Portrait of a climber

I love everything about climbing, I love the physical challenge, I love the strategy of getting up a rock wall, I love pushing my body in ways that I haven’t before. And I love that I find myself getting stronger and improving.

Gearing up

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21 day challenge update

My challenge for myself started last Thursday. Well, technically my daily exercising started on Wednesday, but I’m going off of when I started getting up in the morning to exercise.

I ran Thursday, walked the WonderPup Friday and came home and did sun salutations, went for a trail run Saturday, took the pup for an hour long hike on Sunday, did sun salutations and some strength training on Monday even though I was really tired and didn’t want to get up (although I tweaked my neck doing some strength training and it is still not completely back to normal, better though), and took the pup for a good walk yesterday morning.

This morning, could not get up, was (and still am) really tired from not sleeping well. Just couldn’t get/stay comfortable last night. So, technically, I didn’t succeed today, but I am still planning on running tonight, so I will still get in daily exercise.

Several things I have noticed, just in a week. There have been several days where I didn’t want to get up early to exercise, but I was really, really glad I did. The fact that I set up a challenge for myself made me get up when I didn’t want to, and even after a couple of days, it was getting easier to make myself get out of bed. Today, however, I did know I needed more sleep more than I needed to get up.

I feel so much better starting my day with exercise. I feel like my energy is better and I’m more awake throughout the day.

I’ve gotten to say hello to the sun rising. Yesterday, I saw a fox and a bunny out enjoying the morning (and fortunately going in very different directions!). And it’s nice to have time for me when the world is quiet, when no one else but the pup is stirring in the house, and just celebrate letting my body move and feel strong and healthy. 🙂

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21 day challenge

As of tomorrow, I have 21 days until my life is changing in a big way, when B moves down to North Carolina to be with me (swoon! Grin!).

And coincidentally, I have also read and heard that it only takes 21 consecutive days of doing something to  make it a habit.

So, I am going to use this time to establish a new habit for myself, one that will help keep me healthy, and will help me relieve some of the stress and tension that has been constants in my life for a while (see Every Now and Then I fall apart post). And it is a habit that will also have carry-over benefits for when B is here — gets me in the habit of getting up and going instead of wasting half the day lounging around, for example.

Starting tomorrow, I am going to get up and do some kind of exercise every morning, pretty much as soon as I get up. Running, walking with the pup and strength training, roller blading, trail running (those two mostly on weekends). I tend to be fairly active, but not consistently. And often I plan on running or something at night, and either I work late or I’m tired and hungry, and I end up not doing it. This way, it’s done, every single day, and when I get home at night, I don’t have to try to fit in exercising.

During the work week, this will mean getting up before 6 and lacing up my running shoes or throwing on some walking shoes to take the pup for a good long walk. In case it isn’t clear from this, I am not naturally a morning person. I usually get up with the WonderPup to let her out and give her breakfast, and will usually stumble back to bed until forced to get up and start getting ready for work. And on weekends, it can literally take me half the day to get up and exercise, because I will sleep later, have coffee, read blogs, play with the pup, and then it is noon and I still haven’t exercised yet. I still plan on sleeping in on weekends, but under the 21 day challenge, I will do my exercising first thing.

I’m sure I will have mornings where I don’t want to get up that early to exercise, but I’m hoping that with the challenge, I will motivate myself, as well as reminding myself that once it becomes habitual, it’s easy.

This isn’t about losing weight — despite how loudly the insecure girl in the mirror might try to convince me otherwise, I know I’m at a healthy (slender) weight. I just love exercising, feel better when I do it mentally and physically, and I just need to really make time for it.

So wish me luck! I’m excited to make exercising a daily thing, no excuses.

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Goodbye old friends, hello new friends!

Goodbye old friends. I put a lot of miles on you. We ran in the rain and mud in Portland, we ran through downtown Portland, over bridges, along the river, through neighborhoods, up to Washington Park. We ran on treadmills, we ran in the heat and steam in Durham.

But you have been replaced, and while I’ve been an Asics girl for years now, I am now a Brooks girl. And I have to say…my new friends  understand me better. They fit me better. And I can’t wait to get them to know them, and put on miles and miles, checking out new neighborhoods, seeing new things.

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Push it

I had my last personal training session last night, at least for now. I will probably hire him again in a month or so for an additional boost.

I was definitely challenged last night, and by the end, I was sweaty and exhausted, but I felt amazing. And proud of myself, seeing where I am improving and getting stronger, knowing I pushed myself to do everything that the trainer asked of me.

I think getting challenged and pushed are really good things, despite how they might feel uncomfortable at the time. It’s good to show you your progress, where you have gotten better, and where you can still improve.

How have you been pushed or challenged recently? How has it helped you? What areas could you use a push or need to be challenged in?

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real push-ups, bay-bee

I can do a lot of girly (on my knees) push ups, but I used to not be strong enough to do real push ups, or at least not do more than one or two. So, I kept doing my girly push ups.

