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We had an incredibly beautiful day here today…mainly sunny with the occasional cloud cover and a perfect 27 degrees celsius…AWESOME! The girls wanted to go to the beach…how could we say no?! June 30th lakeside with my family…perfecto!
I had 4K to do today and I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t feel like when we got home from the beach so I brought my running gear with me. Wow…what a terrific run! I didn’t really know exactly where 4K would finish so I decided to run for 30 minutes and decided that I would have to be satisfied that I’d at least covered the prescribed distance in that time (still really slow but getting stronger).
Running through the provincial park was an amazing experience. All citizens present and accounted for were happy to be there…squeals of delight and peels of laughter drifting to my awareness as I trotted along.
I am proud to say that I negotiated my first series of small hills as well (okay, if you must know, it was really only one hill but seemed to go on FOREVER and the route had a few more topical elevations than I’m used to). Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! I was grateful to reach its’ summit and very pleases at how quickly I recovered.
Tomorrow I graduate to 9K in 10:1 intervals. Should be interesting! Stay tuned friends…
Just one more day and I’ve successfully negotiated 3 weeks of training for a half-marathon. Who would’ve thunk it…that I’d recover so quickly at the end of my route? I’m genuinely surprised at how quickly I’m building endurance, speed and improving recovery time. I am so psyched!
The music that’s keeping me company makes me laugh…Rihanna pleads, “S.O.S. please someone help me. It’s not healthy… for me to feel this way”. Now I know this is completely out of context but I had think, “Not this time Rihanna! Not this time!”
Saturday I finish off the week and graduate to 9K in intervals on Sunday. Should be a blast!
Peace xo
P.S. You should’ve seen the sunset tonight…WOW! The sky looked like a creamsicle, wrapped in pink cotton candy, wrapped in blue as pure as the caribbean ocean. Simply heaven. 🙂
What stirs your soul? What lights a fire at the core of your being? If you are living your ideal life, what would that look like? What does it feel like? What temperature is it? What texture is it? What colour is it? What are you passionate about?
These are some of the questions that I pose to myself while out on my jogging adventures. The process of working up a sweat with my pink-laced shoes doesn’t so much light a fire at the core of my being, but it certainly sparks my desire to really know myself better, to be creative in my approach to living in the moment and encourages me to suspend any perceived outcomes but just live the experience. Is that being too provocative?
Tell me…what stirs your soul?
Peace xo
P.S. Did another 3.5K at 5:30 a.m. To quote the P90X dude, “I hate it…but I love it!”
Second day into week 3 and I have 3K, 4K, 3K schedule. It sort of felt like a kilometer sandwich..two standard sized 3K pieces of bread, with a heftier serving size of something filling in the middle. (It’s funny how my imagination can find food in just about any situation!!)
Trusting my well-honed sense of timing (meaning I left my watch at home), I set out to discover new lands and new adventures (went straight instead of turning left). The neighbourhood was quiet tonight with the exception of the occasional passer-by…a mom with her twin boys in a stroller, a couple walking their dog, a remarkably sculpted young man mowing his lawn bare-chested (I turned my head to admire the flower gardens, I promise!!!). People are just quiet at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night. Would I rather being doing something else? I think not! (Well maybe, but what fun what this blog be otherwise!)
What keeps me going is that the people I meet along the way are smiling and waving and I imagine that they’re sending me positive energy, wishing me well, and wondering if they, too, could challenge themselves to get out of their comfort zone. And I image how great it’ll feel when I’m home, showered, and in my jammies for the night. (There has to be a carrot there somewhere, right? See, there’s the food reference again…)
Upon arriving at my final destination, I hop into the car and measure out the distance of the new route that I took. Wouldn’t ya know it, I went 3.5K instead of the prescribed 3. I guess my 3-4-3 sandwich will have slightly different proportions that I initially set out with. And I’m okay with that.
Peace xo
Ever travel down a long road, looking off into the distance seeing the horizon but not what’s beyond it?
I keep to the same 7K route today and decide, this time, to keep my eyes trained on the horizon and not the pavement that’s 2 feet in front of me. The white, painted line along the side of the road leads me forward like a pathway. I can see the horizon and I know that the path continues beyond what I can see with my own naked eye. I know the road continues inspite of its invisibility to me. But not so remarkably, with each step I take, the horizon extends as well. But I know that the road is still there…
When I cross over the 2-way stop intersection, the white shoulder line disappears. Even though my path beacon has disappeared, the road and the horizon move with me one step at a time.
