Surpassing Limitations, oh my!

Yesterday I totally surprised myself. I love when I do that. It was a day I have looked forward to since I signed up for the 10k race I was talked into signing up for. To date, this was definitely one of the races I've looked the most forward to because I was going to meet a bunch of Spartan Chicks and was able to run with them. These girls have really been a life saver for me in the past few months and they don't even know it. It's amazing how people around the country (and some cases around the world) can have such an influence on your life. There are so many inspiring stories, so many motivational moments, and always so much support in any situation. These girls care more than people I've known for years, they do so much more than most of the people in my life, they are just amazing. Being able to meet any of them in person is such a blessing and I want to take any opportunity.

So back to the race... I signed up for the race knowing that I would not have someone to watch my two youngest, but knowing my oldest would be able to go to her dad's or nana's. That's right, I signed up for the 10k to run with a 35 and 40 pound kid along with heavy jogging stroller, just to hang with awesome Chicks. And it was beyond well worth it.

I signed up about a month ago and was counting down the days and with each one getting a little more and more nervous. Then come Monday I came down with a cold. Of course... but that wasn't going to stop me. I did my regular gym training all week, except subbing my normal 3 hours of Y classes for a kinda lame-o Crossfit intro class, but didn't get my runs in, which was mega disappointing. Only a couple miles here and there, including a trail run with Mom. And to top it all off, I only ran with the jogging stroller once, just to start my oldest on training for a 5k, so it was a VERY easy run. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first race I was totally under prepared for. I was still so nervous I had nightmares the night before and sweat myself to death all night. I told one of the Chicks it was probably because there were actually people there at the race that I was running with and that I wanted to look good for. I usually run alone and it's either my mom/ sister or best friend at the finish line, or thereabouts. I mean, I always cross at my best for my kids, but these are SPARTANS! You know, the real ones who have run the races and crossed the Spartan finish line. I need respect from these people.

Race morning came and my cold had taken over and my nose and lungs... and the bright sunny day forecasted during the week turned into a high of 46 kinda day, and the race was in the morning. Oh well! We headed out for our ride up to Salisbury and I did what I never do and bought cold medicine. The least I could do for myself is get some relief in the nose region. When we arrived the sun was shining, my nose was partially cleared and I wasn't freaking out like I normally do. (Like really, why do I do that, like I'm going to win or something hahahahahahah). I was set to have a great day of fun.

Pre- Race Chick Pic

We met the chicks, and some man Spartans, and took some pictures, compared Spartan and other race schedules and headed to the start line. I told everyone that it was unlikely I would do much running due to my lack of training with the mileage and with the stroller, and because of my cold. As the race started I leisurely jogged. Stopped to take my sweatshirt off, jogged a little more, stopped to fix my iPod... then decided maybe I needed a little more seriousness and got my run on. "I'll just run until I can't, and I won't be too hard on myself when that happens," I thought. So I ran, down the trail, taking out my headphones to the girls' random toddler questions. I ran onto the road past the 2 mile mark, point the sign out to Saoirse letting her know we had a little more than 4 miles to go and it was now her job to watch and read the next 4 signs. We passed some people, got honked at and thumbs upped by passing vehicles, positive vibes from other runners, and passed the 3 mile mark no problem. This excited me because I plan to run with the kids in my work 5k (originally I hoped to run it and pass all my coworkers but my kid pusher backed out- ) so now it looks like I will definitely do well in front of coworkers pushing my kids. We kept up pace up the long slight inclines, passing some more people, more smiles, around mile 4.5 got an oh wow from a woman passing by. And I still felt great! It was around then I started passing some Spartan Chicks. It was then I felt oddly guilty. Like I should slow down and run with them. I felt like as I passed them I was ditching them. But I realized I had my own goals to meet, including to keep going, do good, and go way above and beyond my own expectations and if I could utter a few words in my exhausted breath to them that would suffice. I was going at a steady pace and there was no stopping me. 

Around the 6 mile mark I came behind a husband and wife and all I wanted to do was catch up to them. Unfortunately by that point my legs would only keep that pace and we hit the gravel making the stroller harder to push and I was going to be stuck at that point. I finished the race at 1:03 with Spartans cheering me in. It was so nice to actually have that, no one could cheer me in ever before. They even had a water bottle waiting!

