An 11 year perspective

A friend from high school emailed and asked me to send her some videos from back in the day. Obligingly I got the video from my mom and set to copying it to DVD (actually I was excited to do it since my sweetie got me Roxio software for V-day and it is approximately the coolest thing ever).

I was shocked by my reaction to what I saw.

I have to preface this by saying I LOVED HIGH SCHOOL. I was terrified the days before graduation because my entire life was ECVHS. I loved it and had a greater proportion of Brave Spirit than red blood cells in my veins. It was such a happy time for me.

But I was a chunky cheerleader. And my reaction last night was, "I am SO glad that I wasn't as self-conscious then as I am now." I knew I was heavier than the average Brave but it honestly didn't bug me that much. I felt like people judged me on my merits and appreciated who I was and what I brought to the table. I was sad that boys didn't throw themselves at my feet but I honestly never blamed it on my weight.

So three things:

1. I wish I could have that degree of self-contentment back now (and REALLY wish I'd had it in my grad school days). That girl was right. She didn't let self-consciousness or self loathing stop her from doing anything. I look at my 17 year old self in a teeny cheer skirt and cringe whereas when I was putting it on back then I was proud. I gave them all I had and was content that it was enough. When the stick figures on the squad would pinch the skin on their taught bellies and complain about how "gross" they were I didn't get it. I was lucky.
   

   
    

2. I am really proud of how far I've come health-wise today. Even with the above being true I wasn't proud of my body, I just saw it as a vehicle. But I realize now I never used it or pushed it as far as I could. And the joy that comes from that. I took my body for granted back then big time. Once I got a car I was designated taco shop driver. It seemed perfectly reasonable that I would grab burgers and fries before football games or eat a giant frozen yogurt with Reese's on my break at work (man I miss the yogurt mill…the yogurt only had 16cal/oz is how I reasoned with myself). I won't lie; I still love those things today. But I know that I have a bigger agenda. One side is that I am not as self assured (or maybe unaware) in my body as I was back then, so I have to moderate what I eat to get my body where I want it. But bigger than that I have learned that my body is a tool. I can do great things with it but I need to learn about it and take good care of it. It feels awesome to have a visible sign of the things I've learned since high school.
   

   
    

3. I wish HS girls had at least #1 above but in a perfect world a combo of #1 and #2. I think I would have missed out on so much if I'd felt like the "fat girl". Maybe I wouldn't have felt like I could be cheer captain, I bet there are girls that don't. And they miss out on going for great opportunities.
   

How can we encourage girls to take care of their bodies but to not see the way their body looks as the definition of who they are? It is definitely one of those easy in theory, hard in practice ideas.

Off my game

I totally feel off my game in lots of areas of life right now. Work, family&friends, diet and training.

I feel like I'm doing a crappy job keeping balls in the air and secretly I think this is just plain laziness on my end. I know I can call my sister and make plans, I know I can wrap up at least some open projects at work, I know I can bust out a decent run/bike/swim workout, I KNOW I can choose to not buy cherry sours at the gas station. But I don't.

I have glimmers of my together self. I went for a decent 20mi bike ride this weekend and the cap and I have been swimming with some regularity. But I feel like things get in the way, and way too often, the main thing is that my internal drive has been slowed way down.

I know that there are bumps in the road and if I hang on and try to make little efforts, I'll get through this rut. But it feels deep right now.

My immediate dilemma is that I really wanted to do an oly this summer. The one I was considering is this saturday. My rides and runs have been oly-ish on their own. But no brick work. And my shin/ankle have been acting up. And I think my family might need me around this week and weekend.

Must
Make
Decision

Ugh. Do I spend the cash and effort just so I can have a tri in july?

(If not for the shin/ankle the answer would be an easy yes)


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Invisible ink?

-doesn't this look like someone left me a secret note? Or was I going to jot something down before heading into lab? That was a long time ago though.

Who knows but TGIF!


Need a tactile keyboard to talk some deep racing decision issues.





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Train run

Just went for a 3miler.

Not sure about this right shin/ankle situation. Fine for the first mile but then felt increasingly tweaky. Grrr.

I finally had a sub 10min/mi overall run again though.

And I had to wait for a train too. It looked far away but seemed like one of those better safe than sorry situations.




At least I'm faster than these guys :)

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Particle sizing is dangerous

It gives me multiple ~2min lags which lately I've used to look at the app store and buy ridiculous apps (battleship? Really?).

Today I used the last of my Christmas iTunes money on this blogger app. Now I am going to become a blogging fool!

I completely forgot that I have meetings all the livelong day on top of experiments to be done. Then I'm meeting up with my mom after work.

