F is for Fun! And Fitness! For Li(F)e! They Go Together (or should) Like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong

After I finished Houston this past January, I wrote this little post:  Semi-Retirement

When I posted that on Facebook, I got a lot of hmpft's and yeah whatever's, as for some reason a lot of folks didn't believe me, couldn't understand, or just seemed baffled.

What?  That I could just stop doing marathons?  Why is that so hard to believe.

But if I am being honest, I too wondered how I was going to actually 'handle' that.  I mean, for so long now its what I have been doing.  Half marathons, marathons, races in general.  Of course the smaller races really started to take a back seat the last 2 years since all I had time or the desire to do was train for marathon after marathon.

Well obviously the first couple of weeks were fine.  I had not one ounce of desire to run any further than 10 miles for a long time.  And when I would have a half marathon coming up, then yeah, I would run 13+ a few times to train for good measure.

I even had this idea of going sub-2 at the half this year.

Then things started to change.  I started liking not having to run.  I liked not feeling like if I ran on the treadmill that that was somehow cheating.  I loved not getting up to run at 6am on a Saturday if I didn't feel like it.  I loved that I started thinking that 4 miles on any given day was just fine.

I loved working out at the gym.  I loved when I started CrossFit.

And slowly, very slowly, I was finding that running was becoming that thing I did when I was too sore from CrossFit, or because I didn't like the WOD that day, so I would run instead.

And then in my head, I started thinking of why I started running in the first place, why I kept running, and ultimately why I started putting so much stock in getting faster.  Going further.  Doing more.

And I didn't like the answer.

While I do indeed love love love running, and I will continue to run...duh...why I started was good for me, why I will continue is good for me, but for the majority of the time I realized that the pressure I was putting on myself was being driven by my thinking that if this or that...then...we'll just use the word "acceptance' by a person that use to mean something to me; that was important to me; someone I looked up to; someone I thought would at the very least be my friend for a very long time...and that would...well...'accept' me. 

That would love me.

I was doing it to try and 'win' the admiration, applause and acceptance of someone that I knew their opinion wasn't worth my effort, because to them, I would never be good enough.  At anything.

Fucking stupid. 

The thing is...I am good enough.  At so many things, including running. 

Being good at something doesn't mean you are the best or even above average.  Being good at something means you can do it.  Whatever 'it' is.

I am my best when I am doing anything in my happy state.  If I am miserable or not fully invested in a given activity, then what the fuck is that all about?

I've known this forever and have applied it throughout my life, especially in serious relationships.  I always got out while the gettin' was good, and up until a couple of years ago, always always the minute things weren't 'right'.

So why haven't I been applying this?  I don't know...Not until just recently.  But maybe I did...

There were times that I think I knew...but I was so deep into the running and training even after that person was banished from my life altogether, that I couldn't see the forest for the trees. 

It wasn't until the past couple of months that I have found clarity. 

I have found balance.

I have found happiness.

I have found peace.

So.  What does this all mean? 

Well I am not going to quit running.  That would just be stupid.  But I have decided against running my half marathon at the end of June.  I was all set to fly to Seattle, was staying with friends, etc., but yesterday I told them I wasn't coming after all.

I still have my Fall and Winter half marathons...  :O)

I am not going to do any more of the Spring series races either.  There are only a couple of them left anyway, and I just don't feel like training for speed either.  I might still go to hill workouts, and with the workouts that involve running at CrossFit, well there isn't anything quite like that anywhere else!

I want to run because I like running.  If I want to run slow one day, or walk one day, or run fast one day, then I want to have the freedom (in my head) to do just exactly that.

I will still run just about every single Saturday with Kenyan Way, because I have friends there, and its a supported long run.  And of course KW has been and always will be near and dear to my heart.  I will just run whatever damn distance I feel like running.  :O)

Unless of course, I don't want to.  :O)

I seriously doubt that I ever run another marathon.

And I can't believe how easily that I am to type that.  Say that.  Live that. 

I want to continue to do CrossFit.  I want to continue to swim.  To cycle.  To run.  I want my life to keep being as awesome as it has been in the past few months.  Run half marathons.  Do sprint triathlons again. 

Be active and 'present' in my life.  And in the lives of those closest to me.  After all, those that I love deserve the best me I have to offer right?

What a revelation!


Two nights ago I had one of the most vivid and 'real' dreams that I can recall in quite some time. 

Basically, I was in the dream with others (can't recall who and it doesn't matter), I was then 9 months pregnant and delivered a healthy beautiful baby girl.  Effortlessly I might add.  Yes I actually remember delivering the baby girl like it was actually happening in real life.

I remember it so clearly that I woke up, slowly, trying to get my bearings and was recalling it while I laid there.  It was surreal the feeling that I had.

Anyway, I used the internet to research what the dream could have been interpreting and I found this to be extremely eerie, but yet, spot on.

To dream of a baby represents virtue, comfort, and starting over.  Babies embody all aspects of your personality and character that are untainted and chaste.

Indeed.  It went on further to suggest that the starting over, the (re)birth if you will, was of myself. 

That I was following my heart, and my personality.  To do things that are true to MY nature, not someone elses.

It was further suggested that for the past year, since losing my mother, and actually with both of my parents now being deceased, that I was free from the ties that held me to try and live up to their expectations. 


Especially my mother's.


Whether that was how I dressed, to how thin I was, to my finances, or what, where, when and who...even at my age, my mother insisted on knowing these things as if I were still some child.


And that with this dream, that I have finally, finally, finally, broken free of the ties that bound. 


We are just past the year anniversary of her death.


So here I am.  Finally.  After 48 years, I have seemingly come into my own.


And isn't that what this blog and its byline should be about:  Fit and fabulous.


From every aspect, especially in our head and in our heart.  Because if those aren't right, nothing seems to be 'complete'.

Maybe today should be deemed my 'birthday'.

I think its safe to say any thing I may have written (in private) for goals for 2012 have either been erased, and in some cases already exceeded my wildest expectations.