Dear Diary,

Last year at this time, I had completed my first triathlon just three short months prior. I was still celebrating my second triathlon finish (as pathetic of a finish as it was…I’ll still take it). I was signing up for 1/2 marathons. I had grand dreams of run/walking myself all the way around the universe. I was unstoppable.

I was an idiot…

To think that I wasn’t going to be slowed down by the prospect of 4 pregnancies in less than a year. To think that my hormones weren’t going to be raging and pissed off. To think that I was the type of Super Woman that would just traipse through heartache and comfort-eating and come out unscathed.

Not so much.

I was just talking to My Gazelle last night about what a rough year it’s been for me physically. My poor body. I literally feel sorry for the abuse…but at some point along the way, I realized that I might as well just suck up the extra 15 pounds that I’ve earned and just keep it moving. I found resolution with the fact that for at least the next 12 months, I will not be any more comfortable in my body than I am at this very moment.

I just wasn’t willing to derail the baby train so that I could get back to my pre-infertility-drama comfort zone.

Then I got pregnant again! Hooray! I’m pregnant…what a wonderful blessing. But I’m starting off on the high-end of my comfort zone. I’ve worried about this before. This is not a surprise. However, I’ve come to another resolution. My inevitable weight gain and my workout schedule are completely separate issues. One can always exist without the other.

I just wasn’t prepared to face the fatigue. The absolute, total, complete, all-encompassing fatigue that comes along with the first few months of pregnancy. I’m not exaggerating. It seems that I’m at the tail-end of this phenomenon right now, but for many weeks, making a trip up a flight of stairs was enough to require a 20-minute nap.

I’m not making excuses.

OK. I’m making excuses. I feel the need to justify the fact that I’ve gone from being a marathoner, triathlete, all-around active person…to a mall walker. I walk. In the mall. On purpose. My life for the past few months has basically been one huge reality check.

I suppose that being a mall walker rightnow doesn’t negate the fact that I’ve been a marathoner and a triathlete in the past. I am still all of those things that I was before, I’m just sort of putting my most active life on ‘pause’ at the moment. I’m staying active in the best way I can for my body. I’m still sweating, it’s just happening in a mall.

[Weird.]

And now, time to set some goals…which I never really do. So, my goal this week is to pick up some weights today and Thursday. I was doing this early on in my pregnancy, but somewhere between normal everyday activities (such as climbing stairs and showering), I ran out of energy. Since my energy seems to be slowing coming back now (and I’m able to eat much healthier than before (more energy!)), adding weights back into the mix a couple of times a week seems reasonable.

So, for now, I walk the mall. One lap around my mall is a mile, and Wifey and I are doing 4-5 laps 3 times per week. Apparently, this is my training plan for the Loch Ness 10K that I’ll be doing in a few weeks (as usual…I keep forgetting that this vacation includes a race)! Luckily Wifey will be in Scotland with me, walking the 10K.

So, diary…there it is. I’m a mall walker.

[Weird.]

Thanks for listening.

Weeeeeeee! I have been working my butt off to meet a deadline at my big girl job, and I just finished! I always feel so relieved when I finish my “work work” projects. Now I can go on vacation next week with no stress of leaving work behind.

[insert sigh of relief]

I’ve been “running” according to schedule lately (with a few shifts and shimmies of the schedule here and there), and up until last week, I was mainly running on my treadmill…because really…when given the option of sweating outside in the sweltering heat or parking my treadmill in front of Real Houseswives of OC, I choose trash TV. My asthma was also really acting up, so running inside helped that.

In any case, I started wogging outside again last week, primarily doing Galloway 5:1′s or 3:1′s. Since I live in an area that is sort of 1/2 suburbia, 1/2 city, if I want to run more than 3 miles (or if I don’t want to be consistently bored by the same route), I’m stuck running on sidewalks a good portion of the time.

On one of my runs last week, I started to notice my shins were killing me. I was stopping like every mile to stretch and rub and gripe to myself about my shins. I wouldn’t call it full blown shin splints, but I was definitely on my way there. After my run, I put on my compression socks [still love!] and a bag of frozen Brussels sprouts, and everything was fine the next day.

