Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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marathon monday week four: wellness is about your whole self

This past week was the fourth of an eighteen week cycle for preparing for a late November marathon, and overall I am feeling fantastic. I went into week four knowing it was Shark Week for me (sorry guys, if you don’t know what that means, I bet you’re guessing correctly now), in addition to a heavy little season for me personally. Just had some personal stuff going on. I knew it all would be happening at the same time, the intense emotions and the hormones and the attendant physical exhaustion. No doubt, I was grateful to have the freedom to run and tend to my well-being in the midst of it all. So grateful. Knowing how to care for yourself and being free to do so is the best feeling. Running covers all the bases, you know? Emotional, hormonal, muscular, aerobic, imaginative. Everything feels better after a good run. After a few days of good running? Well, that’s partly why it’s addictive. 

Looking at the previous three weeks, I saw a nine mile total deficit. I had been feeling pretty good and was mentally satisfied because running was consistently in balance with the rest of life. But the nine mile deficit was eventually bugging me so last Sunday night I had this bright idea to “use” those extra nine miles in the coming week to battle emotional and physical fatigue. It’s funny how this actually works, the relationship between exertion and relaxation, the therapy of sweat. I am crazy for it.

Well, haha, that most optimistic intention was great for exactly three days. I tacked on extra miles Monday through Wednesday and was feeling spectacular. By Thursday my tune had changed, so I was even happier to have run ahead of schedule early in the week.

EARBUDS LOL

Monday: Six miles on the treadmill, easy pace. I actually was so sad and distracted that morning that I had to run three, take a break for water and a handful of grapes (somehow this helped me collect my thoughts), then finish with three more. I felt completely better by the end of the hour. Ready to really start the week’s various work.

Tuesday: Eight extremely sweaty miles at the Harrah loop. Very happy. Decent pace. Stayed busy at the farm the rest of the day.

Wednesday: Six miles at home again, this time around the back field, nice and early in the morning. We had an electrician appointment set for mid-morning, so that motivated me to lace up immediately after morning chores and be showered and dressed before my own breakfast. After the repairs I worked around the house and on writing projects all day, which was restful and productive, then Handsome and I met friends for an early dinner. I overindulged a little with chips and quesadillas but probably burned it all off laughing. We love our friends! Good people are good for the soul. They might not know what I was dealing with emotionally in those days, but laughing with them was so helpful.

Thursday: My energy plummeted on Thursday and I was hurting a lot. I skipped a workout in order to funnel all of my energy to the house, farm, and errands in town. All of that kept me busy enough. I honestly had to make a huge effort just to get through the day. Later I amazed myself by falling asleep before sunset, ha. Sometimes it cannot be helped, and on these days I try to talk to myself the way I would talk to one of my daughters in the same condition. No reprimanding, just compassion and encouragement. These days are rare. Life goes on.

Friday: Rest day. I had a gardeners’ meeting in OKC Friday morning, too early to squeeze in a run first, then Handsome and I went on a lunch date together and on a short series of errands on the way back to the farm. I had already planned on this being a rest day, complete with shampooed hair (kind of a big deal for me); I just hadn’t planned on it being the week’s second consecutive rest day. So I was beginning to feel twitchy and guilty about straying from my “extra miles” plan. Oh well. The day was happy and our food was delicious then we rested at home together with lots of love. Win.

Saturday: I woke up well before sunrise to get caffeinated and dressed for a long run, drove to the Harrah loop, and thoroughly enjoyed eleven miles. It felt so great to be in the cool air, watch a slow, colorful daybreak, and build up that deep inner heat for a long time. I was feeling like myself again, magically, which is just the way Shark Week works. I got home with a bag of donuts for Handsome and was on cloud nine to be “reset.” We enjoyed the rest of the day together. So much. xoxo

Sunday: I ended up staying un-sweaty and hung out with my guy for a long day of walking around the zoo, which was so beautiful. We hadn’t toured the zoo in warm weather for years! For some reason we have been visiting only in January, really ever since we bought this farm. It’s weird. After the zoo we lingered over lunch at Hollie’s Flat Iron Grill. I had a most excellent hamburger loaded with smoked hatch peppers and was happy.  Afterwards we stopped at a local Mexican market where I found a bunch of delicious treasures. Have you seen the mini watermelons? My nutrition by Sunday night was pretty excellent. 

Then on Monday morning the chickens ate breakfast out of the tiny watermelon rinds.

