spt – stolen moments

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Despite the *vacation* part of “summer vacation,” it seems we are all just as crazy as ever. Swim teams, scout trips, family vacations (and new family cars!), new babies, family reunions, rock concerts, and even stomach bus have kept us all hopping this summer!

Where do you go at the end of the day, when the house is quiet and you have a few stolen moments? Is there a special place in your home that becomes your retreat for reading, surfing, blogging, scrapbooking? Or is this the place where you enjoy steaming hot coffee in the morning before the day gets away from you?

What makes this a comforting spot for you? is it filled with photos? Mementos? An overstuffed chair? Do you shut the door against the world, or do you throw open your shutters and take in the view? Is there music playing? A DVD running? A candle burning?

In the insanity of summer, where do you spend your stolen moments?

This SPT challenge has caused me a bit of reflection. Initially, when I read it, I thought that this was definitely directed to the “marrieds with children”. With all the discussion of summer vacations, swim team, scout trips, etc. I kind of thought, “Well, this doesn’t really apply to me. I don’t have all of those things going on. Sure I’m busy, but I am a single woman, living (for all intents and purposes) on my own. My life is full of me time.” So, I really just put it out of my head and figured I wouldn’t participate this week.

But then, I started thinking about the things that I do that would qualify as “stolen moments” and an interesting thing happened. I began to realize a few things. First, somehow I grew up with an inherent need to have me time, so I build it into my life. I love to do things for people, but I also love to do things for me, so I do. Second, I really do appreciate that I have me time. And third, I am good at turning any alone time into a type of stolen moment.

My time is very important to me. You know how there are some people who just don’t really enjoy being alone. I am not one of those people. I really enjoy my own company and time for reflection. I love my, what I would call, stereotypical stolen moments: curling up with a good book (I wish I had an overstuffed chair), watching one of my favorite movies, spending hours perusing the shelves at Barnes and Noble, running (yes, I do truly enjoy it), taking a nice bubble bath. But I also love some not so traditional moments.

I love driving by myself. I often spend time in my car on the phone, so I can fit in conversations for which I might otherwise not have time, but I love those moments when I don’t have anyone to call and I can just turn on my music and drive. I love waiting at the airport (okay, not for delayed planes, but just the normal wait). I actually really enjoy that time, sitting at the gate, surrounded by people, but alone. I read, I listen to music, I write in my journal (yes, my blog is not my only journaling source…suprisingly, there are things I don’t share), and I love to watch people and make up their stories in my head. I love airport time.

I think there are lots of us single females out there who often pine away for the days when we will join the ranks of the “married with children”. But I have realized recently (and this challenge helped to remind me of this) that, as much as I want those things someday, I will miss my single life. I will miss these days when I don’t have to find time for me. But I’m hoping, that because I appreciate them now, I won’t look back and think, “Why didn’t I take advantage of all of that alone time when I had it?”

Lelly, thanks again for a great challenge. And sorry that there’s not an actual “self-portrait” of my “stolen moments”, but I haven’t been at the airport this week and I don’t take pictures of myself while driving. I already drive too crazy for my own good. No need to add self-portraits to the mix.

10 miles (into my soul)

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Okay…so the title is a bit dramatic, but it fits. First the 10 miles, then we’ll get to my soul.

Saturday’s run was ideal. Only one blister, no chafing, perfect weather and fantastic music.

I started my run up South Fork Canyon (my favorite place to begin long runs) and it was an absolutely gorgeous morning and it was so early that not many people were out yet. The run started out great and only got better. I love that I am figuring out the things that work for me and the things that don’t. Runner’s World is one of my new favorite sources of tips. I have learned that starting my run at a nice warm up pace helps to ensure that my body will not go into “shock”. I have learned that walk breaks, contrary to what one might think, do not slow my pace at all. In fact, I credit walking for my increased pace this week. And I have learned how to best partake of my energy chews (less chews more frequently…oh, and the strawberry ones are fantastic). Of course, I have had to test all of these things out and what works for me may not work for you, but I thought I’d share just the same.

