Shenanigans and mini vent

So this is how you know you have a good running buddy. I was driving to work on Thursday morning and heard about a half marathon that was going to be in Mason on Sunday (today).  What do I do?  I don't ignore or just go "that's neat".  No, I text my running buddy and ask her if she had heard of it.  She takes a whopping 10 minutes to look up the race, what it supports, the course, entry fees, and weather, then signs up.  Her next text is "oh!  Sounds good hold on" "Ok, I'm signed up".  I didn't even say I was doing it yet!  Well, I naturally ended up doing it because I couldn't let her do it on her own!  So mmmyeeess Ali and I signed up on Thursday for a race that was Sunday and didn't really even bat an eye.

Well race day came this morning and we trotted out freezing our butts off for the first mile.  It was about 38 degrees when we started, but we dressed appropriately so we weren't super cold.  We were both warm by mile 1.  So I had to remind super long legs here that we were supposed to be doing a training run.  Something relaxing and fun, not out to win.  Constantly having to remind her to slow her 6 foot tall frame to slow it down was actually entertaining because I always had a smart alack way to say something to her about slowing down.  Around mile 5 though I almost screamed at her because we were running a decent pace, and it didn't feel horrendous but I figured we would pay for it later.  Yeah, that pace was 7:20.  Crack-head.  I told her to slow her psycho butt down or else I was going to throw my shoe at her, tell her to pick it up, then bring it back to me.  Like I said, it was entertaining.  We also came up for a headline for the Cincinnati Enquirer during one of the water stops.  I was slowing down a touch to drink some water because the last time I tried to keep up with her I choked on the water and thought I would drown.  She laughed at me since I was slowing down and I said "wouldn't that be a sight.  "Master swim team coach drowns during half marathon.""  The lady running behind us was cracking up because we were ridiculous.  Oh, and fyi, it's really hard to laugh hysterically and run hard at the same time.  Your body really appreciates it when you breath normal when you're running.  Meanwhile, Ali ended up having to drag my untrained butt the last mile and a half because my legs were shot!  I felt like my legs were going to fall off or just completely quit very very soon.  We finished in 1:53 and some change, pretty good for an impromptu half marathon that we didn't train for.  We realized about 50 yards into the race that our longest run since August was a 9 mile run that we did 3 weeks ago.  Oops.  Oh well, it turned out just fine!

Ok, on to my mini vent.  I have a tiny pet peeve with people.  Mostly people who are supposedly desperate to lose weight, really want help, and beg for training.  If you know you're in bad shape and you know that you don't know what you're doing, why on God's green earth would you decide to quit training?!  That's akin to wanting to become Yanni and hiring all the best teachers but only wanting to practice once per week then decide that you're going to try it on your own, and oh yeah, take up ping pong and see how your piano skills come along while playing ping pong.  :/ This doesn't make any sense!  I have had people tell me to my face "I know I need to lose at least 150lbs and I know what to do and what I should eat.  I just don't want to do any cardio because I hate treadmills, and I don't want to lift heavy weights because I don't want to look bulky." For those of you who know me quite well, it is taking every single solitary ounce of strength and will to not make my famous "you're a freaking idiot" face.  I still slip up and show that face sometimes, but it's far less frequently than it really could be.  If you want to see change then you have to make changes yourself.  Having someone who is already where you want to be in front of you does not mean you changed.  If you don't know what you're doing, that's fine.  You want to learn, that's great!  You know you need someone to help you so you hire someone to teach you.  This is also a great plan because it's a way to have your own personal tutor for a language you don't understand.

Mini-rant over for now.  Ok, well I'm going to go back to my meal plan because it's Sunday, which means tomorrow is Monday (grocery day).

