Archives for 2016

marathon monday: october recap

November 1, 2016

Whew, October was PACKED. With lots of great things, brimming with joy, a nice mix of work and play, but WOW. We have stayed busy every day of every week.

Oh of course, Happy Halloween! We have already been seizing every chance to celebrate, so around here today feels more like a calm, creepy finale than the sugar-coated crescendo. We have been dressing up repeatedly all month, crawling through haunted forests, attending fabulous parties, watching scary movies alone and with friends (particularly once outside here at the farm), you name it. Around here, Halloween is a month long event, just how we like it!

stabby

Okay, fitness and wellness. What’s up!

I got new shoes! Two pairs of Brooks arrived in the mail as gifts from my husband, one gently used pair intended for trails (Pure Flow 2) and one brand spanking new pair designated for road running (Pure Flow 3). I am in shoe heaven.
I have gradually picked up both my “easy” pace and my “hard effort” pace, which means that my heart and lungs are getting stronger. I have been reading tons about running efficiency so this makes me happy. My capillaries are brilliant little rocks stars, ok?
ALSO! I have enjoyed several fast runs that totally surprised me. Several sprints (400 meters) faster than 7 minutes, plus one day a five mile run at just slightly slower than that. This kind of progress is even more exciting than weight loss!

could-not-do

Strength training is stuff I do alone here at the farm using 15-20 pound hexagon weights, and I am convinced it all is helping me run better. My stomach and arms feel really tight but also bendy and comfortable, which helps a lot. Oh, have you heard that a strong posterior can make you better at sprinting? Haha, yes. It’s true.
Continuing to take multivitamins and high-potency, slow-release iron makes a big difference in how I feel day to day.
Very little dieting anymore! I love knowing how I am going to feel after eating certain meals, and I love knowing calmly how to put carbs, proteins, and all kinds of other foods to good use. Not at all in a punishment kind of way, just as a way of looking within myself (mind and body) and understanding what’s going on.

Training Log:

Oct 3-9: 39 miles total. That week’s highlight was no longer being quite sick like the week before, haha, and also focusing on lots of farm work. I felt revitalized!

Oct 10-16: 26 miles total, including more aggressive speed workouts, also twice as many strength sessions and lots of evening foam rolling. That week Miss Velvet (Klaus’ mom) was visiting the farm, so I avoided leaving the dogs alone too long.

Oct 17-23: 36.5 miles total. My big happy event that week was running 12 miles at an 8:08 pace. That would lead to a pretty decent half marathon for me, close to an hour and 45 minutes! I continued running that day to finish with 18.5 miles total (latter miles slower = positive splits), but those first 12 were at a pace that was quick for me, without really trying.! I was on a high for several hours. It felt like my body was wrapped in twinkle lights.

Oct 24-30: 44 miles total. I switched up the training plan weeks a couple of times and somehow landed with the perfect amount of miles at the perfect time for my body. It was magical. After spending last Monday through Wednesday on longer speed workouts (9, 5 plus strength, 10) and one decent rest day, I went out for my Friday morning long run feeling strong. I was also down about 8 pounds, which was unexpected but helped me feel light and comfortable. The plan that morning was 20. I started slowly on purpose, thinking of how cool it would be to get negative splits finally. My body needed a break (hello Shark Week) at 15 miles (which were finished at a 9:40 pace) so I drove home and ate a snack then finished some housework and animals chores. I laced up again and wrapped up the day with 5 more miles, this time at a 7:12 pace which is REALLY good for me! It felt like flight! I could not wipe the smile off of my sweaty, sand-crusted face. I was so so so happy. Running double workouts is not my ideal plan, but life and female health can be complicated, and sometimes this just works out beautifully.

October Total: 145.5 miles

party-kids

I am so happy with how October went! After a successful but challenging September I briefly considered halting marathon training in favor of some more aggressive weight loss efforts but decided that running makes me way too happy, and it had already brought me so far in that goal, anyway. I will stick this out a few more weeks (on the downhill slope!) despite not being registered for any races in November. Speaking of November, here are some thoughts and plans:

Looking Ahead to November:

I have a step back week started already (six today plus strength), during which I will also try to kick a couple of naughty eating habits. It’s good timing, because lots of miles often means a crazy appetite. Running less this week should immediately cool my cravings a bit. Gina at Fitnessista is hosting a quick and easy 7-day focus group, and I like it. Nothing drastic, just healthful encouragement and a big focus on what she calls “eating like a PRO,” which is including both PRO-duce and PRO-tein in each meal. I am also excited to try a few new workout ideas with her.

Next, November is the traditional month for Monica at Run Eat Repeat to host Pile on the Miles, so if you are jonesing for a fun and measurable way to aim for higher mileage before the holiday gluttony, check it out.

After this step back week and a taper week during which we will be traveling, I plan to see how I feel then arrange a 26.2 run around a local lake. Friends! Run with me! If you do I will invite to the farm for a recovery meal and party.

