moving along into 2013 with hope and faith

Wow, am I really going to be 34 in 4 days? where does the time go. it seems like just yesterday I was turning 20 and I thought I was OLD THEN! HA! I surely didn't know ANYTHING back then. It makes me laugh how we always think we know everything at that age when really we are just BEGINNING to experience life.

I have a lot of big things coming up in my life here soon...one is my 10yr anniversary to my sweet husband on Feb.14th.
It's amazing how the longer you're married the deeper your connection grows. we have more patience with each other, more tolerant. We know all of the little quirks of each other  and are better at overlooking them.

WE are about 4-5mos away from having our chiropractic clinic PAID OFF!!!! Holy crap, can't even tell you how excited I am about that because......it means we can finally buy a HOUSE!!!

Yes, we have been in this 950 sqft apartment fro 7yrs! yes SEVEN YEARS, you heard me right.
we have long ago out grown it, but we didn't want to spend money on a bigger place when we could put that money to our clinic payments and get that paid off faster. so we chose to sacrifice alot of things and stay in this tiny 2bdrm apartment. It's been hard, but will be so worth it in the end!

I have started peaking around at houses online and i'm soooo excited. I definitely want/need at least 5 bedrooms, which I know sounds obsurd, but let me explain:
bedroom 1-Steve and I
bedroom 2-Megan
bedroom 3-Eriika
bedroom 4-OFFICE-this is a must I am going mental....NEED an office!
bedroom 5-spare room for FRIENDS/FAMILY when they visit!!!

I have never lived in a big house, ever. we never owned a home growing up, so this will be HUGE for me!
I am sooooooooooooooo excited!!! hopefully we'll be in  a home by summer:) I'm afraid I won't know what to do with all the space though!:/

As I said in my last post, 2012 has pretty much been a wash for me with my running, but i'm excited to start over again in 2013!!

I had surgery on friday so I have to take a mandatory 3wks off and then i'll ease back into running....hoping to have Nikki start training me at the end of January for the Eugene Half marathon.
I want to KILL that race! I need a new PR, I need something to keep me going:)

Even though I haven't had the best running year, I am still content.Sometimes I have found myself getting so discouraged and feeling like i'll never be fast or hit my goals, but I know I can. Timing is everything and I guess 2012 just wasn't my time:) but it will come, I know it will.

well, I guess that's it for now...nothing major to report!;)
Merry Christmas friends!!!
xxx

2012....not what I had hoped for

Wow. Hard not to look at 2012 and see only how BADLY it sucked -Running wise that is.


I had a good 10K race at 40:59 during a 70mile week in Boston training, but that's about it. other than that...I didn't hit any of my goals for this year:(:(:(
I would like to just forget this entire year in regards to my running and start over.

It has crept up on me so slowly that I never even realized it has been EIGHT MONTHS....since I've run a 40 mile week. most of the weeks in the last 8 mos have been 20-30 miles...and  few that were less than 10.
I have lost an incredible amount of fitness and it's hard to think back to what GREAT shape I was in before boston and how I never even got to run. I never got to see what all my hard work could have done. I got so discouraged after 2 stress fractures in 11 mos that I just sort of gave up mentally after that. it's been 8 mos and i'm FINALLY feeling like i'm starting to get my MOJO back!! I never thought it would take THIS LONG to heal from this experience. It was a tough one on me.

On a positive note, I ran my first 13 miler today pacing a friend to her 1:54 half marathon and ran my first 40 mile week since March. It felt good. I feel like i'm READY to get back into racing shape.

I am having some surgery done on Friday and I will have to take 3-4wks off, but after that I plan to ease back into running and get ready to get serious again.

Plans for 2013:

January: Ease back into running , get base up to 35 miles a week

February-April: Train for the Eugene Half Marathon under Coach Nikki Raffie (www.teamathena.org)
GOAL: Sub 1:30:00!!! this is do or die. I WILL hit this goal.  gonna be tough as at this moment I estimate with no endurance the last 8mos I could probably run a 1:40-1:45 and I am taking a month off so I've got A LOT of ground to make up in 3mos from Feb-April, but I can do this.

