Thanks as always to Holly and Tricia (and Wendy!) for hosting our wrap ups!

Any big plans to kick off summer now that school is winding down?

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Anyone else kicking off summer with Wonder Woman? 🙂

Easing back into running

Now that spring is here I’m itching to get back to running, but my last visit with my PT has me rethinking my original plan of diving into a Couch to 5K program.

“Do you really have to run?“

 Big question, right? Technically, no, but really – I’d like to. Her concern is with the impact on my probably still fragile cervical disc. The neurosurgeon said it would be a year before it had fully healed. Does that mean I can’t run at all? She didn’t say that, but did say that I should take it slow and keep it minimal during this year. She also suggested other exercises, at which point I got to demonstrate how UNcoordinated I am on the elliptical. She didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t really do it until I showed her. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly where I was going wrong, but agreed I was definitely going wrong!

I promised no big or long running this year and to take it easy, watching for any sign of my symptoms returning. As much as I want to run for my sanity and my weight management, I never want to go through this herniated disc nonsense again.

In the sense of finding a balance, I’ve decided on this approach:

– No more than 2 run workouts a week, to give me plenty of time between to notice if there’s any inflammation or any problem.

– No plans for anything longer than 5K distance or anything with speed work, hills, etc. Short easy running!

– No plans for continuous running. My goal is to keep to run walk intervals for the next year, until I’m further out from this injury.

What is that actually going to look like?

– 1-2 workouts a week, starting with 30 second run/2 minute walk and increasing the number of rounds of that from 5 to 15.

– If I can handle 15 rounds (about 40 minutes) of those intervals, then I’ll start increasing the run intervals up to 60 seconds (gradually) but still keep a significant walk break (no less than 90 seconds).

– Keeping up my long walks on the weekend (4 miles) and my strength training for my arm.

 I’ll be thrilled if I can get back to even a little running and tolerate it without injuring myself! If I notice any problems at all, I’ll stop. There are other ways to keep my sanity and my fitness. I’m not going to injure myself, I promise, even though there is a part of me that fears I’ll never really get back to running “seriously” (as seriously as this middling-slow girl was) again.

Anybody else absolutely incapable of using exercise equipment? I’ve had treadmill fails too! I’m just not the most coordinated in any aspect of life I’m afraid.

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Home again (temporarily!)

It is so nice to be back home!
I got some much appreciated park time with these guys when I got home Sunday. 🙂

Last week, I had to travel out to Louisiana at the last minute to help my mother coordinate a lot of healthcare issues for my grandmother. It was exhausting, but I’m glad I was able to help move things along a bit. I confess it was also very motivating, in a weird way. My mother’s mother and her brother are both hospitalized with complications of diabetes and high blood pressure that have been drastically worsened by their poor self-care. Right now I am weirdly angry that they are dying and disabled due to treatable, manageable conditions – or what are frequently treatable conditions (I know there are always exceptions). Neither of them ate well, exercised or took their medications. Neither of them got proper medical care. Lots of reasons fed into that lack of care but a big part of it was not believing the seriousness of the conditions or the need for medical treatment. With diabetes and hypertension, you often feel just fine until your disease has progressed to a point where you’re suddenly having end-organ damage and failing. This gene pool is abysmal but it’s mine and it’s a big part of the reason I lost weight and cleaned up my diet in the first place. It’s the reason I looked at the DASH diet guidelines for hypertension again when I finally got home this weekend (here) and the reason I told myself that it didn’t matter how hard it was, I had to pull myself out of this hole of poor food choices. It’s the reason I set my alarm for 5:45 today to head out to run a bit for the first time in ages.

I am happy to report that I DID get in my long walk over the weekend. I walked 7.5 miles in the Dallas airport during my long layover Sunday morning.

I am less happy to report that as I did that in Crocs, I have a blister. 😦 With a 7 mile walk and a 7.5 mile walk behind me, I feel confident that I can get through a 10K and 5K in Cincinatti for Flying Pig weekend.

I’m particularly proud of myself for getting that walk in, even with the very real possibility I’m going to be missing that race weekend for a funeral. It was so tempting to skip the long workout between the fatigue and the lack of proper footwear if there’s a chance it’s all for “nothing” but I suspect that if I’d been just sitting in the airport for hours, I’d have made a lot of bad food and drink choices. Moving helped avoid that.

Goals for this week:

• Eat lots of fruits and veggies. (Specifically, 5 servings of each a day)
• Do two run/walk workouts. (More on that specific plan later!)
• Meditate daily. (I’m overwhelmed, to say the least with all of this family business)
• Get a 4 mile walk in over the weekend. (Sort of a taper walk, before next week’s races)

Travel fitness tip: Google your airport name and “healthy” or “fitness” to find ideas for healthy food or exercise options in the airport. In the DFW airport, there’s a 0.7 mile walking path in terminal D marked by mosaic tiles like the one I took a picture of above. There’s also a yoga space, with mats and yoga videos on the TV!

What’s your favorite travel fitness tip?

Thanks as always to Tricia and Holly for hosting the wrap up!

 

 

Weekly Wrap-Up: Progress not Perfection

I keep my list of reasons “why” in the front of my list journal that I have with me every day. On the facing page, I have this:

The fact that’s its under something I scribbled out is somehow more appropriate, right? Progress not Perfection is definitely something I need to remind myself of now.