What an incredible day being around people that get me! To me, they get life. They have goals, they take care of themselves and their bodies, and they take care of others around them. I am blessed to have these people to support me, and vice versa. I am so eager for the Spartan Races now I can't even stand it. Why can't I suddenly come across a little money so I can run some earlier races?! I don't want to wait until August!!

Post Race Chick Pic, Fancy Hair and All

I've always had a drug addiction

I have always said that I have an addictive personality. And there has never been denying my love of sweets, namely gummies. I once sat and ate a 5 pound bag of gummie bears in one work day. Mind you I was 16 and not overweight was so ever. Oh to have that wonderful metabolism again... Anyway, back to the topic at hand. As I have been saying I have been reading a lot about nutrition and diet to go along with my fitness and strength goals. I have been avoiding the sugar subject, knowing that it is my weakness and will probably be my hardest obstacle. As I have been reading more into it it seems even harder than I had imagined. Apparently sugar is in some surprising foods. Today I came across the video I have posted above from 60 minutes about sugar. Al bight the my-opinion-is-all-that-matters scientist, there is some shocking information. I couldn't say surprising, but definitely awakening. According to some researchers, sugar can be more addictive than cocaine and heroin. I couldn't agree more. When I get a sugar craving I need to feed it. Then when I do, I want more. There is never enough. And then the more I feed it the more I want. I am a regular binger. I hate it. I feel awful when I do it. And I don't know why I can't stop. It makes sense now.

This realization brings me back to times that I hate to relive. A past life of mine that I tend to repress, to try to pretend didn't happen, though I will not deny (but will skirt around the truth with my mom of course). I have changed myself so much over the years I never want to go back. And I definitely don't want to jump from unhealthy addiction to unhealthy addiction. I need to find a way to fill this need with something good, and I really need to figure out what it is and fast.

It's so strange that our society has grown into these food norms that are slowly killing us. It's scary actually. To think how hard it is to find foods that aren't full of sugars and fats to make it taste better after it's been processed so much. Man, I need to stop watching the documentaries. Or it's definitely time to make a big lifestyle change. Am I ready for the challenge?

Yes, I am hanging my head in shame. It has been quite some time since my last post. I suppose that one might think that this shows that I have not been holding myself very accountable by my actions. One thinks the truth. I'm a roller coaster, as I'm pretty sure I've insinuated before. Everything in my life goes up and down in a pretty exciting manner. But who's doesn't? I'm not the only one hanging on to this never ending ride. And I'm not going to complain about it, just go with the flow...

Bad news first or good news? Lets do bad... Eating right remains a big struggle. I have gained a bunch of weight back and it's hit me hard mentally. Of course, the eating goes with the emotional issues and... weee! merry-go-round. Yep, we're in one exciting amusement park aren't we? There have also been other health issues I've been dealing with so hopefully I will work it all out and get back into the swing of things.

Good News! While I have stopped doing my morning routine, I have exercised everyday besides one or two much deserved rest days. This alone has been a big mental struggle that I still fight with. Somewhere in my head there is this ridiculous voice that keeps saying no, don't do it, not today, you can find an excuse. Why? Where did this voice come from and why does it think these things? I WANT to exercise. I WANT to run. I WANT to be a strong bad-ass momma. Screw that voice. It's made me miss a few runs, it's made me lose a few reps in the gym, walk a couple steps up a hill, but overall I've told it to shut the hell up, there's always room for more. I had this discussion with my mother the other day about running and the voices in my head. You know, the little angel Shaina and that evil devil Shaina, floating around, screwing with my attention. "It's too far, you're shins might explode if you go too much faster." "F that, devil Shaina. You can do this, you HAVE to do this. Your kids look up to you, you have to prove to them and everyone else you can." "Shut up you too, I definitely missed that whole song listening to you argue. I suppose I just missed that last mile too..."  I suppose the voices aren't so bad, as long as I over come.

