There Are Reasons!!

I have not been here in a long while! There are reasons….well just one reason actually.

My life is super busy, well my work life I may have mentioned that I have worked in the crazy world of Child Care as an Early Childhood Educator for the past 16+ years. I have just gotten a promotion. I have been given the job of Program Supervisor of our new program that is opening up in September! I won’t go into long winded details, but lets just say I am super duper BUSY! That’s why I’ve been absent from my poor little blog

I have been biking a lot, well when the rain decides to hold off!! We did our longest ride ever on Sunday. 50km! We are “training” for our weekend bike trip that we’ve got planned for sometime in August. It’s 160km round trip, so we’ve got some work to do Running has been neglected a little bit I fit it in here and there, but haven’t done any major running in a couple of weeks. That’s ok. It’s always there as an option.

You know how I love a good app. Well my hubby introduced me to a cool new app called Strava. It’s very cool. After every ride it will show us the “Leader boards” for certain stretches of the ride etc. And it shows you if you’ve beaten any records etc. Seriously check it out

That’s about it for now. I am going to try to write with more regularity…but I see my future, or my summer at least, being super busy! What can I say….I love my job and I love being a career gal Couldn’t imagine it any other way!!

Running And Me…Me And Running

So this weekend is “The Big” race weekend in our city. It’s all weekend long. In just the 10K alone there are 10500 participants!

No, I’m not one of them I contemplated signing up, but I didn’t. I really wanted to. I’m feeling a bit sucky that I’m not part of the whole thing this year. There are reasons why I’m not. I made the choice not to for a couple of reasons. 1) It was just too big of an event to get my mind around! 2) I don’t feel that I’m ready to be signing up for such a huge, serious event. Maybe I’m being hard on myself here, but I feel like I’m too much of a “newbie” to be involved in a huge race weekend. Now someone would say otherwise I’m sure. Actually I have has someone say otherwise. A coworker of mine, who does Ironman competitions, said I should get out and sign up for runs for the experience and for the training. I feel the opposite way. No I don’t expect that I should go out and win every run that I’m in! I do, however feel that I have some work to do before entering anymore timed events.

I have a huge problem with how flippin slow I run! It really bothers me. I’m not a competitive person by nature. I don’t give a shit how fast or slow anyone around me is, but I am competitive with myself! I actually get angry with myself if I don’t live up to the goals I’ve set for myself in my head. With running it’s a mix of being proud of me and being annoyed with me. Weird I know, but let me explain…

I’m super proud of myself for accomplishing the things I have. For someone who had a hard time running for more than two minutes last September, to running a 10K seven months later I’m over the moon proud of myself!! I am, however very annoyed at the fact that my pace is shit. Now I know that it’s something you have to work on etc. I get that. And that’s what I’m currently going to focus on. I know I can keep adding distance if I’m running at my current pace. Seriously, I run at such a conservative pace that I can just go and go. I don’t want to continue being a snail in fancy shoes who can run until the cows come home. I want it all baby ! I want to run until the cows come home….and I want to do it fast, well as fast as my short little legs will go! In order for me to achieve this goal I feel I have to add at least another day or two of running into my schedule. Oh sure easy peasy! Not! I don’t know where the heck I would fit that in?? It’s something I’m going to have to just do. I may have to suck it up and run a couple days on my treadmill! Ack….noooo…. Treadmill is a dirty word to me now! I really dislike running on the treadmill, but again it may just have to be the reality for me.

There we have it…..the reasons I’m not taking part in this super exciting race weekend in my city. My goal is to be there with bells on next year

To everyone running in this awesome race weekend….good luck to you all See you next year!

Fueling The Machine

Now that I feel like I’ve gotten more serious with my workouts I needed to address how and what to eat in order to not feel like a shaky mess afterwards.

When I was running and biking shorter distances I didn’t worry about eating or drinking ever. Now that I’ve gotten into longer and farther distances with both eating and drinking properly has become an issue.