Other than the recommend changes above, I made a personal change. I noticed that two weeks ago, on my nine mile run, I had a hard time wanting to walk because the fifth songs (my walking songs) were songs that I wanted to run to. The whole point in creating a playlist specifically for that run was so that I would enjoy running to every song. So this week, I changed it up. First of all, I did the math and decided that I wanted to try walking to every sixth song, rather than the fifth one. The second thing I did was to plan out my playlist more carefully, adding in “slow” songs for the walk breaks. This effected two changes: the first was that I knew when I was supposed to walk without having to keep track of song numbers (on the nine miler I lost track a couple of times and didn’t walk as often as I wanted to) and second, there was no sadness as a result of having to walk to a great running song. In addition to that, I made sure that my post-“slow song” songs were my best power songs.

The results were amazing. I enjoyed my run. I felt great. I didn’t have to think about anything. I knew exactly when to walk. I was motivated to start running right after my walk songs. And, best of all, I dropped 30 seconds from my average mile time. I am ecstatic. Not that my goal is speed, but the faster I run, the faster I’m done with that marathon. As excited I am to run it, the prospect of being on the road any longer than necessary just isn’t very appealing. I may be crazy, but I do have some kind of reason.

So, here’s the playlist (and yes, some songs do repeat themselves…because I love them and the slow songs are the peachy ones):

1. Freedom 90 / George Michael 6:30 – warm up
2. Right here, Right now / Fatboy Slim 6:27 – warm up
3. Clothes Off / Gym Class Heroes 3:55 – great to pick it up
4. Under Pressure / Queen & David Bowie 4:03
5. Dance Dance / Fall Out Boy 5:02
6. Fields of Gold / Sting & Edin Karamazov 3:33
7. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02 – perfect post slow song
8. Problem Girl / Rob Thomas 3:55
9. the doorbell encore / White stripes vs. jay-z vs. queen 4:16
10. Here (In Your Arms) – remix / Hellogoodbye 3:54
11. No Apagues la Luz / Enrique Iglesias 3:49
12. Big girls don’t cry / Fergie 4:28
13. Workout Plan / Kayne West 2:52 – great!
14. Yummy / Gwen Stefani 4:57
15. Porcelain / Moby 3:58
16. Open Your Heart / Madonna 4:13
17. Hot ‘n’ Cold Pussycat / Basement Jaxx vs. The Pussycat Dolls 4:11
18. Remember To Breathe / Dashboard Confessional 3:40
19. Escape / Enrique Iglesias 3:30 – this could have had a little more “go” to it.
20. Makes Me Wonder / Maroon 5 3:31
21. Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth… / Primitive Radio Gods 5:39
22. Rush (New York City Club Version) / Big Audio Dynamite II 3:55
23. When You Were a Starlight / Team9 vs. The Killers vs. Muse 4:11
24. Slow Dancing In a Burning Room / John Mayer 3:52
25. SexyBack / Justin Timberlake 4:02
26. Simply Being Loved / BT 4:21
27. Clothes Off / Gym Class Heroes 3:55 – great at the end for a final sprint!

So, moving onto “my soul”…and this is the part that gets the disclaimer. This is more for me than it is for you. Feel free to read it, but when you get halfway through it and think, “Holy crap, this girl sure can yap” just remember that I warned you.

This whole “Journey to Saint George“, as I have decided to call it, is turning into much more than just training for a marathon. Or more than what I thought of when I thought about training for a marathon. I am learning more about myself through running than I ever thought possible, well unless we’re talking about years of extensive and painful therapy (and I could probably still use some of that, but I’m not quite ready to go there). I am amazed at how my “issues” play out in training and how I am forced to deal with them.

For instance, while my long Saturday runs have been hard, they have not caused me nearly the agony that my short (being a relative term) weekday runs have. There is absolutely no reason for this, so why is it so? In thinking about this (my long runs provide me with plenty of opportunity for reflection), I realize that my training approach and experiences thus far parallel my life. The little, daily trials tend to be a lot more difficult for me than the big, huge ones. The insight I had this week is that it probably has a lot to do with my preparation and attitude. With running, I have not taken much thought for my short runs. I don’t mentally or physically prepare for them like I do for my long runs. I’m not so concerned with how much sleep I get. In short, I just take them for granted and think, “I can run 10 miles, why worry about three?” I approach life in much the same way.

I don’t think that I have had the hardest life ever, but I have definitely had to deal with some pretty big trials, and some have been very, very challenging, but because I expect that they will be hard, I do everything I can to ease my burden and make them bearable. I become fastidious in my daily “preparation”, which for me is a spiritual and emotional preparation. It’s the everyday trials that end up throwing me over the edge, so to speak, because I lack the same diligence.