So on with my accomplishments! I have run a 10k! Woot woot! My goal was to make it under an hour and I did it! 59:47 to be exact. I didn't meet my ongoing race goal (still) to be in the top half, but with 6500 runners at the race, I'm ok with that. Here's me and my two youngest after the race.

And here's us warming up before the race. The girls love to lunge. Notice my friend's son is still working on the squats we just completed.

Then last Saturday I completed a 4 miler and completed 3 goals. PR'd, beat my goal of 36 minutes (9 min miles) by 41 seconds- cutting it close again, and I made it in the top half of the nearly 1000 runners. There is a picture of me near tears with huge smile, but the two emotions put together in one face make one giant rec of a picture so here is one pre-race of me and my girls. 

Note the stroller in the above picture. It's a new-to-me training piece that I have agreed to torture myself with at a 10k this coming weekend. These Spartan chicks kill me in all the good ways. I am very lucky to have happened onto one of the most accepting and encouraging groups I have ever come across. I have pushed myself even more than I might have ever before and I'm still disappointed and wanting more and I love it!

Oh, and I got a pet rock and what a good companion it is. Being a Spartan Sparkle Chick is amazing!

Just the musts

I'm still doing it! It meaning, the few simple things I've promised myself I would do. One of these been my quick morning exercise, and then still doing the green monster every morning. I missed day number two because just my style, I broke my new blender. DO NOT POKE IN THE BLENDER WITH A METAL SPOON WHILE IT IS RUNNING! Ok, so that's pretty obvious until you're frustrated because this smoothie takes FOREVER to blend because you're constantly stopping, pushing the spinach down and starting again. It usually takes me about 15 minutes every morning to get it made, which is, in mom schedule, way too much time. I am going to be trying to figure out if I can blend and freeze most of the ingredients ahead of time to make it a lot quicker in the morning. I'll post when I figure it out, though I will have to wait until after my trip later this week to NJ to visit my estranged bf because I've cooked and froze a freezer full of food to bring down to him. I have this weird need to take care of people and it's the only way I can with him so far away. Maybe it's a control thing?

Anyways, here are some pics of my green monster from over the weekend!


This green monster has almond milk, vanilla bean greek yogurt, ground flaxseed, wheat germ, psyllium root, spinach, blueberrie, strawberries, and banana. It was a little to thick so I think I've been adding too much spinach (what the heck is three cups of spinach any way?!) and not enough liquid. Today's was much better!




Shea enjoyed my left overs this morning!

Look at all of those lovely layers! You can see why it's so hard to blend.


Besides doing my "must" duties, I have not been achieving very much. I have gone to the gym Monday- Thursday, ran only 1.5 miles on Friday (sucky!), 45 minutes gym on Saturday followed by an hour and 45 minute hike with my mom and the kids with Shea on my back. Sunday= lazy day of laundry mat and lots and lots of cooking with my normal lots and lots of pull-up bar work. I hate lazy days cause I want that consistent workout. I have just not been feeling right and it's showing in my workouts. I have gained a bunch of weight (5 pounds!!!) back and I have been feeling very stomach heavy and not digesting very well the past few weeks. The green monster seems to be helping a little but because it takes me so long to drink I think I have not been eating enough during the day and then completely over eating at night. Today I was talking to my mom and we're wondering if I have all of a sudden a gluten intolerance. I have been getting sores in my mouth which is actually what has clued me in. Soooo, it looks like starting next week I'm going to have to start cutting food out and seeing what it could be. I am so not one to take anything out of my food choices so I am extremely frustrated. I really feel that there is more to this gluten issue thing, as in perhaps additives and the way things are processed have done something to our bodies. Not much I can do now I suppose.

This week is a crazy one, today being a holiday= no gym and that coupled with my lack of motivation is no good. Tomorrow I must force myself to a couple hours at the gym along with my normal 2 1/2 hours on Wednesday and hopefully some more. I also must get to the 5:30 am class on Thursday before I head down to NJ because there will be no gym for me down there. What a whole bunch of workout suck this week! No run time what-so-ever unless somehow I sneak some in NJ, which is doubtful. I guess I'll just have to take it where I can get it! I need to get over my self, do what I can, and don't get frustrated and not do at all because I can't do it all. I'll be trying to keep that at the top of my mind all this week.