Many times I would come home from a run and feel like a zombie! I would crash for the rest of the day. Same happened after last Sunday’s bike ride to both my hubby and I. It sucks when that happens. It’s not a nice feeling at all and what’s the point of working out to feel like a pile of crap afterwards?? I had done a bit of research as far as running goes, so I had a bit of an idea as to what to eat before and after a run. I’m getting better with that for sure. I’m also getting MUCH better with hydrating. As far as biking goes hubby and I were a bit lost.

At the end of last Sunday’s bike ride we were both feeling really crappy Dizzy, shaky and starving. Not fun. So my hubby took to good old google to find out how to avoid this! We discovered a whole lotta good stuff. The first thing we learned about is called bonking. I’m not going to go into great detail, but it’s basically where you crash totally during your ride. Hit up google to read more it’s very interesting.

We read a lot of good advice about how to avoid bonking and feeling like shit after your ride. There seems to be two schools of thought out there. A lot of people swear by gels and protein bar type stuff. That stuff is not for me. We’ve looked at some of that stuff and it seems to be on the pricy side and I just don’t want to it. So we read up on actual foods that are good to bring on rides. It varies….a lot! Some people talk about bringing bacon and eggs with them! The common food we read about is fig newtons, seriously Again not going to get all long winded, but basically fig newtons have everything you need to keep your energy up while out on the open road. The best advice I read about all this was very simple….eat before you’re hungry and drink before you’re thirsty. Simple. Logical. The other guideline we read was eat and drink every half hour during a ride. Again. Simple. Logical. So we are armed with fig newtons for our rides this weekend.

The other thing we read up on was post bike ride eating. I had read that bagels, peanut butter, bananas and carbs are good for after a long run. That’s kind of what we read about with biking too. The one article that I really liked said to eat a carb, a simple carb, specifically, within half an hour of finishing your bike ride and to keep eating small amounts of carbs after that. I’m good with this since I’m a carb monster!

So, now we are armed with a bit more knowledge and we have fig newtons and bagels in our cupboards for this weekend I’m excited to not feel like a shaky mess after our ride!!!

Wow…That Was A Whirlwind!

Here we are….the end of the long weekend. It flew by! It literally feels like I just left work and here I am in bed all ready to go back again. As I mentioned in my last post I had a lot of stuff planned. How did it go? Let’s see shall we. No better way than one of my famous lists

FITNESS: This was the biggie for the weekend. I’ll start with Saturday. It was a beautiful sunny day with no wind. Just as the weather man promised. I had to head back to the bike shop where I bought my bike to have the cables adjusted. The cables always stretch with a new bike, so you have to get them adjusted. It was 15km each way. We headed out and halfway there my hubby said to take the lead because he didn’t know the area of town that well. Me take the lead?! I was very reluctant. I’m not one who likes to be out in front. I like to hang back, but I took the lead. I was off. I rode my little heart out and at the first stop sign I turned around and my hubby and our friend were wayyyyyy behind. Huh weird I thought as I sipped my water. When they reached me my hubby said. “Geez, did you eat your wheaties this morning?” I asked what he meant. He said neither one of them could catch me. Whaaaaaat?! I looked at him and said Oh come on! He said No, neither one could catch me they tried. I felt like I was in bizarro world! I didn’t feel like I was going particularly fast. It continued that way until we got to the bike shop and for half of the ride home. Me out in front uncatchable! Quite the difference from the past number of years! It ended up being exactly 30km.

Sunday was cloudy and a bit windy and chilly Not what the weather originally predicted!! Regardless, we headed out for the kick off of Sunday Bike Days. Despite the crappy weather it was an awesome ride. There were lots if people out. Lots of families out being active together. It’s nice to see. Halfway through the ride we met a lone baby Canada Goose out on the path. All by his lonesome peeping away. I tried to move him several times off of the path, but he kept coming back! Eventually he moved off himself and we left him munching on some grass.