Happy Training

Frustrated

So I just had my eyes opened at work today.  I am apparently a phenomenal trainer, great with people, and do a wonderful job at helping people reach their goals/feel better about themselves.  But I guess I'm terrible at my job because I don't sell things.  I just got out of a 30 minute meeting where the take away was I service too many sessions and don't make opportunities to sell stuff.  If I wanted to sell things then I would have taken a job in sales, not personal training.  Everyone would like to have a lot more money, a lot more things, and a lot more of just more.  Cue the girl from the weird kid commercial "I want more, we want more, we just want more".  I apparently have my priorities backwards because I don't want more money.  I mean I do, don't get me wrong, but right now it is the least of my worries.  I am currently making the most money I have ever made in my life, and I'm happy with it.  I am quite happy where I am and how I'm doing.  I'm able to workout and better myself as an athlete (little secret life ambition of mine to be a professional athlete of form), I am able to set my own schedule for the most part and do what I want.  I can finally pay for my bills without constantly having to reach into my savings and pray that I can pick up extra hours from a second job.  I don't want a lot and I don't want to be greedy, but the constant nudge that I shouldn't be happy until I'm making some imaginary number is driving me crazy.

I have been told that I have the best retention rate of clients for new trainers.  I am a firm believer that if it isn't broken then don't fix it.  I tell my clients what to do and let them learn from their mistakes.  If I say to not drink yourself silly over the weekend and to not eat a bunch of crap then it's probably because those things won't help you lose weight and look and feel the way you want to.  Then when you do what I tell you not to and gain weight it isn't my problem and I will say "ok, you did it your way, let's do it mine."  They do it my way and lose weight, shocker.  These are the same people that if I pushed them to buy supplement after supplement or test after test that they would just walk away and I would be without a client.  Apparently I'm supposed to push sales and let people walk away so that I can replace them with people who will buy whatever I want them to.  I don't want retards that just parrot what I say, take everything I tell them as gospel truth, and refuse to think for themselves.  I like people who have something a little bit wrong with them, or just simply don't want to do what I say just because I said so.  "Because I said so" isn't science, it isn't training, it's just telling you what to do and hoping that you'll spend enough money to pad my paycheck and let me play with your wallet until you lose the weight that you want to lose.  I don't want a brainless idiot that will buy whatever I want them to, I want them to buy what I want them to because they see the value in it and understand it will help them.  If they don't want to buy something I want them to understand what they're doing and why they're doing it.  If they don't understand then I want them to be willing to learn.  People will only see sustainable results when they're willing to learn and understand they why and how.  If not then they will just repeat whatever the fad is and see quick results but then yo-yo back to their previous position and go "I don't understand, I ate what you said but then you stopped thinking for me so I gained everything back".  I don't want to think for you, I want to teach you.  I guess this is wrong way to go about things.  I'm a great trainer because I have people that will stay with me forever because they like what I do and how I treat them.  I'm apparently a terrible trainer because I'm not saying "wow, this combined home income is $300,000!  I should make them buy testing, the most expensive heart rate monitor, supplements out the wazoo, and training until the cows come home!".  I apparently missed a memo somewhere that said "thou shalt not be happy until thou makes x amount of money".  Did anyone else get it because I certainly didn't.

What I should really do is just open my own gym.  You know the movie Patch Adams with Robin Williams?  My all time most favorite movie in the world.  He wants to have a free hospital where people can go for treatment and not have to worry about the cost of the medical bills but just focus on getting better.  I want to open a gym version of that.  Make it Biggest Loser style where people come to workout, learn how to eat healthy and train healthy, and actually see results.  Instead of being voted or kicked out each week by being under the line or whatever, they only get kicked out for being unwilling to try.  There are some contestants that you can clearly see that they used their sob story to get on the show in hopes that they can just get by and not make any real changes just so they can get the money at the end.  There would be no money to be had at my gym, just hard work and results.  None of this "I'll only train you if you're willing to take 4 supplements (which based on our portion size equates to 12 pills per day), train 3 days per week, have heart rate monitors out the butt, and do 4 different types of stress tests".  When I'm talking stress tests I'm not talking the cardiological medical useful stress tests to determine if you have an issue with your heart.  I'm talking spit in a vial 3 times a day to figure out that you have high coritsol.  I have a stressful job and life I don't need to spend $200 and spit into something for 3 days to figure out my stress hormones are high.  Waste of money.

This rant is getting a wee bit winded.  I'm going to call it and go back to things that I like to do, like train people.  If it's not good enough for you then fire me.  I'm a trainer, not a sales person, I'm sorry that my life goals don't match up to yours.

