Flying High Now

I've never run 6 miles non-stop in my life before.....until today! Already a few weeks behind on my 1/2 marathon training, I hit the Petit Center this afternoon to try my first ever crack at a 5+ mile run. I was hoping to be running outside already, but we've been hit with a stubborn cold snap with temps 10-15 degrees below average. I went in with a manageable goal; just to run further than my 5 mile run last week. Even if that meant 1/4 mile more. I started very slowly as I really wanted to pace myself for 6 miles. As I hit the mile markers, tunes on my iPod helped me along. At the 3 mile mark Vienna by Billy Joel came on. The verse "slow down, you're doing fine...you can't be everything you want to be before your time" seemed to fit. At 4 miles Bruno Mars' sang "girl you're amazing, just the way you are". Thanks Bruno....helpful. My iPod was on shuffle and the whole time I was running I was hoping for the Rocky training/theme song to come on. That song always fires me up. I was bummed as I was scant minutes from finishing and it hadn't played. Then, true story, as I rounded the last turn before the 6 mile mark, the song started almost like it knew I needed to hear it. I got so psyched I ran an additional 1/3 mile as the song blared in my earphones. A few tears filled my eyes as I finished. A super cool day for me. Doing something I wasn't sure I could feels pretty great. Next week, 7 miles.

Kindness

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness. ~Seneca

In the last few weeks since we found out my Mom is sick, I have witnessed personally a number of humans taking an opportunity to be kind. Some of them have come from friends who have had my back for years, including one dear friend who offered to jump on a plane to keep me company, help me clean my Mom's house or run errands. Other offers have included funny statements such as "Mary, I have a credit card and I'm not afraid to use it" and "name the time, the place and the kind of wine you want, and I will be there". Family has been there too; helping to shuttle Mom and Dad to errands and appointments and popping in to make sure that everything is going smoothly at home. Other acts of thoughtfulness have come from somewhat unexpected places, like my parent's neighbor who I have never met in person calling me to offer any help she can; She has consistently shown kindness to my parents, even going out to buy my parents a snow shovel after the latest big storm when she noticed their shovel was broken. I think sometimes with all the negative news that barges into our lives from the media and the 24 hr. news cycle that we forget that on balance people are compassionate, thoughtful and wanting to help if they can. A personal thank you to all of you who have reminded me.

Cure for a lousy day

Hayden Rech - 6 mos. old

Number of times her photos bring me joy daily - At least 10

Having her in our lives.....priceless!

Hot Mess

As part of my 1/2 marathon training schedule, I'm supposed to spend one workout a week strengthening and stretching. My friend Rachel mentioned that she used to do a Bikram yoga class over on the east side while she was temporarily living in Stacy's condo and was planning on attending last night. I had heard of Bikram before and once even participated in a class that was advertised as Bikram style "hot" yoga at a studio in Brookfield. So, I thought the class held at Bikram Yoga Milwaukee would be a no brainer. I went onto their website earlier in the day to get an address and some directions, but having a very busy day I didn't have time to read the section called "What to expect". In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman; "Big mistake.....HUGE!" Here are just a few of my general learnings and observations about last night's Bikram experience.

1.) Bikram is a set series of 26 poses. No matter where you go in the world, if you take a class called Bikram the number and sequences of the poses is the same. To get through this many poses it takes 90 minutes in a room heated to 105 degrees with 40% humidity. Add the body heat of 25 people into the room and it's Amazon jungle thick in there and crazy stinky. No amount of Febreze will ever make that room right.

2.) I never really knew what the term "flop sweat" meant. I do now. Since I didn't read what I now know as the critical "what to expect" section of the website, I came into the room with no headband, bandanna etc. and the regular amount of make-up that I have left on my face at the end of the work day. Within 10 minutes I looked like Heath Ledger's version of the Joker in The Dark Knight.

