Autumn comes with the traditional

There are certain events that indicate Fall in Indiana for our family, and it seems they all came and passed this month.  We had Grammie visiting for the welcoming festivities of fall: apple picking.  Our friend's tree that we pillaged for fee last year was on an off year so we had to go to a 'commercial' local apple orchard to pick.  The name of this orchard gave us many laughs: "Tree Technology."  Yep, that's new technology - getting small kids with baskets on a stick to pick apples.Josh, the kids, Grammie and Aunt Jill picked 5 bushels of apples that we processed within that week to have plenty of applesauce and apple pie slices all through the winter.  The kids are always involved with smooshing the apples through the Victorio Strainer or twisting the peeler/corer/slicer, which makes the process move swiftly.

When the apples are on, we also know it is time to honor the man who gave us all this lovely harvest: Johnny Appleseed.  Fort Wayne claims the burial of Johnny.  We have a gravesite, although I am not certain, with many other claimants on to Johnny's burial, if the site is not just a relic containing maybe teeth or other random bones.  Ether way, all the community gathers for the fantastic festival in his park and celebrate the handiwork of many who still create without technology (ha, tree technology orchard).  Each year we heard the kids past the vendors to the settler's area and learn some new skills.  This year's skills were:  clay wheel pottery, woodworking (mostly for Josh who still dreams that he will have a wood shop some day), wood carving, copper smithing, and tinkering. 

This fella gave the kids a bit of a science lesson by carving back the stick and then pulling out the worms that were the cause of the great maple to fall.  Josh admired the lacquering.

Because it was the very end of the day the tinkers let the kids play with all sorts of machines and gave them lots of tin trinkets to play with.  They gave the kids a math lesson as to why you need to know geomotrey. 

 Another fall time favorite - the annual Fort4Fit race.  This year we worked with the kids through the end of the summer to run 25 miles, all building up to the Kids Marathon for Fort4Fit.  The kids had gotten the racing bug when we did the Spartan Race in the spring and were mostly willing to do the training.  We were amazed by how well they did on the actual race night!  With Jill, we had one adult per child to run with the kids during the mile long course.  Viv ran hard with Jill, Faith stayed consistent and long strided with her dad, and I ran with Danny.  I was most impressed with Danny.  Throughout the summer he was the least enthused about continuous running; often stopping with side aches.  However, for the race, Danny kept a steady jog the whole time.  We talked about Captain America, of course, to pass the second half mile and he made it the whole way without walking!  All three were so happy to have their medals!  It is so nice to have this family friendly race so close to our home, it is really too easy to do I would be ashamed if we had not involved the kids in their own race.

Start time was 7:30am this year instead of 8am.

The next morning I woke up and walked up to the race start for the 10K race.  Some friends joined me for the start.  To my happy surprise, Jill rode her bike up and became my support through the whole race.  I certainly wasn't in my favored shape for the race, but I made some goals and kept them, only missing my goal finish by one minute (should have followed Jill's advice and had faster turnover the last half mile rather than trying to lengthen my stride, lesson learned).

Josh and the kids made it up for the finish so they could steal my post-race snacks and then go to the library.  It is a fun race because it ends in the Parkview baseball stadium and they have the racers on the jumbo-tron and announce their names so the family can be more participatory in the end.

A new fall tradition for us, thanks to Jill, will be going to a college football game.  We are still learning to enjoy the event, so it was super nice to head over to a small university in town, St. Francis, and watch our good friend and old babysitter Jason "Big Guy" Gardner play as defensive center.  Danny was intent not he game.  Faith brought a book, which suits her personality after watching some of the game she was happy to read.  Viv spent most of her time watching the cheerleaders evidently to figure outs why they had blue and black pom-poms (which she finally figured out about the 3rd quarter and announced to the rest of of that it was to match the team colors on the football uniforms).  It was a very good thing to broaden the horizons of the kids to some of the best parts of fall sporting events.  Jill and I also took them to watch IPFW men and women's soccer.

Weighing Measurement

I had a two mile conversation with myself yesterday while on a relaxing jog in the beautiful weather that went something like this:

"Why do you feel compelled to weigh yourself on the scale at least once a week if you are finally at the beautiful point in your life that you can just love your body regardless of pant size?"

"Because I still like knowing how much I weigh."

"Why?  It doesn't have any bearing on changing your eating habits or what exercise you are going to be able to do?"

