While my New Year’s Resolution isn’t specifically running related this year, I do have running goals for 2020.

I’d like to run 500 miles this year (I made it in 2018, missed it in 2019) and I want to hit the starting line of the Maine Half Marathon in October feeling prepared. Goal one will certainly feed into goal two, while also making sure I have to run consistently throughout the year. Consistent running, even if it’s 5-10 miles a week in the winter and 15-20 in the summer, is better than going from 0 to 25 when June hits. And it makes me feel better and enjoy life more all year!

I’m also planning to complete both Tour de Zwift running and cycling this year. Tour de Zwift is a 7 event series this year from January 12th through February 16th. Greg and I did the cycling Tour de Zwift last year together and it was ludicrously fun. We had evening Zwift dates biking 20 miles after the kids were in bed, and Saturday mornings where we’d drink coffee on the bike while the kids kept popping in and out to check out our progress and watch us cycle through the virtual world. I’m looking forward to doing both the run and the ride this year. Mileage and elevation stats for each event aren’t available yet, but that’s half the fun.

Greg got us both Zwift RunPods so we can do the Tour de Zwift run. The little bluetooth device feeds onto your shoelaces and enables you to use any treadmill out there to run in Zwift’s virtual world.

I have to say, I’m shockingly loving it. Treadmill runs can be a touch… boring. Not that I would EVER call it the dreadmill.

The visual component of the Zwift world combined with the big display of heart-rate zone data makes the treadmill more engaging. And I haven’t even joined an event or race yet!

Yesterday I ran 3.1 miles using my heart-rate to create intervals based on effort. I would run 5 minutes in the orange heart-rate zone, then kick it up for one minute in red, then recover down to green and repeat.

New Year’s Resolution update: one thing that bugs me is sitting in carline at school pick-up. In order to get a spot where you’re not blocking parked cars, you have to arrive like 20 minutes before school gets out. Alternately you can come after school lets out and try to get into the back of the line and be one of the last people to pick up your kid, which is what the smart parents and guardians do, but let’s face it… I’m not that smart.

I am smart enough to reach out to my friends and carpool, though. Now I have two days a week where I pick up extra kids, and two days a week when my kids will be dropped off at my house and I skip the carline entirely. This probably saves me a minimum of 45 minutes and realistically closer to an hour a week.

What could you do with an extra hour in your week? That’s at least a 3 mile run, stretch and shower.

And it’s saving my neighbors time, too.

I hope you have great running goals for 2020 and that you can find your own creative solutions to reduce life’s little annoyances.

Some things I ate this week – because, Veganuary!

Happy New Year!

Gone are the days of looking at expiration dates on food and thinking, wow, 2020 – this stuff is good FOREVER.

It actually came!

I’ve written in the past about how much I love New Year’s Resolutions, but my resolution isn’t big this year. It’s little. This year I want to tackle all the little things that bug me instead of letting them fester.

This goal is about more than being able to open the junk drawer or look outside the window without seeing yard work I’ve been meaning to take care of.

It’s about the feeling I have when I take care of something that’s been bugging me every time I see it.

It’s about the satisfaction of not being surrounded by little annoyances that I could eliminate if I just buckled down and did a little work or problem solving; but because they’re little and non-urgent, I just sigh in irritation and move on with my day.

My 2020 resolution is to pay attention to things that bother me or annoy me and try to fix them within a reasonable time frame. I’ll use the chalkboard in the kitchen and reminders on my phone so I don’t forget.

Some things will be big, but others will be sub ten-minute fixes, like finally donating the shoes my kids have outgrown so there’s room in the closet, or cross-checking my grocery list with the pantry so I don’t over-buy and crowd the shelves.

This was inspired by a big fix. My amazing 7 year old and husband cleaned out the garage this week. Now I don’t open my car door into my kids’ snow tubes or bike handles. It was a little annoyance that added up to many small moments of frustration in my life. Having room to easily navigate through our small garage and get into my car is so nice.

