Resilience

I once read a book about sports psychology and one thing I took from it is that I needed to work on my resilience and my coachability.  Which essentially means I can be stubborn and dwell on stuff for too long.  So if someone is giving me good advice I needed to work on being open to it and use it to my advantage instead of either coming up with excuses as to why I shouldn't or poking holes in their theories.  This is hard to do in an age when we are bombarded with so much information it's hard to tell the difference between good and bad advice.  But one very good example of advice I should have taken was quite a few years ago my brother went for a run with me.  He never runs anymore, he commutes everywhere on his bike and doesn't want to know anything else about exercise after that, but he went for a run with me and ran circles around me.  He is a natural at all the sports he does just didn't ever have that competitive urge to race.  I on the other hand love the challenge I get from entering races but never had the natural gifts.  I made the comment to him "You are so fast and without even trying, I'm jealous"  He told me well you just aren't trying hard enough you are running like you're on a stroll enjoying the views.  I of course was taken aback at first and thought who is he to tell me I'm not trying hard enough.  But it's true I take my time and thoroughly enjoy my training runs sometimes never feeling like I'm breathing very hard.  I never pushed myself unless someone else was around i.e. at races.  But if I know I can run faster why don't I and would that make me even faster if I worked at that.  I find myself not pushing it on training runs when I should and remember this conversation.  So while I need to work on this at least I recognize it and am trying to make a conscious effort to make changes.  I just hate making things too complicated like on x, y, z days I'll do a tempo run on other days I'll do.... I just like to go and run and the most I usually do is know how many miles I need to build up to.  But if I can just concentrate on some true hard effort days I think that would be progress.

Resilience, or lack of, is when I'm passed by a runner and I automatically get down on myself and think well that's the last I'll see of them and sometimes even feel myself let up in my stride a little!!!  But if I'm on a bike I think who do they think they are, and spend the rest of the race trying to catch ok.  He wails briefly because, yes, it hurt like hell!  But then after a quick hug from me and a wipe of his tears he is off again as if nothing ever happened.  He only gets upset if I try to slow him down by putting ice on it.  I remind myself we all go through this and as adults we can sulk in the corner or dust ourselves off and try again no matter how many times we've failed.  The nice thing about sports also is that we can look at issues like this in our athletic endeavors and approach them in a non threatening way but sometimes make the connection as to how these lessons would also benefit us greatly in our every day lives.

from this.....

them.  I need to quit letting myself give up in the sports I know I'm not good at.  Lately also I've learned a thing or two about resilience from my 1 year old son!!  He is such a dare devil and always on the go but you know it takes a while to master this whole walking, running, climbing thing.  So that means his little feet get ahead of himself sometimes and he finds his head making contact with the floor before his feet.  When witnessing this my heart goes into my throat and the only thing keeping me from crying or having a heart attack is knowing that I need to show my son that everything is

to this in a matter of seconds...

So for the next couple of months I want to make an effort to work on these two things.  It's been a long time coming but watching my son grow up has really brought this to light for me.  Not really sure why.  But he amazes me every day and makes me want to be a better person in every way possible!

Happy Training!

Festivus 5k for the Rest of Us! and other feats of strength...

Photo credits go to Shannon Larkin Sempsrott

The weekend was quite the success for us!  We had a wonderful Saturday morning waiting for us for our 2nd Annual Festivus 5k for the Rest of Us!  It was around 46 degrees by the start of the race which was nice compared to last years 19 degrees and luckily the storm waited until that night to blow in.  There we about 240 participants quite a few of which were running their first 5k, in costume, part of other running groups, or under the age of 15 (part of the running 505 group).  There were some strollers, some dogs and plenty of fun!  There was a Festivus pole at the finish for photo ops and a backdrop of the beautiful Sandia mountains with blue skies as a back drop for the finish line photos.  It was so exciting seeing everyone have fun.  On top of all that we are going to be able to donate a nice little chunk of change to the UNM Cancer Center!  Directing a race, even a small one, can be nerve racking and thrilling all at the same time.  When I got home my mom was surprised by my great mood!  She kept saying "You seem so happy!  I haven't seen you like this in a while!"  Well the stress of everything going on had culminated with this race.  To see that it all came together in the end made me so happy!  I'm so thankful for my partner in crime who put this race on with me (we balance each other out just right), for my parents (my dad participated and my mom watched my son while I was MIA), and for friends and the running community who supported us with such enthusiasm, not to mention some fabulous sponsors.  We had wonderful volunteers that helped us with the photography and finish.  And don't you love the glass we gave with each entry?


What do like getting with your race entry?  The tried and true race shirt?  A mug, hat, socks, gloves, none of the above?

On a personal note last week I logged 21 miles of just running.  I can't remember the last time, actually I don't think I have ever, had a week where all I did was run, no swim or bike or class just run (ok I got 2 weight lifting sessions in there as well) and now I know how people build higher run mileage, all they do is run.  It's quite simple actually, I just have always had a love/hate relationship with running as it is my weakest of the 3 sports.  But maybe this whole being forced to sit out of triathlon season for a while is going to be good for my running!  This Run every day in December challenge is just what I needed.  The change up also made me lose just a little bit of weight.  Now let's hope when I'm off for work for the week and 1/2 over the holiday I maintain this running streak.

Happy Training!!

