Comfort Goals

Two more days till the big day!!  Yesterday I went out to run 5 miles and it was effortless.  That run was what I needed to give me that confidence boost for race day.  I have a short 2 mile run today and then my training is officially over.   Hard to believe how fast these last four months flew by!  As race day draws closer, I find myself thinking if my training was enough to get me my goal of a sub 2:00 half marathon.   I didn't follow a pre-made training plan.  I made up my own based on basic principles of training schedules, my running level and past personal running experiences.  In the future I may opt to go with a professional training plan especially if I am  significantly off in my estimated finish time.   I guess I'll just have to see how it goes on Sunday :)

I know I will be heartbroken if I don't get my time but I know that there are things that are just beyond my control on race day.  This week, I have spent some time thinking of other acceptable finish times that will help me find comfort if I don't get my ideal goal time. So here they are:

Make My Heart Happy Goal 1:  Finish the Half Marathon in under 2:00.  I don't care if it's only a fraction of a second under 2 hours.  I just want to see a 1 as the first number in my finish time.

Comfort My Heart Goal 2: Finish in under 2:10.  I am pretty confident I can do this.  I can run very comfortably at a 9:30 min pace.  I have noticed that it's also my default pace.  I naturally fall into this pace stride.  

Sorta Comfort My Heart Goal 3: Finish in under 2:21.  This is my current PR for the half marathon.  I have only done one. I think one of the main reasons, I have not trained to do another one is because I wanted to get a significantly better time and I knew that it would require lots of time and dedication.   Now is my time.  I've put in the work.

On a completely random thought...  This week I came across the yummiest milk beverage ever! Silk has come out with Almond Milk that tastes amazing!

If you haven't tried it, you should. It tastes great straight up, no need to put in in cereal. The vanilla flavored one is the best!  Great after a run or just as a snack is yummy too :)

Taper Week

I love and dislike taper week.  Love it because I know that race day is just around the corner.  What I don't like about it is the feeling that there's nothing more I can do.  Training in a sense has come to a close and now, I just have to wait and see what the fruits of my labor will end up being.  I found myself growing a bit restless today.  Still trying to figure out the right balance between doing too much or not doing enough during taper week.
I started the day with a 2 mile run.  I decided to take Matthew in the stroller.  It was a bit chilly but I bundled him up and he had a blast.  He 'Vroomed, Vroomed' the whole way which made me feel like I had extra bursts of energy along the way.  Very fun! 

 Here he is after the run

I normally work out for much more than 20 minutes a day so I decided to do a little cross training and mow the lawn with our new nifty-save-the environment-50's-mover.  I have to admit that I was very skeptical when my husband decided to make this purchase but after trying it out today, I am sold.  There's something mesmerizing about watching the blade go round and round and quietly cut your grass.  I ended up doing the whole lawn with a little help with little man Matthew and my sweet husband.

Here I am.  Check out my straight lines :)

Here's Sir Matthew.  His first attempt at moving.

Here's the Sweet Husband :)

After the lawn mowing cross training workout, I still have pent up energy that needs to be released.  Since I can't go run for an hour, I think I'll probably go to the gym later and do some upper body strength training and some core work.  That should give me my fix for the day and shouldn't interfere with my taper :)

***Breaking News Interruption***

I'm one of those weird people that actually enjoys the Breaking News interruptions on TV. I know many find them quite annoying but there's something about them that is exciting to me. There's an element of suspense and anticipation that gets me every time.  I know, it's weird.

Anyway, as my creativity month continues and I engage in all sorts of new things, I find myself thinking, obsessing, and dreaming about the upcoming half marathon in Lincoln. Since the race is only a week away, I am making an executive blogger decision to execute a Breaking News Interruption to my April resolution that will last until the end of the month. I will still engage in my creative projects, I just won't write about it.

My breaking news is that for the next week, I will start my race countdown and blog about it each day. I figure if that's what I'm thinking about all the time, I might as well share some of my thoughts with the rest of you. I realize that you may not all be running freaks but at least you will temporarily enter my running world and see what makes me excited about running.

Before I go into my "interruption" week,  I will share what I've been up to the last few days in regards to my creativity.  But after that, I'm out.

Day 19-21: Garden Love: I am not a gardener. I have never been and probably will never be. I love flowers and people who garden but it's really not my thing. We currently live in the parsonage which has a beautiful back yard. The previous pastor's wife kept an amazing garden with a variety of flowers, ferns, and other plants that I can't identify. When I first saw the beautiful cared for garden, I was amazed and sad at the same time. I knew in my heart that it would probably never look that great again. Needless to say, a year and a half later, my fears were confirmed. The once amazing garden is...well, let's just say..no longer amazing. As part of my creativity month, I decided to tackle the project of restoring some dignity to this garden. After several days of pulling weeds and probably some non weeds too, (I'm still working on figuring out which are the good and bad plants. I know, it's pretty pathetic!) the garden is looking SO much better. Here are some pics of my progress so far.

