Goals

I've decided a whole bunch of things today... and I am kinda wondering if I am crazy to do so, but I honestly believe very strongly in goals, and I think that these goals are set far enough apart to make them real and attainable.

Goal 1- March- Run the 10k in Irvine
The beginnings of the trainings for this are not that far from what I am doing now, and this is only twice the distance of what I am regularly doing on Fridays. Biggest fear is doing this as a race, with other people.

Goal 2- September- Run the half marathon at Disneyland.
As I made the choice to do the 10k, I thought about how going from 6 miles to 13 miles is not that big of a jump. Sure, it is a bit over half, but if by March I am able to run 6, by September I should be able to do 13, right? Biggest fear is the sheer scale of this run, thousands of people participate each year, you have to get up super early, you are set up in corrals, and I am sure I will feel extremely lost in the crowd. However, many people say that the joy of a marathon partially comes from how many other people are doing it with you. Also a fear is how our adoption will be affecting the chance of this happening, but then the other part of me thinks that if I set up these huge ambitious goals now, before I have kids, it might be the thing that keeps me sane, focused and still finding time for myself to exercise when I do have a child and life gets crazy. Especially since all of the training programs for big distances have you do shorter distances during the week with a big run on a weekend day, so in theory, I should be able to get a baby sitter (Blake, or my parents, etc.) during my long runs working up to my goals.

Goal 3- Full Marathon- May 2013- Orange County Marathon
Twice the distance of the half... 26 miles... daunting doesn't even begin to describe it. Even the training for this terrifies me. Finding time on the weekends to run the 7, 10, 17, 23, 26 miles to be prepared for the actual run... this will be a sacrifice of 4+ hours of my Saturday. This not just a 30 minute chunk of time before my day begins... it is a lot of time. Adding to this is that I would be surprised if I don't have a child by then, because on average, adoption is an up to 2 year process, and we would have hit that mark in December 2012. I have a feeling that I won't want to sacrifice that time with my child, and this is even before I have one.

And yet... running a marathon is something I want to achieve in my life. It has been on my "someday" list for quite some time now. Even before starting to run. I watch the Biggest Loser people do it, and I feel like I want to say that I have done that too.

Every May there is the Orange County Marathon (and I know I don't want to travel for one). May 2012 is approaching too fast, and I am too far from the miles needed to even start a marathon training program to be ready in time. But May 2013? I will have already done two races, and have been working on gradually increasing trainings for the year. Even if we have a child, he or she will be too young to be doing sports and tons of activities on the weekends, and I don't anticipate that to be the case in 2014, 2015 etc. when they are old enough and interested enough to be doing a sport, or dance or who knows what on their Saturdays. By 2014 we could very likely be in the process or almost done with a second adoption... life gets so much more uncertain the farther out I go. After this marathon, I might have a hard time staying active and in shape, but until then... with this goal... maybe I can.

I typed this... I read it... and reread it... and yet I hesitate to post it, to make it public, to make it that much harder to take back. However, that is the exact reason that I wrote it, I want it to be public... to stake my reputation on following through with my goals.

(Deep breath) I will be running a 10k, a half marathon and a marathon by the end of 2013!

New Personal Record and other running tidbits

On Monday, my morning that I focus on improving my speed, I set out to try a very ambitious goal of a 8 minute mile. Almost unbelievably... I did it! I ran my first mile of the morning with a time of 7:59.

However... that exhausted me so much that I had to walk for a bit... and then when I ran the rest of the way home it wasn't even another mile, and the .85 of a mile that I did run I ran it slow... taking about 9 minutes to do so.

So not quite a crowning victory, since as Blake so kindly pointed out, my average was actually slower than previous weeks when you include my second very slow mile.

I am thankful for this weekend's clock change and getting to run in light and dawn again, but there is a negative that came with this... it is very chilly in the mornings these days. We are talking 50 or below. Even with running, I am too cold in my normal workout gear and have been running with a sweatshirt on... and still being a little cold.

I am finding that I have been preferring my phone over my ipod lately because of Pandora. With running three days a week, I am somewhat tired of everything on my running mix, and I like the variety that comes from Pandora. There is a downside though that since Pandora needs internet, if I run through a section that there is no signal, the song cuts out and then takes a while to load again. The upside of my phone is that I can set my running app to tell me every time I hit a mile, or how far and how fast I have run every two minutes (or one minute, etc.).

On Friday, I made another personal record with running 3 miles in 27 minutes and 30 seconds. To my memory, my fastest time when I was running cross country was 25 minutes (maybe 24), and running three miles at just over 9 minutes is a good step in the right direction.

