Archive | January, 2012

Yes, enough.

6 Jan

At our church’s Christmas service two weeks ago, I couldn’t concentrate. I had been listening to Christmas hymns, reading the Christmas story, researching Jesus’ genealogy, and preparing my heart for what I expected to be a beautiful and captivating service. And while the service was that, my heart was MIA. I couldn’t even focus on the truth we were celebrating.

Instead, I was brimming with ingratitude. It took me a little while to recognize it as such. At first, I just felt unhappy. I wished my outfit was cuter, and wondered how much other women spend on their clothes. I wished I had only put things on my Christmas list that I really wanted, since I received other things. I wished for the life of a stay-at-home mom who didn’t have to go to work everyday. I wished for a body that was naturally thinner. I wished for longer, prettier hair. I wished to be more outgoing, to have more friends, to be more encouraging.

As the service went on, I grew sick with discontent, like I had been reading in a car winding down the road for hours.

I tried to turn my thoughts back to God. Back to Jesus. He’s human! Celebrate!

But even on Christmas, I couldn’t forget self.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Everything I need for life and godliness. I said it wasn’t enough, much like Eve in the garden who ignored every blessing to focus on the one thing withheld.

Ingratitude chokes the heart.

Since that morning, this knowledge has seeped into the pages of my life, revealing ingratitude written with invisible ink. Putting all struggles in their proper context, like beams of light through cobwebs of issues I thought had been put to rest.

That’s why…

Imagining God as my parent or husband, delighted in having spent hours upon hours picking out the perfect gift for me. Imagining me scoffing, stomping, and demanding more.

Isn’t that what I’ve been doing? Hasn’t God perfectly and lovingly hand-picked every circumstance, aspect, and facet of my life?

My throat swells when I think of how I’ve shunned Him and His blessings. How I’ve said No, not enough.

But Grace…

All is not lost. He does not withdraw His blessings from the ungrateful recipient. This God pours out more, so that we might know the truth of Who He is and who we are.

More… always more.

Gratefulness for repentance spills over into watercolor sunsets, fast runs on warm evenings, personality quirks, quiet moments to read, unique tastes, and Jesus, human and humble.

“The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the LORD…”

…by saying Yes, enough.

…by trustfully accepting their divine appointment in life.

…by accepting their reality as God’s deliberate and loving gift.

Ingratitude makes us miss the gift.

God has seen my lifelong ungratefulness. He stayed. He drew closer. He gave more grace. And now I see it too.

So this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing – Finding new ways to thank Him. New things to praise Him for. New blessings to pass on to others.

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If you want more thoughts on thanksgiving, I highly recommend reading One Thousands Gifts by Ann Voskamp, who influenced many of my thoughts above.

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One of those days…

5 Jan

Today has seriously been the longest day EVER. I knew it from 10 am this morning when I had already done what I felt like was a lot of work and only an hour had gone by. ::sigh::

BUT!

I have this waiting for me when I get home:

My new running gear! Even though I probably won’t try it out until I wash it (never mind the fact that its 60 degrees today), I’m still excited.

I’m also pumped about tomorrow night. While Travis goes to play broomball, I am going to Target to spend a gift card from my MIL and then hopefully work on a racing scrapbook.

And now I’m going home to get my run on and stop wanting to poke my eyes out from boredom. Have a great night!

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Baby Fever on Steroids

5 Jan

So I mentioned in my post yesterday that my oldest brother and sister-in-law just had their first child yesterday. (Woohoo!) Baby J we’ll call him. He is so freakin’ adorable that I’m tearing up right now after looking at pictures (which I’m not going to post here for the sake of their privacy). I wish I was going right now to see him instead of having to wait almost 2 months! (They live 16+ hours away from here and not near a cheap airport.)

I was technically already an aunt because Travis’ sister has a son. And while I love him and definitely consider him my nephew, he’s 12 years old. So this is the first time I’ve experienced being an aunt to a newborn and it’s the first baby on my side of the family.

I’mjustsofreakingexcitingIcanbarelystandit.

Anyway, the birth went fine and Baby J was born at 11:40 weighing 6 lbs 6 oz, 20 inches long. And he’s really cute. And my SIL didn’t even look like she gave birth, she’s so pretty.

So of course, this gets me even more excited than I was before to have kids of our own (though I’m sure I’ll look like a hot mess after giving birth). And I was pretty excited before, so this is getting dangerous. Lucky for Travis us, I still want to do a marathon before having a baby even more than I want to have a baby right now. So the plans have not changed. I’ll just have to live vicariously through my siblings for now.

