The Law of Inertia

According to Wikipedia, "Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion."  I have been afflicted with inertia.  I had a student teacher for a long time this past semester.  I was sure that I was get tons accomplished and be refreshed and ready to go again when it was time.  Nope. Not refreshed.  Not eager.  I did get some things accomplished, but not as much as I had hoped.  And returning to full productivity was something of a shock. I was resisting the change of my rest.

On the other hand, on Saturday I had a good day.  I woke up at a good time (which is to say, any time before 10am) and went for a run.  When I came back, I made German pancakes. Yum.  Then I headed out to the yard to do yard work--mostly cleaning up leaves and spraying dandelions.  Next I came inside and prepared the young women lesson I was teaching on Sunday (whilst consuming a Jamba Juice). After I finished, Clint and I headed off to explore the new City Creek Center and grab dinner at Chili's. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home, and we then snuck in a couple episodes of New Girl. (Yes, I used snuck as a conscious decision.) While obviously some of the events of the day were for pleasure, I overall had a very productive day. It sure beat my usual Saturday of lounging around, procrastinating, and not accomplishing much besides running and going to the grocery store.

Of course, we can't over generalize this rule--I do tend to shut down when I am asked to do too much, but there is a lot of truth here.  Success breeds success.  Work breeds work.  Effort breeds effort. Laziness breeds laziness.  This is why over the summer I have had a few mopey meltdowns in my day--with nothing pressing to do, inertia completely takes over, and I become a simpering puddle of self-loathing. A feckless mess, if you will.

While on this topic, I have a confession.  My half-marathon did not go as well as I had hoped.  Granted, the weather conditions were not ideal--but I was nevertheless quite disappointed.  My theory is that I put in the miles, but not enough FAST miles.  I also think I didn't drink enough gatorade.  Well, the point is, that I am trying to avoid letting my disappointment slide into negative inertia. Thus far, I am combating it--I ran hills repeats today! There's nothing like hill repeats to put someone in motion.

Excuses

So remember how last year's Cayonlands sucked?  Well, in order to prevent this year from becoming a suck fest as well, I decided to review my running log.  I was inspired by Runner's World, and good thing too.  I realized a few things.  1) My consistency is not very good.  I don't think I made a single week of running six times, and I only ran five times in a week once. Granted, I did get sick during training last year, but I didn't run at all one week! 2) My mileage was actually pretty low. I really think I need to amp that up.  My highest mileage week was just over 16 miles.

I am trying to do my best to train smarter this year.  The goal is to run a minimum of four days a week with the plan to usually do five or six days.  Additionally, I would like to throw in a couple of twenty mile weeks, at least. I'm still contemplating other aspects of my training--should I emphasize easy recovery days and hard pace/speed runs?  Or should I just "show up" every day?  Should I introduce more variety and strength training to my workouts? I'm not sure yet, but I do know that I can't get bogged down like last year.

In an effort to train more consistently, I must become impervious to excuses.  Check out this interesting video on excuses, which I found at Best Body Fitness as recommended by Peanut Butter Fingers.

A Helpful Half: Hour or Marathon

 It's official.  I am registered for the Canyonlands Half Marathon in Moab (for the 4th time? Something like that.) I guess this means I need to get off my butt and run.  Why am I doing this again?  Last year's race was terrible. There was a headwind the whole time, I felt crappy, and my time was awful (and I had wanted to PR). The whole time I was thinking to myself, "Why do I do this?" Then after my final sprint at the finish, I started having breathing problems, so I was whisked off to the medical tent.  They wanted someone to pick me up, but I had no way of contacting anyone.  So I waited there forever until I convinced them to let me leave.  The whole thing was a bust.  

So, why AM I doing this again? I guess it's peer pressure.  My friends signed up, so I had to represent.  If I'm going to do a race, it's going to be with friends.  I may as well take up the opportunity to run with people when I can.   Also, deep down I know if I don't have a race coming up, I will turn into a coach potato.

Recently I taught a lesson in Young Women on good health habits. As a part of the lesson, I researched exercise recommendations for youth and children.  Did you know the recommendation is an hour a day of physical activity? That's a lot!  Now, that doesn't mean going on an hour long run everyday.  Kids can break up their hour of exercise--playing tag, walking the dog, skipping rope etc.  Strength exercises should be included too.  Fortunately, as adults we're off the hook somewhat.  The daily exercise recommendation for adults is at least 30 minutes a day. Here is an interesting video to motivate us all to get a bit more active.

Back to School

 

Well, I officially survived my first week back to school. Clint gave me flowers and took me out to dinner to celebrate! Notice the lovely earrings I am wearing that my sister gave me for my birthday. Thanks, Megan! The shirt was a birthday gift from Clint.

We had a fun night; Clint took me to Rodizio Grill and then we stopped by a friend's crepe party. The problem with this fun night was that we were both running a 5k early the next morning. Despite our meat engorged stomachs and despite the fact that my quads were impaired due to a Thursday boot-camp workout with the team--we both survived! We celebrated our survival by further gorging ourselves Saturday night on junju from Lunaberry downtown. Yum!

Sweat, Blood, and Brains

Folks, I have been remiss in my blogging duties. This is too bad because I suspect that I'm going to get a lot worse (school starts tomorrow). Well, without further ado, I bring to you the Great Urban Race!








The Great Urban Race is this awesome scavenger hunt race that I did downtown. You must race as a team, so I called up my old running buddy Mike. We did YMCA with strangers, pumped up a bike tire, drank carrot juice, did lunges, peeled potatoes and did a lot of other stuff around downtown.

There was a lot of sweat because the race started at NOON. Hence the camelbaks in the picture. Don't be jealous of my hardcore hat and fanny pack. Mike was.

There was blood because I got a bad papercut in Ken Sanders bookstore completing a challenge.

There was brains because we had enough brains and speed to garner 9th place!

Other August happenings thus far include going to girls camp



hiking Ensign Peak for the first time



hiking to Cecret Lake with the miamaids



and other fun. I feel surprisingly chill considering school starts tomorrow. I suppose the real test is whether I can get to sleep tonight!

The Jazz Age

I want to go to a Jazz age lawn party and do the Charleston in the park! Maybe if I went I could be like these beautiful people...




You can see more pictures from this and learn more here.

Bollywood

Lately Clint and I have been on a Bollywood kick. We've seen the following movies:

Rocket Singh
Some movie in which the protagonist is in love with Alisha
Wake up Sid
Jab We Met
Love Aaj Kal
Kismet connection
Like Stars on Earth

I'm not quite sure why we're into these movies lately. I think it's because they're just so different. Also we like to make fun of the randomly inserted music videos complete with wind machines.