And We Are Back

Oh, wow. I’ve been MIA for a while haven’t I?

I’ve only run twice. No reason other than lazy and it’s hot and I’ve not been sleeping well so getting up is very hard to do.

But the running has been feeling great. When I’ve been doing it. It feels good to express myself thru it. How? Because I’m pushing myself and I’m expressing my determination. I’m expressing my willingness to put myself thru great discomfort. Running isn’t really easy. When you start, your brain says nope. But you have to keep going through that. It is literally mind over matter. I could use the shirt that says that.

Then, there is the wall you hit when you’ve run for a while and your body goes “nope.” And it’s easy to just give in but that’s why you train. If you train, your brain just goes in to auto-drive and the legs keep moving. I hit it when I did my half marathon. It was hard. I wanted to quit so bad. My body was cramping and crying for a chair or a tree stump. But no, my brain overrode my body, overrode it’s safety protocols.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m slow. Very slow. Turtles have nothing on me. But I can keep going. My mother always said I was stubborn. And here is where it comes in handy.

Part of the reason I’ve been taking it easy is I’m in the middle of a little flare. It’s not full blown but it’s hard to do things. My skin hurts, I’m tired all the time, and my joints are aching. When this happens, I have a choice to make. Run or not. I have to ask myself if it’s beneficial in the future. Will it do more harm than good. Last night, I had every intention of going to bed early and running this morning. I even slept in running clothes. But my discomfort kept me awake. To get up and run would leave me with a 2 hour sleep deficit. When I’m going through things like this, it’s important to get rest. It helps with the healing and recovery.

I have been using my fabric at home for basic aerial yoga and doing restorative aerial in class. Less power and more deep stretches. I think it’s been going well. It’s hard to tell in a flare. But I do have a new class on the schedule. Foam Rolling. It’s always a love hate relationship. My first class was this past Wednesday. I had three very different people join me in the class. It hurt. I have no metaphor or simile to describe how bad it hurt. When you leave class, you feel completely beat up. It takes a day or two to feel the improvement in your body.

While I skipped the last Friday night live, I’ve been doing research on how to improve my lyra and aerial hammock. I’ve put them aside to run and now I need to find greater balance but I need to keep challenging myself like I do with running. There is the flow in the hammock that I need to improve. I need to find grace. With lyra, I just need to learn it. It’s a new apparatus for me and it’s painful.

So what’s the take away? Balance. I need to find balance in my life. Good food, healthy food, snack food. Emotionally, it’s good to feel the full range of feelings. Running and aerial stuff helps me find a safe place to express my emotions and sort thru them. Autoimmune flares makes me think about does this serve me or hurt me. Exercise should be balanced too. Cardio and strength training lead to a well balanced person.

Two more things.

I play Pokemongo. It’s fun and it lets me get some walking miles in. I found a wild Pikachu. I’m hunting Evies so I can have all three.

I also opened an Etsy Store. It has some of my photography. I already had an old cafepress store but it seems like an Etsy Store is where things are at. It might also have some other things as I get crafty. Maybe Epson salts or resin jewelry. I still have to figure out what I want to do.

The Natural Heart

EnfireDesigns-CafePress

So that’s it. I will see you sooner than later.

Catching up

I’m married. I’ve honeymooned on the west coast. It’s time to get back to training if I can stay awake.

The honeymoon was great. There was a lot of walking so I did not run that much. However, I could not avoid a quick run in the Arcata Community Forest. It’s a beautiful redwood forest with some significant elevation changes.

Truth be told, it was all beautiful. We spent time along the coast and driving thru the redwoods.

Getting back to the run in the forest. I woke up a little earlier than my husband. I quick google search showed me two different options for a run. One was the marsh and one was the Arcata Community Forest. I could hardly pass it up. The trails didn’t look that bad in the pictures. And the pictures lied.

Just driving up to the trail, I knew that there was going to be some significant effort needed. The pictures did not do the steep path justice. I quickly decided to turn it more into a quick hike. I tried to stay on the trail as much as possible but I still got lost. All together I managed to go 3.5 miles. I did run some, and a lot of it downhill. It was hard because I kept stopping to look around. The trees were rather massive. The air was fresh and a little thin. I finally got on a trail and asked someone how to get back to the parking lot.

The trail was hard. I was drenched. And I enjoyed it. I’m not sure where I was getting lost but I kept losing the trail at some point. While I do use technology to help me with training, I was very grateful to have it help me to get back to the trail. Here in our area our trails are very well marked. ACF trails really did not have anything. Some of the regular trails looked more like animal trails. But the run was still totally worth it. Or hike. Whatever. It was half hike and half run.

Otherwise, there was a ton of walking. We walked on beaches and boardwalks. We wandered thru animal parks and aquariums.

I loved the trip. We explored Portland down to LA.

We got back last week and I’m still tired. I did run last week. It was a good run. It was hard but I added some elevation and speed here and there. I decided that I will be catching up on Person of Interest. I felt like it was a hard run and there was sweat everywhere but I need to be more comfortable being uncomfortable. I can’t go faster if I don’t train for it.

Yoga was fun. We had low aerial on Wednesday with some regulars. Class just flowed and it we worked on stretching and not bugging someone’s sprained ankle. Single point kept us a little off balanced even in the common poses. It added something a little different to class.

Feels good to be back in the silks

Friday, I went to Friday Night Live in Waukesha. The yoga studio I work at has an outdoor rig and the city closes the streets. There is live music and food and us demonstrating some of the skills we’ve learned and teach in class. There was some talk of lyra but I didn’t want it and my vote was listened to. Perhaps next week.

So that’s my story. I’m not sure that it makes a whole lot of sense because I think my head is still spinning from the honeymoon. It’s good to be home and good to get back into the swing of things with a head full of good memories. 

More photos can be found and will be posted on my flickr

Oh and I recently joined Instagram 

Karn and Dumpy are glad to be home. I can't get a picture of the dog because she's been stuck like glue to me.