Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Achieving my fitness goal

Well, gentle readers, I've done it!
I ran the Lilac 5k course last night without stopping or dying. I ran it in 35 minutes, 50 seconds. The folks in my training class were give the opportunity to run it with one of the Medved runners who coaches us on Saturday mornings. A big number of runners participated. I was in the intermediate group. A number of people started out pretty quickly and then slowed down. I think I kept a pretty steady pace throughout the run. I sprinted at the end, which is a bit of a challenge because the course ends going up a hill. But it felt great to know that I have run the course and have done what I set out to do. Beloved step-daughter Rachel has asked me about my next fitness goal. Well, first I want to run the official 5k on May 17. There are some other 5ks that are taking place this summer that I might enter. I also want to set up a running group for General Convention in Anaheim this summer. Beyond that, I don't know! I think my goal for a while will just be running at least 3 miles 3-4 times a week. I don't know if I want to bump it up and try to do a 10k or not...I'll just see how things go.
Life is good. I'm off to Albany today for a pre General Convention Province II synod meeting. Hopefully the meeting will be inspirational. Prayers, please.
Peace,
RevMutha

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Changing roles

In the past few days, God has given me some neat opportunities to change my roles and perspectives. On Wednesday evening, I found out that I didn't get a job for which I had applied and I was bummed for a number of reasons. The friends/family members who knew I had applied were great when I told them I didn't get it and have been wonderfully supportive since then. On Friday morning, I was thinking about another woman who had applied for the same job (and didn't get it) and decided to send her a text to see if she was okay. Within a short amount of time, my phone rang, and it was this woman calling to commiserate. I got to change roles from victim to care-giver because she was clearly devastated whereas I had kind of had the "Well, God must have something bigger in store for me" attitude.
I had another opportunity in running training this morning. After being told we were going to run 40 minutes straight, I was all set to start fussing and complaining. However, it turns out that I was the only one in the group with a sport watch with a chronograph on it. All of a sudden, I felt like it was my job to encourage us with things like "Y'all, we're doing great. Half-way there!" And "We're awesome! Only 15 minutes to go!" And "Wow--we're really kicking it today! 8 minutes left!" etc...So I went from complainer to encourager.
I like learning new life lessons. And I like sharing them. So, if things suck, change your role.
Peace,
RevMutha

Personal Best

Okay. I've been kind of lame about posting. Sorry for that. I noticed that I did great in January, pretty good in February and March, and not so great in April. I'll work on it.
This morning, I achieved a personal best. I went to running training with my group. Our directions for today were to run 3-4 miles. Now y'all may remember that my goal at the beginning of all this was to be able to run 3 miles without stopping or dying. When it was time to run, the coach asked us how far we wanted to go. I said I was fine with three miles. Another woman said she thought she could go 4. The gentleman in the group said 3.25 was the farthest he'd gone so far. So the coach said that he wanted us to run 40 minutes without stopping and that that would probably be about 3.5 miles. I have never run 40 minutes without stopping. I have run 30 minutes without stopping and here I was being asked to run 33% longer than my longest running time. No music, no tv--just other people and God's creation on a beautiful Saturday morning. So I said "Here's the deal. I will commit to this. But I'm pretty sure that I'll be complaining bitterly for the last 15 minutes." My running buddies laughed.
I did it.
I ran 40 minutes without stopping.
Probably at least 3.5 miles.
I feel GOOD!
Peace,
RevMutha