Last weekend was definitely not my typical weekend. I was invited to a friend’s 40th birthday but skipped it – to go to dinner with the Pretty Muddy blogging crew. Me, skip a whole lot of drinking with friends to meet a bunch of strangers after work? Not likely, but I did.

We met first at Little Everglade Ranch to get a sneak peak of the Pretty Muddy course. We jumped in the back of a pickup (we were invited up front, but where is the adventure in that?) and were driven around the 1st 2 miles of the course. It was really fun to get to see everything before the crowds and to have an idea of what we were facing the next day.

Why didn’t we go the full 3.1 miles? Because driving around the over-unders the truck got stuck in the mud. I cannot even think of a more appropriate end to a mud run tour than that. So in the best tradition of horror movies everywhere, just as it was starting to get dark all the women decided it was a good idea to just walk back. Was I REALLY the only one there that knew that is how EVERY scary movie starts?? But not only did we make it back we were able to hitch a ride back in a tiny work truck which was a (bumpy) fun ride in itself.

After that we met at Kafe Kokopelli in Dade City for dinner. The restaurant is a neat place to visit; the staff was beyond friendly and attentive. I got a quesadilla and it was good, but then how do you mess up a quasadilla?  I heard no complaints from anyone about the food and the apple cider was good! What was even better was the company; I had a great time listening to everyone’s stories of their blogs and their adventures in running.  I think I was the only one at the table that hadn’t run half a dozen marathons. (feeling wimpy…)

Saturday morning was Pretty Muddy. I’ve run a couple others with my boyfriend, son, and other friends but going on my own was pretty intimidating. No pun intended. Much.

Even as I was parking my car my typical surge of this-is-outside-my-comfort-zone confidence was showing itself. Why am I here? Do I really think it’s going to be any fun at all doing this alone? It’s not like I’m going to be able to do all the obstacles and I’ll probably be walking across the finish line last person of the day… 

Turns out I met someone at the starting line that I ran the whole race with (sorry Jessica for talking pretty much the ENTIRE time). I had an absolute blast, all of the obstacles were very do-able, and I was able to run most of the race. I am SO glad I decided to stay and run!

This is why I like to run. This is why an all women’s race like Pretty Muddy is a great idea for women who would love to try something new but just aren’t sure. Since I started running I’ve met people I wouldn’t have otherwise met, and done lots of things I wouldn’t otherwise have done. My only competition is myself, yet somehow I keep finding myself jumping headfirst out of my comfort zone and into (or in some cases over) the fire.

So I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s blogs and it seems that at the beginning of the month people do crazy things like join challenges and set goals. I can’t be certain, but I think they intend to actually follow them too. There are crazy people out there! There are crazy people right here too, so I decided to join them.

I actually joined 2 things on line today, both which seem like fun. 

The first is 100% fun, I joined Lindsay’s Foodie Pen Pals at The Lean Green Bean. Basically you sign up on her site and she pairs you with 2 other ‘pen pals’. The first one sends you a box of food and you send a box of food to the second one. There isn’t any limits on what you can send except for it shouldn’t go over $15 and of course it ought to be shippable.  So I am now on a hunt to find great food made locally, seems like my items should be very Floridian!

The second is maybe not as fun. At  MizFitOnline she issued a challenge to quit all processed foods for 30 days.  Actually, she said she got it from Greatist, but there are so many posts there I can’t find anything about it.  I did find this though. I won’t be trying it for 30 days as alcohol does slightly strike me as processed, but I’m sure I’ll find a reason why that’s not true before the 30 days are up.

My other goal for this month is to actually HAVE a goal for running by the end of the month. I know I want to be a stronger runner, but I don’t know what that means, even just to me. Do I want to run further? Do I want to run faster? Do I want to run more often? Can I call it a running streak if I only run 1/2 a mile a day?

Yes, yes, yes, not officially.

So for the moment my only running goal is to decide on a goal and to run at least 3 times a week. That’s always my goal, rarely what I actually do.

What’s the best type of workout there is? The kind that you do because it’s fun and it just happens to be good for you. I took a vacation day for Halloween and then remembered I didn’t actually have anything to do all day, so I went paddleboarding. It’s been a couple months since I’ve been out so it was way past due!

I don’t go out on the bay when I’m by myself, so I stuck to the inlets. There are occasional dolphins and manatees swimming through, but I didn’t see any this time. The reason I stick to the inlets? Once we took the kids out in kayaks just a bit past the mouth of the bay and saw a dolphin, oh no wait that is NOT a dolphin fin, it’s a shark fin. Which was super cool until it started following the kayak my boyfriend and son where in. It just looked and swam off but if that happened to me on a paddleboard I have little doubt I’d panic and fall off.

Anyway, one of the awesome things about living in Florida is that you can turn a vacation day into an actual vacation without any effort at all. I know people who think it’s too humid… too dangerous because of hurricanes… too whatever. Maybe they meant too awesome?