"True.  I have dealt with enough fatigue and illness now to know that eating is to sustain life and exercise is to stay strong, not for getting skinny.  I don't care about skinny.  I just feel more secure when I know what range I am in, and sometimes get a little excited/happy that I have 'lost' weight."

"But you know that your body weight fluctuates 5-8 pounds depending on which part of your menstrual cycle you are in.  Scales aren't accurate.  The one at the doctors always puts you 3 pounds heavier than the one at home, and that is not just clothing."

"Right, but I use a measured average to know which way I am going.  Doctors use your body weight as a measurement of health.  Obviously I don't feel obese and I am strong and have good cardiovascular health, we are running right now.  I think my tie to the scale is not about my actual size but more about measuring progress."

"You are trying to argue that scales are measurements of progress?"

"In a way.  They are like 'To-Do Lists' for me.  Early on in my home-making days I would make crazy long To-Do lists and then expect to get everything done.  I would push myself all day to keep moving because I had so much "To-Do."  Well, then I had kids and through experience got wise.  I still made To-Do lists occasionally to organize my thoughts, but used them as a mark toward progress made, not a measurement of my success.  A successful day was doing one thing on the 'To-Do' list and staying happy with the kids.
I feel like I have mature and become wise with the scale too.  Admittedly, 4 years ago I bought this fancy scale to be daily vigilant of my weight and body fat percentage to get to my 'Peak-Performance.' I got there.  And it was cool at that time in my life.  My 'Peak Performance' then looks a lot different than it does now.  So now I just measure performance.  I just step on the scale to see how my body is reacting to life and helps me keep in perspective the goal of staying healthy and within a good range for my own daily performance and average things out overtime without obsessing over the fluctuations or being at the 'Peak' of anything but happiness."

"So why can't you just get rid of the scale if you are measuring happiness not weight?"

"I like numbers.  I feel like that on good days I can exaggerate things and likewise on the bad days, when probably the numbers are the same.  I feel better having something giving me data as feedback. For the same reason I wear a heart rate monitor and GPS/Timer watch when I exercise.  I know when I am working out hard, or pushing it a little, but it is nice to have the numbers there to confirm that I am not placing myself in a delusional fancy place.  Sometimes I am surprised that my head and the numbers don't agree, but when I feel my body objectively with the numbers as a guide I see where my brain is being silly.  Numbers help measure a lot of things, I suppose even sanity.  And happiness is being sane.  Is that a good enough justification?"

"As Josh would say, 'You are a lawyers daughter.' But really, what we are trying to figure out is if we have finally come to a point where stepping on the scale is a healthy habit or not."

"I think we are finally there, at that healthy body and mind point.  The point where we can look at the numbers and feel where we are at physically and then make a mental note for progress if things are not so positive, or if they are unrealistically positive, keep it in perspective.  Fact is, I love my body and fully embrace the mom butt that I have.  Changing shapes is weird, and expensive (as we know from this past weekends second-hand shopping spree to size up into more wide hip loving shorts), but it is also part of learning grace in aging."

"Do we want to talk now about how we feel about getting old?"

"We'll save that one for later, for now let's just enjoy the run and the fact that measuring progress is part of who we are and what we like."

We Are Spartan - Family Style

April 26th was a long awaited date for this family.  I had given Josh the gift/challenge of entrance in the Indianapolis Sprint Spartan.  The gift was that I would train with him and run with him, the challenge was for us to train together (he is a morning man and I am not).  We fit it all in and planned an extra special day for the whole family.  My parents scheduled their annual trip out to visit us that same weekend so we could take the kids down and they could be the official photo takers.  My sister Jill joined us as well, she is going for a Trifecta of Spartans this year and we kicked off the season together.  It was my first race, Josh's second.  Our first Spartan race we signed up for in Arizona I got sick two days before so my older brother ran with Josh.  I have been jealous ever since.

It was honestly the most perfect weather or a race day.  It was not too hot, not too cold.  We certainly were not racing anywhere near Indianapolis, but if they had published the real podunck Indiana town in which we raced the whole world would have had no idea what region we were in (Midwest folks).  We raced at an ATV park, which is a perfect location for a Spartan! Plenty of hills and mud.  