Planning

So I'm officially training for a 50K this week. It's going to be the Rocks and Roots 50K trail run at Alum Creek February 9th.  I was starting to miss structured training and meal planning.  I haven't done trail running in forever, so I'm looking forward to running around in the mud, dirt, and jumping in water :)  I'm going to start taking my Zo pup with me on some of the shorter runs because she loved running the trails when we would go to Red River Gorge.  To help me organize my life I've tweaked my meal planning spread sheet a little bit to include a workout column.  This has helped keep grocery bills down, my week a little less hectic, and stop any arguing about what's for dinner.  What do you want for dinner?  Check the fridge, what does the sheet say?  Problem solved.  This has also helped when we are going to be using the Crock Pot because I make sure everything is set up/out to just toss in the Crock Pot, plug it in, and head out the door.

I know a lot of people have hectic schedules and need some help figuring out their lives.  Everyone has the same problem of figuring out what to have for dinner, where does anyone need to be, what time does x, y, and z need to happen, and what all needs to get done today.  I've started keeping a small notebook in my bags to use as my brains annex.  I have so much going on between family, training, work, trying to start a new program, and life in general that I simply don't have space for it all in my brain.  I just write the date at the top of the page and write everything that I need to accomplish between dusting, laundry, to emails that I need to send to my manager, or anyone I need to reach out to.  It helps me see what my day could look like and prioritize things as I go.  If I see my list takes up an entire page then I start weeding it out on things that are only absolutely necessary.  I know a lot of people have trouble figuring out what they should do and end up sitting around doing nothing because they don't think they'll get through the list anyway, so why begin?  Nothing will happen if you don't start it, so you may as well start and get through the best you can.

This is roughly what my life looks like sometimes, it's not all in these boxes, but it's a start.  I also haven't put in my mileage for the week because I'm still working that part out with my coach.  But it will let me see what days will suck for training and what days I should be able to be the most productive and accomplish the most.  This will also be useful for when I start making my Christmas presents.  I love making my presents, but they just take a while to get through.  I just need to plan better so I don't end up doing a sewing marathon like I do every year and I basically don't move from my sewing machine for hours at a time.                                                                                  

I'll add the agenda to a tab up top so people can access it better and make it their own.  I encourage my clients to use a style similar to this because it helps them see their weeks a little bit better than just hoping to remember things from day to day.  Planning out your week makes life easier when it comes to food because really all you have to do is plan a little bit and you can cook the food you want, and eat healthier simply by planning.  It usually takes pizza about 30-45 minutes to be delivered to your door.  If you planned accordingly you can thaw frozen chicken, chop up potatoes, and have everything cooked in the time it would take you to order a pizza and wait for it to be delivered.  Just a thought.  When I point that out to some of my people they have an "ah ha" moment and realize that they let life happen to them instead of trying to control what goes on.  Planning accordingly and trying to control what you can makes life a lot easier.  Food is fairly easy to control, you don't have to let it control you, it's not going to jump into your mouth on its own.

Back to planning and training!  Still loving my new computer!

New Computer!

So my computer for the last 4 years is finally on its way out.  It's been a long, slow, painful process, but it has finally happened.  It works well enough to turn on and do minimal functions as long as you have the patience for it to potentially restart, take a small life time to open whatever you're looking for, and also take FOREVER to start.  I've never been an apple fan, but I've decided to go by way of the MacBook Air for this computer because I've played the PC game and remained unimpressed.  I had the iphone for a while and while it was a good phone, it was also unimpressive.  Though it was about the only phone that I managed to not completely destroy, fry, or drown.  I think that was due to the fact that I was terrified of crushing it so I kept it in a full case the entire time.  I destroyed a Lifeproof case, otter box, and another off brand version of the otter box.  Red ended up giving me the Otterbox for his work phone because I had successfully destroyed everything else and didn't want to buy yet another case.  When it was time to upgrade though I switched back to the world of Android and got the Samsung Galaxy S4.  I love the screen size, how easy it is to use, how I can customize nearly everything, and just the way the phone works in general.  The one thing I miss about the iphone was the way the voicemail worked.  Now when I have a voicemail I have to wait until it is done having me re-save old messages before I can listen to my newest message.  Quite annoying.  But that's the end of the list of things I miss really.