Because the short runs are “short”, I have this mentality that they shouldn’t be hard, so when they are, I get very frustrated with myself. The same thing with life. When something that I think should be easy to bear ends up kicking my butt, I get upset because I think, “I should be able to handle this”. If I were to prepare for my short runs (and the small trials) in the same way I prepare for the long ones, I’m sure I would be much more capable of handling them.

The other insight I had this week is that I do not do well running with someone who I perceive to be a “better” runner than me. And, because this is about how my running parallels my life, I’m sure it won’t surprise you when I tell you that I don’t do well at anything when I feel inadequate or “less than”…not because I’m not capable of doing well, but because I just give up.

As a jack of all trades and master of none, I’m not exceptionally good at anything. So, it is not unusual for me to faced by someone who is better, faster, smarter, kinder, etc than I am. Interestingly, these people rarely try to make me feel inadequate. In fact, on the occasion that on of them does, it’s more likely that I will think they are stupid and insecure than that I will feel the emotion they are trying to arouse in me. It’s the people who are humble about their own abilities, that make my life difficult (okay, well, I’m the one that makes my life difficult, but whatever).

The discovery: I got an email from Kim last week. She found my blog from a comment I left on Cindy’s blog. She’s training for the Top of Utah Marathon and she was going to be in the area for about a week and was wondering if I’d like to run with her. My pace is a little slower than hers, but I decided, “what the hell?” It wouldn’t be a big deal on a short run and it would push me a little. Well, push me it did. Full force right into the face of this particular issue. We were just doing five miles. Kim knew that my pace was a bit slower than hers, and she was happy to run a little slower. The thing is, though, we were running at my pace and I was still being a big baby about it. I would rather quit than inconvenience someone or slow someone down or cause someone to adjust their plans or any number of other things.

This is totally my issue. It doesn’t matter how kind or helpful someone is (although, I’m not a huge fan of unsolicited advice…at least not when it’s presented like scripture), I still get stressed out when I don’t feel “good enough”. The thing with this new insight is that I didn’t receive any great revelation about how to resolve it. Maybe it’s just a matter of really getting to a place where I’m at peace with myself and my abilities? I’m not really sure. And if that is the answer, then how do I do that? (If you have advice, go ahead and offer it…I’m soliciting). Perhaps I’ll find an answer on my long run next weekend…when I, once again, will have lots of alone time with nothing to do but think and run.

*It would take too long to embed all of the links to the songs in this post, but if you are interested in any of the songs listed and can’t find them, email me and I will send them to you, provided the version I have is not a protected one. The email option is available from my profile.

saturday

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The play by play of my 10 miler along with my playlist are coming…in the meantime, just be glad that you aren’t me right now. For various reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that I have to take a practice GMAT before my class begins on Monday. The GMAT is a computerized test that takes four hours. Needless to say, I am less than excited.

Update: 7/9/07 2:00 am…the practice test is over. I’m glad I took the time to study before hand. My course begins tomorrow (okay, today, but after I sleep a little and work a lot) and the course guarantees to increase one’s score by 100 points. Ergo, the need to do well on the practice test. The higher the score on it, the higher my guaranteed score on the real deal and since my college experience involved more time skiing (note to self: season passes to Sundance are a bad Christmas gift for children in college) than sitting in class, my GMAT score is key.

www – week 5

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**Today’s post is a little self-indulgent (aka long-winded), but really, most of my posts are. If you just want to know the weight results, go ahead and skip to the second to last paragraph. If you feel like knowing more about me than you ever cared to know (I’m kidding…kind of) then feel free to read the rest.

So, this week was not great. I mean, really not great. I tracked my points, even though it was not great, which is how I knew I would be lucky to have not gained weight. No, scratch that, that I would be lucky to have not gained a lot of weight. Between my trip to Las Vegas (and seriously, I still think the cheesecake was worth it), dinner with friends and the 4th of July, it was bound to happen…and it did. I gained weight. Not much, but some. And yes, I’ll tell you how much, but first I want to tell you why I feel okay about it. Not just okay, but I think I needed this to happen on some deep level.

My whole life, I have been all or nothing. In fact, I call it my “all or nothing disease”. “If I eat one cookie, I might as well eat all twenty of them”. “If I start walking when I should be running, there’s no point in running again.” “If I’m not going to get an A in the class, why bother? I mean, if it’s not an A, it might as well be an F.” And so has been my struggle with my weight.

