Five For Friday: Sept. 21

If I get this posted before midnight, it still counts as a Friday post, right?  

1.  River Valley Fitness - (I couldn't find a website or Facebook page - if anyone does, please let me know and I'll link it!)
This new fitness center just opened in Windom September 1st.  I waited a long time for a real fitness center to come to town.  Sure, there is the Hospital Wellness Center...but they have a lot of cardio and are short on real weight-lifting.  Then there was Curves...ummmm, yeah, not for me.  (The one saving grace for me in this town was Sky Blue Yoga- Kris is awesome!)
River Valley is a real gym with cardio, weights, classes, and available personal training.  Too bad for the owner that since I waited so long I now own all my own equipment.  But if you are local, definitely check it out!!!

2. Girls Night Out - A new campaign by the downtown businesses here in Windom.  Every third Thursday of the month, from 4-8pm, there will be specials, refreshments, and giveaways.  Now if only Dave didn't have a meeting that same day...

3. Windom Area Girls Fastpitch Association 5K/10K  Yep, this is tomorrow morning.  I'm late posting this.  Sorry!  But here's the info:  This is Windom's second running event of two for the year.  Especially in this inaugural year, PLEASE support it!  We need more local running events and it supports women in sports.  Really, a no-brainer. 

4. Breast Health Walk  If you ever want to hear an inspiring story about how regular people get things done, this is it.  A local woman (my insurance agent) had an abnormal mammogram and was ultimately diagnosed with breast cancer.  Frustrated with the wait time for follow-up mammograms (we previously had a truck from over an hour-and-a-half away come to perform mammograms in Windom every few weeks), she and her daughter started a fundraiser walk last year to  raise funds to purchase mammography equipment for our local hospital.  Less than 1 year later, our local hospital has their own equipment.  This year's walk (and subsequent events) will promote their other goal- to help women struggling with breast health/cancer financially when needed. 
If you don't know anyone who has been affected by breast cancer, count yourself lucky.  If you do,  please support this event, or others like it in your own community. 

5. Dude, it's a small town... I'm lucky I can come up with four in one week!   Let's hear from you... What exciting things are happening in your own community?  

Five For Friday: Sept. 14

1.  I am starting to get my motivation back!  And none too soon...I have a 10K tomorrow and a half marathon in a little over a month. 

2. Great little article on why your triathlon races may not be going as well as you'd like.  (Thanks to Gillian Clayton for sharing this on FB!)
"Top Ten Reasons Why You'll Never Peak For Your Triathlon"

3.  My latest endurance event?  Remodeling and redecorating the family farmhouse before we move in this fall. 
Work on the "new" house is going well.  The upstairs is more than half done space-wise.  The biggest holdup is the bathroom.  Dave has been working 6 days a week, leaving him little time to work on it.
I'm holding off on the hallway and stairs until we are done with the bathroom and have all our large furniture moved.  I'd rather avoid the frustration of getting dings in my newly painted walls & floor!

Today's project: moved that furniture to the other side of the room and painted the other half of the floor.  Next?  New baseboard (salvaged from another old house).

4. After having Liam gone for a week and eating a lot of quick, not-so-healthy food, I felt pretty crappy.  I've been back to my normal eating since we got back Tues night and, after only three days, already feel much better.  Let that be a lesson to me...

5.  The September Meditation Challenge is working well for me, also.  During the week of eating crap it was harder.  My brain felt full of cobwebs.  The last couple days I have set an intention with each morning's mediation.  Yesterday it was for energy.  It worked almost too well... I couldn't sleep last night and was wide awake and full of ENERGY!  So I did another meditation with an intention of restful sleep and drifted right off.  The power of the mind is amazing. 

*And a bonus sixth thing I saw just before I was about to post!
6. An article on competitor.com from Susan Lacke entitled "Out There: Be Happy With Your Body". I think I'm bookmarking this one for when I'm have "one of those days".  I forget that my aesthetically imperfect body has powered me through a half-iron triathlon, 3 marathons, about a dozen half-marathons, and countless other races.  Certainly, something I need to remember more often!

September Meditation Challenge

This month I will be participating in RunToTheFinish's Meditation Challenge.  This challenge is a little different than a lot of the blog challenges that are out there.  There are no set guidelines, no prizes... the goal is simply to progress over the course of the month.  And hopefully for me, instill a new healthy habit into my routine.