May-June: MAYBE train and run the Newport Marathon (depending on how training for the half goes)

June-Dec TBD but I am determined to finally hit the goals of -19:30 5K and -40:00 10K


Though, this year has sucked for me, I understand that these things just happen. I'm trying to focus on finding my "zone" mileage wise and what type of training will work for my body. I am trying to remind myself that I have MANY years of running ahead of me still.
I will be 34 on Dec 27th and many women are running super fast who are years older than me...so I think I still got another good 6yrs to train hard and hit my goals:) 1year in the scheme of things is not that significant.

Perspective:)

I love this quote....because I have finally after 8 mos found this desire again. 

here's to 2013:)

waiting...

why is silence so deafening sometimes? 

I've never been good with sitting in silence..unless it is to listen for the voice of God. 

Today I am sitting in silence b/c I'm sick. 

oh so sick. 

Strep, the flu...whatever it is is has had me knocked on my butt for over 2 days now. 

I had taken the previous week entirely off running b/c last sunday I went for a run in forest park and the lower calf achilles soreness/tightness that had been coming and going the last few weeks came to a head and I had to walk/hobble 4 miles back alone.

Too scared to try to run again too soon, I just didn't. 

I ran a brief 2.5 miles the following sunday ( 2 days ago), and it was fine but I was gettign sick and it surely didn't help my health situation,....now i'm out for probably another half week or so. 

Maybe all these set-backs are opportunities for me to try to learn to be okay with the present. 

why is that SO hard for me? always dreaming of the future, the possibilities, the 'whens'....I want to be there now...but I know I can't rush these things. 

Its been 7 mos since I had my femoral stress fracture and I'm still scared like a baby to really train. 2 stress fractures in 11 mos did something to my psyche. I'm not sure how to fix it? 

ideas thoughts suggestions??

My husband called a bit ago and woke me up and so I decided to get up blow dry my hair...i've been looking like medusa for 2 days. 

no really. 

I would share a pic but it's so scary:) 

You'll have to find me on instagram if you want to see it;)

Thankful for friends. 

My friend Julie picked up Erika from preschool and took her to her house to play so I can rest without feeling guilty for not being a mom. 

I don't think I've eaten for 2 days..but I have drank A LOT of apple juice:) 

oh...and 2 bowls of cereal...

and not the healthy kind either;)

As the seasons change, so will all this. thankful that all good things always return to us. 

Health

Running

Family

Goodness.

waiting on these things today....

A WIN! and almost a 5K PR.....feeling SURPRISED to say the least!

Don't you LOVE surprises? sometimes we all need a little boost...a little Pick me up, a word of encouragement, a good test result, a call from an old friend, a kind email.........or to win a 5K race you almost didn't do b/c you thought you were so out of shape!!

Because My iron is so low and I have only been running 27-35 miles a week the last couples months, I almost didn't go out for the Blue Lake 5k On saturday.
Since I got diagnosed with my ferritin levels at a 9 last month I haven't been runnin' so hot. I've been taking Iron like crazy, eating red meat 2-3 times a week (sometimes that means  a cheeseburger from burgerville instead of my regular ground turkey burger:):), and trying to just go easy on myself.

This week I ran: (total of 30 miles with race)
Tuesday: 9x 400m on (only 4 miles total b/c I ran out of time), a little "mini" speed workout
Wed: went for a recovery run and felt surprisingly good..ended up doing 8 with 5 tempo in the middle
8:08-7:46, 7:40, 7:29, 7:05, 6:46-7:51, 8:00
really surprised myself. havn't done a tempo in 6mos!
thursday: promised to take it EASY but ended up running 6 at 7:45 pace.

this was all very surprising since the last few weeks Ive struggled regularily with 8:45 pace.....

Friday: 4 easy at 8:45 pace

So when Saturday rolled around, I was really questioning if I should bother. I probably used all my energy stores on wed/thurs this week. I don't think I can even run a sub 21min right now. I've hardly been running any miles (30 a week seems like so little when I WAS running 60-80 6mos ago). I had all these excuses in my head but decided I could just use it as a workout. Time doesn't matter....it will just be a good workout.

When I was driving to the race, I started to change the negative chatter in my head....I was reflecting back to the last 5K I did before my stress fracture before Boston....I was in shape to run a 19:30-40 then but got kidney stones that morning and ran a 20:03 and then almost rushed myself to emergency on the way home.....I felt jaded. I started to wonder if it was even remotely possible to go sub 20 this day?