Weekly total: 31, my exact mileage plan. Had I not tacked on extra miles Monday through Wednesday, I would have missed the mark by a lot and been more frustrated. More importantly, I might have felt even worse on Thursday and Friday or not coped well with those difficult emotions earlier in the week. In the scheme of things, this was all a pretty mild fare to pay for being a healthy woman of child bearing age. Ha. Also, it bears mentioning, yoga is so helpful. Do yoga, friends. Eat well, run a lot, and do yoga. 

I am so happy and grateful to be on a roll, to be building this momentum finally. As I type this, week five has already started great. How are you doing? What habits do you keep in your life to stay feeling good and cope in healthy ways with hard emotions?

“Eliminating the things you love is not wellness.
Wellness feeds your soul and makes you feel good.”
~Iman
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

zinnias reminding me that sometimes one effort is everything

This past week I spent a full afternoon nibbling away at a some animal chores and gardening tasks then decided kind of spur of the moment to thin the zinnias growing wild in our east facing flower bed. If you grow zinnias in full sun and give them a few drops of water with even a passing glance of affection, they will progress from a tasteful ruffle of happy color to a Jumanji-esque no-man’s land that is, for all its cheerfulness, impossible to honestly call “tame.” Even our concrete-pooping geese have recently grown troubled by the not hostile but still complete zinnia takeover. The east facing flower bed has been vaulting up flowers four feet tall in stands almost as thick. While generally I believe that more is  more, a thinning was in order.

How the bed started back in May of this year.
How the bed started back in May of this year. Tasteful, right? Ha. Not for long.

The tender-woody stalks pulled up from the ground pretty easily, with just a little muscle, and because zinnias are so friendly and good spirited in general, the exiting roots did no discernible damage to the remaining plants. Classy move, zinnias, very classy. I quickly amassed a thick, weightless heap of confetti-dotted flower stalks, all still buzzing with bumblebees and vibrating with butterflies, their root balls shaken free of most of their dirt but still crumbling down more. I started collecting seed heads for a future garden and made a mental note to feed the rest to our chickens. 

Really the size of the stack of stalks was stunning. (Sorry.) Even after having cut dozens of flower bouquets from this exact area all summer, in a few minutes I had pulled up hundreds of new blooms. Wow. How many zinnia stalks could be here?

To satisfy my curiosity, I separated the pulled up stalks neatly and counted them. All of that fluffy, velvety, life-giving plant material had grown from just nine rootballs, which were the products of only nine skinny little seeds. A few months ago nine inexpensive seeds found purchase in fairly average soil, germinated in the Oklahoma sun and rain, and grew pair after pair of perfect leaf sets. Then those taller and taller stalks yielded dozens of colorful, striped and spotted, pollen-shedding flowers for weeks. Months! They just seemed to grow bigger and badder every week. We can see them from inside the living room too, a vibrant wall of color and wildlife.

And, yeah, I get that plenty of seeds might have been scattered that did not germinate and grow into a gorgeous, wild garden, but look how few it took to get here! It makes me so deeply happy.

pile of zinnias

This is how the stack of harvested zinnias looked about three days later. Crispy and faded, still amazing me that all this and more happened from just nine little seeds. These are now headed to the chicken coop along with some fresh herbs for the nesting boxes. 

I know there are too many times in life when we feel so discouraged and defeated that we never want to try anything new again. Or we are so done persevering with even normal, easy stuff because something always seems to go wrong. Giving that One Amazing Worthwhile Thing another ounce of our valuable energy sounds like the most painful, wasteful idea. 

Thank goodness zinnias are here to remind us that even small, average efforts, cheap seeds planted in unamended soil, can yield incredible, ongoing beauty.

How are your gardens looking mid-August? Are you beginning to thin some areas a little, or are you glancing forward to fall? Are you just trying to keep everything hydrated, haha?

How is the condition of your heart, your willingness to keep trying and maintaining faith that sometimes small, average efforts are what will make all the difference in your life? Keep up all the good work you are doing, friends. Keep living those daily and seasonal routines that you know will flower later. Keep planting seeds of kindness in relationships, and trust that you are not required to work miracles yourself. We aren’t actually the ones who sprout the seeds, right?

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

 

midweek gratitude for the small things that are really quite big

If ever I feel a wave of ordinariness, I need only take a look at the snapshots on my phone to remember how richly textured my life is. Yours too, I would bet my favorite apron.

 

new watremelon

Handsome surprised me with this oblong beauty the same day I hinted (not subtly) on Facebook about my cravings. His coworker and our friend Dennis gets partial credit for this joy, since he actually alerted my husband to both my FB post and the roadside watermelon stand near their office. 

klaus swim cuddle

This has been a glorious summer for swimming, and Klaus has made great strides with his enthusiasm and dexterity in the water. My reading list might be suffering a bit, but for good reasons. No complaints. No regrets.