The garage was admittedly a big project, but in the future, putting things back up on the wall racks they hung will be a small time investment in preventing annoyance.

Every time I tackle something that bugs me, I wish I’d just taken the time to do it sooner. Hindsight is 2020, right? So in 2020 my resolution is to take the time now to fix things that bother me whenever I can, and not to put things off and live with the irritation when I could take the initiative to fix it instead.

If you also love the blank slate feeling of January, here are some of my (unsponsored) favorite resources.

Better than Before – a book on habit formation by Gretchen Rubin. Tons of tips and tricks for forming a new habit and making it stick.

30 Day Vegan Challenge – an amazing resource for the veg-curious who might be considering Veganuary.

This Naked Mind – for anyone considering Dry January, the book by Annie Grace will have you realizing that you can enjoy and love life without a daily dose of “liquid courage” as well as deconstructing all the societal influences surrounding public opinion of alcohol. Great for anyone looking to cut back without feeling like they’re sacrificing.

Peloton is facing backlash after their Christmas advertisement with a woman receiving a Peloton bike from her husband for Christmas, v-logging her journey, and showing him a compilation film at the end of the year to thank him for the gift because she didn’t realize how much it would change her.

There are clips of her biking and looking outside at falling snow, waking up early for a 6 a.m. ride, and getting a workout in while her kid plays in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShKu2icEYw

But the ad has gotten some backlash online, with people concerned that it’s never appropriate for a husband to buy unsolicited workout equipment for his wife and that it’s part of a body-shaming culture.

Ryan Reynolds even went so far as to hire the actress in the Peloton commercial for an Aviation Gin ad where she sits despondently at a bar between two friends and chugs her martini in awkward silence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2t7lknrK28

Here’s the thing; giving someone exercise equipment can definitely be uncomfortable if it’s unsolicited.

But weight loss isn’t the only reason for exercising. The actress in the commercial does not appear to be overweight or lose any weight over the course of her vlogging and year on Peloton.

I’ve been running since 2012 and started indoor cycling a few years later, and I do it because it changes how I think and feel.

I have a really nice indoor bike trainer and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever gotten. I can ride safely when it’s icy or snowing. I can bike while the kids are in bed, or while they’re reading on the couch in their pajamas on a lazy weekend morning. I can get up early on a busy day, like the woman in that commercial, and bike while my family is asleep and be in an incredible mood for whatever we have planned.

When the actress in that commercial says “I didn’t know how much this would change me”… well, I relate. Because I know how it feels to set a fitness goal and to stick with it and achieve something and feel incredible during the process because every workout is like a ray of mental sunshine. I know how it feels to have a piece of equipment you cherish because it gives you freedom to get those positive endorphins when you need them, whether it’s a double jogging stroller, a stationary bike, or a gym membership with childcare.

When I would get up at 5 a.m. to go run 10 miles to prepare for my first half marathon so I could be back in time for Greg to go to work, it had nothing to do body image or weight loss. It changed me because I did something I set out to do that wasn’t easy.

And when Greg surprises me with a new pair of running shoes, I feel supported and believed in.

Context matters, but I love the idea of giving a parent a piece of exercise equipment that lets them work out any time from home.

I hope the internet backlash doesn’t dissuade someone out there from getting their partner a Wahoo Kickr or Peloton or Mirror if they know it would make it easier, more convenient, and more fun for the person they love to exercise.

Yes, it’s a terrible gift if you’re the one who wants them to exercise. But it’s a great gift for someone who loves spin class but is struggling with the commute to the gym, or who rides outside all summer and is devastated when it starts snowing.

So before you throw in the towel and drop your money on blood diamonds because the internet tells you diamonds are a girl’s best friend, make sure she wouldn’t rather have her Shimano 150 upgraded to Ultegra or something first.

Had a great time racing the Maine Marathon Relay this past weekend!

Fall races are my favorite. You train in the summer heat and humidity, and then show up on race day and often find yourself running in much better weather conditions than you trained in.

