While I love the flexability that comes with being a stay at home mom, if I’m not careful my entire day gets eaten up with no workout in sight. Today has been one of those days. Jeremy is headed off to some sort of investment meeting in a bit, but I’m hoping he’ll be home in time for me to get a run in before the sun goes down. All my usual babysitters are out on the town tonight! Hooray for them, but boo for me.

Lunch was super yummy today. Organic baby spinach topped with Gena’s Cucumber and Coconut Salad with Sweet Basil Dressing (That’s a mouthful) and some Thai seasoned white fish.

I’ve definitely been able to tell a difference in my hunger today, having eaten fish for lunch. It’s going on 5:00 now, and I’m usually headed into the pantry to look for something to spoil my dinner. Today though, I’m still full and can’t even begin to contemplate dinner. I’m thinking another Green Monster might be in order? (Any excuse.)

Happy Weekend!

Made it out the door first thing this morning for a run. Jeremy is going to the Brave’s game with his brother and dad today, and had some errands to run before heading to Atlanta, so we were on a bit of a tight schedule. I still got two really great miles in. I ran hard since I couldn’t run long. I’m feeling stronger now that I did when I was at the peak of training for my last half-marathon. I’m really looking forward to starting up a new training regimine in a few weeks to prepare for Zooma.

I got home and chugged down a Green (brown?) Monster.

Soy milk, ice, frozen banana, cherries, flax, and chocolate protein powder, three big handfuls of spinach. Delish. My To Do list is a mile long, but I’m going to fit in some of Wag’s famous abs a little later on.

To Do:

transfer email address book

laundry

scrub kitchen floors

abs

500 words TBM

freelance inquiries

groceries!

I recently read an article that talked about, among other things, how difficult it is to stay motivated and focused when your goals are scattered.  For me, that’s not news. It’s not a light bulb moment or an a ha! It’s a thing I know and have known, and yet continue to ignore. How can I possibly focus on one thing? For starters, triathlon is three sports. For another, I need to lose these 25 pounds to be a good triathlete. I want to practice yoga.  And also, there are all these other non-fitness things I want to do. I want to write and I want to take pictures and I want to learn this and that and the other thing. So much to do and think about!

Again and again, though, I see how that fractured concentration has affected all of my goals. So, I’ve decided that April will be a test month for me. I’ve set myself a goal and it goes like this.

I want to make my yoga practice a priority in April. I never feel as good as when I’m practicing regularly, so my April goal is to practice yoga daily.  At the end of April, well, we’ll see what happens then. I hope a little time off running will give my body a chance to recover from the strain of training for a half-marathon. I hope a month of yoga will make that a habit so that I can focus on my other goals. (Did I mention those 25 pounds?)

A part of that goal is journaling my success and (hopefully infrequent) failures.  I hope you’ll share it with me.

I took my bike over to the Oconee River Greenway this morning for a quick ride. I mostly just wanted some fresh air and to see if the greenway would be a good option for pulling my son Hogan in his bike trailer. It’s a mixed use path, and I’m not familiar with the layout, so I didn’t get up too much speed and didn’t really have a chance to get aero, but it was still a really fun ride.

Until a man attacked me with his car door.

The grounds crew was there working and as I rounded a corner, I realized they’d parked their big truck right in the middle of the path. I slowed down and moved as far to the right as I could, and just as I got to the truck, the man inside opened the door. My options were to hit the truck or hit the ground, so I bailed out into a pile of mulch. My first thought was for my bike, poor Prongs!, and then then I realized I’d just crashed in front of a big group of men, none of whom seemed too eager to help me up.

After assuring myself that nothing (on my or the bike) was broken, I stood up, dusted myself off, picked some bark out of my skin and, with an audience of a dozen, flipped my bike over and got my chain back on. It definitely bruised my pride more than anything else. I did get about 45 minutes of riding in before the fall though, and only had a brief moment of panic setting out. I’m still getting accustomed to riding on my own.

