Thank you all so much for your support of my new running habit. It is really intimidating to start a new hobby, especially one that is so foreign to my body, and your encouragement and kind words really motivate me to keep going.
I promise that I will eventually stop blogging about this like I’m the first person to run in the history of forever, but I have gotten a lot of questions about my running routine over the past couple weeks and I thought I’d take a post to answer some of them. Remember, I’ve only been doing this for just over two months, so I am nowhere near an authority, but I’m happy to share what I’ve figured out so far.
What app do you use for running? I’ve gotten this question more than any other. For the first month I started running, I used the Jeff Galloway Easy 5k app. My mother-in-law is a great runner and she suggested Jeff Galloway to me when I first started because he builds endurance and strength through an easy run/walk patter (run one minute, walk one minute). After a month, I had built up enough stamina that I was ready to run on my own without a coaching app, and I became more focused on distance. I switched over to the Nike+ GPS app – and it is awesome! It tracks your run, logs your miles every run, and lets you listen to your own music or to music through another app (like Pandora). I highly recommend both of these apps if you are starting out like me.
What kind of equipment or supplies do you need? Because I have a bad habit of quitting hobbies (i.e. quilting, crocheting, baking, scrapbooking, gardening, sewing… Shall I go on?), I started out using just what I had in my closet. I wasn’t going to go buy anything until I proved to myself that I was really going to stick with this. So, at first I used an old pair of tennis shoes from Walmart that I bought in college, and a sports bra and cheerleading shorts I had from high school. Finally, after I realized how much I really love running, I have started slowly acquiring running attire. I bought a cute pair of reversible running shorts from Target (though my friend, Sarah, reminds me that you should get the running shorts that have the spandex shorts underneath so prevent chaffing), and I have a pair of spandex calf-length running pants, too. I’ve bought a few more sports bras, too, and I usually wear tank tops or fitted tees with them. Fitted shirts are better to run in for me because they aren’t as heavy and thick as t-shirts, and heat is a real problem in Florida. I also have a super cute running skirt that has little spandex shorts underneath. I love running in a running skirt. It’s so much cooler!
My parents just bought me a brand new pair of Asics that I wanted.
Do you listen to music while you run? Definitely! Some mornings I listen to a Christian praise and worship station on Pandora, and other mornings when I need a little oomph I listen to the Katy Perry station on Pandora. I also searched high and low to create the perfect playlist for myself, and I finally have it! I scoured Runner’s World and other running websites and put together a playlist based off of playlists I found on those sites. Here’s what’s on my running playlist right now:
I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas
So What by Pink
SexyBack by Justin Timberlake
Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen
Keep the Car Running by Arcadia Fire
Back in Black by ACDC
Goodies by Ciara
Work It by Missy Elliott
Houdini by Foster the People
Teenage Dream by Katy Perry
What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction
Hey, Soul Sister by Train
Rosa Parks by Outkast
Stronger by Kelly Clarkson
Do you still sing while you run? Yes, I do. Quite loudly, actually. Tonight I was jammin’ to Fat Bottom Girls as I ran through my neighborhood and some of my neighbors started singing along with me while I ran by! I used to be embarrassed by the singing, but I’ve met lots of my neighbors that way!!!
What kind of training program are you using for your 10k in November? Which 10k are you running? I’m planning to run the Key Largo Bridge Run in the Keys in November. I figure if I’m going to put all this effort in, I’m going to do some FUN races. And what’s more fun than the Keys?!?! I’m using a training program that I found on the Runner’s World website. Here is my schedule (I’m on Week Two this week):
What time of day do you run? I have been getting up at 5:30 and run five or six days a week. But as my distance is increasing, I’m starting to cut back on how often I run to give my body time to rest. I’m really sticking with my training schedule pretty good right now, although on my rest days throughout the work week, I still run 1.5 or 2 miles, just to relieve the stress of the day. If for some reason I have to skip my morning run, I try to go in the evening around 7:00, once the kids are in bed. But I prefer running in the morning. It starts my day off better.
