Run

I am a runner.

The ability to write that statement is amazing to me. 

I've lived my life in fits and starts.  I've jumped into things with both feet only to pull out before my feet hit the water.  Sometimes, I would wade around in the shallow end for a while before deciding the water was too cold, too hot, too watery, too wet.  I would get out never to return again.

I've started things for the wrong reason.  Everyone else was doing it.  I thought it would make me popular, prettier, thinner, happier, something.  I was lured by the shiny, not knowing that real work lay beneath the pretty exterior.  The work, the effort, the monotony, the tedium always turned me off.

Start then stop.  Join then quit.  Activities, jobs, diets, crafts, novels, plans, life.

My motivation was always wrong.  That dangerous space between my ears allowed doubt and fear creep in.  I don't want to.  I won't.  I can't.

Earlier this year I started again.  It was a nice day, warm and sunny when I had forgotten what warm and sunny looked like.  It was an exercise day but instead of hitting the elliptical at the gym, my body itched for something different.  So I laced up my shoes, turned on some tunes and ran.

I've run before.  Couch to 5K, an ill-fated attempt to train for a triathlon (really?!?) were started and stopped.  I've run races, at least one per year for the past few years.  One and that was it.

But this time was different.  I felt the difference from the first run.  I felt good, happy, euphoric.  I felt the rush of endorphins I had heard so much about.  I felt strong.  So I did it again and again.  I felt happier, stronger.

On an endorphin high I decided to sign up for a race on Mother's Day.  I did not immediately regret the decision as I might have in the past.  Instead I trained.

The race was yesterday.  I woke up happy.  I had a spring in my step. 

As I stood at the starting line and looked around at the 400 plus women, I fought this overwhelming urge to cry.  But it was not a desire born out of fear, nerves or panic.  I was ready to breakdown and cry huge, ugly tears of joy. I knew I was meant to do this.  

I was happy.  I ran and it made me happy.  I had done this because I wanted to.  It was for me and me alone.

I might have walked more than I wanted too.  I might have been passed by women in their 70s and girls in their teens.  But I ran and I finished.

I am a runner.

Doing the Hustle

I stand on an ordinary street corner. One of the streets leads to my home. One leads to the airport and on to Ethiopia.

I notice you approaching me on the corner. I open one side of my coat, heavy with necklaces and earrings. I say to you, "Hey you wanna buy some jewelry? I've got pretty, shiny jewelry. Its on sale."

I sense you shaking your head no. So I open the other side of my coat. Its filled with bottles of lotions, potions and lipstick. "Do you want to buy some skin care? Make up? Come on you know you want to."

I walk the walk. I talk the talk. But inside I feel like I should hand you an arrow, a razor blade, a knife. I would open my coat and wait for you to cut my flesh with no's. I'm not a born salesperson. I don't want people to think poorly of me. Every no is a rejection. Its an indictment of me and who I am.

Instead, I fasten my belt on my coat. I run to my car with my head down. I speed away down the street leading to my house. I run into my house. I lock the door and turn off all the lights. If I lock myself in, you can't see me. You can't hurt me, you can't reject me. But then again, if I shut that door, I'll never know if I could have succeeded.

When I decided to stay home, I planned on making and selling jewelry. I had a vision in my head that I would contribute to my family's lively hood by doing two things I loved, making jewelry and being with my daughter. It hasn't worked out quite the way I've planned. So I embarked on a new venture, selling skin care, make up and wellness products with Arbonne. I love the products and I saw great things in the business. But then the doubts started sinking in. Can I do this? Am I good enough? I stalled. I failed before I even got off the ground just like I had done before.

But for once in my life, I'm taking the chance because its not about me. I am doing this for my family, for my Lion. I am going to contribute to my family. I am going to help bring Lion home. I am going to get off my ass and actually do something for a change. Maybe I'll succeed. Maybe I'll fail. But I am going to try.

So here I am on the street corner, announcing to you, to the internets, to the world, that I sell stuff. I sell really cool stuff. I sell pretty, shiny things. I sell lotions, potions and lipsticks that are truly wonderful. I am doing this for myself. I am doing this for Bunny. I am doing this for Lion. I am doing this for my family, to contribute to a savings account that will be wiped out by this adoption.