 Our starting coral time was 9:45am.  We got there barely in time since we had driven down from Fort Wayne that morning.  I hate waiting for race starts anyway so I was grateful.  Jill was right to advise us to go at an early starting time so the course would not be as sloppy.  I loved it!  We started out running up and down wooded hills.  I felt like I was back home in the mountains.  As a kid our parents took us on tons of hiking trips, and like most kids, we got bored just walking so would often run the trails just to get the hike over with.  I still had the latent mountain goat skills for hopping up and down the slopes on sure footing.  We then swam through a creek and army crawled up a muddy hill under barbed wire.  Once past that obstacle course we headed over this bad boy:

 It gets a bit tricky walking on 2x4s when your shoes are sloshing, but on we went.  Around the lake until we got to this spidey thing:

After that we were in the hills for a good while running up and down creek beds and ravines, climbing over 10 feet walls, dragging cement on a chain, carrying 25lb sacks on our back, more walls, flipping over tractor tires, then back around to the main area where we tried to throw a javelin into a hay bale, which was the first obstacle I missed and had to do 30 burpees for, then hoisted 30lbs up to the top of this tower (which I thought was fun and finished before Josh and then went to help him):

Finally we ran past our kiddos, at the end of 4 miles of running and such, just to the last 3 obstacles; climbing up a rope, which I gave up on and just did the burps, then this wall, which I shamelessly cheated on by using the top of the wall and did not do burpees (using the excuse in my head that the kids were going to start their race soon).

 And lastly over this wall.  This was the only part of the race where I really just felt like crying.  Really, you want me to grip this slimly rope and walk up a slippery wall just so I can jump over fire on the other side?!  No way! I am exhausted.  I attempted once and then just waited and whined until Josh was on the other side and came to pull me over.

 Josh and I ran the whole race together which was a great push-me-pull-you collaboration.  I have much better endurance and he better strength.  I was happy to run through the middle and pushed him to run and he helped me get over big walls.  I can proudly say we did not walk any of the parts where we could run (sometimes you are bogged behind people and you can't help but walk) and we stayed together.  I think our finishing time was around 1hour 35minutes.  I set that as something to meet or beat someday but really don't care about our time, heck, we finished!

 Jill lost us back in the swamps and finished like a champ and 5th in her age division.

Not long after we finished our race, the kids were to start theirs.  I had to promise Josh that I would not talk about taking the kids to Disneyworld for a full year if he let me spend the money to enter them into this race.  I am glad I made the bargain because the kids absolutely adored this race and all the anticipation that surrounded it!  I signed them all up for the mile course, even though the official entry said only kids 7 and older could do the mile.  It was a half mile course repeated twice so I figured I would get them all starting together and if Danny and Viv wanted to opt out after the first lap, they could.

 Faith got herself literally at the front of the pack at the starting line. There were kids up to 12 years old, but she figured since she was one of the 5 seven year olds, she should have an advantage at the front.  She didn't remember that she had been instructed to stay with her siblings.  Ah well.  Let her take the advantage!  Josh was in charge of keeping an eye on Faith around the track and I went alongside Danny and Viv.  The two were so cute at being encouraging and helping each other.  Danny was a bit hesitant with the obstacles the first time around, but was totally fine the second time around.

 These mud pits were by far the kids' favorite part!  They would not stop talking about it, and I get it, I liked playing in the mud on purpose too!

 The second time over, the mud was so sticky that Danny lost his shoe.  It did not phase him at all!  He went right on running.  Lucky I was there where he left the shoe and dug around in the mud until I found it and put it on him later in the race to prevent puncture wounds.

 Here is their last obstacle - You can see that Viv is eying the finish line but being a supportive sister and waiting for Danny to get off.  They had gone around the course twice, what no other 5 and 6 year old would do!  I was mega proud of them.

 It was a fun day for us all as a family!  The kiddos loved that they got their own medal and head band and completed their first race.  We could all talk together about the shared experience and it was AWESOME!  I might even say more fun than Disney (but I will reserve that judgement until we get to go all together in another year).

At the end, for all the racers, they have a spraying station.  Just a lot of hoses and a lot of mud coming off people.  I skipped the power wash option and went back to the calmer hoses to strip my kids to their skivvies and wash them off.  I was glad to have Josh to tag team, as I got one down to the undies he would rap them in a towel and whisk them away behind a tree to clothe them, not that anyone cared about muddy little kids on this day. 

 Here we all are, all finishers!  What a Spartan Fam!