I'm considering signing up and running a 10k in March... but I am nervous. In some ways, I think that it is only a little over 6 miles, but then I look at the training schedules for those, and all of them have me regularly running 4 or 5 miles to get ready for the 6. Right now, my three mile Fridays are a push for me, and I am ready to be done way before the three miles. On the other hand, when I had decided to run in the first place, everything said that it was really important to set goals and milestones for yourself to keep you running and motivated. Running a race would do that, and it totally makes sense that the runs during the week have to be longer for that to work too.

Also causing me to hesitate is the uncertainty about our adoption. What if we are in Ghana in March, what if our child comes home in March... on the other hand, we could not even have a call yet, and is it right to wait or hold back on goals just because of a huge gaping unknown?

I want to stay healthy, and I want to stay in shape, and I really want to keep running. More than any gym regimen that I have ever done, I want to keep getting better and continuing to run. To do this, I think I need more distinct training goals than just "get faster."

I need encouragement... I need a push, a shove, a resounding chorus that says that says that I have all of December, January and February to get ready for the run in March. I need to believe that I can do this. And maybe, just maybe with enough encouragement, I will actually click the button to sign up for that race...

Thoughts and Ramblings

As I looked back on my calendar today, I noticed that when I run this Friday, it will mark 9 weeks of running three days a week (though that does include two days off when I was sick)! I don't think I have been that consistent at exercising three days a week for a long time. I never thought I would be one of "those" people who wakes up early to go running in the morning. Actually, I have scoffed at those people before. But I do love the feeling that I get throughout the day remembering that I have already exercised today, and that I can enjoy my evenings without having to feel guilty that I am not dragging myself to the gym (which I never liked anyways).

I more or less have a pattern down that Monday I work on speed, Wednesday I run the 2-2.5 miles at whatever pace I feel comfortable at, and Friday I am working on distance. I did manage to run an eight and a half minute mile this Monday, and then my second mile was eight minutes and forty five seconds. The problem is that I did indulge in a short walk break between the two, so I can't say that I ran two miles in 17 minutes and fifteen seconds, but instead that I ran the two miles at the above speeds. My goal for next Monday is to keep the same times, but not walk in between.

The downsides of Mondays is that my current way of telling my speed, and thus working to improve it too, is my phone. I have a program that tracks my speed, how far I am running, and my current time. But it does mean I have to carry my phone while I run, which I don't like. If I stay consistent with running, I would love to get something like:

This way, I don't have to carry my phone, and I can still know my distance and time. I especially like that there is a feature where it records your previous runs, and you can race a digital character that is running based on your previous time. What a great way to find out if I am going faster or slower than my last time!

Another random thought about my runs is that more than I can ever remember before... I am so looking forward to daylight savings! When I started running in September, I was running in the early morning light, and watching the dawn as I ran. Lately... I could just as easily be running at night! Its safe, there are plenty of lights around Irvine's trails, but still, it is weird running in the dark. I look forward to having a time that it is somewhat light again when I run.

On a totally different topic (that really should be in another post... but isn't going to be) I think I have found that I am 4/5ths good with our route to children. The 1/5th is reserved for things like "My Belly Book." I bought this journal to chronicle my pregnancy back when we were first starting to try because I wanted to write in it as soon as the first week after I found out, and I didn't want to have to wait to go get it if we were successful the first month (sigh, the foolish optimism of those first months). Currently, we are over a year past trying, over a year past deciding to adopt, and 9 months into the adoption process...and I can't let go of this journal! I don't keep it anywhere near me, I have it tucked away by Blake, but I can't seem to let myself decide to give it to good will or give it to someone else. I keep hoping that maybe when I find out the next person I know is pregnant, I will give it to them... but since deciding that there has been a teacher at my school get pregnant, give birth, and you know... I still have this journal! Similarly... during my super optimism time, I made a variety of baby clothes. I have been to multiple baby showers since then, and since our decision to adopt an older child... and I can't seem to even allow the thought of giving them away, or passing them on or anything.

Why? Why do I have this portion of me that literally cannot let go of the possibility? As much as it irritates me when people say "that it will happen now that you aren't trying" ... I think it partially bothers me because it puts that thought in my mind too... and I think it is healthier for my mental state to embrace the adoption without a part of me holding back with the ever lingering hope of pregnancy.

This same fifth of me is the same part that gets jealous when I read things like I did today on our adoption board. Two different people on the board already had kids, adopted more kids from Ghana, and are now pregnant again. I don't know why... but I feel extra jealous of them because not only do they have the blessing of having biological children easily, they have also already jumped through all of these hoops and have their adopted kids already too! It's just... sigh.

I can't explain it. Extra frustrating is that the other 4/5ths of me is bothered by the very presence of the 1/5 that can't seem to let go completely. Some days it is enough that I wish that I had had something so catastrophically wrong with that portion of my anatomy that I knew it was impossible for me to get pregnant. Maybe then I could have closure.