Now as for the computer switch.  I have never had a mac of any form but I have always heard good things about them and thus far they seem to be indestructible.  I know some of my friends that have had them for 5 years with zero problems.  I have been incredibly hard pressed to find a friend with a PC that went longer than 2 years without a problem.  My last computer, the one that I just replaced, lasted 4 years but the last few months have been very irritating.  It would restart multiple times in a row, decide that it would want to update every time I would put it to sleep, and then take a small lifetime to start back up.  In the last 3 weeks the HP updated 3 different times.  The first week it had 27 updates and took 4 hours to sleep/update.  Second week it had 59 updates and took over 5 hours to sleep/shut down.  This last time it had 63 updates and FINALLY shut down sometime after I went to bed 6 hours later.  It was also getting hotter than sin and I was pretty sure that I was going to catch something on fire just setting it on there.  I've had the Macbook Air for a whopping 4 hours now and it is definitely going to require a huge learning curve.  Once I get used to it I'll be fine, but the getting used to it thing will take a bit.  One thing I've officially decided is that I strongly prefer the Microsoft office set up, so that will be my next purchase for this.  I've been messing with the Numbers app deal that's on here, and even though it's fairly easy to use, I still would rather spend my life working on excel for stuff than this thing.  Numbers has a lot of cool things that I can use, but I move so much faster on Excel and can just shuffle something off to my manager in about 30 seconds that seems to take forever on here.  It'll get better though.  The really cool part about all of this?  Outside of a truly functional computer??  The fact that now when Red is traveling for work that we can Facetime!!!  We used Skype last week when he was in South Carolina, but most places he doesn't have decent enough internet for his computer to allow him to use Skype.  Now with Facetime he can use his phone or ipad while on his trips and we can chat on here!!

Ok, well now that I have a functional computer hopefully I'll actually blog more.  I have most of my 2014 race season planned out and I'll have A LOT of training to do, but it'll be fun.  Quick run down:
January: Disney Mickey Marathon (pacing Red for the Marathon portion of the "Dopey" Challenge he's doing)
February: 50k Rocks to Roots trail run
March: nothing, maybe Xenia half marathon
April: Xenia half marathon if it's not in march
May: Rev 3 Knoxville 70.3 and Triple T
June:
July:
August:
September: Ironman Wisconsin
I'll probably have something in the summer months, I just don't know what yet, we'll see!!!

Rev 3 Cedar Point Race Report

Ok, so I'm a little late on my race report, but it's better late than never!  I was slightly skeptic about how Rev3 was going to turn out because I have been spoiled by the Ironman brand.  Turns out that Rev3 put on an event just as stellar as the Ironman brand.  There was a little less hype, but the fact that the half racers were allowed to "sleep in" and do their transition set up later than the full racers, which was AWESOME!

Getting to Cedar Point was the easy part, then signing in, getting the goodie bag, and turning in Felix (my bike) for the night was a little bit tougher. At M-dot events there is a clear line and set up that everyone follows so everything goes smoothly. For Rev 3 things went smoothly once you figured out where the starting point was, meh, still a nice race. I loved the fact that the Full Rev started an hour or so before the Half Rev but I didn't have to be up or anything. That was glorious!

Swim:

So my friend didn't tell me that the water was going to be FREEZING. I don't do well in cold water, but I survived. I was incredibly grateful that I was wearing a wetsuit because I could float and "swim" while my lungs adjusted to the cold. This was all peachy but then somehow the waves started coming from the left which made no sense. Turned out the wind had picked up something fierce and was causing quite a bit of chop. The race  coordinator actually changed the swim to the bay because the actual Lake was ridiculous and had a huge undertow.  I thought the swim was never going to end and I kept taking in water and feeling blarg. My arms were cold, shoulders weren't too bad, but I was over choking on Lake water.  I finally finished the swim and the wet suit strippers had me out of my suit in no time! I ran to transition and hurried onto Felix.

