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Life on the road

27 Jun

I just got back last night from yet another trip to SLC (what is that, 6 times in the past 2 months?) Megan (the intern traveling with me) and I have been lamenting the difficulty of eating healthy on the road. Not only do we have a packed car on each road trip (making the addition of a cooler with healthy snacks a total impossibility), you’re stuck with having to eat that food that first day because often, our hotel rooms don’t have refrigerators. At one of the early races, I tried to bring hummus with me – bad idea. Who knew hummus actually turns into liquid when it gets warm?

Lately, I’ve just been packing dried fruit (usually mango – my fave), 3-4 Luna bars, and some trail mix. On past trips, I have bought popcorn (a food that has low calories for the volume) but fruit is usually hard to find, unless you make a separate stop at a grocery store – which aren’t always available either, especially when you’re driving through the middle of Wyoming. And you can only eat snack foods for so many meals before you want a meal of something substantial.

It’s not being away from home that’s the problem. When we actually reach our destination, we usually go out for dinner at a sit-down restaurant. We have gone out for sushi more than once (one of my favorite things), which is fairly healthy but also fairly expensive. When we go to a different restaurant, I try to order something on the lighter side – like a salad with chicken or a personal pizza loaded with veggies.

After a race, we are ravenous and thirsty. It’s usually at least 12:00 noon and we have been up since 4 am. All we’ve had to eat and drink are usually a protein bar or 2 and a giant Red Bull. I would think about eating more at the races but honestly, sometimes we’re running around and so busy that it’s just not possible. So when we’re done packing up the car and are heading out of town for home, we stop at Arby’s, Chick-Fil-A, or Culver’s and get a burger and fries – for some reason, greasy food is SO appealing when we’re starving. Good for the tastebuds. Bad for the heart… and waistline (although I haven’t gained any weight yet, no doubt due to burning 2,500 calories per week through running and probably another 800 at each race).

Fast food isn’t a great way to start another long 7-13 hour drive home though, since greasy food is notorious for causing fatigue. But honestly, you can only eat at Subway so many times before the idea of another sub makes you want to gag.

So I’ve done a little research (and gathered some of my own ideas from personal experience). Here are some ways to eat healthy on the road:

1. Bring emergency snacks with you. Things like nuts, dried fruit, apples, oranges, and protein bars are easy to transport, don’t require refrigeration, and are healthy stand-ins when you’re hungry and can’t find anything better.

2. Drink plenty of water. Who cares if you have to stop every hour? If you’re traveling a lot, dehydrating yourself on a regular basis in the interest of saving time isn’t really helping you out at all. Try to avoid pop and flavored waters – caffeine is a diuretic and flavored waters can leave a film on your teeth that gets nasty after so many hours in the car.

3. If you must eat at a fast food restaurant, order off the kid’s or value menus. These sandwiches and sides are smaller than the regular versions, which means fewer calories.

4. Skip the french fries. These are fine as treats once in a while, but if you are frequenting fast food restaurants often, you might find yourself eating these “treats” too often. Marketing has so penetrated our minds that we think a burger must be accompanied by fries – or else the meal is not complete. (I find myself thinking this). Instead of ordering fries, get a side salad, baked potato (naked), or a bottle of milk.

5. A CNN article says that at convenience stores, food stamped with an expiration date (one that hasn’t passed!) is usually healthier than anything that can sit around for a decade or two, because shelf-stable foods are often loaded with preservatives and artery-clogging trans fats. Often, gas stations have string cheese, small bottles of milk, and sometimes even fruit.

Next Best: If the fridge section disappoints, head back to the shelves and grab some individual-size bags of snacks, but look for ones that your greatgrandmother would recognize as actual food, such as dried fruit, nuts, and whole-wheat crackers, advises Steven G. Aldana, Ph.D., author of “The Stop & Go Fast Food Nutrition Guide.”

If you’re craving pretzels, nuggets are better than skinny ones because they take longer to eat, says Bonci, who adds that animal crackers and Teddy Grahams are good bets to satisfy a sweet tooth since they’re lower in calories than other cookies.

And there you have it. Now only if I could find a way to keep my willpower in check…

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Disillusioned by productivity

21 Jun

I have loved these past 2 weeks. I have had some relaxation time but I’ve also been very productive. And strangely, it is the productive part that makes me feel the best. I have gotten back into the habit of cooking actual dinners, which has been good. I even made banana bread one day! I cleaned the whole house, including the refrigerator and microwave. Travis and I (finally!) cleaned out the drain to my bathroom sink (it has been clogged since we moved in!!!) so my sink stays clean now – before, it had soap buildup again the first time you used it after cleaning it. I went grocery shopping, fixed a couple of necklaces that had been broken for about 6 months, gave Katy a bath, watered the lawn, got my hair cut, read a whole book and started another, went on a 9 and a 1o mile run, redid my nails, bought new bras and running clothes, and did laundry 3 times.

