Unexpected

As I'm sitting here at my breakfast bar on my laptop working from home, I hear the rain coming again. They've been redoing our parking lot these past couple weeks & just finished the black-top. I imagine the individual parking spot lines are next but, I can't help but wonder: with South Florida weather (iow: intermittent rain) ... How do they get anything done down here? Do they get annoyed with the constant interuptions or simply enjoy another unexpected break?

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A Blessing

If we could take a fresh unsharpened #2 pencil, erase our past & start over .. would we be the people we wish we could be or would we just be remnants of the person we once were?

We all have things we regret / skeletons in our closets, if you will; but washing them away or tossing a bottle of Clorox bleach into our closets & scrubbing the floors until our hands are red … will not change who we are today.

We cannot cover up nor ignore the past.  We cannot move forward as though the past didn’t happen either or else we’d be walking in place … or worse … backward.  Where then goes the progress we’ve made but as  left-over – erased on the chalkboard only to be written over w/someone else’s words? Ours … lost.

The future includes our past.  Although, it is not obvious, it is still much like a piece of luggage dragged behind at the airport making that klunk, klunk, sound as we walk; regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not; no matter how evident or intangible – it is what made us who we are.  Should we embrace it & hold it close or try with all of our might to put our present lives on hold & continue with everything we have inside to stop that sound that can never truly be stopped?

Look back at your childhood; the laughs, the tears – your adolescence, adulthood; your loves, your losses, your children, friends, brothers, sisters - family & so on.  Your life changed because of them & theirs because of you.  Change happens for better, for worse, for growth, for a number of reasons untold to us & it will continue throughout your life.

Every single instance in your life happened to make you who you are today & it will continue to happen, to help you develop into who you WILL be in the future.  Sounds crazy huh?  Almost unreasonable?  Beyond your control?  Look back again & reflect on those times when you cried, when you laughed uncontrollably & couldn’t force yourself to stop smiling no matter how hard you tried.  Sounds to me like a blessing J

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Busy Little Bee!

Forgive my absence - I have been here - just not *here* per-se.

I can see that a few changes have been made to the Blogger-world while I've been neglecting it. Excuse me while I brush the dust aside & answer a few questions that may be on your mind ...

What's going on that I've been so busy?
Well, for starters - work, work, work & looking for work! Quite a few side projects were built & are underway & an anticipated return to school to complete my Bachelor's in Graphic Design is also in the works.

What kind of side-projects have I been working on?

For the most part:  building web-sites, creating & maintaining social networking/marketing & creating graphic design for them.  I've also created a few logos for my brother-in-law.

Am I still doing the running program or yoga?
No.  I wish I were - I really do however, covering the business 13 hours a day/7 days a week, working on side projects, working on cleaning up my credit & enrolling in school - are all incredibly demanding on my time.  That is in no way, shape or form a valid excuse for not exercising!  I plan to get back to exercising regularly & updating my blog will in part hold me accountable for such.

So then, does that mean I will be updating my blog regularly?
Yes!  My plan for now is to commit to updating it on a weekly basis & as my life slows down or at least becomes less stressful, I will increase that.

And, as a shameless plug:  Click here to see & shop at one of the websites I've created :-)

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Into Week 4 of the RW Beginner's Program

So, today marked Week 4/Day 3 of the beginner running program I'm doing.  There's a link to it below (in my ranting post-lol) but just in case you want to check it out I've added the link above as well (just click on the title of my blog-post) :-)

Also, as I wrote in my previous (ranting) post - I did take to the open road for today's run.  I noticed an immediate difference even just during my warm-up walking!  Having dabbled with running in the past I knew there was a difference (at least to me) between treadmill running (TM) & pounding the pavement (PTP) but ... it's been a while.

Today I had to not only make up my run/walk but also my 30 minute walk from yesterday so as I've done before - I just tack on 15 minutes of walking before the walk/run & 15 minutes after.  Although, it sucks that I'm missing days here & there & re-arranging my schedule to compensate for it .. it's actually quite nice because then I get a nice long warm-up & cool-down!

Ok, so back to how it went.  The first thing I noticed was that my ankles were getting sore, then my back started getting achy.  I thought to myself, no biggie - you expected this to be different (especially after 3 weeks of TM running), so I continued putting one foot in front of the other & after my nice long warm-up I proceeded to take to running.

Now, as I explained (or complained-however you want to read it-lol) in my previous post I've been struggling with keeping to my schedule.  Today, per the schedule, was to be my Run 9/Walk 1-3x's.  I missed Monday's Run 8/Walk so I had tossed it around in my head about whether or not to stick to the schedule or to do Monday's run.  Technically, rather than jumping from a Run 6/Walk to a Run 8/Walk, I'd be jumping to a Run 9/Walk (3 more minutes running - which I did).  I decided that I would push myself, yet be conscious of my body at the same time so that if I felt as though it was too much - I could cut my run cycle short by a minute & do the Run 8 instead.