Bike:

Remember that wind I talked about? Yeah, we were originally told the wind would be a random 8 to 10 mph. Turned out it was a steady 15 mph with gusts up to 20+. Awesome. The bike was fairly uneventful but I felt good which was the important part. Red had been awesome and bought me a speedfill A2 water bottle for between my Aero bars and it worked like a charm. I was happy and hydrated and overall just felt fine. I was kind of over the whole wind nonsense, but I just kept saying "think small" and I tucked into Aero and caught and passed people bigger than me. An awesome power to weight ratio seriously comes in handy. The only problem I had was trying to eat on the bike. Since the wind would randomly toss you around like a kite it made letting go with one hand difficult. I was still able to get my calories in so it was fine.

Run:

This is where things were interesting. I came off the bike thankful we changed the swim because when we passed the lake and I saw the waves it was terrifying. The waves were worse than the ocean waves Florida and the gusts coming off the bike made me seriously fear crashing. The run was getting much better. I had to pee!!! I never have to pee off the bike so needing to was good! Red caught me coming out of transition after I went pee and told me I was in 11th. I asked how far ahead the other girls were and he didn't know yet. I was all kinds of happy and then my head went "that means almost top 10, those top 10 girls are fast, can I get there?". Well I took off feeling really good and stuck to my nutrition. I don't know if I could have gone faster but I know I was pushing. I kept looking for girls who looked my age and only found 2 people in my age group on the run. One girl passed me but then I passed someone else so I ended up even.

I stayed in 11th but it was ok. I was a little disappointed in my time because it was slower than Muncie, but the course was harder because of a couple of hills and the annoying wind. If I could change anything I may have tried more on the bike, but the most annoying thing was the finish line. I think there were 6 turns in this shoot and I never thought it was going to end.

I ended up placing better so now I'm pushing for a top 10 finish for next year! Right now I'm debating about a 50k in February but I'm making my race schedule for 2014. Pictures later :)

Randomness and being thankful

So today has been quite a decent day.  Work started a little rough with a 6am client on a Saturday, but it worked out well. I was done with everyone by 10am and ready to go to the UC v Purdue game by 10:15.  This was a great way to start off the season! We crushed Purdue :) That makes for a happy midget :) Now, trying to be a good triathlete I was downing water because I was SUPPOSED to do a 90 min bike and 20 min run today.  It was 96 degrees out and said it felt at least like 102. When we got to the car my thermometer thing said 109. Awesome.  Well, after the game we grabbed a Powerade from BP to get done electrolytes in because our clothes were  absolutely drenched in sweat, and I was still intending to bike and run. We get home finally and grab some food and the sky starts to look pretty ugly.  According to the radar we weren't supposed to get hit and everything was supposed to go north. The weatherman was wrong. I know, such a shocker. It started storming and absolutely pouring. Lightening was going crazy, and poor Zo was scared of the thunder. She decided to burrow under the pillow Red was using.  Red was just heading downstairs to switch laundry over when our power went out. Meh, well that was nearly 3 hours ago.

So 3 hours without power actually isn't that bad. Red's company just allowed their employees to enable the mobile hotspot function for their phones on the company's dime :) Yeah! Also, Red has been traveling a lot so he decided that having a better way to charge his phone and tablet would be a Powergen battery pack instead of fighting for an outlet at airports. We are currently testing it out as we still don't have power but have fully charged phones. Yep, no power doesn't mean no entertainment. Another thing we have to be thankful for is the fact that we have gas for our stove and water heater.  This means we were still able to have a delicious meal (prepared by Red), and take comfy hot showers. Possibly one of the best things we have is the ability to put screens in our windows. It was really warm, but that storm blew through and it dropped about 15 degrees. We opened the windows and put the screens in so we can have a decent breeze in the house.  All of these things combined to have quite a comfortable evening playing on our phones, watching football on the ipad, shower, and not feel like we're in a sweat box.  I'm very ok with all of this.

Now tomorrow I need to go back to being a good triathlete and get my swim and run in.  I may do the bike I was supposed to do today after my run, but we'll see what all happens!  Hopefully the power comes on soon, or I may just go to bed when the ipad dies and take advantage of sine much needed sleep.  One more week until Rev3 Cedar Point 70.3!! It's almost go time!