My first response was No. Not even something to consider. BUT..........Then I heard myself reply "Nicole, how do you know if you don't even try? if you don't believe it's possible then of course it's not. Why are you limiting yourself? You run this body. You tell it what to do. Seize the opportunity. Pain is temporary and if you want it bad enough, you can make it happen". 
With that, I decided to not think about numbers...but to get out and run...don't worry about pace, just RUN and see what happens-Don't count ANYthing out!!

I did my warm up and got to the start line. I saw a girl who looked very fast towing the front of the line.....I probably can't beat her...but...looking around, I thought I could take 2nd or 3rd maybe......(its a small race).

This year the 5K was chip timed which was awesome:)

the gun went off and away we went.

I glanced at my watch a few times and knew I was running low 6's but I felt good....my new strategy has been to just keep my body where my legs feel like they can handle that pace for a while and not let my breathing get labored in the first mile to mile and a half. basically listen to my BODY, not my watch:)

I never looked at my watch when the first mile went off...I was closing the gap on the lead female and decided to just hang there.
As we approached mile 1.5  I was only  afoot behind her...she had slowed considerably and we were running quite a bit slower. I didn't want to pass her and regret it later....I still felt great so decided to embrace this "break" and just hold pace with her and make my move later. Around mile 1.75 a woman came up from behind me....now all 3 of us were running beside each other. I decided to make my move now and pull ahead.
I decided in that moment that I would WIN this race today.


At mile 2 I was just starting to feel the fatigue, but not nearly as bad as some other races...perfect timing! this is how a 5K should be.... i've got less than 7min of pain I thought, I can do this!:)( and to be honest it didn't really hurt til about 2.75)....

Still  having NO idea what my mile splits were something in my GUT told me I was on target to break 20min!!! (weird thing......I didn't even THINK about what my mile splits were....gosh I really AM becoming less neurotic about my running! ha ha)

When I approached the 3 mile mark I gave it everything i had which according to my garmin wasn't much!!

I won the race in 19:50!!!!!!! 

I can't tell you how EXCITED and STUNNED I was!!!
all I could say to my husband was "Wow! Low mileage works for me I guess!!!!, HA!"

it was just the boost I needed. I have a bit of a cold and am quite anemic so this made the win and time so much sweeter to me......I am JUST getting started! that sub 19 isn't far around the corner....I can almost TASTE it!!!! I believe in myself again!!!


I really love racing lately...no pressure on myself, believing in the impossible and having FUN!!!
It was fun to run this race as a RACE....and not pay attention to numbers...

Breakdown according to my Garmin:
Mile 1: 6:19
Mile 2: 6:34
Mile 3 6:29
last .1 6:09 pace
Final time 19:50
Believe in yourself! No limitations!

My 8yr old

My 4yr old

Sisters. Tired:)

Mile .5  (chasing leader in red sports bra)

Mile .5 

(The woman behind me in red shorts is the one who came up on me around mile 1.75)

Just before Mile 1 closing the gap

Mile 2.5 this KID was incredible!!! 9 yrs old and ran a 20min 5K!

Mile 2.5

Mile 2.7

Mile 3!!! last sprint

 with my cheerleaders

 picking up my award:)

Living with ADD, Searching for Balance......

Since  I was  a little girl, I have been running. and when I say running...I am not referring to the type of running we talk about on this blog. I just mean moving, talking, fidgeting.... non-stop.
ALWAYS. ON. THE. GO.

I am still like this. i can't sit still...My mind keeps racing when i should be listening. I start 5 tasks all at the same time and rarely finish any of them greatly. I am ALWAYS on the go, taking on more than I can handle, and then being grumpy about it when it was my own darn fault.... not knowing how to say no, feeling guilty 24hrs a day etc etc.
You get the picture.

It is the only life I've ever known. Sadly I don't think I know how to function any other way.
My life growing up was some what chaotic. I have mentioned before my mom was an alcoholic plus had to work 2-3 jobs most of my life to support us girls. Bless her heart..she did the VERY best she could with what she had/knew and I am in NO place to say I could have done better.

That being said, it still was a challenge. I learned to cope by being busy and self sufficient. Always on the go...I never learned how to sit and think. to process as some call it. to REFLECT. It is a skill, that now at age 33 with 2 children, I deeply wish I had. I ask Amanda regularily to TEACH me how to reflect...how to process my life, my thoughts, my day to day.....but i'm not sure it can be taught. her and I both agreed she is great at it, but it is a gift she has.