I love being productive!

I wish I could add “spent time with the Lord every morning” to that list – I’m getting there. I need to remind myself that productivity, in the end, amounts to nothing. I mean, let’s be honest. In just a few days, there will be dirty dishes and a pile of laundry to be washed. In a week, the house will need cleaning again and the refrigerator will be pathetically empty. In a month, my nails will be chipped and in 2 months, my hair will start getting split ends. All of these things are temporary. The feeling of accomplishment they bring is short and fleeting.

Productivity isn’t a bad thing – but for me, it can be dangerous. The feeling of being productive, of going to bed with the great feeling I get from crossing off most things on my to-do list, allows me to forget – just for a little bit – how helpless, incapable, and needy I really am. I feel good about myself when I’m productive. I don’t feel sinful, weak, and pitiful.

I don’t think that is God’s goal for me – to feel good about myself (for then why would I think I have a need for a Savior?). But I also don’t think His goal is for me to feel weak and pitiful. Rather, I like what Oswald Chambers said in today’s devotional:

“The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our ‘hanging on by the skin of our teeth,’ although we say, ‘What a wonderful victory I have!’ Yet there is nothing in all of that which indicates the miracle of redemption… You are perfect only in Christ, not on the basis of this argument: ‘Oh Lord, I have done my best…’

“How long is it going to take God to free us from this unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus.”

Like Tim Keller said in his sermon Blessed Self-Forgetfulness, humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. I am so guilty of being self-centered. SO guilty. Guilty to the nth degree. As Chambers puts it, I cannot reach and understand the depths of my own meagerness. I cannot comprehend how little I bring to the table. I can’t get my mind around how insufficient I am even on the days when it feels like I accomplished the world. But there are still those days when I constantly dwell on my meagerness, as if that were the way to make me less meager.

Productivity has the power to distract me from the fact that Christ is sufficient so I don’t have to be. And I can be content in knowing I am not. Paul was content with his weaknesses – “…so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Nevertheless, I cling to productivity like a safety blanket. My sinful flesh will use anything it can to escape the reminder of my own insufficiency. I don’t want to be dependent – I want to have it all together. The issue with being insufficient is not that I am not living up to God’s expectations of me – “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). It is that I don’t live up to my own expectations of me. I’m not all that I would imagine myself to be. Productivity gives me the illusion of being that person – but who am I after the dust settles (quite literally), the clothes are stained and the dog is dirty? Who am I then? I am lost.

A good friend sent me this quote when I was feeling quite down on myself and I return to it often, as a reminder of God’s love for me: “There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worse about me, so that no discovery can now disillusion Him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.”

It is a tough thing – to be okay with not being everything you’d like to be. To accept being disappointed by yourself often. To be disillusioned, as the quote put it, about your own behavior and character and still think there might be hope for you.

Yes, everyday is a new day, full of new opportunities to make right what you made wrong the previous day. But I’m sure that I am not done disillusioning myself, not done with failing to live up to my own expectations. Which is why I’m glad God will continue to disillusion me with my illusions, reminding me that it’s a good thing to be a sinner, poor and needy, saved by grace alone.

It means I can rest.

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The eye of the storm.

15 Jun

The past few weeks have been pretty relaxed with my job, compared to the first 3 months of chaos. We don’t have another one of our events until July 17th, so we have a little lull here in the crap-ton of planning and prepping that goes into putting on our own race. Which means I am left with just having to prep for, travel to, and work timing events every weekend. Still a lot of travel for me (every weekend until the last weekend in July – I’ll have been traveling for 11 weekends straight) but less stuff during the week, which means I get to take advantage of a little downtime.

This is definitely one of the major perks of this job – getting to structure my day how I see fit, going on a run at 11 am, grocery shopping after lunch, taking a nap if I need it. I don’t have to sit at a desk pretending to do work when I don’t have any work to do. Instead, I can go sit outside and read a book. Or I can watch 4 episodes of Desperate Housewives in a row. It’s absolutely wonderful.

This coming weekend I’m off to Rapid City, SD. Then it’s SLC, UT. Then Colorado Springs. Then Helena, MT. Then Price, UT. Then back to SLC, UT. Then a weekend off!!! But Travis and I will probably go camping somewhere so I still won’t be home.