Goonies

A small group of friends gathered at the farm last weekend for an outdoor showing of Goonies. We also swam with kids and dragonflies, counted stars, played chicken fight and Marco Polo in the pool, and ate so much popcorn plus barbecued meats. Suddenly barbecued meats, that is, because just as the party got started our freezer blinked out hard and we discovered about half a month’s worth of previously frozen meat thawing rapidly. 

sunflowers august 2016

Follow the sun, okay? xoxo

batman baby

My favorite batman making friends with a little baby boy named Hudson, named for the river with eyes to match.
This was taken at a recent charity event in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

joc jess b & w babies

And of course my two favorite girls in this entire universe. Nineteen years ago my first baby became a big sister and my heart doubled in capacity with intense love for my second and final baby. This actual glossy photo is on my nightstand, and whenever I see it I have to pick it up. I can smell their velvety ears and cheeks.I  can feel the bendiness of Jessica’s infant backbone and the tautness of her milk-filled belly. I can remember how fine Jocelyn’s hair was, how much she loved to wrap her legs around me for a hug.

The days are long but the years are short. That never ends. Let’s soak up every detail, friends.

XOXOXOXO

fitness update: early august 2016

Hello cool people! Let’s chat about fitness. Although I am posting this on a day other than “Marathon Monday” or even “Motivation Monday,” I feel the itch to sort of bookmark some fitness plans and progress. Blogging schedules are a bit out the window lately, ha.

Overall I feel so amazing, bodily and emotionally. If I had to sum all of it up in one word, that word would be “balanced.” But let’s use more than one word. That’s more fun.

So much good news! My sprained ankle is fully healed. My knees have not been tender for weeks. Those stitches are removed from my pinky, all healed. My actual weight seems to be fluctuating a little still, between 1-8 pounds week to week or even day to day, but no worries. Physically I am strong and flexible and brimming with energy. I always wake up feeling able to do literally anything that comes to mind, and come to think of it my mind is more settled than ever. I feel so much gratitude for my health and general fitness, without those normally attendant “how do I look in these jeans” side notes. It’s a great place to be. I love my life so much, from all the cool stuff I get to do to what I choose to eat, but mostly for the people in it and every wonderful thing in the middle. Being skinny is so much less important to me than all this joy; and somehow, because the Universe is so good, all of these patterns are gifting me quite a deep well of vibrant health. If I slim down naturally in the process, so be it. If not, let’s keep carpe-ing the diems anyway!

healthy happy

 

To capitalize on all of this positive energy, I am working on creating some equally positive inertia. With my gaze set lightly on a full marathon the weekend before Thanksgiving (no commitment quite yet), I have started an 18-week training program. It feels so great to build consistency. Here is how the very beginning of this cycle has gone:

Week One: Total mileage this week was 21 miles. My “easy and sustainable” pace is improving, lately around 9 minutes per mile. This pace might not be anything impressive to you, but for me, after so much time off and compared to when I was first running, this is wonderful. Sometimes I run slower, and often I get silly and run sprints much faster; but that is just to play around. Most miles fall pretty close to 9 minutes, and as the weeks pass of course mileage will increase. Yay for building endurance again! The best thing I noticed in week one is that mentally I feel more refreshed than I have in a while. I finally smile a lot more while running! 

One day while I was driving to Harrah to run, this lime and this avocado rolled across the floorboard of my car. I did not buy them. How they got in my car is a mystery. A delicious, vitamin-packed mystery. Had they been there since 1963 when the car was built? No one knows. I sliced them and added them to a really big green salad topped also with grilled steak. The End.
One day while I was driving to Harrah to run, this lime and this avocado rolled across the floorboard of my car. I did not buy them. How they got in my car is a mystery. A delicious, vitamin-packed mystery. Had they been there since 1963 when the car was built? No one knows. I sliced them and added them to a really big green salad topped also with grilled steak. The End.

Week Two: I spent most of last week prepping for and then enjoying a luscious trip to Colorado with Jocelyn. I did manage to grab an easy run here and there, we went on two uniquely challenging hikes together, and I stretched plenty. It was a deeply loving little getaway for which I am so grateful. (I’m really proud of her healthy lifestyle and steady mind, too.) My nutrition was good while there, including all the rice-and-bread heavy Nepalese food she thrusted into my hungry, grateful face, ha. It was all spicy and delicious. I ended week two with 20.5 comfortable miles and felt both invigorated and sore the day after flying home. Very good. Very good indeed.