At the beginning of this week, I had a major case of calf tightness, to the point that I was foam rolling my man calves at work [not recommended unless you're looking to date a coworker...lesson learned]. I headed out on last nights run fully planning on having a body meltdown around mile 3 or 4 because of how crazy tight my legs were.

I did about the first 2 miles of my run on an asphalt path that leads to one of the lakes nearby, then I switched to sidewalks for about 1 mile and ran to another lake, then I ran 3/4 of a mile on the asphalt path around the second lake.When I turned around to come home, I ran the same way home, but this time I ran on the street instead of on the sidewalks. This was safe because the road was relatively untraveled.

Here’s what happened (in this exact order): running bliss, splinty-shin terror, running bliss.

The splinty-shin terror only occurred while I was running on sidewalks. I tried to find some sort of scientific reason for this [because I'm super nerdy], but I can only find a lot of other people complaining about it–no smart scientists.

Does anyone else have this problem? Any smart people in the house who can verify that this isn’t just in my head?

Announcements

1) If you’ve been wanting to buy a TRX Suspension Trainer, but you’ve been waiting for a sale, now is your chance! From now until July 5th, you can get $20 off any TRX Suspension Trainer (does not include Rip Trainer) with the coupon code TRX1776. Also, everyone gets free shipping during the whole month of July (no coupon code required).

2) Did you see my new House Becomes Home blog? While we wait for the seller’s response on whether or not they’re going to do any of the home repairs, I’m coming up with all types of fantastic ideas on how I can quickly and cheaply spruce up our new house. I’m already thinking about painting our kitchen cabinets, and painting the Formica countertops!

——–

Exciting stuff!!

Not sure if I’ll be back before this weekend (we’re driving overnight on Saturday to spend the week with my family in Central NY), but I have The Boilermaker 15K on Sunday, followed by a relaxing week with the fam.

So, if I don’t talk to ya before then, have a great 4th of July!

It’s been a long time since I resurrected an old post for Flashback Friday, so today I’m pulling out one of my favorites from last June. This is actually one of my favorite posts ever, because it’s the recap of my first triathlon!

I’ll be back on Monday with (hopefully) some very exciting news. I’ve been trying to keep it under wraps so as not to jinx ourselves. No, we’re not pregnant…but it rhymes with “mouse”. And it’s not the “mouse” that I talked about before.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

OH…did you check out the new site design and layout? If you’re reading me in Google Reader, make sure to click through so you can check it out. p.s…do you like it? If so, you should email Emily, The Blog Fairy. She’s kind of a miracle worker. I designed the layout in thesis, and Emily made the lovely header for me. I think it’s kind of adorable, and My Gazelle says that the picture of “me” sitting down with the laptop captures the essence of me perfectly…right down to the hand gesture. Hilarous.

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June 28, 2010

Yesterday at this time, I was at the end of the bike course of my first triathlon.

Making memories, and living my life as a “Goal Making Machine” (thank you Mizfit)!

I have to first tell you guys that I am so proud of myself. I am even more proud of myself today than I was the day after my marathon. I’m not sure what the difference is, but something about doing this triathlon was more difficult to me. For this event, I had to be swimbikerunmentally prepared.

Nothing (and I mean NOTHING) could have really prepared me for the reality of this swim. When we stepped in the water, I felt a creepy “squish” between my toes that does not happen in my chlorinated gym pool. Swimming in a murky lake is much different than swimming in a pool. Don’t get me wrong…I swam in many a murky lake/creek/river growing up in the country. However, the last time that I did that, I walked out of the “CRICK” (as we call it a back home) with leeches on my feet.

Let’s just say that memory has scarred me a little.

My wave left at 7:49AM, and by 7:51AM, I was fully immersed in an MMA-style match with more seaweed than I even care to discuss. I am thinking about changing my name to “Swims With Seaweed” after this ordeal. It was really gross, and I was not prepared for the seaweed aspect of this swim at all.

Here is my depiction of the swim route:

Wherein the black squiggly lines inserted in the picture are colonies of seaweed. The big pictures of black squiggly lines indicate periods when I felt like I was in a bad horror film, and I was the first scantily-clad swimmer on screen. We all know what happens to her…she gets engulfed by the seaweed and dies. Yes, I daydreamed this movie scene several times while fighting with the seaweed monster.