Since I hate to leave this on a bad note, I will throw into this super random post that my weekends lately have been extra nice. This school year is stressful for me, and so I extra need the weekends to unwind and relax. Blake and I have been riding our bikes to a lunch location, and just generally spending time together and it has really been great. We even spent a day going down to San Diego and seeing Sea World and the San Diego Zoo in one day, and it was just a great bonding day. Also hard to explain, but in a good way, I feel like we are connecting more than ever on these great weekends together. It is the silver lining to my cloud of the previous paragraphs that though we don't have kids yet... we have a blessing of more precious wonderful weekends with just the two of us.

9 minute mile!

I am so excited, I wanted to share my making a milestone this morning. I have a variety of goals that I hope to achieve with my running, such as endurance, stamina, and slight weight loss. Less important, but an additional goal, has been to improve my speed on my 2 mile run in the mornings (that will eventually become 3 miles).

The last couple weeks, I was averaging around a 10 minute mile, so my first goal was to get that down to 9 (for reference sake, in my cross country days my first mile was 7 minutes). Well, today I ran two miles in 17 minutes and 50 seconds! Yay!

8 minutes here I come!

Eleven

Today we received an update from our coordinator for our Ghana program, and I do love getting the updates, because even if they don't exactly tell us where we are in the program, it helps.

Currently there are eleven other families in the program at the same place we are. I have no idea (nor way of knowing, nor would I ask) where we fall in the order of these other families. I do know that the family that has been waiting the longest has been waiting 9 months, so that isn't us. I am thankful that the number isn't bigger, and that the longest waiting isn't over a year. I can handle the thought of 9 months, and even the thought that if we are the least waiting, there are only 10 families ahead of us. I think the best thing about this number is that it is something to hold on to. I know that the number of people ahead of us is limited. It reassures me that there will be an end eventually. It's good to have any kind of defined end in this crazy process that is different for everyone.

I also take comfort in the fact that there are 15 families that in the two stages closer to child coming home. So many families are being made! It just makes me happy! It also gives me more peace that our turn will indeed come. 15 families have made it past our step at this point, those families are heading towards the finish line. It is possible!

Anyways, I wanted to pass along these little updates so that they can also give anyone who reads this and is curious where our adoption stands a little more information about where we stand.

Also, I wanted to let you guys know that there is a fundraiser going on right now to get Christmas presents for the orphans that are a part of our agency. It is a silent auction where you post a comment on the item you want with your bid and if you win, you are notified. Read more about it at http://aaiholidayproject.blogspot.com/

Let them eat cake!

As hard as it is to believe, I have been jogging three times a week for 5 weeks now! Last Friday, the 23, I ran for 20 minutes straight! I was tired, to be sure, but I did successfully go that whole time without stopping.

Throughout the last couple of weeks I have considered posting an update on how it is going, and on things that I changed and tweaked through the time, but life always got busy, and then I decided I was so close to 5 weeks, I would post about all of it when I hit this mark.

First off, I learned some valuable things about running music. I found that it was not enough to choose songs that have a good beat, and fit the length that I need, but they also need to not be repetitive. One song that I tried, I really felt like I was having to run for longer because the song happened to be one that repeats the same lyrics over and over again. Songs with different verses work much better, because I don't notice the time passing as much. I did also learn how to set up a song on itunes to start or stop at a different time than the song's length and this became extremely valuable since there were only so many songs of the exact length I needed.

The first time I ran, I ran with nothing but my ipod. Blake was not pleased... and he had a good point (and I know my parents probably aren't happy to hear this either :-D), since if something did happen on that run, I would have had no way to contact him. Also, I was stressing the whole time about him deciding to leave early, and locking me out, and how could I get back in the house, etc. However, I hate having anything in my hands when I run (or walk... or basically ever... I really like my hands free). But while I researched and looked for a solution to this, I did my next couple of runs with my phone in my hand, and explicit instructions to Blake to not lock me out.

I ended up buying this:

It is called a shadow pack, and is made for runners, and had really good reviews. Honestly, I barely feel it when I run, and I can fit my cell phone and my keys in it. I now use an app on my cell phone called my tracks that says how far I have run, and records my average speed and my elevation. I really enjoy looking at it and seeing my progress.

I might have mentioned earlier that I also decided that I should buy new shoes since my old shoes had holes in both of the toes. This was a huge decision for me because I wanted to choose good shoes that would last. So I dived into the world of running shoes. As I searched, I learned more about barefoot/minimalist running. Basically, the philosophy is that our legs were designed for running in a way that is superior to all of the advances in shoe technology, but we have to train ourselves to run this way. Without knowing tons about it, the main difference is that we tend to run in a way that our heel strikes first when we wear typical running shoes, and the shoes are designed to cushion that impact and even draw our heel down. But when they study people who run barefooted, the mid-foot hits first. This makes the calves and ankles work harder to absorb the impact, but they do so very well, acting as a spring.