Control what you can

So I've been trying to figure out a way to deal with everything that life has thrown at me this year, and I've decided that the only thing I can do is to control what I can.  I can't control other people, I can't control jobs, I can't control the weather, and I can't control illness.  All of these things have decided to wreak havoc on me this year, and I'm fairly certain that I'm going insane, but I'm taking everyone with me.  I have wanted to break down and just straight cry more often than I care to admit, but crying doesn't fix anything.  Giving up on things or just quitting isn't what I'm all about, I really really wish I was sometimes, but I'm too stubborn.  Plus?  Minus?  Meh.  I've discovered that nearly every time I think I have something figured out then life decides to go "Ha!  Good one!", well eff.  Each week, sometimes each day, I have to pause and not let myself day dream too far into something that isn't really a thing yet but weighs heavily on my mind.  I realize I'm being very vague, but that happens.  My coping mechanism?  Training.  Sometimes it's quite helpful and sometimes it takes me momentarily closer to curling up in a ball and crying like a baby.  More times than not it actually makes me reflect on the paces I'm keeping, the weights I'm lifting, and the speeds I'm maintaining instead of going "well that sucks, better not do that again".  I actually go "well that sucks" a lot, then I typically turn around and say "what's next" instead of I'm done.  I've decided that with everything that I can't control, and I love control, then I need to focus on what I can actually change or make happen.  I can control my workouts by pushing myself harder, and enjoy the fact that if something says it weighs 200lbs, then guess what?  It weighs 200lbs.

Sometimes we all need to find something that is stable in our lives in order to make life make sense.  Some find stability in God, some find it in training, some find it in reading, writing, cooking, running, sleeping, singing, what-have-you-ness.  I've spent a lot of time praying, cursing, and training.  I've leaned on Red a lot too and am glad that he knows the best way to make me feel better is to simply be quiet, listen, and do what I say.  I don't mean it in a mean way, but if a hug will make things better then he immediately gives me a giant hug, if leaving me alone for a bit will do it, then he waits until I want to talk, if biking next to me while I run is what will work then he is right beside me.  I hear a lot of people talk about what's going wrong in their lives and a lot of things don't sound too bad if you simply try to compare life to life, but then I look at what's outside of that person's life versus my own.  I know that working out makes me feel better.  I have an awesome family that I could randomly drop in on at any given moment and they would be cool with it.  I have an awesome goober (Red) who listens to me whine until I feel better then picks me up and sends me on my way to whatever adventure, or disaster, I may run to.  There are some people I want smack upside the head repeatedly because they're completely retarded and refuse to take care of themselves or get their heads out of their butts to see reality, but then I realize that what they claim is impossible is all they know.  They don't have a support system of any form, it's quite possibly because their parents sucked or because they are so dag-on annoying that no one wants to be around them, but  being stupid is all they know because they lack a substantial support system.  Mine is brutally honest but very loving at the same time, which is precisely what I need.  My friends sit and listen to what I have to say, but then aren't afraid to tell me I'm being stupid and help me see what I'm too blind to see.  Like with Grandma I sometimes sit and want to pout about her being "sick", but then my friends are quite quick to point out that at this current moment she is fine and strong.  They remind me that she's a fighter and that the reason I'm so feisty and stubborn comes directly from her.  I usually then laugh and realize that I would love to be half as strong as she is because I would really be invincible.  A lot of people apparently don't have people like this, that or the people they're around suck and are too afraid to deal with the bad nonsense to get to the good parts in life, thereby allowing people to continue to be stupid and mopey.  I really think that people need more friends like mine and I'm always VERY quick to "adopt" anyone I want to be friends with because I think my family is awesome (weird as sin, but still awesome) and I know my family would support anyone with anything.

So I guess that I'm adding one more thing to my list of things that I can control.  I can control my workouts, weights, speeds, and how hard I push, but I can also control how I try to help people.  Not everyone wants help and I honestly don't want to help everyone because as nice as I want to be I still think the best thing for some people is to get their butt kicked a few times, but such is life.  So this is a whole lot of freaking randomness but I think it made things a little more clear for me.  You may think they're clear as mud, but it works for me.  Now back to training.  What's next?