Yesterday was one of those lucky, cool and crisp fall days! It felt incredible to start cold and warm up on the run. I felt like I had under-trained yet over-performed.

I ran the 8.9 mile leg of the marathon relay with my sister-in-law’s team, and they were such nice, chill people who were there to have fun and set no pressure on how fast I would run. The runner I handed off to was at my relay start position to pick up the runner handing off to me and drive her home, and she was like “I’ll be there early, you run how you run, I’ll see you when you get there, no rush, just HAVE FUN.”

So I did.

8.9 miles was a magical distance to run. Knowing I wasn’t going to be going the extra 4 miles to make it a half marathon let me push a little harder.

If I had stuck with running the half marathon instead of joining the relay team, it would have been my 10th half marathon, and I think the experience is starting to add up. I noticed that I’m mentally stronger going up hills than when I first started running. When I start to slow down and I feel like I can’t breathe and everything is terrible, I look at the incline, note that this is how I’m supposed to feel, and wait calmly for the downhill knowing that it’s going to feel much better soon and I can make up the time there. It’s one thing to know these things intellectually, and another thing to believe it with every fiber of your aching quads because you’ve run enough long races to know it’s true.

Running the past races I’ve run meant that I didn’t worry when it felt hard that I wasn’t going to make it. I’ve felt mile 11 of a half marathon enough times to know what’s left in my legs when I feel a certain way.

Relays are great because you’re part of a team, so you’re invested in other runners’ success and they’re invested in yours. Pushing up a hill means a fellow runner isn’t waiting as long for the start of their race. It feels like it matters, more, even when they’re so nice that they’re only hope is that you “have fun!”.

It also allows you to run a different distance; so many races available are 5ks or half marathons, and it can be hard to even find a 10k to run.

I also found it motivating to realize that the other people around me were running the marathon. If they could push up that hill in the middle of their 26.2, then what was my excuse when I was only running 8.9 miles?

I hope your fall is offering you many opportunities to run outside! Remember not to be afraid of the crisp cool air when you start; you WILL warm up, and it will feel glorious. It’s absolutely worth that initial cold feeling. Push through, get outside, enjoy!

I hope you’re having a fantastic summer!

I listened to a great episode of the “Before Breakfast” podcast recently about why the host Laura Vanderkam runs every day, and it made me want to share it. Listen here: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-before-breakfast-30642889/episode/why-i-run-every-day-47494324/

While I’m not updating this blog regularly, I am still running regularly! I’ll be participating in my first marathon relay this fall and running an 8.9 mile leg of the race, which is really exciting. What a great distance! How fun to be part of a team! What awesome accountability!

It’s given me motivation to complete my August long runs that can be kind of brutal because of the heat, but which pay off big time in September and October. The heat might really slow you down, but your muscles are still working, your endurance is still building, and then when the temperature drops 20 degrees in the fall you’ll feel like you are flying!

I’m also doing yoga regularly – I tend to roll my mat out in the kitchen and run through several sun salutations and whatever else feels good while I make my evening tea. The herbal teas I like steep for 10 minutes, and the water needs to boil first, and then the tea should cool, which means I can do a solid 15-20 minutes of yoga if I’m up for it. (Or I can fill the dishwasher, but my preference is yoga.)

I miss studio classes, but I’ve found that a subscription to the Aaptiv ap gets me some good yoga on audio. I throw on my wireless headphones and get talked through a class.

For those avoiding subscription apps or wanting a visual, Yoga with Adriene on YouTube has come highly recommended.

For anyone new to yoga, the safest approach is to begin practicing somewhere that you’ll get instructor guidance, modifications, and have someone watching to help reduce your risk of injury. 

Other things I love this summer  –

Mocktails packed with fruit, fizz and mint leaves.

Working on the book I’m writing and getting ready for fall classes to resume in the novel writing program I’m taking.

Seeing family & friends.

Getting my feet in the sand whenever I can.

Wishing you the best!