But I actually don’t mind not getting to spend the weekends at home. I’m usually back Saturday night so I have the whole day Sunday here and then I’m working from home during the week so it doesn’t feel like I’m gone all that much. Like this past weekend, I left Friday morning and came back Saturday night. It was a whirlwind of a trip but definitely worth having the extra time at home to see Travis.

So I’m really enjoying my job lately, despite the hectic pace and stress of actually being at the timing events. The event this past weekend went pretty well – some technical difficulties while we were at the race but everything ended up working out in the end, so I feel like the race is one of the best ones I’ve done yet. Definitely the best a race has gone when it has just been me timing with an intern. So there’s that.

And when things do go well, I am left feeling incredibly blessed by the Lord, knowing that He is behind all the tiny little details, orchestrating everything.

But I know that this peacefulness is just temporary – come mid-July, we will be putting on one of our own races every 2 weeks until the end of October. This is really just the eye of the storm. It’s going to get worse – in fact, worse than it has been the first 3 months of this job. So I’m really trying to soak up and enjoy this lull, this break because soon, it’ll be go time.

But it’s not go time right now. 🙂

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Defined by God

1 Jun

I had a rough weekend. I was at a timing event on Saturday and the whole morning of setup went really well. When the race started, I felt really good about how things were going. Then athletes started crossing the finish line and I realized we were missing quite a few of their chips. But there was no time to fix it. We were also having problems with the PA system and the announcer function (which we almost always have problems with).

Amazingly, though, Megan and I made it through and I recovered most of the athletes’ finish times using our manual backup system. We packed up the car and got on the road back to Denver.

I got my computer out in the car to work on posting the results. When I opened the results file, though, I was shocked. The results were absolutely horrible. We were missing splits left and right. Something had happened with the timing equipment at the transition area. What was I going to do?

After talking to my boss, Brent, I spent the rest of the 8-hour car ride home fixing the splits that I could. Then I spent another 3.5 hours on Sunday morning. After finally getting the results posted, I braced myself for all of the scathing emails I would receive from athletes.

I still got those but I also got one from the race director (he had actually sent it to Brent, who forwarded it to me with no comment). The race director was very unhappy – with how the PA system had worked, how the announcer function had worked (or more, had NOT worked), and most of all, with the lack of splits. He told Brent that he felt like he was paying for second stringers and that the timing team at his race seemed very inexperienced. But the email wasn’t in a mean tone and I really can’t blame Greg for being frustrated at the situation. All of the stuff he mentioned happened and I could only do my best with the situation.

But I’d be lying if I said that his comments didn’t bother me. No one likes to hear that someone is disappointed and dissatisfied with their performance. I have definitely looked at, thought out, and analyzed this past race from every possible angle. In hindsight (which is always 20/20), there are a few things I should have done differently. And as I’ve learned over the past 3 months, in this business, little mistakes can cost you big. They did for me on Saturday.

As I got in the word this morning, I was reminded of Bethlehem Baptist Church’s mantra: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. In the midst of this tough work situation, where my reputation and work performance have clearly been questioned, I can be most satisfied in God by remembering that I am valuable and precious because God says I am. I don’t have to look to this world for validation and I am not defined by what I do wrong – or right. I am defined by Who died for me and what He says about me.

Because of God’s grace, I feel very blessed right now to have the Christian community and loving husband I do. I will make it through this and I will have learned and grown as a result. Trial by fire.

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How dreams create desire

27 May

Two nights ago, I had a dream about babies. A friend of mine (who is now 44) had a baby – it was a weird dream. That’s not the point. The point is that I woke up really wanting to have kids. And the more I thought about it, the more I realize that I do want kids. Like, now.

I’ve tried to convince myself that I enjoy just being married, I enjoy having this freedom without kids. And while that is true, I am starting to think that I might rather have kids than my freedom.

I still think kids are at least a year and a half down the road – Travis and I both agree that it would be good for him to be done with grad school before having kids. But why not have kids right after he’s done?

We’ll see what he thinks about that.

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Week 1 of Marathon Training

16 May

So this past week was officially week 1 of my training plan. Well, not really. I did go on 2 runs – one 4 miles and the other 5. But that was about it. This week is the first one that I’m actually following a training plan. But I started my marathon training plan including last week so I’m counting it. 🙂

Travis and I have about 99% decided to do the Malibu Marathon on November 14. It sounds like a cool one (you get to run along the coastline!) and the first weekend of November didn’t work (Minnesota deer season opener is that weekend).

Here’s my training schedule:

That's a lot of running!