Besides the seaweed throwing off my groove, I am also a very slow swimmer. As a result, every wave that left after mine passed me. Just imagine those scenes on The Discovery Channel where all of the animals in the desert get spooked, and they all run full speed ahead in the same direction. Unfortunately, there’s that one poor little slow ass Desert Mule Deer who gets caught up in the mess and gets trampled on. Yesterday, my friends, I was the mule deer.

I could literally hear each of the waves as they closed in on me…

“thwap…thwap…thwap…thwap…”

As I heard the sound get louder and louder, I would start sucking more and more water as they passed. Eventually, I figured out that I could time it so that when I heard the “thwap-thwapping” getting louder and louder, I’d flip on my back and backstroke until they passed.

When I was somewhere between the 230 yard mark and that next patch of killer seaweed, I heard the race director across the lake on his microphone announcing that it was 8:25AM. I knew that my wave left at 7:49AM, and if I didn’t finish the swim in an hour, I was disqualified from the race. It was at that point that I started to really find my mojo, and even though I had to freestyle/backstroke interval my way through the rest of the killer seaweed patch, I finished in about 43 minutes.

Entering transition 1 (T1), I was completely out of it. I had very efficiently organized all of my items into “swim”, “bike”, and “run” bags of their own, but for some reason I couldn’t wrap my brain around where to begin. I was trying to catch my breath and get my wits about me, and it took me much longer than I expected. I also couldn’t get my Garmin working at first (for some reason it took me through the whole setup menu). However, I really was not concerned about racing out of T1–I wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget anything. At this point, I took a Gel (I use GU Chocolate and Vanilla, and they are yummy!), got on all of my gear, and rolled out. It took me 9:22 (I’m still laughing about this time…it didn’t seem like that long).

Nothing very eventful happened on the bike. I knew that there were going to be parts that were difficult (the course is described as “rolling hills”, which is very accurate), but all in all it was just as difficult as I expected.

It also helped that I had already done a couple of practice rides on the bike course, so there were no surprises for me. In hindsight, I’m really glad that I had already done the bike and run courses in advance because it made me feel more prepared on race day.

I took 2 gels during the 17.5 mile bike–one around mile 5, and one at mile 10. I also drank 1.5 bottles of water because I knew it was incredibly hot outside and I was sweating my arse off, so water was very necessary. I finished the bike course feeling really good. I was tired, but surprisingly anxious to start the run and finish the race.

Going into the race, I had already decided that even if I walked the whole run, I was going to still finish in less than the required 4 hours, 30 minutes. I also decided that if I NEEDED to walk the whole run, I was not going to diminish my accomplishment in hindsight just because I wasn’t able to run. A triathlon is still a triathlon.

In Transition 2, I took another gel, put on my running shoes and rolled out. My legs were feeling very strange, and I immediately knew that I was going to have to at least walk the hills. One thing about this race is that the bike and run are both very hilly, so I was going to do what I had to do to finish at that point. I ended up jogging most of the flat parts of the course, and power walking up the hills. I tried to jog the last hill when I only had about .25 mile until the finish, but my legs just weren’t having it. I walked it and then ran to the finish.

Hooray!! I finished!!

My official time was 3:03:43. If I had taken less time in the first transition, I would’ve finished in under 3 hours. I’ll probably laugh about that until the day I die.

But, regardless of how long it took me, I did it. And I’m proud of my accomplishment.

I checked another goal off of my list.

I’M A TRIATHLETE!!

It should come as no surprise that I’ve been slacking on the blog front lately. When I stopped jogging as much, I wasn’t sure what direction Jogger’s Life was going to go, since the blog is called “Jogger’s Life” and all.

Turns out that I didn’t stop jogging after all. I can be so wishy washy sometimes. Get used to it.

In the midst of all of the non-jogging and indecisiveness, I lost track of the fun things that I used to do on the blog. Primarily, my TRX Try It Program, which was wildly popular [and by "wildly", I mean "fairly"]. I still have several people lined up to try out a TRX, but the Program is in need of attention and resurrection.

So. That’s what I’m doing.

If you are interested in trying out a TRX Suspension Trainer for 30 days with little to no obligation, check out my TRX Try It Program. Really–the only thing you’ll owe me is a few blog posts. I set up a nifty form to automate the signup process a little more (because your girl needed some organization in her life), and I think it’ll make things much better.