Okay! Happy Halloween friends, take care of yourself and carpe all those beautiful diems!

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can’t carry it with you if you want to survive
~Florence and the Machine
XOXOXOXO

love transcends criticism

October 23, 2016

A small church a few miles from our farm uses their roadside marquee to keep passersby encouraged. They display an unpredictable mix of scripture, wit, political commentary, and undemanding inspirational messages. You know the drill. It’s always sweet and well intentioned, sometimes funny. The messages are never preachy, not really. Sometimes they spell words wrong, but this only starts great conversations.

This week one side of the brick and mortar marquee offers a message that resonates with me as a woman, a mother, a friend, a wife, and just the person living inside my own head and body.

Love accomplishes what criticism can only wish for.

I believe so firmly that Love is an actual power, that it is much more than an emotion or idea, even more than the actions we manage to take. Love is a sovereign, pulsing, ocean-crossing, universe-binding power that we cannot diminish, no matter what we do or fail to do.

open-road-blue-skies

railroad-track

mural

I don’t have a lot more to say except that this was a message well timed for me.

Happy end of the weekend, friends! However you spend it I hope it’s exactly what you need. And whatever you are doing to participate in Love, I hope you trust that your efforts and intentions matter. Trust that every little seed we cast in the right direction will find purchase. Love is infinitely more powerful than criticism. It is nourishing and constructive. It is trans-formative.

I’ll take a cue from our neighborhood church and resist the urge to be (any more) preachy.

Your task is not to seek for love
but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
~Rumi
XOXO

all these octobers

October 13, 2016

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts this week intrigued me for a reason that was difficult to articulate even to myself, until I did the work. She asked us to share what we had blogged about this time last year, and the year before, etcetera. After taking a look I realized that this month of seasonal transition has historically delivered quite a punch. Just when Oklahoma’s weather is mellowing out and the gardens are slowing to an easy pace, I get my own personal little hurricane season. It’s not all been bad or painful, of course; sometimes change is exactly what we need. And even pain can be fruitful.

2015

October last year was like emotional excavation. I remember loving the outdoors daily and feeling aware of my age but happy. Klaus was growing fast and Jocelyn was settling into a new chapter in Colorado, and I was all about the slow decay of nature, the passage of time. I was dreaming heavily about Jessica, just as I am this October. This post called Lovelier Than Perfection was short and sweet. But then a strong wave of nostalgia and empty-nest pain crashed into me and I wrote this. A month before some stuff had happened in our marriage that caused such deep and lasting hurt between us that I can hardly believe it was a full year ago. Remember the Super Moon? It more or less coincided with those events that are still a tender bruise to us. Or at least to me. And October was when I started releasing it all. Whew.

joc sunset dusty

2014

October two years ago was when our tomcat Geoffrey got stuck. It was also when Jocelyn was visiting the farm and we made some pretty gorgeous memories like the ones shared here. As happens when the weather changes, I also had to claw my way out of the pit of deep despair and back into the light. But I was also baking these cookies and reminiscing about early motherhood and my Grandpa. See? HURRICANE.

flourless peanut butter cookie recipe

2013

October 2013 was when we lost my husband’s mother. Hers was a sudden death, though she had not been well or happy (stress-free) for a long time. The years and months and days and hours since have been a mix of pain and healing, anxious awareness of stress levels and heart health (my husband’s in particular), and filling the many holes left by grief that big. That same month, of course, we tried to rally our spirits to help my parents celebrate a milestone wedding anniversary, and my goodness how life has tested them in the few years since. October 2013 was hard. Beautiful in the ways that helped us survive, but hard.

2012

The October before that, we hosted a really fun family dinner here at the farm to celebrate my Dad’s 55th birthday! We all laughed hard with each other and ate lasagna with all the trimmings followed by a butter-pecan layer cake with cream cheese frosting. I love my Dad so much and hope we get to celebrate his birthday again this year! Fingers crossed that he just cannot live without this cake again.

Also in 2012 was a pretty memorable book club event that included an out of town guest author, Jen Luitweiler She drove all the way from Tulsa to the farm to meet most of our group at that time and answer a thousand-hundred-million questions about her book Run With Me. We ate and talked and listened and ate and smiled until it hurt. (I feel like pointing out that this was a several months before I started training for my first half marathon! Long time ago. Ancient history.)

Even Earlier…

Going back much further would plunge us into pre-blogging Octobers and a family life that was filled with a mix of volleyball and homework, suddenly vacant little girl bedrooms, an abundance of friendships to distract us, newborn babies, road trips, fledgling gardens, rent houses and used car purchases, art projects, slumber parties, and terrifying hospital stays. Not in that order. I kind of wish I had been blogging all along, just to digest again the best and worst parts of life.

As much as I crave and relish the details of any big season change, clearly it tends to be a mixed blessing. And that’s okay. For all its difficulties, life continues to look and feel more beautiful every October.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane, Kat! See you on Snap-Chat. You are so cute as the deer.