I secretly wanted to bring him home Our Sunday ride ended up being 35km. Both rides were amazing for me. My legs felt great and I was right there with the boys both rides. No dot in the horizon for me!

Today was the day I had set aside for my run. Ummmm it was a no go! I totally underestimated how pooped my legs actually were from the back to back bike rides. I only managed 3km and then called it quits. Ahhh well. There’s always next week. I guess the lesson is run before you do bike rides. I think that’s the lesson?! Here’s what today looked like…

Even though it was a short one I was pretty happy with the pace!

I managed all of the fitness I had wanted to do. Yay me! Next on the list.

JILLIAN MICHAELS: Saturday was Jillian night. It was awesome. I just really like her. To me she seems down to earth. She spoke about a lot of stuff, but the part of the show I loved was the section on Self-worth/self esteem. The nutrition and fitness parts were good too, but being someone who has struggled with all this for a very long time, there wasn’t any earth shattering information. Not to say I know everything, but I do know the basics and a little beyond. However the section where she talked about the emotional side of things was really Interesting. I always say that you have to address those things in order to truly be healthy. She talked all about her own struggles and the struggles of people she’s encountered. It was very uplifting and motivating. I went with my sister in law. We had such a fun time together. We had some good laughs before and after the show

We were wayyyy up in the balcony, but you get the idea!! Oh I forgot to mention all the escalators were turned off! I betcha that was on purpose Oh Jillian you’re a tricky one!

GARDENING: We went out shopping early Saturday morning and I picked up some flowers to make the front of the house all perdy. After my run/walk combo today I spent 2 hours gardening. I’m not fantastic at it, but I love playing in the dirt. The outcome wasn’t too shabby.

The before….like I said….dandelion central!

The after…a bit better

THE RESTAURANT: I had mentioned that my hubby and I wanted to try a restaurant that we hadn’t been to in years. Well we went. It didn’t quit turn out the way we had hoped. First of all it’s under new management and has a new name. It apparently was closed for a bit and just opened up again not that long ago. We sat down at a table, which was kinda yucky. We both had to use the bathroom. Ummmmm I’m still traumatized by this. I walked into the ladies bathroom and walked right back out. It was the dirtiest bathroom I’ve ever seen. We got back to the table and my hubby looked at my Mother In Law and I and said “We’re not eating here” We actually got up and left! I have never loved him more than I did in that moment When your inner voice is telling you you’ll probably get food poisoning…you should run for the hills! We ended up going to a restaurant down the street from our house. The food is really good. So it worked out after all.

HOCKEY: Friday’s game was disappointing. Our boys lost, which made the series 2-0 for the Pens. Last night was a home game. OMG!!! It was the best game ever!! It was 1-0 for the Pens right up until the last 26 seconds of the third period. We scored to tie it up. We won in DOUBLE overtime. It was such an exciting game! I was literally on the edge of my seat the whole time. Next game is Wednesday….can’t wait.

Whew!!! Well there you have it. I managed to squeeze in everything I wanted to accomplish…and let me tell you I’m pooped, but in a good way. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Here’s to a great week ahead

Make Mine A Long One ;-)

It’s Friday….yay! It’s also a long weekend here…double yay!! It’s also supposed to be sunny and warm all weekend!!! Triple yay

It’s funny how just one little extra day off makes such a difference. I’ve got so many things I want to do this weekend my head is spinning! If I fit everything in I’ll need a vacation from my long weekend.

On the top if the list is fitness. The fact that fitness makes the top of my list of things to do on a long weekend still floors me! There was a time when a long weekend meant an extra day to go out drinking and be a couch potato.

