Finally freaked out my crazy running brother, my job here is done!

I did it, FINALLY. Didn’t think I could possibly freak out a guy who runs 100 mile races, injuring himself halfway and continuing to run on for 60 more miles.  [He's signed up for the Leadville 100 in August, I can't wait to go see and support him, and take him to the hospital afterward in the medivac helo. ]

 He’s the same guy who ate a Nathan’s Hot Dog from a NY State Thruway rest area, the day before he decided to run a 50 mile trail race.  (Yeah, that didn’t work out so well for him and his intestines, as you can imagine.) The guy who just ran a mile last week in 4:56, and does 6 X 800 repeats at 2:45, which is a seriously sick pace I can’t even fathom for one 800.

 Last week I actually set a new record for myself with a two-footed, weighted plank. 7.5 pounds (just spread the weight out more evenly), and held it for 7:30.  Yep, blew away my old record of 6:19 that I blogged about last week. Yay!!  One thing I did learn – not to do that again while wearing my racing flats. My feet kept sliding on the mat the entire time, and then my calves were killing me for most of the rest of the week.

When I told my brother this, he said I blew his mind - I DID IT!!  Then, he said that he can only do it for about 2 minutes without shaking and stopping. I was like “really??” Wow! Never thought I’d hear that.

I realized today that “running topless” remains a popular phrase whereby people find my blog and tweeted about it. A male friend of mine, who shall remain nameless out on the West Coast where he lives and whose first name rhymes with “hill,” suggested a few terms I should use in my next post and see if they drive up traffic. I will just put them in bold font throughout this post, and also use them as tags to see if his prediction comes true.  :-)

Wow, are those people going to be sad when they get to my blog…. ha ha ha

I actually had a really good weekend. Went climbing with a new friend I made at the gym.  It’s the first time we’ve hung out, and I felt like I’d already known her for a long time.  So, that was very cool.

That's the climber, toward the top of the red stripe. Notice the tall ladder to the right, for a height perspective. People in foreground are sitting down.

My friend had never top-roped before, so they wouldn’t let her take the test at Metro Rock Gym (we went there because we knew the other place, Boston Rock Gym, was having comps (how they refer to competitions in the climbing world, I am learning), all day long. But, I took the top-rope test (which means I can climb and belay people there) and passed (phew!). We then just decided to boulder for a few hours. By the time we were done, my palms had gotten calloused (a good thing for doing it on a regular basis, going forward), and  my fingers hurt, but luckily the rest of me, other than my fingers, were not really that sore. Guess my body is getting used to the new muscle groups being used.

This guy made it look so easy. Needless to say, there's not an extra ounce of fat on this guy. Insane in so many ways.

The Metro Rock Gym definitely has a much different feel to it. Some of the top-rope routes are much taller than at the other gym (which kinda freaks me out), and it’s a much larger room, rather than a few rooms. The crowd does tend to be a bit younger, because it’s accessible by the T. I even saw a woman who was “climbing topless.” Get your minds out of the gutter, boys. She had on a sports bra like I do when I run topless.  She wasn’t necessarily stacked enough to fill a DD-cup (really, guys, how many do you think actually exist who do?), but I was glad to see that kind of thing was acceptable there too.  (Yeah, it might take me a while to get to that point, however.)  I think I will probably go to both depending on my schedule, but I definitely like the approach the folks take at the Boston Rock Gym, and can understand why a lot of people prefer the atmosphere of it too. 

We were clearly newbies there, as were a lot of other folks. But a really friendly, supportive and experienced boulderer gave me some pointers, which definitely helped every time I tried it afterward. (He was helping out another newbie friend at the same time as he was helping the two of us.) I was crouching up my body too much, and holding all of my weight on my arms, when I should have been resting them, and I also learned that once you commit to take a move, you just have to go for it.  And I just got a book called Training for Climbing (yep, I am a librarian after all), and a good portion of it is about mental training, something I think I can also apply to running.

Guy is just about hanging by fingernails, and the wall also forces him to be leaning back away from it, like an overhang. Cannot imagine the upper body strength it takes to do that!

