Abs for Christmas? Yes, Please!!!

I am pretty proud of the changes I am seeing in my body. I am gaining more muscle which means I am losing lots of jiggle. I have been doing lots of cardio which includes my running and Jillian Micheal's videos and I have also been lifting weights at the gym. I downloaded the GymPact app to my IPhone which is an incentive based app that pays you to go to the gym or charges you if you miss workouts. I have worked out 5 days a week for the last six weeks (including the week of Thanksgiving!). With all of this, I am noticing a much flatter tummy. I am not doing ab specific exercises, however. I decided to come up with a plan to address my abs. I chose these specific exercises because they are challenging, but they are all exercises I can do successfully. I want to get the most of every exercise I do and I cannot do that if I am trying to figure out how to do the move. My 14 year old acted as a guinea pig and experimented with me to make sure that the workout is a challenge. So far, I can only complete the workout 2 times in a row. This takes 10:37 seconds. My goal is to be able to do this workout 3 or more times consecutively, in conjunction with my other workouts, by the end of the month. So...yes please, I will take that lovely gift of abs for Christmas...

Magical Socks

A friend of mine once told me that his wife bought him socks for his birthday. I felt sad on the inside for him. SOCKS... for a birthday present! He could see the shock on my face and went on to explain that these were not just any socks, they were special running socks. I was intrigued but not sold on the idea of magical running socks. The socks he was given were Thorlos. I decided to do some research and perhaps invest in a pair. I have horrible feet. I mean...I have arthritis in both feet and Plantar Fasciitis. I figured that it couldn't hurt to give it a try. I purchased one pair of socks for 13 dollars. Being the big cheapy that I am made this a difficult task. I reluctantly parted ways with my money and walked out of the store with the most expensive pair of socks I have ever owned.  The most horrible part of this process was that the socks were not even cute. They were just plain white socks with a gray heel and toe. I ran outside (as opposed to on a treadmill) for my inaugural Thorlos clad run and I felt the difference immediately. These socks have the perfect amount of cushion to fit comfortably in your running shoes but also swallow your feet in a pillow of love and protection. I noted a significant decrease in the amount of aches I felt while running in the Thorlos. I absolutely love these socks and recommend them to other people all the time. I have a friend who is an avid, daily runner. She says that she is not concerned with "running gear" she just wants to run. She runs long distances and runs them in about 8 minutes (or less) per mile. When she complained to me about foot aches, I suggested Thorlos. She bought a pack of 3 pair on line and now also swears by them. In fact she reports that they are a must have for her runs now. I initially bought my socks at a sporting goods store near my house. The store has since closed. I have not been able to buy them in the store but I have purchased them on line. When I needed to buy some right away, I took a chance on SmartWool. They are similarly priced. The pair that I bought was pink! Cue dance music and balloons for the cute socks!!!  They function much the same as the Thorlos. The difference is that these are made from breathable wool and the Thorlos are cotton. I love them both equally. I would definitely recommend these socks to all those who run, jog, walk, bike or hike!!