SO...i am going to have to work HARD at this trait. It is becoming  a necessity in my life.
I am getting older....I am getting busier.....my kids are growing up and more and more and more trials and "stuff" is being thrown at us/me.
Instead of just living from one day to the next, hoping each day I can just "survive" til bed time and then crash, waking up to do it all over again, I have decided that I need to come up with a PLAN for my life.

I need to start reflecting, planning, setting goals and then getting after it!

I am busy. I am successful. But I am also almost ALWAYS stressed out and overwhelmed and I feel like I'm missing out on life. On the good stuff. The little girl hugs and kisses...the real meaningful time reading books before bed....it's there and it happens but my mind is often already onto the next task. I have been working on this lately and feeling so much more JOY when I do.
This is also a definite trait of ADD which I struggle with. But as my husband says "So what. You have an extra challenge in life. You're gonna have to work harder, but it's not an excuse". 

He is very honest and straight forward, no doubt, but most of what comes out of his mouth is true. hate to admit it.
So I have challenges. we all do. they are diff for each of us. Mine is time managment, ADD, living in the MOMENT, living MY LIFE, every day and not just going through the motions.

But I can do this.

I went for a trail run with Amanda today. 7 miles of therapy. THAT'S what I call it! it was GOOD. Oh so good...she ran behind me and seriously talked my ear off but I loved it. I soaked up every little bit of wisdom and 'Amanda-ism's" she threw at me. I have been trying my best to reflect on some of her words and thoughts this afternoon and see if I can turn it into action.

I sat down tonight and tried to write out some "Goals". Surprisingly the things I wrote down were:

Daily:
-be with my girls-quality time each day
-TALK with my husband-connect, with no distractions
-Run. make it happen. just get out the door.
-Pray. need to stop slacking on this.

Weekly: 
-connect with friends/family-find time to talk to those who are important to me
-groceries/household chores etc-these have gone WAY by the way-side with my over booked life. I need to remember my first job is wife/mother:)
-Talk, connect with the girls who work for me.


Notice how there is nothing in here about running  a fast 5 or 10k?
I do want to do those things, but FIRST I need to get the BASICS of my life back in order. back to my priorities.
Taking control of MY life. taking time to sit down every sunday night and plan out my week instead of letting my week plan ME!;)
I have alot more work to do..so I better get back to it......I want this week to go as smoothly as possible:)


does anyone else have these challenges? this personality type or ADD? what have you found has helped you?

finding myself again......feeling a little (okay, A LOT), Lost!

I'm not sure why or how I've lost my blogging Mo-jo, but it's time to sit down and start to try to write again.
I warn you this might be a bunch of verbal vomit..it's like my warm up to writing again...no guarantees this will be interesting in the least sense of the word...but read on, if you wish...

I haven't even been logging my miles online anymore. I bought a book, lol....and I've been doing it the old school way....I thought it would help me to reflect more often but I have just been scribbling in it.

I feel like I have no direction. Everything in my life, running-related, is completely diff from my life 12-18mos ago.
I was in training. I was running 50-70 miles a week. I had goals, I had focus, I had motivation and ambition. But 2 stress fractures later,  I don't know WHAT I'm doing. The effects of those 2 stress fractures in 11 mos got to me. I hate to admit it but it sort of broke my spirit and the fact that I'm now 4 mos back into running and I still haven't exceeded 32 miles in a week I am starting to feel really discouraged and depressed.

I hate the fact that I know I have potential but I can't seem to tap into it.
It's bugging me. I keep racking my brain for what I can do differently this time. I can try lower mileage yes, I can try to cross train more.....I can eat better, sleep more etc etc etc.......

I have been enjoying JUST running. running just b/c I can so don't get me wrong. I am "relaxing". I am "enjoying" this phase...but part of me is also saying "okay....when exactly am I going to get back into real training again?". I don't even know what i want to train for...it's like I'm waiting for something to happen to let me know it's "time" but  I don't know what???

I'm honestly too afraid to train for any long distances b/c of the fear of getting injured so i've sort of resorted to sticking to 5 and 10K's....but just as I got started on that I found out I was anemic and Now i've had to take a step back AGAIN.


Has anyone gone through this? I mean it's virtually been 2yrs now and I feel like I have gotten NO WHERE. A few PR's yes but that's it. No where near the goals I thought I would have reached by now......it's just been one obstacle after another..and not easy ones either...not the kind I could work through.