There are a couple small beaches to stop at along the way.

 This is my favorite area to paddle in, when it’s low tide like this time you can walk around and see tons of little fish, huge birds, and crabs running around.  If it’s high tide you can paddle through lots of little pathways (are they paths if it’s on water?) which always makes me feel like I’m far, far away from civilization, which is actually a few minutes away.


Although I didn’t see anything big I did see a bunch of rays and a bald eagle!  This is only the second eagle I’ve seen outside of a zoo so I think its super-cool.

The rays are color-disguised, I usually only notice them when they take off, but you can still see him in the picture if you really look.

The bad thing about paddleboarding?  I have so much fun I don’t notice I’m worn out until I get back.  That board is magically a whole lot heavier trying to put it on the car to bring it home than it is when I leave in the morning!

So I joined Twitter the other day, just to see what it is all about. Today I saw 2 things there that struck me.

The second was #plankaday. You post that every time you plank, and if you don’t post for three days in a row the PLANK POLICE hassle you on twitter. I know I’m a nerd, but how great is that??? Of course I joined right away, even hit a minute my first plank. Which is more awesome than it sounds, because last time I tried doing planks as long as I could I didn’t even hit a minute. Don’t laugh, they’re hard!

The first thing that caught my eye was a tweet by JillWillRun: “This working mom thing is bullshit. Taking her to daycare made me sad, had to deal with crap at work, now trying to figure out when to run.”

This working mom thing IS bullshit. My kids are way past daycare, the youngest is 11. But I will never forget leaving my son at daycare the first time, I no doubt cried as much as he did. But then we got used to it.

Then he started kindergarten and I was so intimidated by having to go talk to his teacher on parent/ teacher day (when did I become the adult?) But then we got used to it.

His sister was born the same year he started kindergarten, I walked him to school holding his hand in my left hand and holding his sister in my right arm. There is NOTHING stronger than a parent. Trust me on than one.

The next year they got a baby brother, it took a while to get used to two so close in age! (My sister has twin 1 year olds and I don’t have a clue how she does it)

The next year I got to figure out how to be a single mom with three kids. I also got used to that.

Long story short(ish)? I always go back and forth about how I’ve been running for this long and I still can’t get past a 5K.

Lots of the time I look at my schedule and think, how did I even get this far? I work full time and drive an hour and a half each way to work, it’s not like I have time to run. Or do anything else. I have 3 kids! And 2 dogs! One is a lab puppy which seriously counts as like 15 other dogs. Lelo never stops. Ever.

That’s where the Internet jumps in and can be incredibly inspiring (aka annoying as hell). I see people post things like I started running 6 months ago and just ran a marathon… or I trained for an ultra while pushing my newborn in a stroller… Wait. What? Humans can do that? I am pretty sure I will never run an ultra, and even a marathon is pretty dang doubtful, though I would love to be able to say I had done it. But watching, reading about, and knowing what other people have accomplished is just what I need sometimes. It reminds me that we humans CAN do crazy things, sometimes even things that sound impossible.

So I will do a plank a day and dream of the day I get to 5 whole minutes, and I will run when I can instead of as often as I should, and I will write this silly blog just because I like to. And I bet JillWillRun already figured out when to run.

Oh and P.S.

I now have a 19 year old who got his driver’s license, truck, and first job all in two weeks.
I now have a daughter in middle school who I can only hope will not want to go on a date any time soon.
I now have a son in middle school that can do ANYTHING on a computer.
Lelo. Enough said.

I am NOT used to that.

.

Day 2 of my juice fast. I’m not aiming for a particular number of days, I prefer to decide each morning. It doesn’t say much for my goal setting abilities, but it keeps me from psyching myself out about how much longer I want to go!  I like to juice fast occasionally because  it’s like a jump start back to healthy eating when I stray to far into the world of Frito’s and cake…  I tend to actually want healthier food after fasting.  Too bad the effects don’t last longer.

I’d be really curious to see if my running improved or got worst if I did a long fast.  Not curious enough to actually fast for more than a couple of days to find out any time soon though!

Here’s today’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner of champions.  It made about 30 ounces of juice.  That and LOTS of lemon water and I’m good to go!

Last night I ran 3.14 miles with an average of exactly 12 minute miles.  I actually seem to be getting slower instead of faster, but at least I broke 3 miles that’s a long run for me!  My longest run without walking ever is 3.5 miles, I’m making it my goal to do that again on my next weekend’s ‘long run’. I really don’t want to walk any of the Pretty Muddy run in two weeks!

All this week I’ve been dragging myself out of bed, yawning through a fog at work, and generally cranky. To top it off, I’ve been limping around for no apparent reason, my leg has really been killing me. That’s a bit of a mystery, it can’t very well be an overuse injury since that would require actual overuse. Whatever caused it I’m ready to be over it.