When to run, when to run.

Oops my 2min are up!

Here's a view from the building. Don't hate



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MUCH more like it!

Went for a run after work yesterday, 4.5miles in the glorious (yet cool) sunshine!

It felt SO much better than my other midweek runs. It was cooler and I wore my old running shoes.

Hmmm.

live blogging: Yoga Video

10 minutes in: I am SO bored. We've only breathed so far, this is actually making me more anxious and no more limber yet.

14minues: OK, we're moving! Hopefully won't be back for 45 minutes :)

28 minutes: AHHH! I want to breathe again

34 minutes: I am hiding in child's pose, HELP

OK, I'm done. That was not pretty. I downloaded a podcast video thing and it was WAY too advanced for me. I like vinyasa (sp?) though, the flowy movement feels good even if it was too fast for me to do AND breathe and be thoughtful.

My goal of this yoga practice is too stretch out my achy achy legs/feet/ankles. I have been having major discomfort from my knees down for awhile now. It is almost like I can feel every ligament and tendon and they are all tight. My sweetie has implored me to stretch more and I have been trying too. Honestly I have always been a remarkably flexible person and never really stretched. Since I started running though I have noticed a decrease in my flexibility and figure some focused stretching would be helpful. This new discomfort is especially troubling because I don't want it to become a sign that I missed or ignored. I don't want to deal with ankle and foot problems, I want to baby my shins and knees. But running is hard on them, period. So I am trying a 3 pronged approach
1. Babying- I will do my best to stretch and ice and IBu.
2. Cross training-I am going to actively rest them by swimming and biking some more. And maybe I will find a yoga video that I can get through without blogging or dying.
3. Listen to them- the above approaches only work if I don't just completely ignore the issues. For example, I have hated my shoes since run #2 and have been too lazy to do anything about it. Os this week i will try new shoes.

I have a 4.5 mi on the docket for tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

Namaste

Hallelujah and damn it all to hell!

It is FINALLY summer (as EVERYONE you see will tell you).

Oh, I feel like I have been waiting forever. And the arrival is just in time. It wasn't terribly nice on 7/4 but the weekend was a good one anyway.

My sweetie and I ran a midnight 5K. We ran this together last year and so we chose to stick together this year too (he had one chance to redeem himself for the finish line pic last year).

It was a good time. It is so much fun running on the streets at night. Drivers look confused and amused. I had a near miss when I tripped on a road divider. I was so close to being flat on my face...I was almost proud of myself for the catch (once I got over being embarrassed).

We ran it in and got a really good pic. I may actually need to buy it!

The 4th was good and quiet. We made an awesome taco night spread which worked out well since it was raining.

On Monday we did a long bike ride.
It was a good weekend.

then it got hot. Which, truly, I love. It was 75-90 which I love. Sun was shining and I got to go for a walk at lunch and soak in the sun and watch the poor Seattle children as they began to remember what the hot, glowing thing in the sky was.

then I went for a run.
I had to do 4.5 miles (Oh, I am on week 7 of HH's novice halfM schedule).
HOLY HELL! I was dying. (see the little red flag, that is a "severe weather warning, hehe)


I forget, I was born and raised in SoCal but my running self was cultivated right here in the damp and cool climate of the PNW.

It sucked quite a bit. I basically wound up walking the last mile.

So, bottom line. I am glad to have the sun. I am thrilled. Ecstatic. Overjoyed. (but I need some help in the hot running department)

Flying Wheels

Gosh, it has been forever since I posted. And so much stuff to report!

My sweetie and I did the Flying Wheels ride (brought to us by Cascade Bicycle Club). We did the 25mi route which goes around Lake Sammamish with a seemingly strange detour over to Newport area of Bellevue. It was my first ever bike group ride and didn't know what to expect.

We got all setup the night before. We had stocked up on tubes and I bought a manual pump (after my incident at Issaquah). I packed a small backpack with snacks and cue sheet and phone and more snacks :)

As we were getting our gear in order the morning of El Cap noticed that he had a hole in his tire and his tube was pushing out of it. YIKES! Luckily I had an old tire that I had changed out and saved. We got it put on and headed to the ride.

Bonus of it was that our starting slot was between 10-11am. The start was quiet and uncrowded. We'd parked away from the start site and rode into the start.

A few pics later and we were on the road.

I like bike rides!

It was cool having so many other riders on the street and there was an AWESOME spread at the pit stop.

We finished pretty damn strong and packed a picnic lunch and headed out to the Kirkland Waterfront. I am VERY excited to do more group rides, that was a good morning!