Best Christmas Ever

I won't bore you with all the details but this Christmas was the most satisfying that I've had since I was a kid. Family, friends, and a healthy attitude all came together in a miraculous way. I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday as well and here's to a fantastic 2010.

Suffering Is Optional

The past 48 hours have challenged me. I find myself dwelling on my reactions to other people and their behavior. I know that I can't change what is reality, yet I let myself get so upset. Why can I not accept reality and move on?

I find myself thinking things like, this person doesn't love me enough, that person wants too much from me, this person is selfish. The reality is that I don't know what motivates any of these people or what they want. It's my responses to their behavior that is causing my suffering. It's like the left side of my brain ignores the rational right side and weaves these elaborate tales of fear and anger. The knowledge that I'm thinking irrationally does not seem to give me the power to stop it.

"We are disturbed not by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens." Epictetus

Winter Solstice 5k

Mission accomplished: I finished my first 5k. This is me at about 15 minutes before the start wearing my official race shirt. Notice the blue sky above. The race was scheduled to coincide with sunset. We'd start in the day and end at night. About 5 minutes after the gun went off, it started pouring cold rain. Oh well, too late to back out. I finished completely soaking wet, but very hot, in total darkness.

I knew I couldn't run the whole thing, so my strategy was to run for 2 minutes and walk for 2 minutes. This worked very well and I finished in 46:15. That's an average of 14:48 per mile; a huge improvement over the 16 minute miles I've been jogging. My next goal is to get under 45 minutes and hopefully eliminate the walking.

As a bonus incentive to sign up for another race, I won 3rd place for my division, Women 35-39. What? Me? A ribbon? Shut up!

Guess I was lucky that only 2 other women were in my division!

A Religious Conversion

I have found something that has transformed my life. If you had told me that there was a form of exercising that is brutally hard AND fun at the same time, I would have called you a liar. That was before I tried Crossfit. In one workout, I became a devoted follower.

It's a high intensity workout that combines cardio, weight resistance, and competition with yourself. You can do the workouts on your own, but I'm in love with this group that does it in a big industrial garage that they've converted into a gym. They call it The Box, and it's filled with kettle bells, jump boxes, pull-up bars, and mats. Basically, you go in and your coach gives you a series of movements to do i.e. squats, push-ups, sit-ups. Then you do it as hard and as fast as you can for as many rounds as you can. The routine changes every day because the variety builds total body fitness. A key component is that you track your progress and compete with yourself. It's really hard to explain what it is. Check out this website if you want to learn more: www.Crossfit.com.

Anyway, The Box feels like an old-timey (I can't believe I just used that phrase) boxing gym. It's just a bunch of friends hanging out, working on whatever skills they need to work on, helping each other out, and providing lots and lots of encouragement. I went to a group session yesterday where we divided up into teams and competed with each other. The series was hard and it kicked my ass. But it was the most fun I've had in years. It was absolutely the ONLY time I've ever had fun while working out. I'm totally hooked even though I feel like I was hit by a car today.

Oh yeah, and I've got my first race this afternoon.

3 days...

There are 2 schools of thought on how to do weight training. The first says use a light weight for a bunch of repetitions. The seconds says to use the heaviest weight you can lift for only 8-10 repetitions. I've been using the first method, but decided I wanted to try the second method to see what that felt like. On Tuesday I went to the gym and did all my usual moves but with much higher weights. It definitely worked; I was pretty sore all over afterward. Then the weirdest thing happened. That night, I couldn't stop sneezing, my nose and eyes were running, and I had a mild sore throat. I figured I was coming down with a cold and with the race in just a few days! Crap!

I went for a massage for my sore muscles the next day and the massage therapist told me it wasn't a cold. Just like getting a deep massage releases toxins that have been stored in your muscle tissue, the heavy lifting breaks down muscle fibers and dumps stored toxins into the body. My body was producing histamine in response to the toxins. That's why you're supposed to drink a ton of water after a massage, to wash the toxins out. The massage therapist theorized that if I drank a bunch of water it would wash out my system and eliminate the allergy-like symptoms, which in fact seems to be the case.

So wadda you know, I'm allergic to power lifting.

Patience

Good things come to those who wait. I was offered a paid internship with the professor I was telling you about in October. This is in the department where I am applying to the doctorate program. I can't tell you how happy am I about this. I had some serious internal doubts about my ability to get accepted into a PhD program without a foot in the door. I believe this internship within the department will give me a big advantage over other applicants. January is going to be my month to really focus on this process. I need to do stellar in the GRE and write a killer paper. Luckily, it's an argumentative essay and nobody argues like me.

Now I'm going to go pump iron; and by 'iron' I mean 15 lb. dumbbells that are powder blue.

6 Days...

My first race is this coming Sunday, The Winter Solstice 5k. Today was the start of week 9 for my running plan. I went back to the track and jogged for two miles, no walking. My time was 31:40. So hey, I shaved 10 seconds off of my mile pace! :D