I think Sunday it’s time for a start-over, I’m going to juice fast and then go whole foods for a while.  There’s nothing like a juice fast to clear your head and get things back on track!  I don’t know how long I’ll fast for, I’ve found I tend to do better when I plan one day at a time.  The longest I’ve ever juice fasted was 4 days, I’m not really out to beat the record or anything.

Top that off with lots of restorative yoga and I should be brand new by the end of the week.  And best of all, although I was limping to an embarrassing extent this morning at work I really do feel a lot better tonight.  Maybe the mystery pain will go away as quickly as it came on.  If so I’ll start running again on Sunday, I see no reason to push it.

Why wait until Sunday to start?  Because tomorrow I’m going to the Clearwater Jazz Holiday!  I can’t even pretend that I know a single thing about jazz, and I have no clue why it’s called holiday since I doubt a anyone will be there in a costume.  (I am sorely tempted to wear my flapper costume though).  But I do know that any type of music festival is good for the soul, (and yes, a bit of a holiday) so I am sooo in!

If that’s not enough reason to postpone a fast for one day our friends got us VIP tickets so there will be plenty of food and the wine will be flowing…

Music to heal the soul, then juice fast to heal the body, I should be right as rain in no time!

What could be a more different mud run than the 5K Zombie Run I’m doing with Clay in December? How about a women only mud run with a bubble obstacle? Um, yeah, that’s different! So November 10th I’m running in Pretty Muddy in Tampa. I’ve never run one without Clay or my son, Nick, so I am really excited.

This time I’m on my own, and I have to admit it’s a pretty intimidating. But that’s what it’s all about! A mud run just for women. And even if I can’t see how it will help me prepare for a zombie apocalypse,running through bubbles cannot be anything BUT epic fun! I think that as a women only run this mud run will be all about comradry and having fun. I should have more information about the run soon, if anyone wants to join me I run at 10 am!

Now the only problem is I seem to have injured my left leg and knee just when I really need to step up the running – it even hurts to walk, and I don’t know what I did or when I did it. I think I will take tomorrow totally off and try a long, slow run Saturday or Sunday. I did a bit over a mile tonight, and it didn’t really hurt enough to make me stop but it DID hurt.

Well, I was planning on getting in an arm/core workout, but my sister taped the Walking Dead premier and called to see if we wanted to come down and watch it. Um, you have to ask?  It was awesome, as expected.

And because I am nothing if not great at finding an excuse to chill I decided that I should follow that up with a glass (or 2?) of wine.  So here I sit having a glass of Twisted Cabernet Sauvignon and doing nothing useful.  Sounds ideal!  I have to say, although this is a decent glass of wine it does not compare to the Twisted Old Vine Zinfandel.  THAT was a wine worth hunting down, totally mellow without being boring. 

And isn’t that label totally great for October?  Why yes, that is why I decided to try it.

Completely unrelated but cool, over at Shut Up + Run she’s giving away a $25 Subway card, if your interested here is the link:  Shut Up + Run: $25 Subway Gift Card Giveaway!

I’m thinking about running with a running group this Saturday.  It would be a great idea, and probably really motivating, just what I need.  But even more it is Oh My God terrifying.

No one will run as slow as me, no one will run for as short of a time as me, and no one will look as much like they are getting ready to pass out as me.  Plus they start running at 6:30 in the morning. Which is, you know, at 6:30 in the morning.

I sent them a note tonight to see if anyone is going to be running this weekend at my speed. If they say yes then I have no excuses left- I’ll have to give it a try.

I’ve wanted to be a runner since I was a kid. When I was young (like 11 or 12?) I went with my dad a few times. Of course, his legs were a billion times longer than mine but I was just so awesome I kept up anyhow (thanks dad). We only did it a very few times but like during everything else we did he threw out bits of wisdom. It’s his fault I refuse to run on the sidewalk, cars be damned. He always said the sidewalk would kill my joints but that running in the street was better. Therefore, running in a street full of hot rodders and semis will always be my choice, over the sidewalk lined by nice, green grass. After all, you only get one set of knees, right?

The problem is that although I tried to start running plenty of times, I never lasted more than a week before my knees and shins would start screaming and I decided I will just never be able to run at all. Every time I gave it up I was really, really bummed but I didn’t have much of a choice, I just wasn’t built to run.

This last time I decided it was now or never. I started running almost two years ago, and this time I decided to try it a little different. Obviously I am still nothing like consistent but I did do two things right.

First, I started using the Couch to 5K program. It kept me from overdoing things and also kept me doing things. Good combo.

Second I decided that since I am one of those people who hates wasting money I’d go out and buy a good pair of running shoes. I went to an actual running shoe shop near where I work and they did a gait analysis and everything. The guy handed me three pairs of shoes, only one felt right. So I went home with a shiny new pair of Saucony running shoes and never looked back.

I really don’t know if it was the running plan, the shoes, or a combination of both but I haven’t had much more than a twinge of pain in my knees or shins since. I still don’t feel like a REAL runner, but I do feel like it’s possible if I actually put in the time.