Sound like another analogy set-up? You bet!!! LOL Occasionally, the journey has a clearly defined path for me to take. I never really know what’s in the future but I do know that I need to negotiate life’s road one step, one moment at a time.
Then at a cross-roads, the “path” disappears. Life’s road still continues even though the “path” may have temporarily disappeared. I still know that I have to keep moving, though. I can either reverse my direction and return to the path or I can move forward and see where the road takes me, even without the marker. By retreating, I stay comfortable with my decisions, and cover familiar territory. By moving forward, I can “step out” into the unknown, trusting my sense of direction and heeding the desire for adventure and new vistas. Either decision is okay. But I have to keep moving.
As you may well imagine, I kept moving forward, without the white shoulder line to beacon me. And as started the loop back on the “other” side of the road, wouldn’t you know it, I came to that same cross-roads and before me was the white line to take me back home. 🙂
The white line isn’t perfectly straight, by the way. At places, it looks as though it’s been painted with a very sloppy hand. And some joyrider ran their wheels through the fresh paint, creating swoosh-patterned tire tracks as decoration along the road. Life is like that, too; sometimes sloppy and sometimes spattered with decoration. 🙂
In the last kilometre of the home stretch, Jason Mraz’s “I Won’t Give Up” croons through my earbuds. What fantastically inspiring lyrics…
“I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I’m here to stay and make the difference that i can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts
We got yeah we got a lot at stake
And in the end, you’re still my friend at least we did intend
For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn
We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what i got, and what i’m not
And who i am….God knows we’re worth it”
This path today didn’t break and didn’t burn, but I did have to bend so as to cover new ground and develop new insight into the mystery of what makes Laurie tick…to learn what I got, and what I’m not and who I am…because God knows I’m worth it. 🙂
Peace xo
Read more: JASON MRAZ – I WON’T GIVE UP LYRICS http://www.metrolyrics.com/i-wonat-give-up-lyrics-jason-mraz.html#ixzz1ykku6M3u
Copied from MetroLyrics.com
What I’ve reaffirmed in today’s run is that sometimes a person just has to jump through all the hoops if they want to have a positive outcome. Today, I decided that I’d skip the pre-jog stretch. Today, I decided to eat my supper then head out for the run before the food was digested. Today, I decided to not drink enough water despite the warm weather. Today…I learned the hard way!!
On the bright side, I know that my body is much more capable of going the distance even when my mind is sweet-talking my conscious self to just “take it easy”. Nope, it wasn’t all rolling hills and soft fuzzy kittens and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Today, was HARD WORK!
I thought the shortcuts would get me out the gate and home quickly enough. Everyone knows that certain shortcuts really do save time and effort…like using Real Lemon Juice from a bottle mixed with water and sugar to make lemonade instead of squeezing the lemons fresh…of using ctrl+c on the keyboard to copy text or objects instead of using the edit menu. But this gal knows that shortcutting on healthy lifestyle choices doesn’t make anything “short”..it just “cuts”.
3+.9 km done (had to make up the .9 from earlier this week, remember?) and a few tough lessons and I’m at the end of week two!!
7K with 10:1 intervals tomorrow. The weather forecast isn’t promising…oh well…I’ve always wanted to run in the rain!
Another early start this morning. The battery on my cell phone/radio ran out of juice during the night so I am on my own with my thoughts again, this time at 5:30 a.m. The air is heavy with moisture and the birds are are chirping their morning salute. 4K to do this morning…but which way to go?
Not wanting to duplicate yesterday’s miscalculation of distance, I head northward in the usual direction. It’s so quiet, except, of course, for the duet of shoes hitting the pavement and my rhythm of breathing. It feels good this morning. Yay!
Just as soon as I leave the neighbourhood and am running along the main road, I can see that the morning fog still lingers over the low marsh areas. How beautifully mysterious looking! Everything looks so lush and vibrant green. And among the thick growth along the road are patches of wild daisies…sprinkled here and there. Rarely do I see one solitary daisy. Instead they grow in small clusters. Their stems are hardy; their petals simple and delicate. I do so very much love daisies.
As I continue along my route, I am aware of all the daisies that are standing at attention to greet me along my travels. The daisies are peppering my view with beauty so as to distract me from my task. The daisies are cheering me on. With the nudge of a gentle breeze, they sway in the direction of my turnaround point just down the road as though shepherding me with encouragement.