Don't worry, I won't hit you over the head with this. I'm going to add some nice buttons to my sidebar. If you are interested, you can contact me or e-mail me and we'll talk. If not that's okay. It won't hurt me.

I Am Hardcore Or Quite Possibly Insane

I have a nice little comfort zone, a Renee box, if you will. I know that if I stay within my comfort zone, things are going to be okay. Nothing bad will happen to me inside that box. Outside of the box lies the unknown. Two things could happen if I venture outside my nice, safe Renee box, failure or success. If I fail, I will retreat to the comfortable confines of the box to lick my wounds. I may think twice about trying something outside. Or maybe, just maybe I'll try again. Maybe.

But if I succeed, my comfort zone will expand. The edges of the box will be pushed out to make room for this newfound success. BlogHer taught me that I could make friends with strangers under strange circumstances. And now I feel more comfortable talking to people I don't know. Slowly but surely throughout my whole life, the Renee box has expanded. I've tried new things. I've met new people. I've had fun along the way.

Lately, the Renee box hasn't been that comfortable. I've been going through something, questioning the way I am and the way I do things. Maybe its the fact that 40 is rapidly approaching. Maybe its not. I don't know. But I've been making some changes, pushing myself a little harder to do things, to try things.

The triathalon was one of those changes, a big old rip open the walls of this box type of change. I've always wanted to do something like that, to push myself beyond my limits. To see if I could do something, complete something if I put my mind to it. But as always happens, when I lose that initial bit of enthusiasm, I get tired and cranky. I want to give up, to go back to the way things were. The old me would have quit, would have said well I tried the training and it was too hard.

But the new me, the one who wants to see what is beyond the edges of the box, didn't quit. In fact, I did the opposite. I pushed harder. I signed up for a 5K, a race where I would have to run with other people. I was excited about the race all week. I set an ambitious goal for myself to finish 3.2 miles in 30 minutes. I was ready, I was going to do this.

And then it rained. Well I should say that it poured, a thunder and lightning crashing all around, type of rain. This was before I even left the house. Bunny, snuggled on the couch under her favorite blanket, said to me "Momma you shouldn't run in the rain." I tended to agree with her.

It was dark and wet and yucky but I went. As I drove to the race, I thought for sure they'd cancel it. But they didn't. A few hundred people stood around in the rain waiting for it to start. And then it rained harder so they pushed the race back 20 minutes. I could have left, no one would have known. But I didn't. I stood in the bathroom with a bunch of strangers who apparently were completely nuts.

We waited and the sky opened up again. Thunder crashed and lightning ripped through the sky but I still didn't leave. I was already wet, I might as well stick it out. Finally the skies cleared. Well no they didn't actually clear, it just stopped thundering and lightning and the rain more of a normal rain. As I stood at the starting line, waiting for the horn, the woman next to me said this was nuts and we should just go home. I agreed with her, but I didn't go.

I stayed and I ran. I let go of the time goal, anything under 40 minutes would be a success in these conditions. I just ran. I ran because I needed to. I needed to push myself. I needed to know that I could finish something. I ran because I am getting stronger. I ran because I wanted to run.

I was not fast. In fact, before I got to the 1 mile mark, the leaders of the race passed me on their way to the finish line. But I was not slow. I just ran and I finished*. And I felt great, better than great. I felt amazing despite the fact that I was wet and cold. I finished something I set out to do. And I kicked ass.

*I finished in 35:15. 550th overall (out of 723), 20th in my age group (out of 37), and 209th (out of 316) for women.

Training Update

Training, training, training. I feel like that is all I am doing. Its not but sometimes it feels that way.

I got my bike back and went for my first ride outside. It felt great. I saw a deer and a muskrat along the parkway so that made the time fly by. Just like with running, biking outside is much harder than using the bike at the club. But I did 10 miles in an hour so I'm happy. I am going to do one of my bikes outside each each week.

The run was good as always. I've decided to do a 5k in August so that is giving me extra motivation.

And the swim, what can I say. I am doing it but I don't feel like I am progressing much. So I think its time to call the trainer again for some help. But on the upside, I got my red redone on Friday and it survived a session in the pool. Hoorray for the power of swim caps!

Training Update and Announcement

Training was back on schedule this past week. I did great on biking, logging the actual race distance during one of my rides. Running was great too. I even managed to squeeze in an extra run and I still felt good.