Have you lost weight running? If so, how much? I have lost weight, but I don’t know how much because I don’t own a scale. But I know that I’m down two clothes sizes from where I was two months ago. It makes me feel pretty great, but now I have to buy all new pants because they keep falling off!
(Side note: Today I went running and came home only to have Chris tell me that my skirt had fallen down in the back and my thong was hanging out. I’m pretty sure I ran like that for 3 miles today. No wonder my neighbors were cheering so loud for me.)
One thing that is driving me crazy is that no matter how much weight I lose, I still have a tummy pooch from my baby loves. My 10k training program gives me days to do cross-training, so I think I’m going to start building in some ab work. That’s the only way I can figure to get rid of that pesky pooch.
How do you know what to do since you are a beginning runner? I had no clue what to do when I first started running. I pretty much thought running was just taking off until you thought you were going to die and then stopping. Thankfully, Sarah is very athletic and healthy and she has been running for a while. She occasionally points me towards things I need to be doing differently (like buying real running shoes made for road running and taking rest days so I don’t hurt myself). She also has pointed me towards the Beginners section of the Runner’s World website. That website is gold for a new runner. They teach you pretty much everything you need to know about how to become a runner. I learned about my diet, selecting my shoes, choosing a training program, and how to increase my endurance all through that website. Plus, they have a really great race finder that lets you plan out your races, which give me something to work towards. Otherwise, I learn just by talking to people who run, like other friends, co-workers, and my mother-in-law. I’m really excited to run the Double Bridge Run 15k with her next February!
I am not an athletic person. I never have been. But running doesn’t make me feel athletic. It makes me feel relaxed, happy, and proud of myself. If you’re hesitant about getting up and getting moving, don’t be. I look like a turtle when I run. I shuffle my feet, huff and puff, curse like a sailor running up hills, and sweat like a pig. Last week I asked a little kid who rode by on her bike if she would give me a ride home. Trust me. If I can do this, you can do this.
1. I hate wearing pants. I usually wear skirts or dresses to work, and on the days when I absolutely must wear pants (usually laundry days), I take them off the second I get in the house and walk around pantless until the doorbell rings or I have to go out to the mailbox to get the mail.
2. I am in training for a 10k that I am running in November. This has been week one of an eight-week program. I’m doing the training so early just in case I can’t make it through the first time and need to start over again. So far it’s been easier than my normal running schedule because it requires I have rest days. Today was a rest day. My calves said, “Thank you!” I also have plans to run a 15k in early February with my mother-in-law and then the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon with Sarah at the end of February. I’m telling you this now so that I can’t back out. I’m actually SUPER excited.
3. My classes (8th grade) are writing a research paper this quarter on a topic related to the 1960′s. In a discussion earlier this week, we brainstormed what we knew about the 60′s. Here is a list of things my students thought took place during the 1960′s: World War 1, World War 2, silent movies, Bon Jovi, Vanilla Ice, parachute pants, horse and buggies, and President Clinton. I’m really looking forward to reading their papers.
4. I tried to get Chris to let me interview him for my blog post tonight, but he would not cooperate. We call that a classic UCH. Un-Cooperative Husband.
5. Every night while I blog on he couch, I try to get Chris to rub my feet. And every night he resists and objects for half an hour before finally giving in. But then he rubs them for about 2 minutes and stops. It’s such a tease. Doesn’t he know my feet need more of a commitment from him!?!?!
6. Whenever I schedule blog posts to post automatically (which doesn’t happen all that often, incidentally), I schedule it to post at 6:03am. I’m not sure why I chose that time, but it’s been 6:03am for a couple years now. Weirdness.