December Challenge(s)

Get some hot coco and settle in as this is going to be a long one.  Or just run away now!!! :-) 


It's that time of year, no not the holidays, but apparently the time of year I go crazy and decide to try and make a ton of commitments and some how try to stick to them.  Why would I do this to myself you ask?  I have no idea.  I'm not very good at saying no is one major reason.  I try to give up a commitment and I get asked if I would reconsider a week later and I give in!!! ;-)  I'm afraid of completely losing myself into "mommy" and "work" world so I try to maintain contact with the groups that I feel I identify with and keep a little part of who I really am but then realize work and life demands don't always allow for that (especially when hubs needs all of my free time to watch the little guy so he can study).

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day.  I was at one of my favorite relays that my local running club puts on and I've written about it on here many times before because I have so much fun at these handicap runs my dad did this one with me which was awesome!  I mentioned that I had signed up for the Run Every Day in December Challenge on FB.  She said "Oh yeah I did that last year but decided not to do it this year.  I found that I used it as an excuse to only run 1 mile since that was the minimum so I ran every day but fewer miles."  I hadn't thought about it that way before.  I on the other hand signed up and it has been a great choice since I am so competitive with myself way more than with others and when I make a commitment to myself and on top of that vow to post about it online every day with this group I get this sense of urgency with the goal!  So for me the hardest part is usually getting my foot out the door.  The effect this has on me is well I promised myself so I better get out there and do one mile.  Then as soon as I'm out there I'm like I made it happen I'm out here I might as well take advantage of it.  So I end up running more miles than I normally would have because I force myself to make time for it so I build on that.  Now I'm like wow I can do this running every day thing now let's see if I can add to my running miles from last week.  See as a triathlete and a not very fast runner I never understood how some people get such high running mileage in.  Now I know how, all you do is run, if you don't do any other sport then the miles tend to add up faster and you can't hide behind the bike or under water.  All in all this challenge has been a good decision for me and my dog approves with two huge paws up!  It's gotten me out there on cold nights after 8pm and for a quick lunch run when I'm feeling overwhelmed at work.  This December Challenge I have been very thankful for.

My friend and I are also putting on what has turned out to be a very fun 5k for a second year in a row the Festivus 5k for the Rest of Us which this year not only are we having the theme and costume contest but also get to benefit the UNM Cancer Center and get some of the Running505 kids out there running too.  Each year we hope to grow it just a  little bit so that we hopefully don't experience growing pains.  That has been a lot of work for both of us but we are super excited to see the benefits and results and have as much fun with it as possible.  That culminates this Saturday with hopefully a much warmer day than last year.

Work has been insane as I was covering my work along with my assistants due to her being out after a bike accident but she is back and I am very thankful that she is doing a lot better and we are slowly starting to catch back up and my over time has dwindled thankfully!  I hope to wrap up all the lose ends before we are out for the Holidays and start the new year fresh and refreshed!!  With an expansion and build out in the near future we'll need to be prepared for lots of new hires and everything that comes along with that.





On the home front there has been hubs going through finals and we are truly living separate lives right now and are definitely not the example of positive and productive communication.  We will grin and bare it until some how we hit smoother waters, maybe in about 4 years once he's out of school?  In the meantime we've been making time for our son and letting him enjoy all the wanders of the season since last year he was barely able to hold his head up let alone enjoy lights and festivities.  He's such an amazing little human and brings me joy every day.  I'm also not ever allowed to go into a toy store because I found out I will want to buy everything for him and I get way too excited!  I some how ended up with 2 pretend cameras when I got home apparently he had grabbed one and I had too and didn't notice it at check out.  Toys for Tots will benefit from that one!  Thanks to friends and family helping I've been able to still fit in a few fun runs and take the stroller out for some shorter stuff around the house whenever I can't find any coverage.  Now if this weather would just cooperate and I could try to get a ski day or two in this season that would be awesome I haven't been in 2 years!!!  I guess the "Winter Welcome" and the "Let it snow" signs I have up at our house wasn't enough of a hint for mother nature.  Still not sure if the in-laws will make it for Christmas but I'm sure the house will clean itself right?  I'm not even going to try to think about coordinating Christmas dinner yet, maybe everyone else will do the coordinating? ;-)  I'm cursed with being a planner.

I'm trying to get a running group up and running, pun intended or maybe not, but it has been a slow start mainly due to scheduling conflicts but I really am excited to hopefully give it more attention in the new year.  Hubs has a nonprofit he has also decided to get up and running at the same time so again living separate lives and spending time elsewhere.  Apparently this is why he is constantly on the phone and FB so we will both patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) wait to reconnect.

I have temporarily given up on my return to triathlons as I know I don't have time to train for all three sports.  Although I did hear that Toughman is bringing a 70.3 race to NM which is huge news for our triathlon world and very tempting to want to check it out! But that course will not be something to be laughed at and I will need to start out smaller once I do venture back.  I have to figure out how the heck to make time for the bike and pool time!!!  Running when I'm in charge of Aiden is doable with the jogging stroller pool and bike not so much.  I have been trying to stick to my healthier eating habits and at least to consistent running and weight training and I think my work pants are finally starting to fit comfortably again! WooHoo.  I haven't lost any additional weight (I have been back at my pre pregnancy weight) which means the extra ab work I've been doing might finally be paying off.  I will not give up!

Ok I warned you this was going to be a long one.  I think that's almost all of what has been going on.  Things should start to ease up a little here soon.  But if you don't hear from me before then Happy Holidays!! and Happy Training!!