3.) Cotton may be the fabric of our lives, but it is most definitely not the fabric of Bikram yoga. Instead of grabbing a dri-fit top in the morning, I threw a cotton tank top into my bag. Cotton stretches when it gets drenched. All of my siblings who witnessed my tank top after the wave pool incident at Noah's Ark a few years back knows what I'm talking about. I picked up my shirt a few minutes ago off my bedroom floor to throw it in the wash, and after 22 hours, it was still soaked...Ugh. (p.s. no comments about why that shirt was still on my floor)

4.) I forgot my regular dri-fit sports bra so had to go with my regular cotton bra. See #3 for results of that screw-up

5.) Apparently, Bikram Yoga works. The class instructor was very slim and toned and for lack of a better term a Bikram Yoga NAZI! This class has rules. No looking around the room, no drinking water during poses and no wiping off the sweat with your towel even if your eyes are burning like you looked straight at an eclipse. Allegedly, all these things detract and distract from the "true and pure practice" of Bikram. Since this is a family blog, I can't repeat the mostly 4-letter words floating through my thought bubble, but I'm sure you can guess. She used snaps and claps to prompt you from pose to pose and she talks fast and succinctly. Full disclosure; she scared me.

6.) I discovered that while not in Bikram Nazi shape, I can survive 90 minutes in oxygen deprived hell and still be here to write a blog post about it. Rachel said that she has seen people sit down to get their breath and/or leave the room. I made it all the way through without having to do either of those things. It's not much, but's like all the little victories of this training it's something. And, believe it or not, I'm definitely going back.

Once you go Mac.....

Hi Everyone. This is my first blog post from my brand spanking new Macbook Pro! Earlier this week, I powered on my 5 year old Gateway laptop to surf the net and write a blog post. After churning through what I thought was the normal set up, I got the dreaded Windows screen that is just black and lists a myriad of things that are going wrong with your system. I chose to "restore windows from normal settings" all the while crossing my fingers that it would work. After that I got the equally dreaded blue screen that popped up with another crop of dire information that I could never understand if you paid me. So earlier today, I jumped into my newly repaired Jeep (yup, that money sucker drained another $180.00 from my checking account today) and headed over to the Best Buy to talk to the Geek squad to see if my ole laptop stood a chance and might be worth repairing. Andrew, the helpful geek squad representative powered on my computer, read the screen and promptly told me my hard drive was fried. I asked him with hope "Is it worth repairing?" to which he quickly replied "Not a chance. Five years for a laptop is actually good. They usually last about three". So I mentally gave my old Gateway some serious props for outliving the average lifespan by two years and immediately headed over to the Apple department. About 45 minutes later I was leaving with my brand new Macbook after the sales guy took me through a few of the basics. Needless to say this baby is off the chiz-ain. The set-up is amazingly simple. Within a few minutes I was already writing this post. Don't get me wrong, this Mac scares the H out of me. I've been using a PC my entire adulthood. But, since I've been a iPhone user for over 3 years, I know what intuitive products Apple makes, so I feel confident I will be able to figure it out. I'm so looking forward to no more viruses and no more Windows crashing. Way to go Steve Jobs and all you other geniuses at Apple....See ya Microsoft!

Flirty and Forty

What do you get when you mix 6 great friends, 1500ml of Pinot Grigio, an afternoon at the spa, a raucous bar dice game of 7, 14, 21 and a huge surprise party? Well, in this case you get the celebration of Jenn's fortieth birthday. The day started at the Azana spa in Brookfield with mani's, pedis and a big jug of cheap wine drank out of Styrofoam cups. After polishing off the wine and drying our newly polished nails we headed to one Jenn's favorite neighborhood haunts, The Ugly Mug (I know, awesome name for a bar). Well what are a bunch of girls to do at 4:00 in the afternoon at the corner pub. Play bar dice, naturally. Needless to say, we all made Jenn drink most of the shots. Later that night we surprised Jenn with big surprise party that required a fairly elaborate ruse involving multiple people and even more white lies. Happy Birthday Jenn!

Unexpected inspiration and little victories

Earlier today, I headed over to the Petit Center to get a short training run in. When I arrived, the parking lot was packed. I assumed there was a big hockey or speed skating tournament I wasn't aware of. Actually, to my surprise, they were conducting an indoor 1/2 marathon with a full marathon to be held tomorrow. Since the track was closed to regular runners and walkers, I took a few minutes to watch the race. I'm feeling pretty inspired! The Petit Center is pretty inspiring already as hundreds of world class Olympic speed skaters, many from Wisconsin, have trained and competed there. Sometimes when I feel like I'm pulling a plow around that oval track, I look up to see a huge banner of Eric Heiden in that famous shiny yellow suit looking down. I can almost hear him saying "You can do this Mary....and, perhaps you might consider losing a bit of junk from your trunk?" As I was watching the competitors finished, I started doing the math. On the Petit track a 1/2 marathon is 48 laps. I confirmed with a fellow bystander that a full mile is 3 1/3 laps. I always thought it was 4! So, in the last few weeks, I've actually been running further than I thought. HOORAY! I know that's a pretty small thing, but in this larger war, I need to win every tiny battle I can.