I know this is still a pretty sad looking flower bed but it was so much worse several days ago.

Those tree branches in the background, yeah, our trees needed some help too.

The yard behind ours is a constant reminder of what our yard is not.

So there it is, our garden in progress :) 


Day 22-24: Musical expression:  I like to sing but am not very fond of the whole special music thing at church.  Although, I am asked to do it from time to time, I always politely decline.  I know I can carry a tune and overall don't have a bad voice BUT that still does not give me the golden ticket to do special music.  I reserve that privilege for the ones who actually have above average talent in that area. In the last several months, I have become a fan of Kari Jobe.  If you've never heard her sing, check her out on YouTube.  She's amazing.  There's a song she sings called 'Beautiful' that my husband loves and plays over and over again in the car.  Yes, this is one of his annoying traits.   Anyway, I decided to offer my services for the church service this last weekend.  My creative gift to him and the church was to learn the song in sign language and throw in a little dramatic expression into it as well.    I figured I could do that and save myself the embarrassment of attempting to sing the song.  I wish I had a video of it because it rocked!  It goes without saying that the credit goes straight to the Lord.  I was just blessed to have showed up at the same time the Holy Spirit graced our church with His presence and anointed that space in time.   The people were incredibly blessed as well.  I praise God for that! 

So there it is, my creative process so far this month.  It's been quite a ride!  Now, for the week of running filled blogs!  Stay tuned....

Pressing On

This month is whizzing by and I've had a hard time finding the time to document the journey. Although, my consistency with blogging this month has been somewhat lacking, my creativity "projects" press on. Here's a summary of what I've been up to this past ten days.

Day 8-10: Pastor's Wife's Retreat: At first I wasn't planning on going mostly because of the hassle of trying to figure out how Mike was going to juggle watching little man while preaching at two different churches. About a week before the retreat, I realized that I really needed some alone time and that it was important that I take that time away. In that same moment I also realized that I didn't have to figure everything out for Mike in order to go. I am blessed with a very capable husband who is an amazing father that is able to figure out how to take care of our son for a few days. Sometimes I forget that and try to do more than my share of everything which of course leads to unnecessary frustration. Thanks in large part to my April creativity/break out of the routine month, I decided to do things differently. Once the decision was made, I let Mike know what I was planning to do. He happily agreed to step in and let me take the time that I needed. The weekend ended up being a great blessing! I came back energized and happy. Mike and little man Matthew also had a great weekend!

Day 11-13: Picture Prayer Book: I got this idea from the speaker at the retreat and decided I wanted to do it too. A picture prayer book is a photo album of pictures and prayers. You can include any picture you want that reminds you to pray over someone or something. Below the picture is a prayer you write out for that particular person and/or situation. I decided to make a prayer book that focuses on my family and close friends. I will use this book to pray for my friends children, marriages, walks with the Lord, relationships, or whatever else is going on in their lives. I'm not finished with the book yet, but I will continue to work on it throughout the month.

Day 14-17: South Dakota Trip: We decided to take a family trip to unwind and have some time of reflection. This was the first trip that we have taken with just the three of us where we are not going to visit friends or family. It felt a bit strange because we had a huge cabin all to ourselves. It ended up being an amazing weekend! We didn't take any maps or GPS devices and were blessed by the spots and places that we happened to drive by that we were interested in checking out. We went to Mt. Rushmore, Crazy horse, a running store, walked a section of the Mickelson Trail (so beautiful!!), a health food store, a super yummy ice cream place, Honda dealership (we had some car issues on our trip), beautiful lakes, and I forget what else. We were amazed at how effortless this trip was and how much fun we had stopping at places along the way that we normally probably wouldn't have stopped at.

Day 18: Random fact tradition begins: I love gathering and sharing information. Many times, my random pieces of knowledge don't fit into day to day conversations, so I have to keep them inside. This seems like such a waste to me. So I decided to start the Random Fact Tradition. This is how it works: At the end of the day Mike and I exchange a random fact we came across that day. Here are some we've shared: 1) did you know that the Mickelson Trail goes for 109 miles? 2) did you know Grover Cleveland was the only man to serve two non-consecutive terms as president? 3) did you know that the ceiling in our cabin is divided into 38 sections?

Creating Fun

Today I completed my first week of creating fun and out-of-my-regular-routine experiences. I must say that it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Since making the commitment at the beginning of the month to be more creative, I find myself looking for opportunities and/or ideas everywhere I go. Most of my ideas though have come in the shower. As a mom, this is one of the only places of quiet uninterrupted time where thinking can happen.