Fort-4-Fit 2013

This year for Fort-4-Fit was way better than last year!  First, I did not attempt the half-marathon distance with very little training.  Nor did I care to do the half-marathon course with its oh-so-discouraging uphill in the last three miles.  I did the 10K distance.  It was a lovely course.  I felt fantastic and met my goal.  I had been training with my wonderful friend Naomi and we ran the first half together.  Naomi is a budding runner and did fantastic.  We have slightly different paces but I wanted to make sure I didn't dart out the gate so was happy for Naomi's steady pacing in the beginning. I

There are several points in the race where there is just enough of a slope that you can see the sea of runners ahead of you.  Because I was just hanging with Naomi for the first few miles I enjoyed rolling along with the flow and could pull out my phone to take some photos en route!  I did feel strong enough to pick up pace around mile three.  It felt great knowing I wasn't going to bonk and I was able to pass all those people.  Considering I am a competitive person, this strategy was perfect for me, although it may have been disheartening for others that I jetted past on seemingly fresh legs.  I hate being passed.  Didn't get passed at all this year!  So very juvenile of me, but it was good for my ego. 

 I especially felt good (and this is the meanest part of my character coming right through) at the juncture point of the half-marathon course and the 10K.  At that point it is 4 miles in for 10K runners and mile10 for the half-marathoners.  I remember distinctly how much I hated that very unfair joining of races when I did the longer course last year.  I hated that I had just suffered up a hill and was getting a bit of mental capacity back just enough to want to keep a rabbit goal ahead when -WHAM!!- happy little skippy fresh 10K runners start to zoom on past.  It was no fun last year.  As the tables were turned this year, it was AWESOME!  I even merged right with a person from my Church who was plodding along.  I felt great, left him with some words of encouragement and skipped right along.  Fun race.  I met my time goal, which was based on the guessed pacing needed between running with Naomi and what I could make up on my own.  It felt fantastic, which is another good result.

Josh and the kids met me at the finish line. I could pick their little cheers out as I came down the home stretch to homeplate despite the large crowds.  There is a tuning very fine in a mother's ear that can hear her children through anything.  I loved it.  Then it was home and to making a new computer desk.  We shall see how Fort-4-Fit fits me next year!

Half Marathons half the country apart

This was January 28th in AZ.  My PR Half Marathon, and my first officially timed half.  It was a great experience and I was well prepared for it.

Fast forward to September 29th.  Outfit is pretty much the same but the race and results were vastly different.  We are int eh Midwest.  I lost a lot of my fitness since April and we have been crazy busy.  Depsite myself telling me that I was training enough, I certainly wasn't which made the race not so fun. 

The race itself was very nice.  Fort4Fit is a huge event and they plan it all really nicely.  It was fun to run through parts of the city I had not ever seen before.  We started just outside of our minor league baseball field and ended there, which was fun.  I jogged up to the start from our house, which was also a nice warm-up.  Then it all settled in.

Because of my finish from London's Run I was in corrall D, right behind the pace setter group for a 8 min mile pace.  I thought, I just need to keep that sign in view, I can do that.  I knew I could do that for 5 miles, I figured I could for 8 miles, but it was the dark side of 8 that passed me by.  

The first 4 miles were downhill.  It was glorious, the race had organized various churches to be motivating along the way, which it was.  I let myself stride out, even pass my little pace setter group.  I know I am not a consistent pacer, so I was gonna take the good times while they rolled.  Certainly there was the little voice in my head saying "What goes down must go back up."  The slope wasn't that bad so I figured it was just what had to be done.

The bottom miles 5-9 were flat and pretty consistent to me.  I was passed by the pace setter group, which I figured would happen, but I stuck in around a 9 min mile.  I kept resisting the urge to look at my watch to check pace - I knew that today would not be a normal race and I just needed to do my best and enjoy it (thanks to a women's cycle I was, well, iron deficient to say the least).  Josh had told me all day Friday to just enjoy it, go my own pace, and look around to enjoy the fall leaves.  His voice was with me and I had to look up and around, and was lovely surprised.  We ran through a gorgeous part on the bottom flats and over a golf course then started winding up through one of the historic districts of the city.  It was lovley.

They had set up a tracking device with our chips that would text our family at the start, miles 5, 10 and then the finish.  It was restorative to think of my family knowing where I was and sending little cheers, especially as I passed through that 10 mile gate.  The path was certainly starting to grade up and I had hit that second barrier of motivation.  At the first barrier I can send myself the semi-positive feedback of "well, it may be hard but you are still doing it" but by the second mental barrier things turn sour.  Luckily, I had a future event on which to spit and knash my teeth rather than just stop this race- I had set a goal of a full marathon in November and during this ranting hash the line "There is NO WAY I am ever going to run a full marathon again, that is stupid.  Your body was not made for this kind of distance.  NO WAY!  I am downgrading my race status as soon as I step in my door."  Pushing that negative energy somewhere at least got me through miles 11 and 12.  Despite the nice neighborhoods cheering us on, I doggedly kept my feet moving and drank in as much of the water provided at the stops and moved on.  At this point the pace setter for 8 min mile was long gone, as was my next rabbit - a guy dressed in a Ronald McDonald costume - hey if I can't beat America's fatty icon, I am in sad shape.  Yes, he was running for a good cause, for the Ronald McDonald House, but still.

