Fit by Forty: September 2012

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