Even more exciting than the TRX Try It Program is that Jogger’s Life is getting a bit of a facelift! Since Fitbloggin, I’ve been toiling away behind the scenes learning about the Thesis theme for WordPress, and building a cool new layout with Thesis. It has been amazingly easy. I also contacted Emily (The Blog Fairy), who has done all of my graphics since the beginning of time, and she designed a fantastic new header for Jogger’s Life.

I think it pretty accurately tells the story of what Jogger’s Life is really about. It makes me smile. It’s not finished yet, but that’s a little sneak peak of what the new site will look like!

Hopefully I’ll have everything ready to go by Monday, but in the meantime, you may see some strange things happening on the site this weekend. Don’t be scared.

I have no major plans this weekend, other than a cross train tomorrow and a 6 mile run on Sunday. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to do Sunday’s run outside rather than on the treadmill. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I had again signed up for The Boilermaker 15K. I’m not sure why this surprised me, considering that this particular race was the impetus for starting this whole blog in the first place back in 2008. When I signed up for my first Boilermaker, I decided that it would be the one race that I would do each and every year–whether I had to run, walk, or crawl it. It’s definitely my favorite race of all time (I can say that now, because I haven’t yet ran in Scotland)!

Considering all of my recent physical and mental drama, I hadn’t really been running much since the Myrtle Beach 1/2 marathon in February.

Maybe I hadn’t been running at all since February.

My Sista even laughed at me and my lackadaisical attitude about the whole scene. Then she questioned if we came from the same parents. I think we did.

So, I needed a plan.

I decided to follow the same plan as I did the first time I ran The Boilermaker in 2009. It’s a plan that My Sista gave me (because she’s the runner in the family), and it’s a modified version of the Hal Higdon 15K plan. The plan was modified so that we could continue on with training for The Baltimore Marathon after The Boilermaker.

I’d be lying if I said that looking back on the training plan isn’t making me a little nostalgic about running The Baltimore Marathon [in which the term "running" is used very loosely, of course]. As much as I dreaded about 94% of my training, I still look back at the whole experience very fondly. It even makes me laugh now when I think about all of the hours that I spent agonizing in the blazing sun, wogging down the side of the highway, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Remember this image of how my training actually went down in 2009?

[p.s...In hindsight, I love that the name of this image contains the name "wonkersized".]

Good times.

So, this time around the goal has been to avoid injury. Seems like a simple, attainable goal, right? Let’s hope so.

I started training on May 30. According to My Sista, I was a little late, but I figured that since I knew I was planning to walk or run/walk the race, I’d have no problem jumping in and starting out with my first “long” at 3 miles. I knew that the most common problem that would come up with this training plan would be laziness. Lack of desire to sweat. ME. I am the problem!

But I’m also the solution.

I can’t escape my training plan.

I have a copy of it on the desktop of my computer at work, and a printed copy taped to a wall that I pass 43 times each day at home. There is no escaping “The Plan”. I’ve come to enjoy crossing the days off as I complete my workouts–it makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I’ve sort of always had a very lackadaisical attitude when it came to following a set training plan. I was afraid that it would cause me to become obsessed. It turns out that it doesn’t. It just makes me follow the plan (which will hopefully help me avoid injury)!

So far, I’m a little more than 1/2 way through week 3, and I’ve missed one run and one cross train. Not bad, I’ll take it. In missing those 2 workouts, I have come to realize that I’m great at rationalizing the reasons why I should skip. For the first cross training session I missed, I was visiting my family in NY, and I brought my resistance bands with me so that I could do a quick session on Saturday. Then I told myself that it would be “ok” if I missed it. So I did. Fail.

I actually missed the run last Friday because I took both Monday AND Tuesday as rest days. I did that because I just didn’t “FEEL” like running on Tuesday. By the time that Friday arrived, I also didn’t “FEEL” like running either. Lame.

Lesson learned. This week, I didn’t skip any runs, and I’m feeling good (although I do have a strange bursitis-y twinge in my left knee that I’m doctoring). Last night, I also didn’t “FEEL” like running, but I did it anyway. It helps that I can drag my treadmill out and park it directly in front of the TV while I watch Real Housewives of OC. Reality TV makes me run.