7. We are having a yard sale this weekend and are selling all of our baby equipment, like the swing and bouncer seat and all our activity mats. It makes me sad that I won’t be needing those things again. Which is why I asked Chris last night if we were sure we were absolutely done makin’ babies. He said yes and then asked if I was sure I was done havin’ babies. And I said I thought I was, but one more couldn’t be THAT much harder, right? We could, like, sneak another in and no one would even notice. Then I could rock another baby for a while. And that’s when Chris laughed that hysterical laugh he does when he violently disagrees with me but doesn’t want to fight and I laughed that laugh that I do when I know he’s right but just don’t want to admit it and we haven’t talked about it again. That’s some healthy communication right th’ar.
8. My mom pointed to Bean’s belly button (which he calls his “belly butt”) a couple weeks ago and said, “There’s a hole in your tummy!” and Bean replied very seriously, “I know. I have to fix it.” He makes me giggle.
9. I am in need of a jogging stroller. Does anyone have any recommendation? (By the way, if I end up getting one, this will be our THIRD stroller. That’s not normal, right?)
10. Sarah will be here to run with me at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We’re wearing matching running skirts, and I am fully prepared to yell out multiple times as we run, “DIRT IN THE SKIRT, MAY! DIRT IN THE SKIRT!” I have to go to bed now or my skirt won’t get out of bed in the morning.
HAPPY FRIDAY, YA’LL!
24Apr
I can’t remember a time when my life has been this orderly. For the past two weeks, I get to work early like always, ready to tackle my to-do list, but I end up sitting there trying to come up with a to-do list. When I come home, I get dinner going and then begin to look around for the chores that always need to be done, and I find there’s just not that much to do. It’s the first time I can ever remember being this caught up both at work and at home. It is really freeing up some of my time. Now at school, instead of busying myself with paperwork, I am able to pay more direct attention to my students and I’m enjoying them more than ever. At home, instead of doing endless tasks, I’m sitting on the floor more playing with the kids. Life’s been pretty good lately.
While I’ve been going through this time of less stress and more free time, Chris has been going through a period of more stress and less free time. Work has been stressful for him these past couple months, and I think he’s bringing that stress home. He’s been picking at things here, complaining about things here, and stressing about things here that just aren’t that important in the grand scheme. I think when real stress hits, it infects all other areas of your life and that is definitely what’s happening with him.
Quite frankly, I’m getting kind of tired of it.
I feel bad saying that because I know how patient Chris always is with me when I’m the one with a stressful load. But the thing is, I HAVE been patient. This has been going on for about a month or more and I’ve been so supportive about it. SO SUPPORTIVE. Everything that he has said stresses him out, I’ve worked to relieve if I can. But nothing has changed. He comes home from work every day barely talking to anyone, and brooding everywhere he goes, no matter how much I try to help make things better.
The other night, he came home from work in that mood again and the minute he walked in the door I wanted to scrape my nails down a chalkboard and scream. I couldn’t handle it anymore. So, I sat on the couch as he moped around and I thought to myself, “I need a new approach.” He continued to complain and mope and pout and point out the chores that weren’t done and the things that we needed to do, blah, blah, blah, and finally I interrupted him.
“IF YOU DON’T LIKE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE, THEN CHANGE THEM OR SHUT UP!”
And that pretty much began the strangest fight/tense discussion we’ve ever had. Everything I said to Chris was brutally honest, to the point of being harsh, and every argument he shot back at me was piercing, and yet we never raised our voices. We got frustrated and one of us would walk out of the room for a few minutes to cool down and think things over, but then we’d come back and keep on talking.
The thing is, I wasn’t being mean. I was just being honest and leaving the fluffy love stuff out of it. I basically told Chris he had to suck it up. I told him that this was our life right now – laundry piles and dishes and sick babies. It was just the way things were. And, you know, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Our life was pretty darn great, and I thought that the stress he was feeling at work was making it hard for him to see that. I told him that I was tired of hearing about how hard his days were because, quite frankly, so are mine, but I come home to escape those stresses, not to rehash them or live in them. I said that happiness was not something that came and went randomly, it was a choice we had to make every day and there wasn’t anything that was going to change in our lives to make him any happier. If he wanted to be happy, he was going to have to decide to be happy.