As a mother to a two-year old that keeps me going from sunup to sundown most days, I can definitely see how daily meditation could benefit me.  Taking time every day to slow down, to invite peace, to center myself, can only make me a better mother/wife/person.

Coincidentally, I saw this picture linked through a friend on Facebook the day I decided to commit to this challenge.  It speaks to what I hope to achieve by taking the challenge and making meditation a part of my daily life.  

I saw this on Facebook here, not sure about original photo credit.

I invite you to join the Meditation Challenge hosted by RunToTheFinish by signing up here. 

Five for Friday

1.  Sister Madonna Buder, Oldest Woman to Finish an Ironman  Sister Madonna Buder is so inspiring, becoming not only the oldest woman, but the oldest person to finish an Ironman with her finish in Canada.  If you have not read her book, The Grace To Race, I highly suggest it.  

2. Controlling migraine through diet:  I have checked out several books from my local library about controlling migraines naturally.  I have been having a lot of them lately and, well, I just don't have time for that.  I am very interested in using diet to reduce my incidence of migraines as that is something I can easily take control of.  I am hoping to have all of the books finished by the end of the holiday weekend.  I will then take a week to form a plan, based on the information gleaned from all of the books and implement it the following week.  I hope this works...

3.  I won a pair of Oakleys!!!  I entered a raffle from Amanda at RunToTheFinish to support Run10Feed10 and I won!  I chose the Drizzle sunglasses.  I LOVE them!!! 
I also won Love Grown Granola as part of my prize package.  I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the granola as I have heard wonderful things about it (and it's gluten-free!).  I can't wait to try it!

4.  Why I Also Almost Died During the 2012 New York City Ironman Triathlon  A good article about listening to your body and symptoms of distress while training and racing.  I had never heard of SIPE (swimming induced pulmonary edema) before this article. 


5.  My Rev3 decision:  And finally, I have decided to not go to Ohio to compete at Rev3 Cedar Point.  I decided that although it would most certainly be fun,  the potential after-effects on my body when I am not prepared are more than I want to deal with.  After last year's half-iron it took me a good 6 weeks to recover... it was miserable.  Better to not completely trash the body and be able to have fun another day! 

Have a great weekend!!!

Rev3 Wisconsin Volunteer Report

Writing my last post about whether to race at Cedar Point or not reminded me that I still hadn't written my Rev3 Dells volunteer report!

Because I'm a bad blogger and took very few pictures, I'm using one of Rev3's :) (Photo from Rev3 website)

Saturday:
We arrived in Wisconsin Dells on Saturday afternoon, shortly before my first volunteer shift was scheduled to start.  We popped into the resort to check-in even though we couldn't get in the room yet.  (Everything was under my name, credit card, etc...)

View of our resort from the lake.  Don't my in-laws look happy to be there? ;)

That afternoon I was signed up to volunteer at packet pickup.  I had the second shift that day which was also the last opportunity for athletes to get their packets.  I was quickly trained and set up with a box of packets.  I was surprised that there was never really a huge line.  Athletes must have planned ahead with most of them checking in earlier because we never had a back-up of more than a couple people.  All the athletes were super-nice and very understanding if I had to direct one of their questions to someone else.  I even got to help check in a few of the pros- including Richie Cunningham! 

After my shift was over at 6pm, I was anxious to get back to our condo and get something for supper.  I was starving!

Part of the reason we got a condo was because my mother-in-law and I both have dietary restrictions.  Having the condo allowed us to be able to eat all together while meeting everyone's preferences and restrictions.  We had a great meal that first night of grilled salmon accompanied by veggies I had picked from the garden the day before - carrots, onions, zucchini, eggplant, and fresh salsa!

Sunday:
I woke up early enough Sunday morning to make some coffee and watch the swim start.  I had planned to go down to the actual start, but the road I tried to take didn't go through because of a private beach.  But I discovered that the swim went right past our resort's dock!

Sunday morning was perfect.  Overcast with a calm lake. 

This provided the perfect view and a nice non-crowded place to enjoy my coffee!  There were several others watching from the resort's patio or from their windows.  It was a great place to spectate from. 