2012 Thanksgiving Day Columbus Turkey Trot

My family gathered at my cousin's house in Columbus for Thanksgiving this year. My cousin lives in Columbus and I live in Cleveland. We are virtual running partners and while we have "run together", we have never physically run together. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for us to finally get together for a run. Once we started looking into potential races, we found this one and also found that there was a family discount for teams of four family members. We invited everyone to participate. Two other cousins decided to join us. (Family runners were: J, JM, M and R) The race turnout was great! There were thousands of participants there trying to make up for the turkey and dressing that they would undoubtedly consume later in the day. There was a 2 and 5 mile event. Both were runner and walker friendly. There was also a free kids run earlier in the day. The event was extremely family friendly and catered to all abilities and fitness levels. Before the race, one of my cousins (JM) disappeared. He ended up running the race alone. The remaining three of us decided to attempt to stay together. For the first two miles, the three of us made pretty good time. We finished mile 1 in 10:07 and mile 2 in 10:43. At mile two, my cousin (M) gave us permission to leave her if she started walking. Shortly thereafter, she took a short walk break. The two of us (J and R) continued on together. We finished mile 3 in 9:55 and mile 4 in 10:40. At about mile 3.5, I attempted to tell J to leave me but he couldn’t hear me. I kept up with him for about another half mile. At mile 4, I made sure he saw and heard me tell him to leave me. He finished mile 5 in about 10:30. I finished mile 5 in about 11:14.  Before the race, I imagined I would take an hour to run the 5 miles. I finished in 52:24. I usually get extremely sluggish around mile 3 and my speed drops into the 5MPH range. I believe that running with my cousin pushed me to maintain a more consistent speed. I am very proud of my time. The after race snacks were great. Not great because they were so tasty but great because there was a wide variety of healthy snacks that I had not tried before but had the opportunity to try on this day. They had the usual bananas but they also had OxyWater, cereal bars and what seemed like every available flavor of Zone Perfect Bars. I am usually a Power Bar girl. I am not a huge fan of all of the Power Bar flavors, though. Some of them are too sweet for me. I do like the fact that they fill me up and give me energy. I was excited to try a couple of different flavors of the Zone Perfect Bars on race day. I ate a whole peanut crunch bar. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was sweet but not necessarily too sweet. I also found it to be filling. I also tasted someone else's Dark Chocolate Caramel Pecan. Yummmmmmmy is an excellent word to describe it. I was not a fan of the OxyWater. I am not a fan of artificial sweeteners. I hate the after taste. I took one sip and passed it on to one of my kiddos. I thoroughly enjoyed this race. I am not sure if I will run this particular race again. I live hours away! I would love to run another Turkey Trot next Thanksgiving not only in preparation for the calories I will consume later in the day but also to celebrate the fact that I am so thankful to God for my ability to walk, jog, run, jump, and leap!

M,J and R /Pre-Race

JM, M, R, J /Post-Race

My Favorite Things...

I made a decision about 4 1/2 years ago to stop putting chemicals in my hair. It was not a major decision. I never had a relaxer as a child. I didn't get my first one until I was 18 and able to pay for it myself. My mother did not allow me to relax my hair. She always said "You don't need one". I was a stubborn child though, and that was not enough to deter me. I jumped on the first opportunity that presented itself for me to chemically straighten my hair. My mothers message was lost on me. She presented it the wrong way. Five years ago, when my daughter turned 6, I decided to teach her the lesson my mother tried to teach me. I decided to do it differently. I wanted to teach my daughter that she is beautiful the way God made her. I wanted her to appreciate the hair she was born with. I could not tell her that her hair was beautiful while all the while chemically altering mine. I decided that I was done with chemicals. Four years later, my hair is healthy and strong and I love it. I have experimented with what feels like a million products over the years. I have happened upon some that have become favorites. I love Yes to Carrots products!! My daughter has a flaky scalp and I sweat a lot in my hair from exercising. I wanted to find a shampoo and conditioner that were not full of chemicals to address these issues. I recently happened upon Yes To Carrots Scalp Relief. While I am not a die hard natural product junkie, I do appreciate the fact that their products are 99% natural. These conditioners are not thick enough alone so I mix them. I am a big fan of Herbal Essence products. I mixed Yes to Carrots with Herbal Essence's Honey I'm Strong. This mix makes our hair easy to detangle and leaves our hair soft and manageable. Despite having found these products that I love, I am on a never ending quest for the perfect hair products and I am always open to suggestions. I'm a hair product junkie!!!!

The Women Who Run Race!!



 



 

On Saturday, my younger sister  and I participated in the Women who Run race hosted by Hermes Road Racing.

My sister and I are currently in the process of rebuilding our relationship. I wanted to share my love of running and fitness with her and I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for us to bond over a common goal. I was a little hesitant to ask her because she has asthma. I know a lot of athletes with asthma but her asthma is a special beast. There are times during our conversations when I have heard her struggling for breath. I decided to ask her anyway. She responded without hesitation "I'll try!” I signed up for the 4 miler and she signed up for the 1 miler. On race day, we were informed that the 4 miler had been changed to a 5K. I didn't mind at all! The atmosphere at this race was amazing!! There were women of all different ages and abilities. There was a 76 year old woman who ran this race and had run a half marathon the previous week! There was also a huge group of Black Girls Run runners there representing in their black and pink and Black Girls Run Tees. What an inspiration! The Women who Run race was quite an empowering run. My sister finished her mile run in about 12 minutes. What an awesome feat for someone who does not run often! My goal for this race was to have fun and to run the race in sub 10 minute miles. My time was 31.25! I met my goal and PR'd for the 5K. Upon finishing the race, each runner was greeted by one of many firefighters who were handing out medals. We also received a feminine cut race tee in our race bags. How cool is that! No boxy tee this time! A cute fitted tee!!!!  I am hopeful that this race becomes a tradition in our city as there are a great many women in our area who run and love it!!!



