Running Crazy

Nothing like an attempt to get moving to make you feel a little crazy, regardless of where you're starting from! My husband always does something to get his heart rate up, even if it's a 20 minute go on the treadmill, and states the the problem with American's is that we think we have to do big grand things and then when our schedules and life get in the way of our plan and then we do nothing instead of even just a little something. Does that make sense?

Anyway, for a lot of people just getting started with some kind of fitness routine and sometimes the whole staying with that and putting it as a priority is tough! I'm with yah! I was never a runner until my brain conjured up visions of being one after baby #4, and viola, a crazed runner was born! I've put more mileage in over the last year that I have over the course of my whole life! The husband also made an observation about why it's so hard to get started.... because it is! After recovering from hernia surgery at the beginning of the year and being down for about 6 weeks, my man that used to run 7-8 miles daily was now having a really hard time getting back. So, it just confirmed to him that you really just have to stick with something to get good at it. It is hard for a bit, and then it gets easy! Simple, I know, but it's the truth! Feel free to test out our hypothesis :-).

Okay, so why I'm really writing this is because I'm going out of my mind! *laugh* (I don't know that I was ever officially IN my mind, but you know what I mean!) We hit the track yesterday as a family, and even though I had intentions to walk I at least wanted to TRY to get a few 'jogged' steps in. Yah, at about 3 I realized that this just wasn't going to happen, OH THE PAIN! Yes, yes, I can walk, so I did that for about 3 miles, but I really miss running these days! I couldn't do my last triathlon of the season in April because I was recovering, so I'm planning to do a 5k next month (I knew I was going to do that puppy even if I had to crawl! At least I can walk :-)). But I really would like to go faster than that! I may not win my age category like I did last year, but the competitor in me would really like to at least finish before those that are doing the 10k get back!

Turns out your body heals REALLY slowly while you're pregnant. Boo! I realized that my stitches still haven't gone away, so the internal healing is super slow.... which may have something to do with the whole stomach muscles naturally expanding plus having to mend. Anyway, my irritation is your gain. I've found fun stuff that motivates me even though I can't do a whole lot at the moment!

Cafe Press has some awesome shirts, they're great quality and I got mine at a super discount thanks to active.com:


I found some Running Skirts and there's even longer ones that are more modest:

I picked up a couple books:
Kara Goucher's Running for Women (she actually suggested running skirts, hence me looking. The husband thinks they're weird, I think it might be comfy and worth a try!) Anyway, her book is pretty straight forward, nothing fancy. Just encouragement and what she's done. A few training and eating ideas and some extra information for pregnancy and after... it's kind of comforting to know that she went a little nuts not being able to move as well as before too!


Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Rules. Both very well done. Michael is an investigative journalist who started researching food a few years back and has come up with a lot of the same realizations that many of you reading this have. His overall message is "eat food, not too much and mostly plants." It's nice to be reminded of why we we do the things we do. I mean buying organic and plant material for an ever growing family is not a cheap venture, but both my husband and I know that it's important, so we budget more for food now and stay away from processed stuff so that we don't have to pay the dr.'s bills later :-)




I revamped a quote that was bugging me:
This bugs me to no end! I get what they're trying to say, but I don't like the message. So, on the little white board in my kitchen I changed it to "Nothing tastes as good as being healthy and fit feels!" Hey, there are plenty of sick skinny people in the world. Being healthy and strong has very little to do with being skinny! I want my children to grow up strong and confident in who they are regardless of size. Standing at all of 5'6" my super active husband with the nickname "PT Nazi" (lovingly given to him by the people that he would run into the ground for physical training) is considered overweight on the BMI scale. He is the picture of health and can run circles around people, myself included. On the flip side, I have a friend who's daughter is within the BMI recommendations and she is sick, she's too skinny and thinks she should be more so and that's leading to eating disorders at a very young age. So, health is the main goal here!

I found out that the Air Force Marathon in Ohio is a qualifying race for Boston (neither race is on a Sunday!!! That's huge!)

And last but not least, I found a blog of an old friend who started a series called 5k Friday. I find it motivating, and Darci is quite possibly the most creative person on the planet, so she's worth taking a look at! She's also the reason I went out and picked up food rules because of a post that she did on it here.


K, so, those are the things that have been on my mind and I've used to try and soothe the fact that I'm just not at the point that I can run yet. However, I can do SOMETHING and so can you! I like to take the kids out and we walk 2-3 miles. If you can run/walk stairs for 10 minutes or to a few jumping jacks, or pop in a fitness DVD (I'm still a BIG fan of Lindsay Brin at www.momsintofitness.com/">momsintofitness.com and she has some free 5 minute web clips you can workout with. Her regular DVD's are broken down too so that you don't have to spend much time and you get a great workout! The kids can join if you want, or you can do it before they wake up/at naptime/or when they're in bed.

JUST DO SOMETHING! And let me know what you did :-). I really like to hear about people signing up for events... they're awesome, motivating, and I personally found out that last year that I can't live without them and that they're worth every penny! There's nothing like putting down a registration fee to get your moving regardless of how tired and unwilling you are to do something... I'm not going to lose that cash! I realized that even with a husband who is rarely home, and lots of tiny children (including one who was only 2 months when I started training for my first triathlon) I didn't want to have to be scraped off the course, so I'd better get to work! Find a goal, write it down, be accountable to someone, and go for it! Your body and your family and friends thank you for taking that time to make sure you'll be around to enjoy life with them for years to come!