This week had some nice wins:

• Cleared from weekly PT visits – now stretching out to every two weeks. Even better, I did a great job with my daily workouts for my arm and shoulder so I was proud of myself for not letting things slide even though I’m not getting checked as often!
• 7 mile walk done – Sunday afternoon, I headed out for my walk and maintained around 18 minute pace even though I wasn’t remotely in the mood to push the pace. It’s nice to know that even my “easy” walking pace is a lot faster than it used to be.

There’s been some not-so-great in the last couple of days to balance this, I must confess. Saturday evening, we were out late and hungry. Rather than coming home to cook the dinner I’d planned, we found somewhere to eat out. It was prom night, so we tried three places before we found somewhere that wasn’t too busy and the place we ended up with didn’t offer the healthiest choices. I was tired enough that I didn’t care.

Sunday morning at 5 am, I was woken up by Oliver who was sick. Again. More vomiting. Sigh. We’d just done the GI thing on Monday. He was well for the rest of the week, until Sunday. I’m not sure it was just the dinner we had Saturday  night (a little outside his usual food comfort zone) or if he was sick with another bug. Regardless, it was another day of vomiting and sick boy. His poor tummy hurt quite a bit. Thankfully, he’s better today. Between lack of sleep and worry about him, I just ordered pizza for lunch.

However, despite less-than-ideal food choices, there are some wins.

• I chose a glass of wine with dinner Saturday, not a sugary cocktail, and I savored every drop.
• I skipped dessert with dinner and at home. I was full and didn’t need more. Recognizing that is a HUGE change.
• I actually looked at my unopened box of Thin Mints on Sunday and thought “I’ve already screwed up today – might as well eat these.” However, after I got home from my walk, the urge was gone and I had a reasonable dinner.

I’m finding it easier to rein things in after “straying” which is good and I’m happy with my progress towards walking a 10K and 5K on the same day next month. Have I had things in tighter control before? Sure – but this is still better than I was doing a month ago. Progress, not perfection.

In the name of progress, I think setting concrete goals for this week is key. I’m starting the week tired after being up with Oliver and a couple of nights of poor sleep. I know myself enough to know that leads me to specifically overeating carbs (exhibit a: 3 bran muffins yesterday – small, but still . . .). Add on top of that, travel to Anaheim early Wednesday morning for a four day meeting.

Goals:

• Track EVERYTHING – even if I go in the hole, I need to track it and own it.
• At least ten minutes of dedicated exercise every day.
• At least one of my physical therapy exercises a day.
• No mixed drinks in Anaheim and no more than two drinks in any single setting (I tend to drink to network, which leads to less than ideal food choices).
• No desserts in Anaheim.
• No french fries in Anaheim (always the harbringer of travel-food-choice doom!).
• Start each day with a healthy breakfast (looks reasonable from the room service menu!).

Oliver, of course, also has a goal for me in Anaheim: Get him a new Mickey Mouse sweatshirt. 🙂 He’s outgrown the last one I got him from Disneyland. I also promised him I wouldn’t be going into the park. With my injured neck and the high cost of park tickets, that’s not super hard to promise.

Question about walking as a workout as opposed to running: Should I approach fueling the same way I do with running (ie something every three miles or so?)? Certainly I don’t feel like I need something every 30-45 minutes like I do when running, but I probably need something over the 9 miles I’m going to cover next month. Any ideas or advice?

Thanks as always to Holly and Tricia for hosting our link up!

What’s your mantra to keep your head up during tough weeks?

 

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Weekly Wrap-Up: Good news!

This is really about this week rather than last week, but too good not to share: the PT has cleared me to run again! Yay! It has to be small amounts of running – brief running intervals in the midst of walking and not super long distances, but it is a start. She said I have to be concerned not just for pain while I’m running, but also if it happens afterwards as the impact may cause inflammation. I’m totally on board with starting slow – I’m just relieved that I get to try starting again.

This is why I asked the PT about running: after coming home from work Sunday, I found that Oliver had colored on his door. Sigh. In his defense, this is only the second time he’s ever colored on a non-approved surface. In defense of how frustrated this made me, he’s already in trouble for stealing in kindergarten for the second time in two weeks. I know all of this is age appropriate behavior and he’s learning how to be a rational human being. As a (not always rational) human being myself, I am worried I’m a failure as a mom and raising a kid who will grow up to a sociopath. Okay, not really – he’s generally great and I have expectations that are high. I REALLY wanted to go for a run yesterday when I noticed this. A walk helped, but it wasn’t quite the same.

On the plus side, walking instead of running off my frustration left me the space to notice spring popping up everywhere around me. I need to do some cleaning out of my flowerbeds and garden this weekend so those tulips and hyacinths have space to grow!

Last week was chaotic at work and with parenting, but wins abound:

• Healthy eating all week!
• Did my PT exercises!
• Got in lots of walking!
• Cooked dinner!

I am SO excited to be cooking again. I still can’t chop as my fine motor control is hands still stinks, but I can do everything else. It just means I buy pre-chopped veggies for a while. My PT homework for my fine motor control was actually to start playing cribbage. Darrell loves new games, so it looks like we’ll be reintroducing game night to help me get back onto my feet (or hands as it were!).

That’s all I’ve got for today – short and sweet wrap ups when I’m not running much. 😦 This week, I’m planning on very easy reintroduction of jog intervals to two walks. I’m not going to get carried away. Plus, I’ve got to keep up my strength training and of course, learn cribbage. All interesting goals for the week! Recovery can be a strange process, can’t it?

Thanks as always to Holly and Tricia for hosting our link up! I hope you all have gorgeous weather on this first day of spring!

 

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