Swollen

Blech.

Today I'm feeling really swollen. It's a yucky feeling. I didn't run over the weekend with my group. In fact, over the past week, I got right back out of the saddle I had just gotten back into!

I blame a boy - a boy I've been "seeing". It's not that he doesn't want me to run, it's just that in about a month he'll be gone for four months so I'm feeling a need to spend as much time with him as possible. Sometimes that means going away for the weekend. In fact, it often means going away for the weekend. And that means I miss the group run.

Of course, I can't explain why I'm not getting the maintenance runs in. This morning it was raining. Is that good enough?

Today I'm feeling a bit cranky about it all because I really do not want to lose the momentum I started. I'm officially signed up for the Kentucky Derby Half Marathon in April and am still seriously considering the Midnight Sun Marathon in June so I really NEED to get my body moving! Of course, once the boy has gone to sea (seriously folks), I will have my weekends completely free . . . and most of my weeknights.

ECAG asked how I manage to run on a theatre schedule. I laughed out loud . . . only because I haven't had a theatre schedule since the summer! Granted, it's tricky. I trained for my first marathon while playing Ophelia at a theatre two hours away. Don't ask me how I managed to get up on a Sunday morning at 5AM to run 15 or more miles in the heat on only four hours of sleep. I honestly don't know how I did it - I just did.

So what's my problem now???

My acupuncturist says winter is the time of hybernation . . . that the body wants the extra pounds (lordy, I went to the doctor yesterday and about choked when I was weighed - don't get me wrong, I'm only six pounds heavier than usual, but it's all about how you feel) and resists hard workouts. She thought the yoga was very good . . . and I do, too . . . as a balance . . . except that I can't seem to get THERE either!

It is said it takes two weeks to get into a habit so all I need to do is set my alarm for two weeks and even if I'm away for the weekend I must take my running shoes. How hard can that be?!

SIGH. Apparently pretty hard.

Well, what must be done must be done. And if it can keep me from feeling swollen like this again, set that alarm and roll out that yoga mat!

Back in the Saddle

WHEW! So I took a break from running and writing and now I'm back. You've been warned. :)

Team Tegla met last Saturday for the first time since the marathon and we ran an "easy" six. I put easy in quotes because the wind was blowing something FIERCE and it felt like we were pushing against a brick wall through much of the run. I really don't like the wind. We're running again this Saturday (8 miles) and hopefully the weather will cooperate!

I also managed to get in my maintenance runs this week - even Zoe joined me! Monday's run wasn't much fun - I was sore from Saturday and my yoga class on Sunday - but I did it and had a much better run yesterday.

Yes, you read correctly. I have now made time for YOGA on Sundays and have also signed up for a PILATES class on Thursdays so hopefully my strength and flexibility will increase.

I e-mailed my brother today and it looks as if we'll for certain be running the Kentucky Derby 1/2 marathon in April. I'm very happy too that he is interested in running the race WITH me . . . so we're both hoping for a 2 hour or under race. Should be fun!

Now . . . for the next MARATHON.

ECAG has really done it and doesn't even know it. My friends in Team Tegla are seriously considering running the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon in Anchorage, June 17, 2006! Much depends on money - how much we have or don't have by then - but we are thinking in terms of that for our next race. May as well run marathons in the 49th and 50th state back to back, right?

Otherwise, no decisions have been made for the next 26.2 . . . and I'm really okay with that. I'm just happy to be back in the saddle - or back in my running shoes - again.

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year! Yup, it's the start of a new year . . . clean slate, new beginnings, fresh start, etc. It's the time for RESOLUTIONS.

Or IS it?

Frankly, I believe resolutions set you up to fail. I used to believe in making them and at the end of each year I'd kick myself for not following through.

A friend of mine made the astute comment that many resolutions come in a negative form: I will quit smoking, I won't eat sweets, etc. And they tend to be black or white - no wiggle room for life throwing you a curve ball and subsequently making the follow through that much harder.

So instead of making resolutions this year I have made a wish. I had the good fortune to spend New Year's in Ocean City with a friend and on January 1st, I walked along the beach and made a wish. My wish - unrelated to peace on earth, a healthy planet, and happiness for my family and friends - my PERSONAL, SELFISH wish is to let go of the outcome on things in my life: auditions, other jobs, love-life, marathons (or other races) and the like. This is not to say I won't plan, and hope, and work. It's just to say that life has a funny way of not turning out the way you want it to so why hold out for an outcome about which you have no control? Instead, I wish to be open to whatever gifts the universe sends my way.

And when I look back at 2005, the universe sent an abundance of gifts my way:
- enough work as an actor to pay my insurance
- new friends and lots of fun times with old friends
- a summer fling and a winter "not-sure-yet-what-to-call-it"
- a new home in a fabulous pink house
- good health and my sixth marathon
- a trip to Hawaii!

And that's only a sampling of all the great things that came my way last year.

So here's to 2006 and all of its potential gifts without the resolutions. Cheers.