I ended up pulling off the Run 9/Walk though!  It was HARD - no kidding, & I ended up walking 2 minutes between runs instead of 1 & for the last cycle - I walked 3 minutes prior to the final 9 minute run.

It's funny though, because I'm so used to knowing how fast I'm going (thanks to the TM), I kept thinking to myself - how fast am I running?  Am I even running?  Am I just jogging?  Are my feet even moving?  That then progressed on to:  Ok, getting a cramp so I'm definitely not just walking .... Ouch, that cramp hurts ... Be tough, you want to be a runner right?  Runner's deal with pain-deal with it!  Ok, breath .. keep running .... it's going away ... I can do this!!  God, I must look funny to people driving by ...

Needless to say, as I said - I pulled it off & really enjoyed my 15 minute cool-down!  The sense of accomplishment I feel each time is more than enough to keep my doing it.  The great thing is that since I knew the mileage for the road I was on - I know that I did at least 4 miles today!  The most I've done yet.  Now, granted that includes walking but it shows me that I wasn't running as slow as I thought I was!  It also serves as a reminder that my focus needn't be on speed but on completing my runs.

All in all - today was a great day.  A HARD-ASS-run definitely, but a successful run & that is worth it every time!



Oh, two more things:

1.  I'm tracking my running/walking progress so if you scroll down to the bottom of my blog, you can see what I've done so far this year.  Thanks to today - I broke 30 this month!  Once I complete the Beginner's Program I will only be tracking running (of course). &

2.  Since I started I've been using my spreadsheet/schedule to put notes about each days running & today I looked back at my week 1 & week 2 notes.  It was so neat to see how I've progressed!  I had a hard time going from Run 1/Walk 2 to Run 2/Walk 1 & now (of course) it'd be a breeze to just Run 2/Walk 1!  I found it to be very inspiring :-)

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Fitting my exercise schedule into my day is proving to be not quite so easy ...

As I posted previously, I devised an exercise schedule to hold myself accountable so that I'm more apt to continue on the path towards being healthy ...

Well, it's proven to be quite difficult to stick to.  I find that I'm more often tweaking the schedule & making up missed days on other days than I am actually sticking to "said" schedule.  It's frustrating because I created the schedule to make life easier, but instead it's making it more cumbersome (& as I said frustrating) when I have to continuously alter it.

Why am I having difficulty sticking to the schedule, you ask?

My weekly schedule basically consists of 6 days of cardio (The Runner's World 8-Week Beginning Runner's Training Program) along with 3 days which yoga is also added in.  That only takes up about 30-60min/day to accomplish depending on the day.  Not so bad right?  Wrong.

I am helping my boyfriend with his company & our schedule is such that I have every other day "off".  On my scheduled days I put in 12-13 hours straight.  On my "off" days I need to be available to help out as well so ... it's near impossible to get my running in half the time (yoga I can do in the office while working).

I feel like I'm making excuses which is partly why I'm writing this blog post (to put my thoughts into words; if even for just myself to read & work through).  He & I talked about fitting exercise into our schedules & agreed that we would happily cover for the other should one of us need to exercise on an "on" day.  On occasion, I've asked him to do so for me but I feel like I'm being selfish because he never asks me to do so for him, nor does he typically take me up on the offer when I offer to do so for him (ok that's super wordy ..).

So I ask myself ... Self?

• Am I just being foolish?
• Should I feel like I'm being selfish about this?  
• Am I really asking myself if I think I'm being selfish about something as important as my health & general well-being?  
• Why should I feel selfish about doing something that's good for me just because he's not? 
• (NR:  I totally just sneezed on my laptop screen.)
• Is it bothering me more because he's not doing the same?  
• Am I over-analyzing this?  
• Why is the sky blue?  LoL ...

Ok, time for a brief break.  I'll come back to this.  Time to grab a cup of coffee.  I need to get off my butt & go run too.  I need to go early in the day so I'm available to help out later.  I'm so stressed out - I can't even go run without wondering if it's really a "good time" to do it.  What if he gets super busy & I'm not here to help & he gets all stressed out?

Right, I just remembered - that's why I run - to de-stress.  Ok, time for me to get changed & get outside.  I've been hitting the treadmill since I started this schedule/program -  but today - it's gorgeous out & I'm hitting the pavement.  I can't wait to feel the breeze & the sun on my face ... putting one foot in front of the other ... just me & the world God gave us ... doing what we were all built to do ... live life & love that we were given the freedom (the blessing) to do just that.

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