“We write to taste life twice,
In the moment and in retrospect.”
~Anais Nin
XOXOXOXO

pleasure list from tuesday

October 5, 2016

Nothing fancy. Just lots and lots of every day pleasures with remembering.

A clean, light-filled house with silly-scary Halloween decorations. Which is extra funny, knowing that we actually do have ghosts here.

Yawning, snuffly horses. Smooth-bellied boys eager to snuggle.

My favorite hen with almost no feathers left. Her name is Shoulder Chicken. She is highly optimistic.

Winds of change mid-morning and again in the afternoon. Shady running trail with broken twigs in the grass and sand. Eight miles of pure bliss.

Lantana blossoms changing from mostly yellow to mostly red, but the leaves are still green.

Freshly shampooed hair, sore thighs, abundant energy.

Carving a pumpkin I grew myself and (for the first time in years) not crying over Halloweens long gone. This empty nest is filling up with contentment about today and peace with the past.

pumpkin

Roasting those pumpkin seeds, pureeing that pumpkin meat, and then randomly baking banana bread with chocolate chips because I couldn’t stand to do something ordinary with that gorgeous bowl of orange. Yes to Greek yogurt and sea salt in the banana bread.

Making beef enchiladas from scratch while listening to Awolnation loud. Remembering brilliant hikes at Gem Lake. Loving all the fresh air right here in Oklahoma.

Roasting Anaheim peppers until the vapors sting my eyes.

Finding two of my favorite necklaces on my dresser, untangled.

Seeing new happy photos of my girl in Colorado, horseback, loving her pup, living her life.

Scooping dry manure into the empty herb garden, dreaming of what will grow there next.

Hydrangea soft and perky again after being watered.

Denim blue skies streaked with grey. Black clouds and bursts of metallic sun.

Satisfying belly laughs watching the SNL rerun about the Presidential debates. They basically said all the best things. All hail.

Reading weird little paragraphs that leave me wondering how much can actually be lost in translation only to land on a sentence that resonates. Ah there it is.

Friends, happy Tuesday night. I hope you are having such a delicious, interesting, soul-nurturing day. Around here I am physically and emotionally overwhelmed to stop and count all the pleasures. All the answered prayers too, although that’s not what I’m talking about today. Ok maybe a little.

“While it does embrace spirit,
it is most accurately described as a way of life,
distinguished by the ready accessibility
of happiness and love.”
~Don Miguel Ruiz
XOXOXOXO

a week’s worth of links worth sharing

October 1, 2016

Before we read, let’s laugh:

If that doesn’t work, let’s try apple cider vinegar. Or maybe some essential oils.

How to be a Morning Person by Marisa Mohi. Marisa is another member of Oklahoma Women Bloggers, and she and I are becoming fast friends. At least in my mind. She might be reading this and weaving her head slowly left and right in a freaked-out, hey back off lady kind of way. Whatever. We are both quite good at Snapchat and she writes smart, interesting stuff weekly. This is just one example.

Farro-Apple-Mozzarella Salad by Sandy the Reluctant Entertainer. As always, Sandy offers a mouth-watering recipe right alongside some deep, relatable emotions and a healthy dose of wisdom. I love her spirit. Sandy and her husband have recently moved to a small mountain cabin (remind you of anyone?) and are focusing on downsizing their material world so they can maximize their life. This has been a huge motivation for me here at the farm. Beautiful stuff.

Holly’s Farmhouse Tour by Allison at Refunk My Junk. YOU GUYS. Love. Just when I abandon all the crazy colors here and dive deep into charcoal and gold. But still.

Secrets of People Who are Always Full of Energy by Apartment Therapy. As someone who is normally bursting with energy (not this week, it has been a sickly week for me) I wholly support each of the suggestions here. Seven great daily commitments to make to your own well-being.

Six Month Novel Writing Plan Maybe one of the reasons I feel such joy with marathon training is that it teaches the power of a structured, long-term plan. It changes an impossible-seeming dream into a realistic, even an appetizing goal. Now to get this book out of my head and onto paper.

Lactate Threshold What it is and how it can make you faster. Yes, a running article. The author explains tempo runs in a way that really clicked for me, and she explains the science behind that deeply cleansing sensation of a long, slow run. Our bodies are amazing.

Speaking of amazing, let’s try this soon! Coffee Granola Clusters. Okay.

This cute slide show 18 Lessons You Learn When Dating a Girl Who Loves Her Dog made me think of our beautiful baby in Colorado. She is devoted to her pup Bridget and Bridget is devoted to her, and dating boys never interferes with that, ha.

Thank you for checking in, friends! What have you been reading?

“I get sad every time I hear a person say I don’t read.
It’s like saying I don’t learn or
I don’t laugh or
I don’t live.”
~Unknown
XOXOXOXO