How do you make sure that you get your workouts in?

What are the excuses you typically use when you skip a workout?

As a general rule, I am a positive person. Don’t get me wrong–I have my fair share of pity parties, but no matter how tough my life situation, I usually have my initial cry/scream/pity party, but then I just put on my big girl panties and move on.

Usually.

Since October, however, I have been having a difficult time even finding my big girl panties. It’s like that pair of panties that fall behind the crevice of your wall and dresser. You don’t find them until you decide to move the furniture and clean the dust bunnies from behind the furniture (which basically never happens at my house)…then you’re like,

“A ha! My big girl panties! I was wondering where they were!”

My big girl panties were misplaced months ago. So, I’ve been (figuratively of course) walking around for the past 6-8 months without wearing any panties. And I have on a skirt. A skirt with no panties. I’m sure you’re familiar with the uncomfortable ‘I’m not wearing any panties with a skirt’ feeling.

It’s a little breezy (but not in a good way).

You’re constantly on guard, waiting for your skirt to fly up (but not in a good way).

If you’re even a fraction as clumsy as I am, you’re living daily with the fear that at any given moment, you could end up on the floor/pavement/grass in a very compromising (panty-less) situation.

There is nothing good about losing your big girl panties. It’s intimidating, daunting, and personally, it makes me feel like I’ve fallen down and landed with my skirt over my head.

The past 8 months for me have been filled with a slew of losses on many levels, uncertainty, and confusion. I’ve faced rejection, grief, physical pain, and a lot of self-doubt. Mostly, this has all been a result of the trials and tribulations surrounding Operation: Baby. I’ve been hesitant to really dig into it on the blog for a couple of reasons, but mostly because I don’t know how much everyone cares to hear about my fertility.

What I’ve decided is that although you probably don’t care about my fertility, it’s really playing a huge role in my overall health and fitness (both mentally and physically). That is exactly what my whole blog is about, so why would I ignore it?  In a way, it’s just another obstacle–sort of like my IT band syndrome or bursitis. This obstacle just happens to originate in the parts that we don’t usually speak of.

When I had my original pregnancy loss last October, it created an immediate sense of fear for me. I instantly felt like I had caused the loss–it was the TRX workout that I did on Saturday…or the Spin class I attended the evening before I started having complications…or that weird stretch I did because my hamstrings were tight. I immediately blamed myself for something that remains to be completely unexplained, and something which no medical study has ever tied back to exercise, spinning, stretching, flexing, or jumping. It wasn’t my fault.

But I didn’t believe it.

So I stopped working out. Instead, I watched TV and ate.

It’s amazing how old coping mechanisms come on scene just when you need them the most! But really–I rationalized that working out had caused me the hurt, pain, and uncertainty of losing a pregnancy (and two more since then), so why would I continue doing it? Getting and staying pregnant is supposed to be easy, it was going to be easy for me, and the only factor that could have caused the problem was exercise. Of course!

(facepalm).

Of course not!

It’s taken me 8 months, but I’ve worked it out in my head. Fertility problems are so common these days, and they’re not caused by exercise. I personally have many friends who have worked out throughout their pregnancies, and gone on to have very healthy, happy babies. Hell…I ran a 10K with my friend when she was 6 months pregnant. This is not the cause of my fertility problems. In order to reinforce this in my fearful brain, I bought the book Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James F. Clapp III. M.D., on a recommendation from my friend.

I am feeling so much more relieved after having read this book. Dr. Clapp (I’m sorry…but his name is just funny) conducted firsthand research on 250 women who exercised regularly before, during, and after pregnancy, as well as a group of 50 women who began a structured exercise program during pregnancy. As a result, he disproved all of the old myths about exercise reducing a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant, that exercise causes early miscarriage or premature labor, and that weight-bearing exercises are not good for pregnant women. It’s all a crock.

He found no proof that exercise causes miscarriage, ectopic pregnancies, congenital defects, or other placental problems.

So.

I read the book.

I started my Boilermaker Training Plan.

I had another miscarriage.

I cried.

I pulled my big girl panties out from behind my dresser.

I put them on.

I called my doctor.

I asked for help.

I made an appointment to come up with a game plan.

I took back control.

I won’t allow fear to control my health.

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Did you exercise throughout your pregnancy?