The warm glow of the sun is just rising above the trees as I’m on the home stretch. Like a grandstand of supportive spectators, I acknowledge the largest group of daisies the seems to go on and on. Their company on this fine morning, has made all the difference.
The daisies are so much like my amazing family and friends. Sometimes they stand alone along the journey. Sometimes they gather into small groups to share an experience with me. Sometimes they swarm together in large numbers to lift me higher than I dare to go on my own.
I am most profoundly grateful for my daisies…you know who you are!
Friday is a rest day. Back to my daisies on Saturday. 🙂
Argh! Alarm clock goes off at 5 a.m. I crawl out at 5 minutes after, straight into my running gear and out the door I go. I’m going a new route again today. I haven’t “clocked” the distance on this one so I’m hoping it works out. I mean how far can 3K be, right? I check the time 5:15…
It’s still cool. The air is super heavy with humidity. It’s supposed to be 32 degrees today with a humidex of 40. This is another good reason why I should be running at this time of day instead of after supper. Right now it’s not even 20 degrees yet.
I’m moving through the neighbourhood a little too quickly. I don’t think I’m getting my full 3K in…yikes! When I get home, Julianne is up and around getting ready for a class trip with a departure from the school at 6 a.m. I take that opportunity, as I’m driving her to school, to drive the same running route to determine overall distance. Argh! 2.1K. At least my instincts were right about the time.
So I need to add .9 of a kilometre to my total distance for the week. Not so bad. That’s part of life…making adjustments along the route. Nothing like variation to spice things up.
I’m really okay with that. 😉
I have to wonder if an 8:30 p.m. start to running is the best choice I can make to fit exercise into an already heavy schedule of the day. But really, in all honesty, is there a better choice? I already confessed to trying a 5 a.m. start time…YUCK!
One of the advantages is that the sun is on its way down and the temperature is cooling off. Tonight I set out without any music…just me and my thoughts. I think I like the distraction of music better. The sound of my feet pounding against the pavement, in unison with the rhythm of my be breaths, isn’t as invigorating as I would’ve liked. Now it’s a game of mind over matter.
My calf muscles were a wee bit rebellious. I had to mentally remind them to relax. It continues to amaze me that my body actually responds to internal requests communicated via thoughts. Now, if only I could get the cellulite to disappear upon request, that’d be freakin’ fantastic!
I took a left turn instead of a right on the way home. I’m not sure if I extended my running distance and shortened it but I do know that the new scenery was a welcome sight. For that small brief bit, I was in a brand new land with new sights and sounds…enough to distract my mind for trying to decide what was the matter with my tired legs.
4K (ish) done. Tomorrow will be a dark and early start…too much on the Laurie-Do list tomorrow to fit it in at the end of the day. Cheers!
If it wasn’t for this jog and blog, I’m pretty sure the run wouldn’t have happened tonight. We spent the second day in a row at the soccer field for a tournament (Jojo’s team came in second in the finals…bitter sweet after all that hard work…I’m so proud of both my gals for the effort they put into this weekend). After a long day in the wet and wind, a visit to both father’s to wish them Happy Daddy’s Day, I sat in front of the computer to confess to you that the run wasn’t happening tonight…I was too pooped…it was too late…I felt like my tummy was feeling a bit off…probably a wee bit on the dehydrated side…
But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t see it in black and white on the computer screen…I couldn’t admit that I had cashed in an “excuse card” this soon in the training schedule. On with the running gear and out the door I go before I can change my mind again.
So here are the hightlights; the first 1.5K were the toughest. Finding my groove is always a challenge. Into my second 10:1 interval, a friendly dog, dripping wet, came bounding along beside me and said hello, kept me company for a stretch then bid me good evening as he returned back into the direction he came from. The beats of the songs playing on the radio through my ear buds seemed to match my stride tonight and so at times it felt like I was dancing along the road…that was an energizing experience.
I ran a total of 7.5K (even though I was only supposed to do 7), following the 10:1 interval pattern (with the exception of a short blip when the interval alarms on the watch got screwed up). A significant difference from last week’s first time out!
Tonight, I felt the potential to run the half marathon in 15 weeks. I’ve not experienced that “I can do it!” any of the other times that I’ve started to train. But this time…this time I’m going to get ‘er done. It’s not going to be a walk in the park…but I KNOW I can do it. Hope you’ll be there to cheer me on!
Monday is a rest day on the schedule. Check-in with ya on Tuesday!
Because I can 