When it was over, we sat next to each other on the couch and watched TV, occasionally talking or point out random things, just like nothing had happened. But the next morning, Chris woke up in a much better mood. And that afternoon, I came home to find him fixing the pool pump (the bane of his homeowner existence). This past weekend when Chris was home with the kids while I was in Atlanta, he spent some good, quality time with the kids. They ran errands together, played together, and did chores together. When I came home, the house was cleaned, the laundry was done, dinner was on the stove, and Chris looked happier than I had seen him in weeks.
I don’t know what sort of nugget of marital insight this has provided me. Maybe that honesty is the best policy? Or that your spouse is your mirror of truth? Or maybe even happiness is a choice? Could I even tie it into my favorite, “Bloom where you are planted” saying? I’m not really sure. Maybe I’ll think about it some more and find some kind of philosophical meaning to this.
But more than likely, I think this is just part of being married. Sometimes in my marriage, Chris and I are soft places to land in the midst of really hard times, and sometimes we’re the very honest pep talk that we need to get up and make a change. Chris has been the one to tell me before that there’s nothing to do but buck up and move forward, and now I’ve had to tell him the same. I think that’s the side of marriage where friendship really becomes crucial because good friends can guide without judging, and a good spouse can, too. Like a good friend, a good spouse can give you a warm, supportive place for you to hide for a while, and they can also be the one to push you a little bit, even when you don’t want to hear it. I’m glad that Chris has been both those things to me in my life, and I’m glad that I can be that for him, too.
23Apr
This past weekend, I ditched Chris and the kids and hitched a ride with my parents to Atlanta to visit my sister. Ginny and her hubby, John Michael, just moved into their new house, and so they threw a big housewarming party. First of all, their house is AMAZING. If Ginny and John Michael were a house, this is the house they would be. It’s classic and open and warm and perfect for hosting lots of friends and family.
I especially loved the front door and porch. I wanted to sit in their rocking chairs for days.
The housewarming was really only half the reason for a party. What this really was was a gender reveal party. I had heard of gender reveal parties before, but had never known someone who threw one. Turns out, it was pretty stinkin’ awesome. We spent Saturday getting the house and food ready for the party.
For the actual party itself, Ginny asked everyone on the invitation to wear either pink or blue, depending what gender we thought the baby would be. As you can see, we were pretty split. Some of us thought it was going to be a girl and some thought it was going to be a boy.
Here’s how the actual gender reveal worked…
Ginny and John Michael went to their ultrasound a couple weeks ago, and when the tech was able to determine the sex of the baby, she turned the monitor off so that Gin and JM couldn’t see anything. When the tech determined the sex, she wrote it out on a piece of paper and sealed that into an envelope without showing Ginny and JM. Then, JM took the envelope to a bakery and ordered a cake. The baker would open the envelope and make the inside cake based on the gender of the baby. So, if it was a girl, the cake would be pink and if it was a boy the cake would be blue. Then, the baker would ice the entire cake with white icing, so that you couldn’t tell until you cut into it what color the cake was.
Ginny decided to use the theme, “What will it Bee?” for her party, so the baker made the cake in the shape of a bee hive. Isn’t it cute???
When it was time to cut the cake, everyone crowded around the cake table and waited to see if the cake was pink or blue…
And the cake was…BLUE!!! IT’S A BOY!
It was such an exciting idea for a party, and so much fun to find out together with Ginny and John Michael’s friends and family. Such a fun day! I am so excited to be an aunt, but I think I’m even more excited to be an aunt of a NEPHEW! Even though I was convinced it was going to be a girl, I was so happy to see that blue cake because I know how great it is to have a little boy and I can’t wait for them to have that experience.
The crazy part was that both Ginny and JM just KNEW it was going to be a boy. For weeks they had been saying they just felt it. They knew. They were so convinced that they both wore blue to the party, but each had a splash of pink, just in case. Looks like that parenting instinct is alive and kickin’ for them already!!!
CONGRATULATIONS, GINNY AND JOHN MICHAEL! I can’t wait to meet Baby D!!!
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