Tag: templebuilding

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Don’t have to like it to love it.

In recent weeks I’ve started to pay more attention to myself. I used to be fairly good at this, but in the hustle and bustle of daily life, meetings and must-dos compete for my attention, and my inner voice often gets silenced in all the noise.

Tuning into myself as of late, I’ve noticed that I really enjoy exercise. I’ve been running for a couple of years now, but I don’t run every day. In fact, I strive not to run every day because of its high impact on my already injury-prone body (thanks to gymnastics, track, and cheerleading in my youth, as well an awful, yet persistent, habit of sitting with one leg underneath me). So I’ve been purposely scheduling off days to rest my body, and also, depending on my schedule, to sleep past o’dark thirty.

But I’ve finally discovered that my day goes and feels differently depending on the inclusion or exclusion of exercise. Even if it’s a short walk to run an errand, or dancing around the house, I just feel better when I make a concerted effort to move. Chalk it up to endorphins, but stagnant energy is transformed, and I have momentum to keep it moving.

The hardest part, of course, is getting started. Some mornings it does take a bit of self coaxing to get out of bed – especially if the weather isn’t ideal or I haven’t slept as much as I’d like. But invariably, if I get past the “Don’t wanna!” stage, I always find myself at “So glad I did!”

With that, I’m striving to exercise more frequently, even if it simply means dancing out to Beyonce’s Get Me Bodied a couple of times.

The inner voice says it’s ready to move. It’s time my body listened.

Shout out to my line sister Dina, for sharing this great video recently.

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Personal Record

Today I claim total victory. I ran a personal best, smashing all of my previous times for an average pace below 10 minutes a mile.

This is huge news for someone who never thought she’d run distance for fun, and who once believed the occasional dip below a 12-minute mile was cause for celebratory cheers.

Typical pace from earlier this year.

And this, in a nutshell, is one of the things I most love about running.

Running is a daily opportunity to set tangible goals and work toward them. Funny thing about running – it brings you face to face with reality. Sometimes the weather isn’t cooperating; do you run in the rain or sweltering sun anyway? Sometimes your body isn’t cooperating; do you wrap the knee or rest it? Sometimes time isn’t on your side; should you cut your run in half or just wait until another day? Or maybe the laundry has piled up; do you wear those uncomfortable shorts and hike them up the whole time, or…?

Decisions. It’s extremely rare when I can say my run and the stars are in complete alignment. Despite the snooze button, my failure to wash clothes, Mother Nature’s quirks or anything else, I often decide to run anyway.

And maybe today’s run sucked: I was slow, it was hard to breathe, I was hot, cold, etc. Maybe today’s run was perfect: I hit my target pace, I had great form, it was a glorious temperature with a refreshing breeze. But true glory lies within the confines of whatever the circumstances are. In other words, no matter what, I have the opportunity to do my best – realizing that “best” may look very different under varying circumstances.

Today’s circumstances were pretty favorable. And in the past week I’ve surprised myself, shaving two and a half minutes off my “typical” total time. For the first time since I began running over two years ago, the 10-minute average pace was within my grasp!

Monday’s run was literally a couple of seconds shy of the 10-minute pace. I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as I yanked my skort up and down throughout the run, finally stopping to give it a good pull.

This is what a wardrobe malfunction will do.

Going out this morning, my aim was what it always is – to have fun and do my best. Honestly, I didn’t think I had it in me to top that 10:01 pace today. Usually, I run fastest after more than a couple of days of rest. When I touched the gate at the end of my run and stopped the clock, I cheered my time. 39:10 (9:48 average pace). Total victory!

Now that’s what I call a personal record!

I have no idea what my next run will be like. Will it be warm or chilly? Will my knee be irritable? Will I add back all the time I’ve shaved? I don’t really know. But I do know that I’ll enjoy my run, and I’ll do my best, whatever that means at the moment. In the end, I can’t win in the past. I can’t win in the future. I can only win in the present moment. And so can you.

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Beats Per Minute

So yesterday Erika asked what’s on our running playlists. Now, I’ve had two versions of my playlist (3 mile and 4 mile) for over a year. It’s important to say up front, I spend countless runs skipping through songs and testing sequences to get my playlists just right. Once they are, I tend to use them until I outpace them. Nerd, OCD, whatever. I like the music to be energizing, but I also like to sync my steps with the beat. This means the BPM has to be perfect.

Some of my best songs come from pre-made cardio fitness compilations. They’re the right BPM and are already cross faded to blend nicely from one to another. I then mix in songs from my personal collection and voila!

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) my pace is quickening, but my playlist (namely the 4 miler) has remained the same. That means it’s time to rearrange, test new songs and the like. I tried mixing things up today for the first time. Catastrophe.

That’ll be a new project, but for now, here’s the answer to the question. I am generally done with my run by the end of track 10, but the other songs are there for cool down, and the occasional 5 mile stretch.

My usual 4 mile playlist. I'm generally done by the end of Track 10.