Alleluia!

My Grandma Orley was a great lady and a devout Catholic. She believed in all the saints and their special causes but I think her favorite saint was Saint Anthony of Padua. He was the patron saint of lost and stolen articles. My grandma used to work at a factory where cardboard boxes were cut and assembled. Once, she lost the diamond from her wedding ring on the floor of the factory during one of her shifts. She prayed to St. Anthony and lo and behold, among all the piles of cardboard shavings and dirt, she located her diamond. A few months ago, also among a fair amount of dirt and chaos caused by my bathroom remodeling project, I lost my digital camera. Well, I looked everywhere and could not find it. So I said a little prayer to St. Tony hoping I hadn't used up all my locating "credits" throughout my life. Everyone knows that I'm a bit careless and tend to misplace things. Actually, the truth of the matter is that I tend to think I've lost things when in fact they are usually right under my nose at all times. Andrea always teases me about my 'lost' keys and cell phone, and 99 out of 100 times they are always in my purse. Well, earlier today in a major cleaning frenzy that involved the actual movement of furniture, I located my camera. It was under my dresser (where I had looked more than once) but tucked between the dresser and the bed frame at an angle just so as to be out of my sight line. Anyway, some doubters would say that wasn't St. Anthony as much as whoever the patron saint of clean and organized homes is. I'm sticking with the big A. I even mused to my family that perhaps if I prayed to him enough he would find me a husband. Of course, to that my family replied "Did you lose one?" Touche! So, look to future posts to includes some long lost photos.

I'm hooked

Darn you The Biggest Loser....why are you so compelling? Last Tuesday, I turned on the TV for a little background noise as I was cooking in the kitchen. The TV was tuned to NBC and the popular weight loss competition was on. In the past, I've resisted watching this show as I'm not a huge fan in general of reality based television. At first, I stayed a safe distance from the TV, occasionally looking up to catch a few moments. However as the contestants back stories unfolded and the teams took the long agonizing walk up to the scale to be weighed and judged by all for the first time, I quickly found myself glued to the couch and thoroughly engrossed. Initially, I was also one those people being judgey, thinking to myself "how could anyone let themselves get that big". But very quickly compassion took over and complete disclosure here, I found myself tearing up more than once. Man, those producers really know how set up the show to tug on your heartstrings. Losing weight is incredibly hard. Those of us who have struggled to lose even a few pounds know that. Some of these people are staring down the daunting prospect of losing 80, 100 or even 200+ lbs. So now, every Tuesday evening I will be tuning in to watch these brave folks journey toward a healthier and hopefully happier existence. And, perhaps I'll be able to pick up a few training and eating tips that will assist me with the 10-15 lbs. I'd like to lose in the next few months. The Biggest Loser is helping to run a contest where for every pound people pledge to lose, an 11 cent donation will be made to our food banks to help needy people. Check it out http://www.pfpchallenge.com/

Run Mary Run

I've decided to try to run the Green Bay 1/2 marathon in May and registered online earlier today. I wanted to write this post because if I didn't tell everyone then it might be a whole lot easier to back out. This is going to be a challenging one for me. I'm not built to run...In fact, the marathon website even has a name for someone in my weight range....Athena. I think this is supposed to make us bigger girls feel better for in Greek mythology Athena was the super bad ass goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, strategy, crafts, justice and skill. I guess if I was going to be participating in a clean and jerk contest, fashioning together some sort of macrame plant hanger or sitting on jury duty this comparison would be fantastic. But for running, I'd much prefer to be more like the god Hermes, the winged-footed speedster who delivers all those bouquets for FTD florists, or the goddess of victory, Nike. She was so awesome that there is really tiny shoe company named after her. Everyone keeps telling me that the key to finishing a marathon is the training plan. You gotta stick to the plan. Russ sent me a 1/2 marathon training schedule and it's supposed to guarantee success if you follow it. I hope that's true. The longest I've ever run is about 6 miles and that was over 5 years ago. I will give this whole thing my very best effort and try to give an occasional training update. Hopefully on May 15th, 2011 at the finish line there will be a photo of me celebrating with my friends, enjoying a frosty beer and hopefully still standing.