By mile 12 you know you best just be angry and work the agression out to the finish line.  If you are gonna die, you will at least make it closer to the paramedics at the finish line.  Once you cross the finish you can stop running without wanting to kick yourself for being a quitter.  I cut 30 seconds off my last mile and sprinted out the last .2 around the baseball diamond.  It was a last ditch effort but I felt better having done it.  My one consolation was that the 9min pace setter group had not passed me - well they had but I caught them back in the last mile.  

In great contrast to London's run, at the end I was disapponted and hungry.  After London's I was elated and had plenty of energy to go to rehearsals for the rest of the day.  After Fort4Fit I just wanted to curl in a little ball and sleep for the rest of my life - and believe me, if that were a choice I would still go with it.  But I finished.  Just barely under 2 hours at 1:58, I finished.  I can see exactly a mile by mile comparison from one half to the next and what a difference there is!  I added on 8 minutes to my PR.  Well enough; that is the difference between training and a calm life and stress and little training, and about 10lbs.  There is a reason that runners stay skinny if they are fast, they kinda go hand in hand.  I don't harp on my weight, I do note that at the time of London's I was training according to the book 'Racing Weight" and it certainly made a significant difference.  This time I was training according to "Nancy's Lazy Commitment" regime which was coming off a bit cocky from January's hard work.  

Lessons learned.  Good news is I do have yet one more half marathon this year (I did come home and immediately downgrade my marathon run to half, and I am relieved.  I was gonna run it with my sister which would have made it bearable but knew all along that I wasn't gonna like it.  Why run if you ain't gonna like it?).  That gives me one more month to build on the strength I begrudedly got from doing Fort4Fit and then stay strong and fast through the winter with shorter runs.  Fact is 'at my age' you gotta keep it up or just plain let loose.  Whereas a vast majority of my jeans are not loose and neither is our budget, I best keep it up.

A little snarky and wanting to just curl up in a little ball right then but the kids wanted to dance on the grass to the band.  Being a mother really puts a 'cramp' in things sometimes.

Slow progress

I am to the point with all the projects etc.  that there is very small progress.  That is the most discouraging stage.  There is still a list of little thing to be done before all is completed, but you can't really tell the difference that it has been done until all the other little stuff has been done too!  Grr.   We have had to switch gears a couple of times now too...what with having to rush and get the upstairs apt livable within one week to have the Elders move in.  It is a really nice apartment and I would be lying if I said I didn't wish we could just adopt it all to be part of our house.  Although we have more than enough room as it is!

In fact, along with getting upstairs all fancied - we have been working in the basement too.  It is summer time now and the weather is hot.  The basement is cool though.  What better time to do projects in the basement than right now!  Also, we are getting some cheap carpet remnants for upstairs and the sales guy wanted to unload some bright yellow carpet remnants too!  BRIGHT YELLOW folks.  That pretty much had my name on it from the start.  Since it is 'just the basement' and temporary fix until we really finish out the basement, Josh has no problem with me putting bright yellow carpet all over the place.  I am happy just thinking about it...ohhh, it comes tomorrow.  In the meantime I am making slow progress getting everything organized down there.....I hate it when things don't have a proper home.

To top off this slow moving progress train, I have several amazing books in my reading repretoire.  However, I am making mega slow progress because I can't seem to get through a couple pages before I fall asleep - honking snores and all!  So not fair.  I am actually making the time to read the books because I need their information, but my brain is on turtle mode!  Not fair.  True, I like sleep, but I really like reading.  I hate having to fight my body on two fronts - "I want to read.'  "No! I want to sleep!"  The voices are getting louder, that's probably why I just shut off and ignore them both.

I won't even mention in this slowly made blog post how defeating it was to go on a 3 mile run this morning at my slowest pace EVER.  Progress...I went running.  Slow....that's just slow.

Moving on now...  steady wins the race.

'B' is okay

I am officially back into 'race season.' I set a couple goals about two months ago regarding myself and my fitness. We had finished out some finalization of medical decisions that involved my body and it was time to just reclaim my body as my own. So I researched and set my goals HIGH. I've got myself a pretty impressive race schedule through the next few months and I intend to preform my best.