Pro men swimming just in front of me. 

I watched the two waves of pros and all of the half competitors start.  I went back up to our room to get more coffee and continued to watch the Oly swimmers from our patio.

After the swim was over, I got ready to do my own run and headed out the door.  I found a road away from the triathlon course, without too much traffic, and put in my scheduled 8 miles. 

After my run I had some lunch, played with my family at the waterpark for a half hour, then headed over to the finish for my second volunteer shift of the weekend.

This time I was at the finish line.  I worked with the same Rev3 staff member that I had the day before, Kelly, so I was immediately comfortable in my new position, handing out medals.

It's interesting to see people's reactions upon finishing from that perspective.  Some of them are elated, some exhausted.  Only one was grumpy.  One of the awesome things about Rev3 races are that they let your family/support crew cross the finish line with you.  It was fun, and sometimes emotional, to see little kids crossing with their Mom, Dad, or in one case, I'm pretty sure it was Grandma!

Here's the official Age Group Recap Video.  The back of my head makes a cameo at about 9:13.  Don't blink or you'll miss it!



I had an awesome time volunteering at Rev3 Wisconsin! The staff and other volunteers were wonderful. Rev3 really puts on a great race! I wish I would have been racing, but really, if you can't race, volunteering is the next best way to get in on the action!

To Rev3 or Not?

As soon as I got the go-ahead to run a few weeks ago, I jumped on the chance to switch my race registration to Rev3 Cedar Point half.  I was super-excited to be able to get my half-iron back on the schedule for this year.  But training and motivation haven't been what I'd hoped since then. 

So now I have a decision to make.  Do I go to Cedar Point and just try to finish or do I just stay home? 

This will probably be my last attempt at this distance for the next few years.  I have decided to step back and take care of the nagging health issues that have been bothering me this year rather than attempting to limp my training through them. 

PROS
The registration is paid for.
I will get to meet some of my "internet friends". 
I will get a chance to complete my goal race distance for 2012 and my second half-iron.
I haven't raced at any distance since March and I am itching for a good race.
Rev3 puts on an awesome race! (I volunteered in WI.  They are a class-act!)

CONS
I am not well-trained and it would be a challenge to just finish.
I am traveling by myself.  Have you ever finished a difficult race where you knew no one and had no support crew?  I have.  It sucked. 
I could use the time to work on the house we will be moving into this fall.
I would be spending a good amount of money on a race that I would be doing "just because".  
After my half last year, it took me a good 6 weeks to recover.  I am at a lower level of fitness this year so my recovery could potentially be quite long and difficult.  

Advice?  Thoughts?  Virtual kick in the pants?  

Training Log Aug 6-12

Only one workout to report this week.  While hiking last Sunday, I was stung by a couple wasps.  Monday and Tuesday I had a migraine, followed by a low-grade fever on Wednesday and Thursday.  I think these symptoms were a reaction to the wasp bites.  This Monday, eight days after being stung, the sting sites welted up and became quite itchy.  At least this week, they (so far) are not impeding my workouts!

Friday and Saturday were packing/travel days for Rev3 Wisconsin Dells!  I was supposed to race the half at this venue, but because of my injury this summer, transferred my registration to Rev3 Cedar Point in September.  We opted to go to Wisconsin anyway, since my in-laws had plans to stay with us there.  Everyone had fun at the resort and waterpark and I worked two volunteer shifts at the race.  A race volunteer report will be coming soon! 

My only workout this week came on Sunday morning between watching the swim and working my volunteer shift.  An 8-mile run/walk.  It was scheduled as a run/walk since I'm building up pretty fast in order to get ready for Cedar Point.  I don't want the stress reaction or the tendinitis rearing their ugly heads again! 

I wanted to stay off the race course during my run, so I found a not-too-busy county road that had a good 2.5 mile stretch between main roads and ran back and forth.  I managed to get a few rolling hills in, so that was an extra training bonus. 

The first mile felt like death (probably due to feeling sick all week?)  and I was worried I wouldn't make the 8 miles even with the walking.  Luckily, after about a mile-and-a-half, I started to perk up and continued to feel better the further I went.  I still felt strong as I finished up, greatly increasing my confidence for my race in Cedar Point.  It may take me longer than I would like, but I WILL get there!