There are, of course, people who actually run barefooted, but I knew I would feel way too weird to do that. There are also shoes that have toe spots that are as close to running barefoot while wearing shoes to protect you:

However good reviews these received... they were also way too weird for me. I instead went for minimalist shoes. They are designed to make your feet/legs work the same way that they would if you were barefooted, but with slight padding, and no seperate toes. These are the shoes that I picked:

As promised, the first couple times that I wore these my calves were killing me for the next few days! They were not used to having to work so hard. But, I did feel much better running in these shoes. Actually it was interesting because the first time I ran in them, I liked them so much I ran faster and harder, and wore myself out thoroughly before I finished my run (I was running very slowly by the end). But I am happy to say that my feet have adjusted, and now my calves aren't especially more sore than other parts.

I have found a route that I love, and I find that my morning run is really nice for a variety of reasons. One is that the way that the timing is currently working, I leave the house while it is still dark and watch the sky gradually lighten during the 20-30 minutes I am gone. I see rabbits and birds in the morning and very few people. I feel much more awake the days that I run, and the mornings go smoother because of our almost military level operations the night before (lunches ready, clothes picked out, car loaded etc.). It is getting to the point that I miss having everything ready on my non-running mornings, and it might become a regular routine to do that every night.

A nice side effect of running too is that I have so much more endurance during tennis too. We haven't tried a bike ride since, but I have a feeling that I will do better during the ride because of my increased stamina as well.

I haven't really noticed a difference in my weight yet... but that was never my goal to begin with anyways, I just wanted to be able to run without feeling exhausted, and even though I am only 5 weeks through the program, I feel that that portion is successful.

The program trains to running a 5k, but for our timing in the morning, my goal will be to do a half mile walk and then a two mile run, and try to gradually decrease my time during that run. Maybe if my time gets good enough, it will be increased to three miles in the morning, but not for now.

Knowing that goals are important to keep something up, even as we make my cake tonight, my next reward after another 5 weeks of three days a week running will be a pound of See's candy.

p.s. lol...I guess the shoe pictures turned out really big... but I don't feel like fixing them... sorry!

New school year and new fitness plan

Two weeks ago I started a couch to 5k fitness plan. Each week, it outlines the breakdown of a 25 minute run. At the beginning the runs are shorter and the walks are longer, and gradually it is more and more running until it just starts with a 5 minute warmup, and then a 20 minute run straight.

If I can make it through 5 weeks of running three times a week, Blake and I will celebrate with a cake. If I can make it another 5 after that, we will get a pound of see's candy. I know, it seems totally counter productive to an exercise goal that the rewards are desserts. However, we both have a sweet tooth, and it isn't unheard of for us to just buy ourselves these kind of treats without any special occasion or incentive at all. This way, we don't get these treats until I make these fitness goals. A dessert week every 5 weeks isn't too bad. (If you are wondering why our desserts is all on me, it is because Blake already works out 5 days a week).

My reasoning for choosing this particular work out is because of my chosen sport in high school- cross country. I ran for two years, and though I was never the best at my school, I am proud of the fact that I ran 3 miles in the races and frequently ran 5-6 in the practices. Recently on walks, Blake and I would jog a little on the walk... and I would be beat! Out of breath, totally exhausted. This is a far stretch from my high school cross country days. So, of my own volition, I decided that it was time to get myself back to at least being able to run for 20 minutes. Also, it has been fun for me to design my running mixes on my ipod, setting up musical cues with faster songs for my running intervals and slower songs for my walking intervals so I don't have to deal with a timer.

Part of my goal of typing this and putting the ticker on my blog is to keep me going, and keep me accountable to more people. I figure the more public I make this commitment, the more likely I am to make it a habit even as the school year begins, and it gets harder to get up in the morning. Fingers crossed I stick with it.

Next week will be the start of my 6th year teaching. I do get to stay with my fourth grade level another year, however I will have 6 more students than I did last year. That doesn't sound like much, but when I consider that that is 6 more of every report, paper, and test that will need to be graded, I get a bit nervous. My room is almost all set up, and I think by tomorrow, it will be all ready.

I am really excited about my theme for the class this year. In the past, I generally avoided classroom themes, but I thought it would be fun to unite my classroom with some consistent color choices and thematic decorations this year. So, I went with music. Most of my decorations, borders, and desk plates are black and white, and then I have added different musical notes to them. My class verse for the year is focusing on living in harmony with each other, and I will be reinforcing this theme with teaching the kids that the point of harmony is not to sing the same note (all be the same) but to sing different notes that work well together (emphasizing their need to be able to work together).

As an extra touch, I plan on showing this video as a demonstration of what harmony (in music) is:


I am hopeful for both my new fitness plan and my new school year!