For those of you who are curious about what I did this week. Here's my first 7 days of creativity/trying something new/breaking out of the rut activities:

Day 1: Fancy Breakfast Day: The menu included crepes, oatmeal-blueberry muffins, eggs, and OJ. I set the table with our best dishes, silverware, and glassware.
Day 2: Family outing to Fort Cody museum and later in the day enjoyed a "Silent" Family Sabbath Worship (10 minutes of listening to praise music, 10 minutes of personal prayer, and 10 minutes of reading the Word to yourself)
Day 3: Agreed to take Matthew to an Easter Egg Hunt and took a yam casserole to share for Sabbath lunch. I had never made one before but it turned out pretty good.
Day 4: Family Gift Exchange: each family member (there were three of us because my sister is staying with us for the week) had $10 to buy special gifts for each other.
Day 5: Sister Fun Date: I took my sister to the salon, lunch, and then to the mall.
Day 6: Family Cleaning Day: We all went down to our house in McCook (that we are still trying to sell by the way) to give it some much needed TLC.
Day 7: Story time at the Library with Matthew

April is about Creating

As I lay my March resolution down and move on to my April resolution, I am filled with excitement. I love starting new things and it's just so invigorating to do it every 30 days. I find myself sharing my resolution idea with whoever will listen. Today, I told my massage therapist about it and I think I have recruited another follower. She told me how happy she was that I was coming to her because now she has started walking with her friends around a mile loop I pointed out to her and now is going to start the 30 day resolution thing. When she told me that I felt like I had just received my gold star for they day. I love getting gold stars!

Anyway, onto my April resolution. This month my focus is on creativity. Let me make it clear that by creativity I don't mean craft-type creations. I don't think I could succumb myself to that kind of torture for any length of time.

Creativity for me means creating opportunities and experiences that lift you out of the ruts of life and transport you to places of exploration, fulfillment, and fun. Although, I have not always thought so, I am a creative person. I love to learn, explore, create, and try to do things where I can leave traces of who I am. Life has a way of taking our creative side and pushing it out of our conscious radar to a place where it can often be forgotten. I have noticed this phenomenon happen in my life way to often. I see it when I cook the same three meals over and over again. I see it when I can't think of any fun games to play with Matthew. I see it when the only thing I can think to do for date night is dinner and a movie. I see it when I play the same songs over and over again when I run. I see it when I read the same genre of books. I know I can do better than that but it seems so exhausting to think of changing what comes so easy. So I stick to what I can do without thinking and leave the creative things to the people that have more time. Well, no more. April for me is going to be about stretching my brain so that I can find the creativity that I know is hiding there and is waiting to be unleashed.
This is how I plan to tackle the month:
1. Everyday I will do something creative. Which in essence means doing something I would normally not do because it requires more work.
2. I will have three areas of focus that will be split into 10 day segments. My focus areas are family, ministry, and self.

These are some of the things I am thinking for each of the areas...

Family:
-Making meals that are different than what I normally cook.
-Have meals in out of ordinary places
-Creating fun play time experiences with Matthew
-Spice up date nights
-Plan fun day trip activities on our family day

Ministry:
-Drama
-Graphic Design-poster design, church logo, etc.
-Website
-Church events-women's ministry and church social

Personal:
-Work on my writing project
-Make a 1/2 marathon shirt
-improve blog
-Do something fun for 5K race.

Throughout the month I will post some of the creative things I am doing. If you have suggestions, please send them my way!

March Complete!

My third New Year resolution has come to a close. A part of me is sad because I enjoyed the challenge and accountability. This was by far the resolution that was the most time consuming but in the end left me with a great sense of accomplishment. Before embarking on my March goal, I was afraid that I was setting myself up for failure. Was it possible to really cut my 3 mile time by two whole minutes? Well as it turns out, it is actually possible to do. It was not an easy task but, I am proof that if you put in the training time, it is achievable!

End of the month results:

1 mile time: 8:00
2 mile time: 16:20
3 mile time: 24:29

Weight: 169 (I was hoping to get down to 167 but a trip to KC (to many yummy food temptations) during the last week of my resolution coupled with two missed runs pushed me up 1/2 lb. Nevertheless, I sill lost 3 lbs this month which is great :)

Overall, March was a success! I ran the fastest 3 miles in my life and think I can get faster. I have 19 lbs to lose to get to my goal weight and I think that the shedding of that weight will allow me to run even more efficiently. Who knows what I can achieve if I am actually going at my optimal fitness level. Whenever I think about it, I get inspired to keep pushing and moving forward.