Are you an aunt or uncle? How flippin’ excited were you when your nephew/niece was born?

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New Pages… and New Marathon

4 Jan

Since I’ve had copious amounts of time at work to do nothing but blog and read blogs, I have updated my blog with the following:

Food

To Eat or Not to Eat – links to all posts involving my food struggle, my views on healthy eating and grocery shopping.

Recipes – my favorite recipes. I hope to start posting more of these.

Books

Books I’ve Read in 2012 – there are 3 in progress!

Running

Marathon in 2012 – updated with the following news…

I am 99% certain that I am no longer going to do the Eugene Marathon. ::single tear::

I spent many, many hours deciding which race to pick based on date, location, size, course, spectator support, athlete reviews, and airfare price, and had decided on the Eugene Marathon in April. But due to limited money and a desire to vacation in Alaska for 2 weeks in celebration of 5 years of marriage, I will either be doing the Mayor’s Marathon in Anchorage on June 23 or the Kaiser Permanente Colfax Marathon in Denver on May 19 (which also happens to be our anniversary).

Because things are still up in the air (and it will take some time to plan this mega-trip to Alaska), I am following my marathon training plan as if nothing has changed. This way, I can still do the two races that I had planned on doing – although the 10 mile race depends on when I go down to Evansville to see my new nephew, who was just born this morning!! Congrats to my bro and SIL! It also gives me until the middle of February to make a decision.

After those races, if I’m planning to do the Colfax Marathon, I’ll back down in mileage for 2 weeks and then continue on with the marathon training plan where I left off. If I do the Mayor’s Marathon, I will have enough time to simply restart the marathon training program from the beginning. One bright side of doing a later marathon is that it will work out for me to do the Platte River Half Marathon on April 15. But one drawback is that we wait longer before trying to get pregnant. You win some, you lose some. But Travis and I both agree that this is the best year for us to go to Alaska so in the end, it’ll be worth the wait.

I’m kinda bummed to not be doing Eugene, since I spent a lot of time researching and I’ve heard some other bloggers say they’re doing it. But alas, twas not to be (this year). Regardless, I’m still pumped for marathon training!

So for the next 7 weeks, this is my training plan:

 

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Training Recap: 12/26 – 1/2

3 Jan

Yesterday was the day of organization. We took down our Christmas decorations and stored them in new totes. We went through clothes, toiletries, and jewelry, throwing out what no one would want to wear and creating a pile of stuff to donate to the thrift store. I organized my dresser drawers, 5 different closets, and even my spices. I also gave the dogs a bath (after our run, it was very necessary) and cleaned the house. Productivity is such a great feeling!

Here’s what my training looked like last week:

Monday: 3.04 mile run (35:50, 11:47/mile), 16 min weight training

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: 2.73 mile hill workout (30:48, 11:17/mile)

I did this run outside my office in Broomfield. I warmed up downhill/flat for a mile, then sprinted 10 seconds up the hill, walked for about a minute, sprinted, walked. Here’s the elevation profile:

According to MapMyRun.com, where I’m running in Broomfield is actually higher in elevation than Wheat Ridge by about 400 feet. Which makes me feel better about wheezing up hills.

And you can’t beat the view:

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 3.04 mile tempo run (31:23 total, 10:19/mile); 18 min Tabata workout

I warmed up and cooled down for .5 mile (1 mile total), running the 2 middle miles at a tempo pace. I wore my 2XU compression tights on this run and once again, I busted out speed from God-knows-where. I ran the middle 2 miles at a 10:00 pace and the other mile at a combined pace of 11:23. Not too shabby.

And then I got my butt handed to me by a Tabata workout. If you haven’t heard of them, the idea is to do something all-out for 20-30 seconds, take a rest, then do it again. This is the workout I did (and I’m sorry, but I can’t remember the blog I found it on):

  • squat with weight shoulder press
  • pushups
  • lunge with bicep curl (alternating legs per set)
  • mountain climbers
  • sumo (wide) squat with single weight tricep extension (behind the head)
  • seated lower body crunches (leaning back and curling knees into chest)
  • jump squats and jump lunges (alternate per set)
  • bicycle crunches

You were supposed to do 6-8 rounds of each exercise before moving on. I downloaded a free Tabata timer on my phone, which makes it easy and brainless to time the intervals of work v. rest. I made 6 rounds of the squats, lunges, and sumos, but I had to call it quits at 3 rounds of pushups, mountain climbers, and lower body crunches (although I added 3 rounds of other core work to make it 6.) Yeah, definitely a good workout – I counted how many sumo squats I did in a single 30 second interval. 10. 10 x 6 = 60 squats. No wonder! This showed me that while my lower body is fairly strong, my upper body and core need some work.