I went to see a bouldering comp on Saturday night at the Boston Rock Gym. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s climbing that doesn’t involve ropes, and usually you’re not higher than 25 feet in the air (probably even less inside, I’m not a good judge of height), and if you fall, you land on crash pads. It’s great to have a spotter for support, but you can do it alone. Some of the climbers involved in the Finals were professionals, and it showed. I’ve posted a few pictures throughout the blog.  While they really don’t do the climbers justice, since they were taken with the iPhone 3G (which doesn’t have a flash), the strength and control these folks displayed was pretty awesome. Guys had to start one route by jumping and grabbing the handhold with one hand (seriously difficult), and at times, both men and women had to climb upside down to pull $ off of the boulder. (Yes, part of the incentive to do well…)  It got me inspired.

And ladies, yes, the guy is bouldering without a shirt on up above in one of my pictures. For some reason, still unknown to me, a lot of the guys tend to “climb topless.” If I ever figure out why, I’ll let you know. I can just think of so many ways that that could cause pain if you made the wrong move. Or, on the ropes. Can we say “ouch?”

My brother asked what I liked about the rock climbing so far. I told him it’s a new challenge for me, and one that  I think I can get better on given time and lots of practice, and some good mental and physical training. As runners, I think a lot of us are in really good shape, but let’s admit it, we usually have little chicken arms. Rock climbing is definitely a sport where you can easily find out where your muscles are weak. I’m hoping it helps me to improve my running times.  And, honestly, the people in that world seem to be so chill. Concerned about safety, of course, but it’s a nice break from where I spend my working hours. (I like my job but the institution can, at times, be overly concerned with its image, to its own detriment.)

The only bad thing that happened this weekend is that Ruthie’s dad and I will continue talking about and arranging for visits with her, but that will be it. I don’t want to go into details here, other than to say I think it’s for the best, honestly.  It’ll make for more of a clean and final break, and maybe it will help us both move forward more easily. No, I’m not made of stone, I do think it’s sad, but it honestly is probably a good step for both of us to take right now.  And Ruthie remains the one thing we both love, so I’ve included a picture of here too. I’ll continue to take lots of long walks with her and love and hug her to death when she visits.

Ruthie playing with one toy while another one waits to be mauled, lying next to her.

 

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

 

Chestnut Hill Reservoir after way too much snow. John Hancock and Prudential Towers are off in the distance.

Oh My God, Terri’s posting again! For the second time in less than two weeks!  What are we going to do?  whatever are we going to do??

Um, dramatic much, Terri?  Yeah…maybe just a little.

But isn’t that more interesting of an opening than just a post called “Goals?” Come on, admit it, it is.

Sigh.  Ok, maybe not, but here it goes anyway.

And by the way, in case you are one of those lucky bastards out there (ahem, Glenn, from the blog of The Running Fat Guy, or Jill from JillWillRun) (@gwjones00 and @jillwillrun on Twitter) who don’t usually see snow because of where they live (trust me, I know there are more of you out there), I am going to sprinkle pictures of the snow throughout this post.  There is something called the Shaq-O-Meter, and basically it measures the snowfall we’ve received, and compares it to Shaq of the Celtics. Let’s just say, right now, he can see over the snow banks, but not for long. If the snow were water, I’d already be treading water. And, I’m not a great swimmer. Yeah, I’d be drowning very soon. Middle-of-the-Pack Girl wuold then be known as Dead Girl Floating.

Ok, so where was I? One of my friends who has read my blog for a very long time told me last week that he liked how the tone of my posts over the past few ones have started to become more like when he first started reading my blog. I’m going to treasure that email from him.

Ruthie, very sleepy after a long night walk. It goes without saying, I will continue showering her with lots of love and attention.

Lately, I have been feeling more like writing. That’s why I think my anti-depressants are working. I’m starting to take joy in more lately.  For many months, I’ve not wanted to write much, even in (or is it on?) this blog.  I’ve really begun to love reading again. For several months, I couldn’t even get through a magazine.

