Homework

This is how it works:

Training is doing your homework. It's not exciting. More often than not it's tedious. There is certainly no glory in it. But you stick with it, over time, and incrementally through no specific session, your body changes. Your mind becomes calloused to effort. You stop thinking of running as difficult or interesting or magical. It just becomes what you do. It becomes a habit.

Workouts too become like this. Intervals, tempos, strides, hills. You go to the track, to the bottom of a hill, and your body finds the effort. You do your homework. That's training. Repetition--building deep habits, building a runner's body and a runner's mind. You do your homework, not obsessively, just regularly. Over time you grow to realize that the most important workout that you will do is the easy hour run. That's the run that makes everything else possible. You live like a clock.

After weeks of this, you will have a month of it. After months of it, you will have a year of it.

Then, after you have done this for maybe three or four years, you will wake up one morning in a hotel room at about 4:30am and do the things you have always done. You eat some instant oatmeal. Drink some Gatorade. Put on your shorts, socks, shoes, your watch. This time, though, instead of heading out alone for a solitary hour, you will head towards a big crowd of people. A few of them will be like you: they will have a lean, hungry look around their eyes, wooden legs. You will nod in their direction. Most of the rest will be distracted, talking among their friends, smiling like they are at the mall, unaware of the great and magical event that is about to take place.

You'll find your way to a tiny little space of solitude and wait anxiously, feeling the tang of adrenaline in your legs. You'll stand there and take a deep breath, like it's your last. An anthem will play. A gun will sound.

Then you will run.

- Jeff Edmonds (www.TheLogicOfLongDistance.blogspot.com)

MS Wine Tasting Tour

On Saturday, my sister, mother, and I hopped on a bus, and checked out some really amazing wineries on the PA-NY border.

Though it didn't do much for my diet, having to down a gazillion of those little ball cracker thingies to keep standing (I'm generally down after 1 glass), we had a great time- and it was wonderful to spend some time with my family, amid these crazy hectic lives of ours!

Pouring the grapes into the squishing bucket

While we were 'wining' my babies were Geocaching with Daddy!

...at a Frisbee Golf Course!

Ate lunch at the haunted Kelly Hotel

Mom taking a pic of me on the balcony, trying to catch a ghost

See any ghosts?  Me neither...

SOMEone's excited to get her wine!  :-)

We had a fantastic day!  Time to go home and burn it all of... that'll take a week or so....  :-)

Chocolate Pancakes for Breakfast!

Yes, we're running low on the breakfast materials, so the girls requested pancakes.  Again.

I try to make them as healthy as I can, by adding pureed stuff from the magical Vita-Mix.  So, with the Sneaky Chef in mind... today's goal: Chocolate Pancakes.

What goes into Chocolate Pancakes that could possibly make them HEALTHY, you ask?  Spinach and blueberries.  (and cocoa powder and a pinch of instant coffee to bring out the chocolate flavor).  Perhaps I put a little too much spinach in mine, eh?

Yes, I know, green pancakes, yuck, right?  I had the flash on the camera, so they actually look a lot greener here than they did in person.  Rather than keep adding stuff, and totally screwing it up, I just went with it.  (with a few added chocolate chips)  The verdict:  They tasted like warm, buttery chocolate CAKE!  No butter or syrup needed!  SCORE!!  

I know you won't believe ME, so...

Keep Going!

Healthy Tipping Point

I don't carry cash.  It disappears way too quickly.  A dollar here, a dollar there... it adds up SO fast!  iPhone apps and music... don't even get me started.

Calories seem to do the same thing.  WHY?  Why do those little things have to end up causing so much damage?  A few pretzels can't hurt.  A couple goldfish, what's that- 10 calories?  I'll just have a bite of cake... or just one chip.  That's healthier than eating a handful, right?   I am doing the right thing!  Right?  Yet, they all add up anyway... and they cause the scale to do the same.

I came across a website called "Healthy Tipping Point, when everyday decisions add up to something amazing."  For some reason, this revelation hit me like a ton of bricks.  If all the negative things add up, can't the positive decisions/choices add up too?  10 minutes on the elliptical might not seem like much  (a challenge I posed to my husband), but, you could easily cover a mile in 10 minutes... 1 mile = approximately 100 calories.  If he did this 6 days a week... that's 600 calories!

My brain makes sense of things by changing them into pictures/metaphors.  So with this thought in mind, I view this like a scale... FAT on one side, HEALTH on the other.  Each choice is like a tiny bean... I can add it to the FAT side, or I can add it to the HEALTH side.

True, adding one bean to the scale really might not make all that much difference... but, when you're daily adding beans to the HEALTH side, you WILL eventually get to a "Healthy Tipping Point".  Each decision counts.  (Just as adding beans to the FAT side will counteract your progress)  

What kind of choices will you make today?

Mind Games (2)- Carrie's Tricks

For a long run, one thing I do (and I don't even know if I can explain it well!) is I try to maintain the thought that I have just begun the run and still feel fresh. For example, during really, really long runs (including marathon day) I count "up" the miles as each is completed. Rather than thinking "I have 10 more miles to go" I try to think to myself that I'm heading towards mile 17, keeping a forward motion instead of a countdown. Near the end of a run it's difficult to NOT feel a little antsy just to be done. By holding back mentally and feeling like I've just begun, my patience remains in tact and I can enjoy the run better.

And you certainly can't go wrong with good music! I regularly do zumba and have quite a few of our zumba songs on my ipod. Then I can go through the song's zumba routine in my mind and at that point mentally I am in the zumba class...not running in thr pouring rain!


Thank You Carrie!  


What are YOUR tricks?  Click on the "Mind Games" link in the right column to share your secrets!  Thanks!!

Theme Song

Stronger  


This past month has been quite the struggle for me, not being able to run.  Granted, it was only a sprained ankle, and people go through far worse, but it hurt me emotionally much more than it did physically.  While I was out on my run this morning  (3 minute jogging intervals), this song came on.  Looking back, it truly was my theme song.  It always came on at just the right moment on my shuffling playlist, and it was exactly what I needed to hear!


Hey, heard you were up all nightThinking about how your world ain't rightAnd you wonder if things will ever get betterAnd you're asking why is it always raining on youWhen all you want is just a little good newsInstead of standing there stuck out in the weather
Oh, don't hang your headIt's gonna endGod's right thereEven if it's hard to see HimI promise you that He still cares[Chorus]When the waves are taking you underHold on just a little bit longerHe knows that this is gonna make you stronger, strongerThe pain ain't gonna last foreverAnd things can only get betterBelieve meThis is gonna make you strongerGonna make you stronger, stronger, strongerBelieve me, this is gonna make you Stronger
Try and do the best you canHold on and let Him hold your handAnd go on and fall into the arms of JesusOh, lift your head it's gonna endGod's right thereEven when you just can't feel HimI promise you that He still cares
[Chorus]
'Cause if He started this work in your lifeHe will be faithful to complete itIf only you believe itHe knows how much it hurtsAnd I'm sure that He's gonna help you get through this
When the waves are taking you underHold on just a little bit longerHe knows that this is gonna make you stronger, strongerThe pain ain't gonna last foreverIn time it's gonna get betterBelieve meThis is gonna make you stronger