Have you recently had to search for your big girl panties too?

It literally just occurred to me today that I have a race next month. I’ve had so much going on with houses and family-starting [because using the term 'baby making' in this sense seemed really wrong] that I forgot one minor detail:

I need to TRAIN if I want to RACE.

Right.

Minor detail.

So, the official Boilermaker 15K training plan starts today. It’s about a week late, considering the fact that I have only been walking for the past few weeks, but it’ll all work out. I’ll walk or walk/run it if I have to. The important part is that I’m moving and I ultimately finish, right?!

In any case, here’s the plan:

In other news, literally the day after I wrote a full post explaining the long, short sale saga of our soon-to-be new home, something magical happened. I woke up on Friday morning as usual, [checking my email as soon as my eyeballs open], and there was a standard automated email from my real estate agent with all of the new and updated listings. I generally open the email and skim the listings, but don’t pay much attention. After all, we had a house already!

Then, I saw this house.

And I decided to do more than skim.

It turns out that this house had everything we wanted: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, plenty of back yard for our dogs, a lovely deck, and it was in one of our favorite neighborhoods. It was in the neighborhood that My Gazelle and I had driven through on many occasions, talking about “…someday, maybe be can live here!” We never thought that day would come, though, since properties in this neighborhood were well above our modest budget.

Short sale!

Needs TLC!

I called my real estate agent when I got to the office, and by 11:30, I was at the property scoping it out. It definitely needed TLC, and the previous owners were definitely hard on the house, but I felt like I was “home” when I went inside [despite the duct-taped fireplace, textured wall paint, and filthy carpets]. We immediately put an offer on it.

We’re under contract now…just playing the waiting game again with the bank.

Patience is not my forte, as I’ve mentioned several times in the past.

Hopefully I can distract myself with my training plan for the next few weeks while we patiently wait!

So what is everyone training for right now?!

So, first of all, I just want to take a little poll.

This is totally normal, right?

I mean…everyone has a huge treadmill in the middle of their living room, right?

Right?!

I do have some crazy ideas, but believe it or not, the whole ‘treadmill in the middle of the living room’ thing was not part of my original plan. I’m crazy, but I’m not insane.

The reason there is a treadmill in the middle of my living room is because in light of purchasing our “dream” house, My Gazelle and I decided to cancel our respective gym memberships. When we do finally move into a new house, at that point we will have two mortgages. [Thank you, negative equity]. We are doing drastic things in order to cut expenses in advance of entering into the “two mortgage zone”. It’s a dangerous place to be.

We allowed ourselves a budget of $1000 to purchase all of the equipment that we would need to furnish our home gym. We feel pretty confident that with the gym actually residing in our home, we will be even more likely to work out in our free time. Since I am a fair weather runner [and despise the hassle of going to a gym], I have been wanting a treadmill of my own for a few years. I just didn’t think we had any space for it.

Clearly, I was wrong!

See–plenty of space!!

In the end, we purchased a new set of PowerBlocks on sale at a local fitness equipment store, and then found this treadmill, a squat rack, an incline bench, two bars, and a whole set of weight plates on Craigslist. All for $1,100 [almost made the budget]!

When we purchased this treadmill the weekend of April 23rd, we should have already settled on our new house. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that smoothly, so now we have a great treadmill [conversation piece] in the middle of the living room. The funny thing is that having the treadmill in the middle of the living room has proved to be a great motivation to use it. I see it on a daily basis, and My Gazelle often walks returns from a walk or a trip to the store only to find me huffing it out on the treadmill.

Sweating all over our carpet.

He loves that part.

Moral of the story: If you’re looking for fitness equipment, go directly to Craigslist. And don’t be afraid to store it in the middle of a high-traffic area in your house until you have a legitimate place to put it.

———-

And now, a winner.

In the midst of my hiatus, I actually forgot to pick the winner of the Hardware Designs bracelet [p.s...thank you for reminding me, Summer]! It’s a little late, but here’s the winner:

Yay!

Incidentally, Meredith followed up with this comment, and I think it’s great!

So, congrats Meredith–wear it proud! Just email me your shipping instructions, and I’ll have Hardware Designs send your bracelet out ASAP!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, peeps, and be safe!