So, that’s my first fall out of the way. Seventy or eighty zillion to go, I reckon.

You won’t notice me as I line up with the back of the pack at the local 5k this weekend. You might notice my son, tucked into his running stroller in his bright orange “I Know You Can Do it” shirt. You might even offer him a high five, which he will gladly return. But you won’t notice me. I am neither the fastest or the slowest. I am not running in a costume, or the finest and newest in running apparel. I am not the heaviest or the thinnest. I will never be on your leader board. You won’t hear my name at the awards ceremony. You will not notice me this weekend.

I was never a runner. A singer, a cheerleader, an actress, a math nerd, yes.  But a runner? No. That was my sister. She played basketball, and she did it well. And in the off-season, she ran cross country and track to stay in shape. In the off season. Three miles a day, three or four days a week. Three miles? My God, I couldn’t imagine. Too much like work, as far as I was concerned.

I married young, when I was twenty three. My husband and I were desperately in love, happy and carefree. Three days after we returned from our honeymoon, I went to the doctor for a routine visit. I was a newlywed, relaxed and tan, and when the doctor began rattling off alphabet soup to her nurse, I didn’t think twice about it. CBC, T4, they meant nothing to me. I was the very definition of ten feet tall and bullet proof.

Six months later, after countless blood tests, uptake scans, ultrasounds, and biopsies, I underwent a partial thyroidectomy for a lump on my thyroid that almost certainly wasn’t cancer.

Only it was.

It was two different types of thyroid cancer, both aggressively attacking my lymph nodes, but fortunately very treatable. Two surgeries and a round of radiation later, I was on my way with a prescription for Synthroid and a clean bill of health. I told everyone I was fine. I thought I was fine. I was far from it.

Cancer changes you. My body had attacked me, so I attacked it back. I ate whatever I pleased, whenever I pleased. I was self destructive. I reveled in feeling poorly, paying my body back for what it had done to my spirit. Depression settled in, and the weight piled on. At the time, I didn’t realize how bad it was but looking back, I’m shocked I was able to keep from my family how very, very sad I was. After three long years and a very difficult pregnancy, I realized something had to change. I was sick and tired of the way I looked, sick and tired of the way I felt. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I easily talked myself out of doing anything rash, like joining a gym or changing my eating habits. But I did begin to walk. I strapped my son into his bulky stroller and walked around my neighborhood every day. I did it while my husband was at work; I didn’t want witnesses to my huffing and puffing. When I began having trouble getting out of bed because of my sore legs though, I had to let my husband in on my secret. He was immediately supportive, loading my closet with new running clothes and nudging me towards the door when I began talking myself out of my walks. A few weeks later, a shiny new running stroller arrived at our door. I laughed because running? Me? I don’t think so.

Slowly though, I did begin to run. At first it was just one lap, not even three quarters of a mile, around our neighborhood. Then two laps, then three. I can’t even remember who first suggested that I run a 5k, whether it was me (certainly not) or my husband or my sister, who began to run with me and take it in turns to push the stroller, but on June 23, 2007, I lined up to run my first 5k. I was nervous and uncertain and downright terrified. My sister stood beside me, prattling on so I wouldn’t have to talk.

We finished the race in 47 minutes. It hurt, and I was miserable, but as soon as I finished, I knew I’d run another.

And I did. I ran half a dozen 5ks, then decided to move up to a 10k. It was the best run of my life, and before I knew it, I had registered for a half marathon. On February 10, 2008, exactly three years after being declared cancer free, I finished the Mercedes-Benz half marathon in just over three hours. I finished with tears streaming down my face.

I started running to change my body. I kept running because it changed my soul.

My friend Angela is always telling me to take baby steps. I tend to rush into things without looking, expecting perfection of myself, setting myself up for failure. I finally took her advice and changed my life.

And somehow, when I wasn’t even looking, I became a runner.