Conquering some monsters

I got a great run in today! I was in a horrible mood after missing out on yet another work out last night (first try at yoga class) because my daughter messed her diaper 20 minutes in and I had to grab the kids from daycare. Grumpy was an understatement. Mean would definitely be a good description, though unfortunate. So last night I decided I needed to get some of this angst out and go for a run, who cares if I had 2 1/2 hours of classes later in the day. I missed a couple hours of work and took care of myself and was my fastest yet. Amazingly I accomplished 5 monster hilly miles in 44 minutes. I was very surprised at the time it was when I got home, but I had just did a random push myself run so I didn't know how far it was until I mapped it out when I got to work. What a great start to the day! Perfect to start the green monster movement!

The green monster movement to me is going to be hopefully drinking this yummy green smoothie picture above every morning for breakfast. I usually eat a chiobani so why not a smoothie instead? I will vary the recipes day to day and maybe update my recipes on this blog... if they're that good. Since it's the first I'll let you know what I started with:

1 tsp Psyllium root (Trying to digest my proteins better)

1 tbsp ground flax seed

1 tbsp wheat germ

3 cups spinach

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1/4 cup vanilla bean greek yogurt

6 frozen strawberries

1 banana

Put in blender in that order and have long stick to poke ingredients down!

This definitely made a lot and I think I will only use half a banana tomorrow. It actually lasted me through lunch so right now I'm trying to stuff some of my homemade protein bars and an apple with peanut butter into my belly so I have something in there for my long gym time tonight. I'm hoping I can keep up with this and also hoping it's not too expensive! I do have to mention that at the end it was very thick and slimy and warm (after 5 hours of course) so that was very hard to stomach.

Here's to also praying this helps cut down my ravenous appetite and bloat and overall body yuckiness late. My elevated mood should help too!!

There's something about yesterdays

I often think back to my past to try to motivate myself. I've needed a lot of motivation lately so I've been doing a lot of thinking. My past, my past's past, my present, and holy hell what will the future bring. Perhaps I'm thinking too much and this is one of the issues I've been having. Something is wrong inside me. Maybe I just need to get it all out. I don't know.

Let's see... today is February 12, 2012. One year ago I was just about to move out of a crappy roommate situation into an apartment with my not-quite-year long boyfriend. What a scary situation, but things had worked out well for us so far and we were pretty sure we were set for a future so, why not? Luckily that's worked out so far. I was also behind in my training for my first 5k that my work was putting on in May. By behind in training I mean I had run a mile maybe once or twice (seriously, that's it) in my life and had only gone as far as to commit to the race. I managed to train for that race in under 8 weeks and the fitness bug has caught me ever since. Thinking back, it's been a great year and I'm so lucky to have the people that I've had to share it with and to be in a relationship with someone who actually supports me doing new and exciting things (and loves to do them himself!).

Two years ago will bring us to February 2010. I had moved in with my estranged husband for a few months and we were considering working things out, though it was clear it wasn't going to happen and he started seeing someone else while I lived there so February brought me to looking quickly for a new home for me and my three girls. I settled on a shady apartment in a bad part of town with an old friend and her daughter and as bad as that sounds, it was so much better than the abusive situation I was in. I'll admit I went a little crazy with the drinking and partying at first. I didn't know what to do with myself with all that had happened to me and my roommate was, and I fear always will be, a partyer.  Still, much like now I didn't get out much and was forced to go out for some me time by my roommate and pseudo roommate (some how another person moved in in this time) to go to visit a bartender friend all by myself. Fun- NOT! That's the strange night that I did what I said I never would do and met a guy and gave him my number and when he called, I called back, and after many an adventure, we're still together. That year wasn't great all the time, but it was a pretty damn good building block.