I used Hal Higdon’s 18-week Novice marathon training program but modified it to be a little longer. I also highlighted the weeks in light purple that I would be out of town and possibly not able to run at all (definitely not long distances at any rate). The pink cells are the most important runs because they’re the longest ones. The green Race in the middle is the Mt. Sneffels Half Marathon that I’m planning on doing August 29th.

I also included a key on the bottom so that if I have to shuffle workouts around due to my schedule, I knew what kind of workout I was supposed to be doing on which day. Sundays and Thursdays can alternate between rest days and short run days, depending on the week.

I bought 2 running magazines at the store today. I feel like I know a decent amount about running and training since I have done races before. But I haven’t done anything even close to a marathon, reading about running gets me excited and I’m sure there is more I can learn.

Woohoo!

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Elevation makes a difference!

11 May

People have said that running at lower elevations than Denver (which is a mile above sea level) is so easy. They feel like they could run forever.

Well, I tried running in Minnesota one summer and it sure didn’t feel any easier. But then I thought, maybe I was trying to run at too fast of pace or the humidity was just as bad as altitude.

I’m pretty sure it was one of the two because this morning I went on a run in St. George, UT, which is about the same elevation as Minnesota and I felt absolutely AMAZING!! The first half of the run was even uphill but I felt great.

This experience has made me even more optimistic that training at altitude for a marathon at sea level will work out in my favor. I just have to be very careful that I don’t try to run too fast and end up screwing myself over like I did when I ran my half marathon 2 years ago.

I am SO excited about marathon training… it feels good to have a goal again.

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Doing a marathon

8 May

So I think I’m finally going to do it: a marathon. I had really wanted to do the Twin Cities Marathon, since the course is pretty and it would be easier for my family to come and watch. But now I’m toying with the idea of doing one in California. There are 4 different ones during the first 2 weeks of November that I would be interested in. And doing one in November (instead of the TC Marathon at the beginning of October) would be more desirable for many reasons.

One, I would be able to train longer. Right now, I can run 6 miles (which I just did today and I barely made it through). I saw Hal Higdon’s marathon training program is 18 weeks long and I actually have 21 weeks until October 3rd. But there are 4 weeks in there when I could potentially not be running at all (due to being gone and extremely busy those weeks for work). So that leaves me 17 weeks. Which is doable but not ideal. Waiting until November would give me back those 4 weeks. And I will definitely need those, since I think I’ll only be able to squeeze in 1-2 short runs + 1 long run a week due to my work schedule.

Moreover, our race season ends the 3rd week of October. So I would have a good solid 2 weeks to recuperate, relax, sleep and de-stress before the marathon. AND if we did one in California, we could squeeze a mini-vacation into it as well. And I’m pretty sure my parents would fly out to see me too (my bros probably wouldn’t).

So these are the races I’m looking at:

Santa Barbara Marathon & Half

Santa Barbara, CA

November 6, 2010

Eye-Q Two Cities Marathon & Half

Fresno & Clovis, CA

November 7, 2010

Morgan Hill Marathon & Half

Morgan Hill, CA

November 7, 2010

Run the River Marathon & Half

Folsom, CA

November 13, 2010

Travis would run the 1/2 marathon, so it’s convenient that all of the above have that option. Hmmm… my vote right now is for the Eye-Q Two Cities Marathon because it looks the coolest but the only drawback is that the closest city to Fresno that Southwest flies to is San Francisco. Not that San Francisco is bad (it would actually be fun to spend some time there) but it’s a 3 hour drive to Fresno.

And the beautiful thing is that November in California should be pretty nice. Could be on the chilly side in the morning but overall, should be pretty nice.

In preparation for the marathon, I’m planning on running a half-marathon and I found one on August 29th called the Mt. Sneffels Half Marathon. It starts at 7,500 feet up in the mountains and ends at 7,000. I like the sound of that! And the best part, it’s only $30 to register.

I’m totally pumped!! I’ll let you know which one I end up deciding on.

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Keeping time

6 May

I think I’ve finally discovered how to handle working at home: treating it like a real job in an office.

Subconsciously, working from home has felt like not working – as in I could justify staying up until 11 and not getting up until 7:30. But then I felt rushed to get in the Word and start working. I never changed out of my pajamas because I exercised at night (why would I take a shower when I would just get all sweaty later?) and after taking a shower, it was time for bed again. I felt like a bum with a job (oxymoron?)

So this past weekend, I decided No More. I was going to start treating my job like a job – and by doing so, hopefully alleviate the guilt and weird “I never left work” feeling that has been plaguing me ever since I took this job.