I have to learn, however, that preforming my best doesn't always mean reaching a number that I set ahead of time. Prime example: my race yesterday.

I had run the 12Ks two years ago and placed 3rd in my age division. I had run a really slick race. To my estimation, there was no reason why I couldn't match my time from two years ago. What is the difference between 27 and 29? I had been doing really well this month and previous getting more and more fit thanks to Insanity and some additional running. I was on target with my optimal running weight thanks to some dieting. I had run a turkey trot 5K on Thanksgiving and pulled in an impressive time (won first woman over 25, actually first woman across the line and my sister was second, but I don't put much stock in that cuz it wasn't an official race just a neighborhood race and all the serious runners went were they could get a medal). Come Saturday I was all dressed up and prepped in my head that this was going to be a bubble-gum race.

The first 3 miles felt great. I found a great pace and I was humming along. I like the part of the course where you can fall into your niche and enjoy it. My handy Garmin was telling me the pace was doing great, slowing a bit per mile, but it was good to relax a bit. Mile four got a bit sluggish. That is when I generally have a slow before I get my second wind. I was fully expecting a second wind to come but I was just getting more and more winded.

That's when I got mad. WHAT! I am conditioned. I ran 8 miles just last week and it felt great. People started to pass me. My competitive edge kept pushing my body even as it slowed and slowed and told me STOP IT WOMAN!. I figured I just need to get a good drink in at the next water station. But where the dickens was that water station? More herds passed me and I swore I hated races and this was ridiculous. I felt as though I was pushing hard and I really couldn't be going that slow.

That is when I stopped and walked based on the facts. My heart rate was 185 bpm. That is 99% of my max heart rate! The word 'heart attack' flashed in my mind and I figured I couldn't cross the finish line if I had a heart attack right there. Some finish is better than facing the end. I walked until I got my heart rate down to 170. The rest of the race was a slow (to me) battle with pacing, racing, and living. You would have thought I was at mile 20 of a marathon (which I decided yet again I will never attempt again just based on the misery I was in in that moment) with the amount of mental battling I was going through. The baseline was I hadn't fueled my body correctly and it just didn't have anything more to pull from. So I bonked.

With each mile I had to move back my goal finish time. It was hard. It had seemed so attainable to catch my own PR from two years ago during the first half of the race. Then I pushed it back 5 minutes. Then a few minutes more. Dissapointedly, I passed the finish line 4 minutes over what had been my last set goal at the 10K mark. Exhausted, still battling to get my heart rate down from 180 where it kept creeping up despite walking two more times before the finish, I met my family at the finish line with only bitter words on my lips.

They kids of course were happy to see me, more so because they were worried why it had taken so long. I agreed, it had take so long. My ever positive husband noted that I had finished. Well, to me, a finish was not what I was running for. If I just wanted to finish a 12K I would have done it on my own and not worried about getting passed by a sea of santas. I didn't even need to check the score board - I saw at least 10 women my age smoke me. Argh. The competitive perfectionist in me just spit on the ground, on my shoes, on my gut, on my insides.

Josh could see I was not a happy finisher. With sternness in his eyes he looked straight into my soul and said "You have got to let a 'B' be good enough." Josh knows the pressure I have put on myself all my life. Some of it is due to the environment I grew up in, a family of over-acheivers. Yet, I have always downplayed the pressure that has still carried through to what I am and what I do now. I have noticed that the perfection driven, goal oriented, hard pushing move forward can often get in the way of just enjoying some of life's little victories. Too many times my accomplishments are chased with 'well,' 'but,' 'I could have,' and other cousins of the not quite good enoughs.

Yesterday I earned a B on my race. In school B is average. In life average is good. For me it can be good enough. It can be great to learn from myself and rejoice in what I am able to do! Sure, I do still have some pretty high and mildly adjusted goals for races in the coming months. Goals push me and motivate me, which is better than getting mired in the gutter. So I will rejoice in having completed the race and be grateful that my last dig through the ending miles is probably what attributed to that last half pound of optimum racing weight fat I was needing to shake off finally loosing its grip. One goal met, right.

12Ks = aprox 7.3miles = 1hour 4minutes = 8:50min/mile = B and I am happy with that.

post script: I was also fighting a head cold which flared into sinusitus after the race so perhaps the race was pushing my body a bit beyond the limit and that was why my lungs felt like they were ready to jump out of my body. but who ever let a little cold stop them?