Week Wrap Up

It has been awhile since I discussed my worst enemy: Food: I have currently in my mitts a copy of "Skinny Bitch" and let me tell you it is eye opening what happens to our food before it gets to the store, lets just say I took away a few things from this book.  I'll try not to harp do much about this but It must be said that after years of having it drilled into my head I am a firm believer now that we are not designed to drink milk much past the age of 1. I am in full agreement that milk from the mother as you are a baby is designed to double your weight and put you on a path full of good vitamins etc... much like a calf. I was fortunate enough to breast feed my baby for one full year and then she switched to sippy cups and Organic Whole Milk only. That being said, I'm not going to discuss the "milking process" here as you can read the book and make your own decisions about meat and dairy. I have not completely cut meat and dairy out, but i have cut out a considerable amount out of my diet and I am much more in favor of things being Organic.The fact that this book actually has me actively thinking about what goes in and how hard I have to work to process it has been life changing and I hope to pass this on to my two girls. Although I have not noticed any weight loss from making small changes I feel better knowing that i'm feeding my body less processed/full of chemicals food. I am sure in time the loss will come. I have noticed this past week that although once again the scale is stuck at 210. I have again shifted where my fat spots are. My legs are getting sooo much stronger. My shins seem to have returned to my youthfull 20 something shape and better even. My knees are starting to say here i am! when I lay down and put my legs in the air I can see the potential of what they could look like without the fat suit, when i squat now you can just feel solid muscle, and I have added about 3 hours of skating per week and it's starting to pay off. I started near the end of January and 3 months had made a huge difference.

On a running/foot note: I have finished one week of intense therapy on my plantar fac foot and wearing a brace each night to bed, so far it seems that its working. I feel really good in the morning after removing brace and walking to bathroom pain free is like taking a deep breath in the ocean air. I have put on some miles this past week too. on Sat I allowed myself to do a quick short run and my ave pace was 13:03 that's like 2 min faster than anything i ran all last year on a practice run day. I actually did my first tempo run. Out fast and back faster. I iced when i got home and actively tried to not rest too much so it wouldn't tighten, then sunday I met another ref from the team and we ran 7 miles. Ave pace 14 something. and we had a huge hill after mile 2 and then a super fun downhill that we ran in about 10 min. it's fun to feel what running that fast feels like I remember yelling back to her and saying this is what an 11 min mile feels like isn't it awesome? She was at a 6 mile block so it was fun to push her past that wall and actually do 7, I hope she's proud cuz she did awesome, we did awesome!! She has since quit the derby team,but i think we will continue to run together. Sure makes those long runs fun! and the past month I haven't once thought oh I so don't want to go run. It's felt great to get my mojo back.

On another personal note we are actively trying to get pregnant before I can't have anymore, it's been 7 months since our miscarriage and after much thought we have decided that Parker would probably benefit from having a sibling close in age to her as my daughter is 10 yrs older than her and is having fun now, but as soon as she becomes a teenager the baby fun will be worn off and she will have no interest in her little sister anymore. It is so much fun planning to have a child with someone you love it's the most incredible gift seeing those two lines show up. I got to experience that twice and I'm ready for it to happen again with him. We are allowing ourselves to actively try for about 5 months and then we will stop, it does get exhausting as I'm sure most of you know. I'm sure once we stop trying we will then get pregnant which will be all before turning 41 and sounds perfect to me, my heart is not set on it though, i feel blessed already and another is a miracle. If it's not meant to happen then it's not meant to happen right? either way I will beable to move again at 41 and have no regrets. :) after my birthday in Jan i will go have the in office procedure to block my tubes and I will not have to get on the stupid pill. I think hubs is gonna get the big V also. Then we can both move forward and know we did what we wanted to do. :)

Half Marathon that wasn't

Found out this week that the Half Marathon I was training for in June was a lottery. Ha ha wouldn't you know it. Oh well I chat with a few of you and you assure me that it isn't worth another thought (thanks Ron). So I put myself in his shoes and say NEXT. I will find another to replace that one and be stronger because of it. I have run 2 more long runs since the 11 mile killer hill. I felt proud of that too. I still look back and that day felt like I ran a half marathon and that's because I almost did. I certainly know that i put less effort into my half marathon race than i did on that 11 mile day. So last weekend i ran 7. Had an idea in my head that i would go run around this one neighborhood here and so i plotted it out and saw that it would be about 7 miles and I knew there was a long slow incline hill in there somewhere, I found it at mile 2  :) and although i couldn't see where the hill ended I allowed my HRM to be my guide. 160 and above was my walking zone. I made it to the top finally and feeling good that a ran/walked up that hill. Bonus it's all downhill and flat from here all the way to the car. I finally caught up to my pacer (on my garmin) right before cooling down. But that didn't matter to me i was having fun running 10 min miles at times during that downhill flat part. It felt great to move my legs that fast for the first time. I had a ton of energy at the end which told me i could have probably run up that entire hill. Well next time. This weekend was gorgeous and i had agreed to meet another Ref that I"m on Derby with.She thought she was insane to go with me as she has never run more than 6 miles. So we went the same place i went the weekend before except we did not to the big big hill, instead ran around the neighborhood and hit the trails for a couple miles, the afternoon was hot hot hot. we ave 16 min miles, but it didn't matter to me I was happy to have the company and it never felt like work, I think she felt that way too, she said that was the easiest 700 cal i've burned in a long time. so i have a feeling that i will have a new sunday partner even if she bails early on my long days or better yet she pushes herself to go longer. We ended our afternoon at 6 miles and i think that was a ton of fun. I remembered most of my training that about every third week the mileage can go down, so next week will be a big one again. I'm looking forward to that, running is less of a chore these days and I'm really thankful for that. I was in a slump for about a month in a half and now i feel myself rising above it. I guess Spring is officially here. Time for the high heels and pedicures and toe rings again.Yay!! Derby tonight and let's see what tues brings.