I am having a bit of a scheduling dilemma actually. We have a 30km bike ride planned for tomorrow and Sunday kicks off “Sunday bike days” in our city. We’ve been anxiously awaiting this. Every Sunday from May to September our city closes of a major roadway to cars and opens it up to cyclists from 9-1. It’s awesome!! We start at our house and go all through downtown and back. That’s usually a 40+km ride. We are doing that on Sunday. My dilemma is where to fit in my run?? I was going to try to get up early tomorrow and be out the door by 7:30. If I’m being honest…that’s not going to happen! I am just not a morning person. the earliest I ever get out for a run is 9 and that’s not early enough as we have shopping to do. I think I’ll move my run to Monday. This is going to be an issue going forward though?? I’m going to have to start running early Saturday mornings. Trying to fit in all if your fitness….not a bad problem to have at all !

It’s finally here! Saturday night is the night I go see the awesome Jillian Michaels. Her Maximize Your Life Tour hits our city and I’m so excited. I love her. I think she is very motivating and inspirational. I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but hey neither am I! To each their own. I’m going with my Sister in law. Should be a good time.

Next on the list is gardening. The front of our house is dandelion central!! I want to get my hands in the dirt and get some flowers planed and make it look all pretty Our little neighborhood is very pretty with lots of mature trees and landscaping so I want ours to look nice too I may do the gardening on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon?

Can’t forget about hockey!!! There’s a game tonight and a game Sunday. The boys lost their first game, but I’m sending out the good vibes for some wins this weekend.

Last but certainly not least. My hubby wants us to go to a restaurant we haven’t been to in a long time. Maybe tonight or Sunday?

Whew….there you have it. Like I said..if I manage to fit it all in I will be one busy lady!

Have a great weekend everyone

Little Bit Of This, Little Bit Of That

Not sure if this happens to any of you out there, but it sure happens to me more than I’d like……

I loosened the reins this weekend with eating and I’m, for lack of a better word, pissed! I HATE when it happens and it isn’t until after the fact I look back and think “Ah crap!!” My eating this weekend was a complete horror show So here I am….Monday and filled with food remorse. I’m starting over with food….yet again! It’s very frustrating to realize I’ve sabotaged myself yet again. Will I ever stop being my own worse enemy? Ugh probably not!! What annoys me even more is last week was a pretty good week for me. I made a point of cutting up all our fruits and veggies for the week and ate well. Then the weekend came and it all went down the drain.

Nothing I can do about it but start from scratch. Weekends are a big struggle for me in general. Friday night is pizza night, which is fine. It’s to stay on track for the rest of the weekend. My hubby and I have vowed to each other to keep each other in check. I need to dig down and use that willpower that I know I have!

In typical Canadian fashion it was totally freezing, windy and crappy out for most of the weekend. Boo hiss! That meant no bike rides. Throw that into the mix with the craptastic food choices I made and you can understand why I’m annoyed x2 with myself. There is actually a silver lining to all of this I managed to redeem myself in the running department.

I was not happy with the sad sack attempt at running last week. So this week I was determined to get out there and make a real attempt at a run. I picked 15km as my goal. About a week ago on Twitter someone asked me if I used 10 and 1′s to run. I had TOTALLY forgotten about that! Wayyyyy back I downloaded the running room app to use the 10:1 program, but then never did. I decided yesterday to use it to see if it helped. It totally did

That was what I managed using the 10:1 program Yay me! I’m pretty happy with myself.

The last thing I have decided I need to tighten the reins on is how much time I spent being “connected” I feel that I spend way to much time on my phone. I actually have a bit of an issue with the whole social media thing. On the one hand I am fine with it, obviously! But on the other hand I feel it can be very negative. I actually resisted for about 6 months getting my iPhone because I didn’t want to be “that” person who is always on their phone. And what do you know….a year later I’m that person. Crap! So I’ve decided to limit myself. When I get home from work I leave my phone on my night table. I try to look at it here and there rather than have it glued to me. At work I’m going to only use it on my lunch break. The rest of the time it’s going to be in my purse. I think social media can be fun and I do enjoy it. But there is also a lot of crap out there that I am just not interested in seeing/reading or getting caught up in. I have enough in my life to focus on without adding the drama of people I don’t even know to the mix!