On our first full day together, she led me on a rock scrambling adventure. I am in LOVE with this! It is so fun.
On our first full day together, she led me on a rock scrambling adventure up a different side of a mountain we climbed last April. I am in LOVE with this. SO FUN!

 

Week Three: Back at the farm now, I am still on track with the plan. I grabbed three miles yesterday and five miles today, both runs around our back field, and just enjoyed being home. I sweated like a tropical beast in the Oklahoma humidity and at the top of each happy lap drank up the sight of our green, glassy pond. Since Handsome is also tying to eat well (healthfully, not starvation-aly) it’s been pretty easy to stay on track with nutrition. I feel great. The rest of the week has me running just 3, 5, & 6 miles, with some cross training mixed in. My favorite cross training to do at home is barre. I just find videos on You Tube so far. And of course staying caught up around the farm is helping me stay active and flexible, do some strength work, etc. Happy, healthy life, right? It’s wonderful to sit down less and less and to keep up with projects at the same time.

 

next few months

So that’s how things are progressing. Nicely, I think. To feel so well balanced in my mind and body is a pretty happy evolution. Looking forward it’s fun to imagine what changes I might notice over the coming 16 weeks as the marathon approaches. 

How are things for you? Can you relate to this idea about enjoying a healthy lifestyle? Do you have any new goals or plans in place? I would love to hear. 

“The reason I exercise is for the quality of life I enjoy.”
~Kenneth H. Cooper
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

storm behind us now

As I sit here in Colorado on my daughter’s front porch writing out these thoughts, my husband and friends in Oklahoma are hunkered down beneath a lead apron of a summer storm. In fact, also last night I was out for an evening run and got caught in a rainstorm, but it was gentle and delicious. Not really much of a storm. Still, that synchronicity again.

On our long drive from Oklahoma to Colorado a few days ago, Jocelyn and I enjoyed mostly spectacular weather. We got so lucky, in fact, that both of us commented throughout our journey how nice it was. The triple-digit heat was on pause, mercifully. Easy cloud cover shaded her SUV. Barely any wind to knock us around. We were having fun and making great time.

And then the weather changed.

storm snap

Somewhere just past the Kansas-Colorado border, the previously tranquil clouds swelled into dark, massive, churning things that stood not a little threatening over our path. Sunshine streamed through and against them in metallic opposition, but the translucent white had turned gray and murky then nearly black. Rain fell in unbelievably huge drops, pelting us, and then we heard hail. Not much, in fact not enough to do any damage, but it was a noisy interruption to our day of spectacular travel weather. Had we been easily shaken travelers, the noise would have been scary.

On that straight stretch of highway with vast grazing and farmland on both sides, we drove steadily. Stopping was both unnecessary and foolish. Also- we could gaze not far ahead and plainly see abundant sunshine again and dry asphalt roads. The storm raging overhead was angry but small and unmoving. Temporary. We only had to get through it.

It got worse before it got better, of course. By the time we reached the far edge of the storm shadow, tiny hail was falling plentifully and we had seen several mercury threads of lightning.

Then, in a moment, we were out. Back in the sun. Not a drop of rain still falling. The highway shoulders were overflowing with gallons and gallons of those tiny white hailstones, and this stretched on for about a quarter of a mile. It made me do a double take, to make sure, but yes- the storm was over. This carpet of hail was proof it had swept through, but all we had to do was keep the windshield wipers going a moment longer to clear our vision a little and continue forward.

This little scene unfolded during one of my driving shifts. Joc was sitting next to me with her sweet, energetic puppy on her lap. I looked at them and felt so much love and simultaneously noticed an absence of fear. I felt as calm as the skies now looked. I checked the rear view mirror and saw that black-and-blue storm still raging behind us, appearing to do much more damage than it had the power to do.

That little storm did happen; it was not imagined. But it’s behind us now and we came out of it perfectly safe and happy with a million things to celebrate and an exciting path in front of us.

Lots of storms do very real damage, of course. Nobody from Oklahoma (or Colorado!) would dare say otherwise. But plenty are brief and gentle, too. Sometimes instead of stopping in your tracks just to get beat up for no reason, it’s best to move steadily forward on your chosen path. Let the storm rage if it must but keep your eyes on the abundant sunshine coming right up. Move toward that until your storm is far behind you.

“Birds sing after a storm;
why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight
in whatever sunlight remains to them?”
~Rose Kennedy
XOXOXOXO