So, as I  mentioned in my last post, I’m carving $ out of my budget to meet with a trainer a few times. We met for the first time this past Saturday for about 45 minutes (thankfully he won’t charge me for the full hour we’d originally planned on), and well, yeah…I have weak triceps.  I know this because they are the one part of me that is still sore.  He basically ran me through a lot of full-body workout exercises, so we could focus on building strength and flexibility, and on my brother’s advice, how to strengthen my inner core muscles. I understand that these are lower in your core than your 6-pack muscles. While my abs are getting more defined, I have no idea what a six pack on a woman looks like. So, if I ever get there, I’ll let you know.

As I said to a few of my coworkers who were saying they were unhappy about the way they look today after kids, I am actually happy with the way I look now. It’s taken me a lot of work to get there, and I reminded them of my weight loss plan: “stress, and getting divorced.” Not necessarily something you want to go through to lose weight.  I only lost 11 pounds, but I’m on the smaller side to begin with (ok, I’m a midget, or almost one, at 5 feet, and a quarter inch.)

Ruthie's mailbox: please note that the snow is a few feet higher, and it's Jonly an. 31st.

So, the flattering part was when he had me do some bicep curls, and a few other things with free weights, he said that I was already strong, but we’ll work on toning and building more lean body mass (or was it muscle mass?)  Yay, a trainer thinks I’m strong!  (Believe me, this guy is strong but not in a “I eat steroids for breakfast and drink creotene” way, so I was very flattered.)

By the way, in case you are in the Boston area, the trainer’s name is Rich Rowland, and he works out of the Boston Sports Club in Watertown. I definitely recommend this guy, and that club in general. It’s run very professionally and efficiently from what I can tell.

So, my goals, not necessarily in any specific order.

1. Get into the best freaking shape of my life.
2. Build speed from last year (ok, get it back), and break into the 23 range (even if 23:59) at the 5K distance, and break 50, (again, even if 49:59) for the 10K distance. My PRs are currently 24:45, and 50:56 (for 6.29 per my Garmin).
3. Really work on my diet and make sure I am eating healthy.  (This means continuing to use my blender on a regular basis. More to be said on that later.)
4. Return to the attitude of “food as fuel.”  In so doing, waste less of it. If I don’t want to eat it, I can always blend it into a smoothie. Also, continue eating veggies, especially spinach.  (Never as a child did I ever think I’d say that!)
5. Try to return to that positive mindset I had when training for the marathon. It helped me to run better and have a better outlook on life in general. I’m getting there now. Still a work in progress.
6. Continue to put myself out there and try to make friends who I feel really comfortable around, as well as strengthen the friendships I already have. This is hard for me to do because I am so afraid of being rejected by others right now, and my self-esteem has been ebbing and flowing. There are definitely days where I don’t feel like I deserve someone being nice to me or showing that they care about me. Another work in progress.
7. Gain as much knowledge as I can from books such as Body for Life for Women: A Woman’s Plan for Physical and Mental Transformation, which was recommended to me by my trainer. (Will let you know what I think of it when I’m done.)
8. Continue working on healing myself by working through things with both my therapist, and my doctor who have my best interests at heart.

Last goal, but it’s definitely not least. If I can afford it, I’d like to go through the RRCA coaching certification program. Because I am also saving to go and watch my brother, Jim (also a running coach with a blog called Coaching, Training and Motivation) run the Leadville 100 this August, I need to do it in an economical way. And hopefully meet some of you in person FINALLY!  (Already planning onvisiting Fern, known as @sitbones on Twitter.)

And oh yeah… get better with time management so I can read more of your blogs on a regular basis like when I first started blogging a few years ago.

And oh yeah…have my credit card balance paid off by August. When with Bill, we paid it off every month. I don’t like having that hanging over my head. At all. It’s doable if I budget smartly, and continue saving at the same time.

Wow, wordy post. Maybe I should add “gain self control and preciseness” into my list of goals?

Thanks for reading.  I’ve got to head for bed so I can get up and run/bike tomorrow morning. While I’ve not loved the treadmill in the past, right now, it’s much safer than running down the middle of the streets just to avoid falling on ice. It kind of increases your chances of being human roadkill, know what I mean?

What I wished we had as a view right now. Photo taken last fall, looking toward Boston from Castle Island in Southie