But I know I’m stronger now, thanks to weight training, so I decided to try some real push ups last night, and was able to do 15 comfortably. Cool! After that I finished up with 30 more girly push ups.

What can you do that you think you can’t? What were you unable to do once or twice and have stopped trying? And if you can’t do it now…what can you do to make it a reality? Doing stuff you thought you couldn’t is a great feeling.

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What do I have to do

to look in the mirror and not see a fat girl looking back?

What do I have to do to like how I look in clothes?

What do I have to do to like what I see in the mirror, and not see flaws and bumps and bulges and mom arms and a thick middle, no matter how much Tim says I have nice arms or I look great.

What do I have to do to not feel frumpy and fat in work clothes? I feel like no matter what I try for clothes, I never find tops that fit me well. Blouses always gap, but if I go big enough that they don’t gap, they look ridiculous on me. If they are short, they make my short torso even shorter, enhancing my short, frumpy mom look.

I tried on outfits for tomorrow and hated how I looked in everything.

So, what do I have to do to like the girl I see in the mirror?

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Last day of vacation…

Last official day of vacation…or unemployment, however you want to look at it. And I think I will soon be a bike commuter! We are very near a bike trail that goes up to downtown Durham, and it’s easy to get to my Duke office building from there. Tim would have to drive me maybe a mile or two to the trail head, since there is no shoulder on the road or bike lane, but then it would be an easy 10 mile ride or so.

I’m thinking of getting something like this — a nice commuter bike that will be comfy and fun to ride on. Nothing like Bianca, the wonderful Bianchi road bike I used to have when I was with Mark, but I’m not intending to put those kind of miles on a bike again. When I had Bianca, Mark and I would often go out for rides of 30-70 miles. I actually biked a century (100 miles in one go) on her. Now, I want a bike I can take on bike trails and bike paths, nice, easy rides.

And today, we are getting new phones (no, not the fun, snazzy iphone, just a new verizon phone). It’s weird to be getting new regular cell phones on a day when even the mayor of Philadelphia is caught camping for the most anticipated phone. Maybe someday, when the prices drop to a reasonable level! lol. We are actually going to wander by an apple store tonight, to see how crazy people are getting over the iphone. Can you imagine people getting this excited for a new microsoft product, like a Zune phone? I don’t think so…

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running four miles fast and a lot of push ups…

can cure almost anything.

I’ve always been one to turn to exercise when I’m angry, upset, whatever. A hard workout, loud music and a lot of sweat have a way of getting rid a lot of emotions or at least helping you work through them. Running for me helps me keep my head on straight.

Yesterday was one of those days when I needed to run to clear my head and get me back on an even keel.

We switched our car insurance yesterday to a NC policy, and our bill dropped by about $60, which is cool because we’ve been paying WAY more for insurance than we should have been. But we had to pay them yesterday for the new policy, even though they just took out a payment last week for our old policy. And even though they are going to put most of the other payment back in our account, it just set me off.

This move has been so much more expensive than we ever thought. It has taken virtually all of our savings, even though we had planned initially that we would have enough money in checking to cover just about everything and not touch what was left in savings. The universe had other plans apparently. Combine that with the fact that I haven’t brought in a substantial paycheck, and won’t bring in a substantial paycheck until the end of next month, and we’ve been doing the fast money juggle and shuffle. We have a very small buffer for an emergency, but after being so good about saving for so long, it’s hard to just keep see money flying out the door and seeing our available money until Tim gets his next paycheck get smaller and smaller. For a while, it was even looking like we wouldn’t have any money to do anything for my birthday.

So paying an extra car insurance payment just really put me in a bad mood. I KNOW our money is going to be stabilizing soon. I know that once July starts and once I start at Duke, we’ll be pretty much to where we were when I was working at OHSU. But in the moment, it was hard to see that. So I got on the treadmill, cranked up my shuffle and just ran. Set the treadmill on a fast setting and just sweated it all out. And then I did about 50 pushups.

Needless to say, the anger burned off, I was able to think clearly again and get my head on straight. And know that things really will be ok.

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and they’re off and running….

We are treadmill owners! Our lovely new treadmill just arrived, and is set up on our sun porch exercise room. Out there we have the treadmill, the total gym, free weights, yoga matt and ping pong table. And it has a separate AC unit, which is vital considering how warm that room gets.

We are both really excited. Me, so that I don’t always have to run early in the morning or late at night to avoid running in the heat/humidity, and so it is easy to do speed workouts. Tim so that he can do cardio, and so he can actually run, because street running just does not work for him.

Myra isn’t sure if she’s excited, she kept wanting to sniff the new thing in her area. 🙂

And we discovered that oddly I make more noise running than Tim does. I think it is because he doesn’t pick up his feet a lot when he runs, and he tends to walk really lightly and quietly. But the sunporch is insulated enough, with a really good door, that as soon as you close the door are in the actual house, you can’t hear it. Which is of course of vital importance during football season… lol

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