Me and My Joes after the race



My sister and Me with our medals!

 

Black Girls Run! Cleveland

 



Me and Rebecca (a running Amiga)



Short term goals

WARNING: The today in this post refers to Monday. I was slow to post...

 I am a planner and have always had to be. I went to college with no financial assistance from my family. I managed to work full time and participated in activities . What kept me afloat during this period was setting short term realistic goals for myself that would ultimately lead to me reaching my ultimate goal, which, at that time, was graduation.

Setting goals and working to achieve them is very important in any fitness plan.  My long term goal is to be fit. I have an idea of what I want my body to look and feel like. I know that I want awesome abs. I want to wear a bikini at 40.  I can envision all of this and I know that none of this will happen next week. This means that if my goal is set far out, I will not experience any notable success next week.  I know and accept this.  It is very easy to set generic goals for fitness. I have set generic goals and I have heard others talk about theirs. Examples would be “I want to be fit or I want to eat healthier”. These goals are great, but lack specificity. With only an abstract idea and no concrete action plan, it becomes infinitely more difficult to measure success.

In an attempt to remedy this, I have decided to start setting short term goals with a definitive measure of success. Reaching these smaller goals that I set for myself will eventually lead to me succeeding at my long term goal by creating concrete and manageable steps that can be tackled one at a time. The goal I set for myself this week is to wake up at 5 am to workout. I am not a morning person so this will definitely be a challenge for me.  I woke up this morning at 5 and looked outside. It was pitch black and I decided that a run in the dark was not for me. That being said, I did not want to stay in bed and feel like a quitter on my first day. I hit snooze at 5. I got up at 5:14 and made my bed. I then did an ab workout that I LOVE from Melissa Bender on YouTube. The video is 10 minutes. There are 10 different ab exercises. You do each exercise for 50 seconds with a 10 second rest between each one. This morning was a success!!  

My son has his guitar lesson tonight. Lessons are 30 minutes long. I usually sit in my car and watch Hulu on my phone or laptop.  So, I have made my second goal to run while I am waiting on my son to complete his lesson. We shall see how that goes...  If the plan works tonight, then I will plan on running Wednesday while my daughter is at her Saxophone lesson!!!

Depression and my war against the pudge...

I started Ripped in 30 about 30 days ago. The first two weeks were great. I did my workout everyday and I was able to run a few times.  I saw notable changes and I was pumped. Week three found me a little depressed. I have struggled with depression for years. At one point in my life I was so depressed that I stayed in bed most of the day. I worked nights. I would take my kids(the Joes) to school and I would stay in bed all day. I only worked 3 nights out of the week but that did not stop me from spending hours in the bed, allowing my life to slip past me. My son who is now 14 recalls that he knew I was sad. The discussion that followed was an eye opener for me. I have made a significant effort not to isolate when I am feeling depressed. I make special efforts to spend more time with The Joes and to try to better manage my symptoms.  Over the last two weeks, we have spent a lot of time together as a family. We have been cooking together and we make an effort to cook healthy meals. I feel that this was a success. What was not a success was me in pajamas everyday for a week. During the third week, my car decided to quit me while on an exit ramp. The shop quoted me a fix-it price of 900 dollars. I decided to take some time, think about it and make an educated decision. This meant that I was stuck at home for a week. I worked from home, in pajamas, every single day. Two of these days, I took a half day. I was just chillin at the house in my pajamas...depressed!!!  I had to rely on others to get The Joes to activities, but the fact that there were “others” to help was a blessing.  The two weeks were not a total loss. There was another success!  I did run about 6 times. A few of those runs were on a treadmill. The outside runs were great. Greatly influenced by other’s running times, I set a new running goal to consistently run 2 miles in 20 minutes or less.  Four of the runs were outside runs. The times were as follows: 3 miles in 34:03, 2.2 miles in 23:18, 2 miles in 20:32 and 2 miles in 20:09. These two weeks reminded me that I am much stronger today than I was years ago. I cannot just lie down and let life pass me by. Today I am a fighter...