Now we have three years ago. Come February I was about six months pregnant I suppose, living in my mom's house alone with my two oldest girls. My husband had left me there when I was two months pregnant to fend for myself while he went out and partied. That year was when I started getting stronger. I had no choice but to depend solely on myself to take care of the kids, work and make money, do everything around the house, including lugging firewood constantly for the wood stove. That was the only pregnancy I didn't gain too much weight. I started walking a lot to clear my head. I suppose that's when the exercise bug might have really started. Eating healthy was an idea that began coming around also, since I didn't want to gain the 80 pounds I had in my first pregnancy. This year was a good foundation if I can look at it like that.

Since I'm not going to go on through my whole life backwards year by year I'll sum up a few of the years prior to the ones I described. Alcohol and drugs were a problem after high school and it wasn't until a year after I had my first daughter that I began to smarten up. I began leaving behind the bad influences in my life and finally tried to get on track. Eventually I left the long relationship I had with my daughter's father and that was one of the biggest things I did in my life. My mom is still proud of me for that one. Unfortunately he got replaced Dr. Jekyll and after I got pregnant and soon before our wedding Mr. Hyde came out. There was more wrong in that relationship for me to ever know what I thought was right. He had a lot of people fooled, but I was the last one to finally figure out the truth. The funny thing is that while he left me in September 2008, it wasn't until I finally filed for divorce myself in April 2010 that I was free. He still tried to claim me as his and I even had to change my name from my kids because he was still calling me part of him with his name.

Looking back through the years is very motivating to me when I see what I have over come and seeing the little changes every year that have made a completely new and more satisfied me. I messed up a lot and I will pay for my mistakes forever, but little by little I can change and make improvements and give myself the life that I deserve.

So there's a little bit of my yesterdays, which has helped shaped my todays, and my tomorrows next year better be telling the same story of building blocks, with another addition to my great arena. (Currently I envision my life to be built into an arena- HA!)

I found this picture and it kind of fit a lot into how I feel many aspects of my life are going. As one can tell from my flustered previous post I am not extremely satisfied with how my life is flowing right now. Being a single mom puts me in a very limited situation, my job can sometimes be the bane of my existence (sitting at a desk is pure torture for me), and I'm lacking in the adult companion department.


All of this aside, I need to remind myself sometimes that life does, and is, going on and I have so much of it left, God willing. My main focus of fitness and health right now IS going well because I AM trying. I should not get frustrated reading about other moms who have their husbands, parents, or whatever other support group so they can go out an exercise at leisure. I get to bring my kids and teach them how important it is to take care of your body. My four year old eats more and healthier food than most of the adults I know and can do more push-ups too!
I can't afford Crossfit, MMA classes, or any other kind of trainer for that matter. My progress is still going well and, though it may not be as fast as others, and I may not be able to do a lot of what they do because of my lack of opportunity to learn someone with proper knowledge. I can read, I can soak in information from any source I can and I can do my best. 
I will get a new job someday. Right now, this job works. Hell, I'm 28 years old and still don't know exactly what I want to be when I grow up. I have changed my mind dozens of times; Army, Social worker, psychology, sociology, research, nutrionist, trainer, etc. And all of those I could still be willing to do. Just figuring out what will make me happy. Maybe the slow process to higher education is a good thing for me.


So some of my slowing going accomplishments- yes, this is what I'm talking about, I get things done:

• Joined the Y which has childwatch and fun classes. May not have the newest equipment and it may be a little ghetto, but I am getting more motivated and more opportunities! 
• Ran a slow going 4 mile race. A time of 38:30ish seconds put me at 65th out of 92. I need to improve greatly on my speed, but I showed up in the spur of the moment, ran, and finished. I had a great weekend.
• I have completed my morning 50 sit-ups, 30 push-ups (started at 25), and 5 (increased to 6 today) pull-ups for about 3 weeks now, except for 3 various days when I was not home.
• Got on the healthy boat, fell off and swam around a bit, got back on. Everyone needs a little dip in the water sometimes. Again, like I've said before, routine is too much for me. I have to break it, and I work hard and lose so, why not?
• I have worked out 6 days a week for at least 2 weeks straight! Woo! 

I know I have a lot of mountains and hill to climb in my life. It's fun, really it is. Anything less would be boring. So I'm going to take the slow road, speed it up where I can, but remember to always be satisfied with EVERY accomplishment because doing is what is important.