Happy Monday everyone Have a great week!!

Maybe, Sorta, Kinda Summer Plans!

If you pay any attention to this blog you know I’m not really the planning type. I don’t like to plan my life out too much. I have a weird superstition about it. I have issues…I know. I also think it leads to a total snorefest of an existence to have your life too planned out.

With that being said I do have some loose plans/goals for the summer. If they happen great, but if life takes a turn in a different direction so be it. Things will happen exactly the way they are meant to.

Here goes in no particular order. My hubby and I have plans in the works to do a weekend bike trip. We aren’t really sure how we want to approach it? Do we just hop on our bikes and ride until we get there and not over think it? Do we practice/train a bit? We have decided on somewhere in between. We do need to plan to a certain extent, but other than that we are just gonna go for it…I think!! I would like to do the distance once just to see what it’s like, then I think I’ll be good to go. It’s 80km each way. So basically I would like to do an 80K ride as a test run and then away we go ! We would be spending the night once we got there so we would get to rest up in between.

Running. Oh my rocky relationship with running. It’s like my on again off again boyfriend ! I have set a distance that I’d like to hit at least once before the end of the summer. It’s 20K. Not sure if that’s cuckoo crazy or reasonable? Guess we’ll see I’ve decided I’m just strictly going for distance. I’m not going to worry about pace at this point. I’m not signing up for anymore timed runs for this season, so I don’t see the need to work on pace. I just want to challenge myself to see if I can do the distance.

Weight. This one I don’t really care about, but I’m so close I figure I should just get it done. I had a doctors appointment on Monday. I got weighed, it’s the only time I do. I am still the weight I was three months ago, which I’m ok with. It’s about 10/12 pounds off of where I ultimately want to be. So I figured I should just loose the last 10 pounds and be done with it. If it happens great, but really it’s not a big deal. The last 10 pounds seems to be the hardest Summertime is a bit easier to try to shed some pounds. Lots of fresh fruit and veggies going around.

Well there is my list of kinda, maybe sorta summer plans

Guess only time will tell how it all goes.

72 In 3

In the summer time when the weather is hot….ok, ok it’s not summer yet, but this past week it sure felt like it. After the seemingly never ending winter we’ve had I welcomed the sun and warmth with open arms

This weekend was awesome. We went out and played a lot We spent the weekend busy, busy, busy! Between outings and fitness we were on the go most of the weekend.

Saturday morning we shopped and in the afternoon we went for a bike ride. It was awesome. I love, love, love my new bike! I burn some serious rubber on that thing. At one point my hubby couldn’t catch me. That has never happened! I did have a bit of an oopsie though. I thought my hubby said we were going straight, but he actually said to turn right. I may have hit his back tire with my front tire and I may have bent two of my spokes and my tire may have been wobbly the rest of the way home!! Thank goodness it was and easy fix! The awesome bike shop where I bought my bike straightened my spokes an adjusted my brakes in two seconds flat. My baby was as good as new Note to self….don’t ride so close and PAY ATTENTION. Oh P.S. hubby’s bike seems fine….phew! Despite the little fender bender we managed a 20K ride.

Yesterday was my “long run” day. It was an epic fail…I knew as soon as I started there wouldn’t be a long run goin on. I did 3K and then walked 5K. That was all she wrote for that workout. Running just didn’t float my boat yesterday. It happens. I’ll just get back out there again next week and take another stab at it. Maybe if I set an actual goal to reach I will be more motivated to run my little heart out. Like I’ve said…when I want to achieve something…I do

In the afternoon we went out for another gorgeous bike ride. We stopped over at friends of ours and consumed an alcoholic beverage. New experience for me….riding my bike with a hint of a beer buzz It was different That was a 22K ride. Got home and got ready quickly to go out to watch the hockey game. What a great game! Sens beat the pants off of the Habs. I LOVE playoff hockey

I had today off for an appointment, so of course we found time to squeeze in another bike ride It was another sunny day and we did another 22K ride along the water.