I need to move forward and see some progress before I lose my mind but I don't know where to start..

Ideas, thoughts, advice?? I'm all ears......

I probably have no more readers left out there anyway.....

I have not read a blog for over a month. no joke. My life has been chaos and more chaos.
I'm almost embarrassed to talk about some of it.

right now I am dealing with a potential lawsuit from a independent contractor who worked for me. I can't say anything more than that, except it accompanies copious amounts of stress and legal fees.

I ran my 10K last week. IT. WAS. AWFUL. I have never felt SO tired and so bad in a race before. I wanted to quit so bad. every time I looked at my watch it would say something like 7:05 or 7:22 pace and I felt like I was running 6:00 pace. I wanted to die.
end result: 43:20...slowest 10K in over 18mos!

Well, the next day I got my test results back and my ferritin is at a 9 and my hemoglobin is down to 10. so yes. I am anemic. At least it explained why I've been feeling so awful.
so these days I'm taking iron pills like it's heroin and my runs are hard even at 9min pace sometimes. feels like a tempo. I hate it! I feel like I keep going backwards. I cannot catch a break.

On top of that and the lawsuit, I came home yesterday to a photo ticket of me turning right on a red without coming to a complete stop.
it makes 4 tickets in less than 2yrs which means i'm going to lost my license. I am freaking out b/c I have to get my kids to school, ME to school and me to work!.....

Yes...I said ME to school.
Apparently you need a full hairdressing license to comb freaking hair! and since I do up-do's for weddings I have to drop $7,000 TODAY and start school TONIGHT, b/c SOMEONE called me into the Oregon Healthy Licensing agency. apparently someone is out to try to ruin my life, but jokes on them, I'm gonna rock school! (even if i AM freaking out about how I'm going to juggle the life  I have now and add SCHOOL into the mix!- ugh....i'm sorta really pissed about it!)...

So...that's it! that's my crazy,  too much going on LIFE:)

I have realized from all this that I HAVE TO  slow down and get some organization into my life. I am ALWAYS rushing around trying to get to appts, work, kids stuff etc and it's lead to speeding tickets and me losing my license...which obviously REALLY messes up my life.

SO. Time to slow down. Reflect. organize. write to-do lists. BREATH.


Operation BREATH. that's what I'll call it.....and it starts NOW. 
p.s sorry for the very quickly written post..I only had 10min:)

N.

Hood to Coast RECAP "We Paid for this?" in pictures....

Tired. overwhelmed. possibly anemic. waiting for blood test results.
unmotivated lately.
that's all I got...
but H2C was a BLAST!
here's the quick recap in photos and numbers. sorry there is nothing uplifting here, just the nitty gritty:

braiding hair in the van on the way to the start

 Our team:)...not sure what we're doing here?

showed up late for my first leg lol...and took off running my first mile in 6:16...oops

Leg 7...rating: Hard, VERY hilly. 

6.33miles 

average pace 7:13

 My friend Tiff came to run my first leg with me which was awesome:)

 an example of the massive hills I faced on this leg...

 at the end of my first leg...chasing down 3 men. caught them:)

 first exchange

 so glad to be DONE, WATER!!!!

 me and Tiff!!!

 Steph is up next!

 steph and steph.....

 Lindsey passes off to Steph and she's off like a race horse!

 steph, steve, me and Mike waiting for Steph

 steph passes off to steve...

 waiting downtown for Mike to finish so we can go rest before round 2

****** went and slept at Stephs house*********** we all ran our 2nd legs in the middle of the night.
My 2nd leg was  19
5.89miles
Rated: VERY hard
even more hilly than my first leg
average pace: 7:29

LEG 3. Leg 31

4miles

rated: moderate

mostly flat with half mile climb at the end

average pace: 6:56

sprinting to the finish!

hangin' up that bib for atleast a year!

ALL DONE!

  steph running her sister Lindsey in on her last leg

 steph coming in on her last hilly leg. knees hurting...that girls a trooper!

 steve on his last leg!!!

 so proud of him!

 the awesome pass off! lol

Mike taking the home stretch!

The whole team at the beach!

The girls

The crazy tired Team:)

Stevie and I

That's all folks!

Results:

we placed 13th out of 108 in our division:)

 Aaaand here's the glamour shots Steve insisted on taking for all of us. LOL.