Disclosure: Actions you take from the links within this blog post may yield commissions for joggerslife.com. See Jogger’s Life’s disclosure statement for more details.

I definitely had a fun time last year when I went to Fitbloggin’, but I have to admit that my experience this year was even better. I think that I owe it in part to these two ladies:

My Fitbloggin’ buds (Jen and Beth).

Incidentally, every time anyone said the name “Beth”, both of us would answer, since my family and friends call me ‘Beth’ too!

I’ve been trying to use the past few weeks to kick myself back into gear with a workout plan. Although I’m don’t plan to dwell incessantly on my progress in the ‘babymakin’ realm, I will tell you that I was recently pregnant again, and (sadly), it did not end well. As a result, I spent the last week of April and about two weeks thereafter feeling out of sorts, immobile, and very fluffy.

Last week was only my second week of being back on a workout schedule, so I made sure to work out as much as possible while I was at Fitbloggin’. Jen and I hit the gym twice while we were there (Thursday and Friday), but after that, our days were pretty jam packed with activities, so I couldn’t fit in a workout.

Today, I plan to do something that will make me sweat for at least 30 minutes [obviously, I still haven't come up with a plan].

It’ll probably look something like this–my favorite Cardio Blast Workout. I love doing interval workouts, and this is my favorite way to combine cardio with a little bit of weight/body weight training.

CARDIO BLAST WORKOUT

1) Biceps Curls (barbell or dumbbell)

2) Triceps cable push downs or Triceps Dumbbell Kickback

3) Pushups

4) Lying Leg-Hip Raise

5) 90 seconds treadmill incline blast (turn the treadmill up to 10% or more incline, and blast out a 90 second power walk/jog/run)

x 3-5 sets

I do all of these exercises in a series, take 1-2 minutes of rest, then repeat!

Then, I take a nap.

What is your favorite workout??

Sometimes, after life has served you a Super Sized share of beat-down, the only thing that you really need is to reconnect, revive, and reboot.

Eat sushi.

With friends. [thanks for a great weekend, girls!]

Until it’s so dark that you can’t see the water anymore.

Spend four days with 300 health and fitness bloggers.

[p.s...see my head? It's big, huh?!]

Eat Popchips.

And think about all things life and blog-related.

Because, up until two weeks ago, I didn’t know if I was even going to attend Fitbloggin’. Although I had been planning to attend the conference ever since the day that last years’ conference ended, too many things had transpired in the previous month, and I was on overload.

To be honest, up until 4 days ago, I didn’t even know if I wanted to continue this little virtual journal at Jogger’s Life. Little did any of you know, but for the past 4 days, I was allowing the Fitbloggin’ conference to be my barometer. I knew that I would either fall back in love with my blog, or I would decide that I was just not in the right life place anymore to be a blogger.

I’ve decided to continue blogging, and I’ve decided to continue blogging with a sense of balance. I can’t write 3 blogs, sling cupcakes, stay fit, and work a 40 hour per week big girl job while still maintaining my sanity. I also can’t do all of this while simultaneously expecting to be stress-free enough to start a family.

And find a new house (yep, that still isn’t over yet).

And be a functional member of The Happy Wives Club.

I really love my blog. I love writing, and I love all of you. I just needed to take a step back and remember why I started this blog in the first place. I strongly believe that people have the freedom to take their blogs in whatever direction feels good to them. When you write a blog about your life, it will naturally follow the twists and turns that your life takes. What I’ve progressively lost sight of, however, is that this blog was always meant to be a little piece of me, my life, and the things that are important to me.

So, I intend to keep that in sight from now on.

The reason I started this blog is because I had just committed to doing something that scared the bejesus out of me. One of the first scary things that I had ever done in my life.

I have to always remember the things that make me smile about this blog: I can motivate people to do things that they were too scared to try in the past. I can set goals, put them out into the virtual universe, then work to achieve them. That’s why I started writing this blog. In 2008, I knew that I wanted to change my life, and a side effect was that I changed a few others in the process. I love that.

As for everything else (Sugared Bakery and my other blog babies), they’ll have to wait until I have some free time. Sometimes, it’s OK to prioritize. Sometimes, it’s OK to say ‘no’.

In the meantime, Jogger’s Life still has a lot more living to do.

Thank you, Fitbloggin’.