There we have it….between biking, walking and a smidge of running my little legs managed 72K in 3 days!

That’s the way I roll in the summer time folks !

Grabbing Life By The…Uhhh You Know!

I took the plunge today and rode my bike to work. I have mixed feelings on it. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either.

I liked getting up early and having extra time. I usually am racing out the door coffee in one hand breakfast in the other. It was a bit more chilly than I had thought and it was windy. Ugh wind!! I also had a huge back pack with my clothes, lunch, make up and shoes. It was really freakin heavy! Didn’t love that. It felt good to know that I had gotten a work out in first thing in the morning. Overall I can see myself biking to work one day a week. That’s my plan at this point. Might have to think of something else to carry everything instead of a gigantic back pack. The real point of this post is to share some of the thoughts I had on my little ride to work this morning.

As it always does, my mind got to thinking about all kinds of things. And yes I was paying attention to what I was doing ( that’s for my hubby!) He was worried I’d daydream and drive into a ditch. Heh it actually could happen, I’m a bit clumsy! Anyway, I got to thinking about life. Pretty broad topic. Specifically about how I want to be living my life.

I decided this morning while navigating my way to work that I want to grab life by the you know what’s and just live the shit out of it! I hold myself back an awful lot. Mostly out of fear and self doubt. You know what? It really sucks to live that way. Take today for example. I normally would have talked myself out of the whole thing, but I just thought, no you want to do it so just do it. Don’t analyze it to death and talk yourself out of it just ride the friggin bike to work. I have lots of things I want to do/try and I’m just going to do them. I’m getting better at just taking the plunge with things running is one of those things, but I still hold myself back. Not just with fitness stuff, but with lots of things. Pretty much in every aspect of my life actually. Well no more !!

Life really is too short to be a wall flower. I want to be healthy, fit and live the life that I live in my head! Wow…that was quite the life changing bike ride

Look out world….I’m on the loose I’ve got my sights set on living and I’m coming to get ya!!

My Dilemma x 2

I’ve got a couple things on my mind regarding fitness. Allow me to share

After I got home from my run on Sunday my hubby said “So what’s your plan going forward with running?” I looked at him and said “Well what do you mean?” He said “Well are you going to keep adding distance, are you going to sign up for more runs?” My answer was “I have no idea??” It got me to thinking about my “plan” What is my plan going forward?

After Sunday I started thinking about my pace. Do I want to start concentrating on shaving time off of my pace? Or do I want to continue running like a turtle wearing concrete boots and keep concentrating on adding distance and improving on endurance? Ugh I hate when things get too complicated! I like just opening my front door and going. The thing is after Sunday I feel like I crossed the line over to becoming more “serious” about the whole running thang.

I am not a competitive person at all, but I do like to challenge myself. I feel like I want to keep challenging myself in the running department to see how far I can take it. The question is….in what way? Will pace improve on it’s own the more I run or should I start really focusing on it? Decisions decisions!

This brings me to my second dilemma. Fitting in biking AND running! I have decided I want to keep doing both. Problem is how do I fit both in? Up until now Sundays have been my long run days, but it’s also long bike ride day! Can’t do both in the same day. I could move long run day to early Saturday morning, but again we go for bike rides on Saturday afternoons. Usually not as long as Sundays, but long enough. On top of all this we have set a biking goal for this summer that is pretty lofty. We want to bike to our favorite place, stay over night and bike back the next day. It’s 80K both ways. That takes some planning and dare I say a bit of “training”! Oh the problems of a somewhat healthy person

My head is all over the place with these cardio issues. I think for now I will move my long run day to Saturday early in the morning and see how that works out. I still am thinking about how I want to approach the whole running thing going forward? Not sure yet. I may just keep doing what I’ve been doing up until now….putting my shoes on and seeing how far my feet take me!!

You know I’ll keep everyone posted !