Saturday: 1.1 mile run with pooches (12:55, 11:44/mile); 5.2 mile run without pooches (52:01, 10:00/mile)

If you’re wondering how on earth I managed to run my first mile in 11:44 and then 5 consecutive miles at a pace of 10 minutes per mile, let me tell you about the wind. It was crazy. Power went out in places, portapotties tipped over, sandstorms were blowing from the foothills, windows were whistling. I never looked it up but Travis estimated the gusts were 40-50 mph at times.

Yes, I ran in that.

I took the dogs out for what I planned to be a short 1.5 mile run around the lake. Ha, yeah. The minute I started heading west around the lake (no wind barrier), I was leaning into the wind, tears streaming and breathless (the wind was actually kind of cold). So I said Screw That and turned around. Hence the 1.1 miles.

My route to and from the lake ran north and south and it really wasn’t that bad being out there when you weren’t running west. I tried to think of a route I could do from my house that would run only north and south but it’s a weird, old neighborhood with a lot of streets that end in weird spots. I would inevitably end up having to go west sometime. So inspired by Monica at Run, Eat, Repeat who has her husband come pick her up from her runs, I had Travis drive me 5 miles to the west, so that I could do my entire run going east. As we were driving over there, Travis said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I think you’re crazy.” But he knows how stubborn I am so he didn’t argue.

And I will say, it wasn’t that bad. Yes, I got blown around like a ragdoll at times and when the wind died down so that I was running on my own strength, I felt like I was running in slow motion. But I wasn’t the only crazy out there. AND there were other people running west. Now those people are crazy.

The only thing I didn’t like about the run was my hair. I had contemplated wearing a hat but didn’t want to deal with it blowing off. I should’ve worn a headband at least because my hair flyaways were constantly in my face.

If you look closely, you can see leaves flying through the air and mist rising from the reservoir.

So when I wanted to eat my Gu Chomps at mile 3 of my combined runs, I actually turned around and ran backwards, so that the wind would keep my hair out of my face while I ate.

Overall, the run was a success.

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In other news, I tried these two new foods last week and loved them both:

The Pretzel Crisps tasted a lot like mustard pretzels (which I love) and the Pure Almond Dark Chocolate milk tasted just like chocolate cow’s milk. This would be a great alternative for those who are lactose-intolerant and want to drink chocolate milk, or for someone looking for a drink high in calcium (it provides 45% of your daily value). But there’s only one gram of protein, so I’ll be sticking with my cow’s milk and Hershey’s syrup for post-run recovery.

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Food journal update: It is a lot harder than I thought it would be to remember to write down everything I eat. I failed yesterday. Whoops.

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What are the craziest conditions you’ve run in?

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January Goal: Forego sweets for an entire month.

2 Jan

Like most people, I ate way too many sweets over the holidays.

And while I didn’t gain any weight (how did that happen?), I have been feeling on the verge of getting sick for a couple of weeks – which, I believe, is caused by my increased consumption of sugar. This article, among others, says that sugar can suppress your immune system.

Also, in the book The End of Overeating, David Kessler talks about our body’s response to sugar, fat and salt – our brains become wired to seek more of those things the more we consume them. I have found this to be true – the more I eat sugar, the more I crave it. The less I eat sugar, the less I crave it.

I wrote that my goal is to “Forego sweets for an entire month.” What do I consider sweets?

Sweets are anything that have a high level of sugar and provide no nutritional value, such as:

  • all candy (not including gum)
  • all cookies
  • all foods involving chocolate (I know that dark chocolate has some nutritional value, but that’s not the point here)
  • all pop (even diet)
  • all ice cream (even froyo)
  • all foods made of white flour, sugar and butter
Pretty much everything that would or could be considered dessert.

What is not included is the coffee creamer and 2 packets of sweetener I drink with my coffee every morning. It has nutritional value: keeping me sane. 😉

Unfortunately, I have already failed at this goal. I forgot that yesterday was Jan 1st, so I had 2 Godiva chocolates after dinner.  (whoops) But I won’t give up just because of that. I’ll still do it for a month (ending on Feb 2nd then instead of the 1st).

In conjunction with this goal, I signed up for the Food Journal Challenge hosted by Amanda at Run to the Finish.

I also failed at this yesterday (can I be excused because I felt sick?) but will start today. I hope that this will help me be more mindful of my food choices, so that I can respect my body as God’s temple. Today, I will Take Stock of where I am eating-wise and go from there.

How are you feeling after the holidays? Any goals for January?

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