Swimming was another story. I wanted to swim. I went to the club to swim. But then I found out the lap pool was closed all week for maintainance. I managed to squeeze in one work out in the exercise pool in the midst of kiddie swim lessons, and two water walkers. Needless to say it wasn't my best effort to date. So this week, I'll have to work a bit harder.

Which brings me to my announcement, I will not be posting this week because we are headed to a family reunion in Iowa. We will be leaving tomorrow and not returning until late Friday afternoon. So I hope you all have a good week, I'll see you next week.

Excuses, Excuses

I've always been really good at coming up with plans and terrible on the follow through. I can come up with a million reasons why I am not doing something that I should be doing. I may eventually do it. Or I may not. It sort of depends on how important it is.

Well I had a training week like that last week. The week started off hotter than heck. I kept telling myself I didn't want to work out in this heat. Which is a valid excuse except that I work out at the gym and some of my work out involves swimming in a pool. But that excuse lasted three days.

Then I got a head cold, nothing terrible, just annoying. I could have used the sneezing, congestion and cough as a totally valid excuse not to work out. But I felt guilty from missing three days so I actually worked out through the cold.

I got all of my bike and run work outs in and felt pretty good about them. I still have to walk during my runs but the running parts are longer and the walking parts are fewer. If I keep this up, I should be able to run two miles without stopping very soon (I can almost make it a mile now).

But the swim did not go well. In fact I only made one of the three scheduled work outs. For some reason, I figured that getting in a pool with a cold probably wasn't the best idea. Maybe it was, mabye it wasn't. Maybe I'm just lazy, who knows.

So I really need to get my act togther this week and get back on track. I don't want next Monday's post to be filled with anymore excuses.

Week One - I Survived

Well I successfully survived my first week of training for my triathalon.

I swam for 48 minutes total. Swimming is my weakest event. I haven't really done any swimming since I was a kid so I am focusing here. I am swimming three times a week.

I biked for a total of 1 hour and 4 minutes, which covered a 24 minute short and a 40 minute long ride. During the long ride I managed to cover the actual distance of 13 miles so that is good. I need to get my bike tuned up (it currently has two flat tires and other undiscovered ailments) so I've been using the stationary bike at the club. I know biking on a stationary bike is different than on a real one so we will see how I feel when I get outside.

Finally I ran for 30 minutes. I actually messed up on my times and was short by 2 minutes. I'm going to let that slide this time.

All in all I feel great. I am planning on adding in strength training and yoga to compliment the training but I am not going to over do it. I feel good and I'd like to continue to feel good, I don't want to injure myself during this process.

Kick Me, Please

This a post requesting that you all kick me in the ass when needed.

Why? Who asks people to kick them in the rear?

Well, inspired by Christy from A Lil' Welsh Rarebit I have decided to train for a triathalon (its a sprint not a full distance, I'm not that nuts, yet). Now I am sure that some of you who know me are thinking that I have completely lost it and maybe I have. I know I'm the world champion of coming up with ideas, I just suck at actually following through on them.

But I have actually thought about this. I've always wanted to do a triathalon. I want and need to get myself back into shape. And I'm going to be 40 this year. All of these things have conspired to make me actually train for this thing. I have a 16 week plan with swimming, biking and running all laid out for me. I'm meeting with a personal trainer to work on my swim stroke. I'm going to get my bike out of mothballs and actually ride it.

In short I am going to do this. I really really am. The race is on September 27th, one day before my birthday on the 28th. I can't imagine a better way to enter my 40s.

So every Sunday night (or Monday morning) I'll let you know how I've done on the training for the previous week. And here is where the ass kicking comes in, if I start to slack off, you have my permission to virtually kick my butt to get me back in gear. Really, please feel free, I have a feeling that I may need it.

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And speaking of the wonderful and fabulous Christy, she is having a giveaway on her site. She is giving away some fabulous things including a personalized monogramed necklace from Tags-n-Stones, a $25 gift certificate to Dali Decals for some really cool wall art, and finally a $25 gift certificate to Ecostore USA which has some great eco-friendly cleaning products.

So please visit Christy, check out the great giveaways and check out her wonderful blog. I am sure you will love her as much as I do.