I have lost weight at different times in my life, but it has never (sad but true) been in a healthy way. I made an attempt once, at Weight Watchers, but it didn’t give me the instant results I was used to, so it ended. I have struggled with eating disorders at various times, and guess what, they are effective and they are fast. I have been a slave to fad diets. They have all worked…except that, with my “all or nothing” mentality, nothing lasted…well, that and the fact that starvation and obsessive exercise tend to make me absolutely miserable. I would do really well with my unhealthy means, but then there would be a glitch, a hump, a hurdle. I would gain a pound or two and it was over. If I wasn’t going to be successful the way I thought I should be, then why bother.

Which brings us to the present. I have been eating disorder free for about six years and over those six years, I put on about 35 lbs from my post-mission thinness (the last eating disorder period). During those six years, I lost some weight with Atkins and it was great. It happened really fast. I felt good (although I’m sure my cholesterol was through the roof). And then Christmas happened, and once I fell off the wagon, there was no getting back on and the weight returned as quickly as it left. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that I have never fallen into alcohol or drug abuse. I’m sure I would be a mess.

For the second time in my life (as I said, I attempted WW’s once before), I am trying to lose weight in a healthy way and that is a big deal. The bigger deal is that I have been working really hard over the last year to overcome this all or nothingness. Part of my desire to run a marathon was the knowledge that I would have to be able to know my body and be moderate in order to be successful. All or nothing will get you injured when running that kind of distance.

While I have been doing really well with the weight loss, I think I was still in a bit of an “all or nothing” mode. I mean, I lost weight every week and I was on a “perfection high”. But life happens and paradigm shifts do not come easily for me. This last week, there were several moments when I thought, “Screw it. I don’t care.” But then I thought about the weight I have already lost and how good I have felt lately, both physically and emotionally, and I felt better. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t totally believe I can do it, but I want to, which is why I believe tonight needed to happen.

Up until this last year, my life has been pass/fail, all or nothing. And if I didn’t think I could do something, well, then I just didn’t try. So tonight’s weigh-in represents my moderation. I gained .8 lbs and of course I’m disappointed, but I know what I did to gain that and, do you know what? I still like myself. The self-loathing that used to accompany my perceived failure isn’t there. It’s a setback, not the end of the world. And I’m sure I will have other weeks where I gain weight…but I feel good. I don’t feel like I’ve failed. I feel like I’m human. This is not an all or nothing experience…this a road that will continue for a long time, and there will be bumps and turns and I hope that, no matter how big the bumps are, I will just keep trekking along.

So, even though I gained a little, I have still lost 12.2 lbs in five weeks and that is something to feel good about. It’s a healthy pace for lasting results. So, I’m back on track. I hit a bump, but I’m still on the road and, even with the little bit of disappointment, I’m quite proud of myself!

Happy 4th of July! (spt – yankee doodle dandy)

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Rather than boring you with the play by play of my day (which was pretty fabulous!), I think I’ll just list a few things I love about our country. I don’t think our country is perfect, and my feelings are based on my experience in this country (which experience has been relatively privileged), but having lived in a couple of other countries, I definitely have an appreciation for some of the freedoms we enjoy.

  • I am grateful for the freedom of religion. And while, it isn’t perfect and people are still judged by/for their beliefs, I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in fear because of my beliefs.
  • I am grateful for the freedom of speech. While I don’t think people always use it wisely and sometimes I’d like to take it away from others, I am grateful for it.
  • I am grateful to live in a country that tries to help other countries. While the process and the efforts may be far from perfect, at least they exist.
  • I am grateful that public education is an expectation for all. I know it doesn’t happen for everyone, but I’m grateful that it is the goal.
  • I am grateful to live in a country where women are not treated as less than men. There are still chauvinists out there (just like there are, in my opinion, over-the-top feminists), but I can vote, I can own property, I will never be someone’s “property”, I can get the same education as a man, and the same jobs. But even better, I can choose to stay home and be a mom someday. Whatever I decide, it’s my choice. What an amazing blessing in a world where so many women don’t have those freedoms.
  • I am grateful that there are laws against the exploitation of children and that a government agency exists specifically to protect them.
  • I am grateful that, as I type this and can hear fireworks still going, I don’t worry that the sounds are anything but fireworks (and I realize this is not a “freedom” all people of this country enjoy).
  • I am grateful for all of the men and women who have sacrificed so much to protect the wonderful freedoms I enjoy.
    * This is my SPT for the week. I decided to go with the “What does Indepence Day mean to you?” option.