Well, I’m happy to report that it worked. Today is Day 3 of my “back to work” project and I feel great. I get up at 5:15 and read the Bible, while I eat breakfast and drink my first cup of coffee. Then at 6:15 I go workout (I took today off though). At 7:15, I shower and put real clothes on (novel idea!). At 8:00 am, I sit down at the computer with my 2nd cup of coffee.

I have also decided to start taking lunch breaks. Travis usually doesn’t come home for lunch so I will have time to myself to read – and will hopefully get a lot more read than I do in bed! I haven’t read during lunch yet this week (actually have only taken 1 lunch break yet this week) because I didn’t work Monday, we had a meeting in Boulder on Tuesday over the lunch hour, and I was over at D’s house today during lunch. I took a lunch break yesterday but instead of reading, I blogged. But that is one of my goals as well, so it’s ok. 🙂

I think the reason why I love getting up early to get in the Word and exercise is because I start my day off feeling productive. And I, for some reason, LOVE that feeling. I can think of very few feelings that are better. (So why am I lazy so often, I wonder?) Having more normal hours for work has also helped me feel ok about calling it quitting time after a full day. Who’da thought that I like structure to my day?

On another note, I forgot to post these pics yesterday when I posted about our landscaping.

Travis bought me flowers when he came home from his last levee inspection. What a sweetie!

Travis rubbing Katy's belly. Katy loves that!

Little Katy is so cute.

A pic just because

Now I have to go watch Bones!

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Playing in the dirt

5 May

It’s time to lighten things up with a fun post, don’t you think?

My parents were here this past weekend and we had a blast. They got here Friday night around 8:45. We pretty much got home from the airport, talked a bit, and then went to bed.

Saturday morning, we slept in and then ate breakfast at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant a block from our house called Joe’s Cafe. It was great food – a very down-home feel. We would definitely go back. It’s fun finding restaurants like that near our house!

After breakfast, we went shopping for shrubs and flowers to do some landscaping in our backyard. I wasn’t too excited about it at first because there are so many choices and decisions and my brain felt like it was going to explode. But after several hours at Echter’s (the garden store near us), 25 holes and 8 bags of compost, I definitely felt like our labor had paid off.

We planted barberries, feather grasses (the ones on the end get to be 6-8' tall!), Firewitch, Goldfinger Potentilla, and one Polka Weigela.

They look pretty puny right now, but they’ll grow and get lots bigger over the course of the summer! We also installed a timed sprinkler system, so we don’t have to worry about watering the plants in addition to the lawn (Travis is thankful).

Saturday night, we grilled some elk steaks and burgers, along with some zucchini and yellow squash and then went out for ice cream at Good Times. We also rented the movie Up In the Air. It wasn’t as good as I had expected it to be. It was kind of depressing, actually.

Sunday, it was cold, windy and cloudy. So we went to church (great sermon about seeing the gospel in the life of Abraham!) and then checked out a French restaurant in Denver called Le Central: The Affordable French Restaurant. I had never had French food before and was determined to be daring. So I ordered crepes with chicken pieces, onion, carrots and green peppers in a creamy curry sauce. I thought “Crepes with meat?” but it was actually delicious. I would totally go back there. It was such a cute place and very popular. I love going to new restaurants!

After lunch, we went to the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was very interesting – a lot to learn about the body and how it works together and I doubt I will remember even 30% of what I read but very cool nonetheless. How anyone can go through an exhibit like that and still not believe in a divine creator is beyond me. It is written all over the place (not literally). We also saw the IMAX movie, Hubble, which actually was even cooler and was even more evidence for God as the creator of the world. Totally awesome. It’s amazing to me to think about us discovering stuff like that and not even totally understanding it, yet God created it all and literally put it all in its place (Psalm 8:3). God is so much bigger than us. I’m so glad that He is for me!

Sunday night, my parents and I watched It’s Complicated (great movie, cute story line if you overlook the fact that it’s about a marital affair) while Travis went and worked on a presentation and paper for one of his classes (poor guy).

Monday, my mom and I went back to Echter’s and bought flowers for the part of the backyard we hadn’t gotten to yet. It’s going to look awesome in a month or so:

The flowers we planted are all perennials: Coreopsis, Salvia, Black-eyed susans, Daisies, Day lilies, Dianthus (Fire Star), and Yarrow.

Here’s the whole setup:

Can't wait to see what happens!

After finishing the garden, we ate lunch at Jason’s Deli, re-watched our wedding video, and then I took my parents to the airport. Their vacation was over already. But so much fun! We are so blessed by my parents.

I’ll post more pics later this summer when the plants get bigger and bloom!

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