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fortytwothings

Monthly Archives: June 2012

Help me be accountable

30 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

accountability, habits, motivation

I have a confession to make: I am in need of an accountability partner.

If I get out of my normal routine for even a couple of days, I find it really hard to get motivated again. My last workout was Birkam Yoga on Tuesday morning before our road trip. I had every intention of getting in a run during the drive, but we barely stopped so that didn’t happen. I had every intention of getting myself to the Y in Charlottetown for a swim on Thursday morning, but we stayed up really late on Wednesday and I was tired. Now it is Saturday and I should have gone for a run this morning, but again, I didn’t. Apart from a low-key hike at Anne of Green Gables Historical Site, I haven’t done a thing since Tuesday morning.

The thing is I KNOW that I will feel great if I do something, but this isn’t enough to motivate me when I am sipping a cup of coffee overlooking the inlet at my vacation cottage. I want to be one of these super disciplined and structured people who follows the correct diet and training plan no matter how tired I am or how out of a regular routine I get. I would feel awesome if I could do this, but I don’t do it.

Accountability is needed. That is why I sign up for training programs like the YMCA Tri Training Group. I have committed to it and I am accountable to the members. That group ended a couple of week ago! I still have a couple of races I want to do this summer and I need to maintain (or hopefully improve) my fitness.

Why is it that we choose to do things that are not healthy for us? People do this in all sorts of aspects of their lives. They know it is not healthy to smoke or drink or eat too much or to not exercise, but knowing something doesn’t always make us do it! People need to experience the benefits and a lot of things that are good for a person are hard at first and don’t have any immediate positive benefits. In fact, there can be a lot of immediately negative things about choosing a healthy habit: withdrawal, hunger, cravings, sore muscles. Especially with things that are addictive, it is important to change routines to successfully change habits. A person trying to give up smoking may have to stop hanging around with people who smoke–at least for the short-term.

As I muse over this I think I have identified the reason for my current struggle with exercise. I actually have a pretty good routine at home with what I eat and when I train. This vacay has thrown that completely out the window. I even feel somewhat accountable to the life guard who is there every Tuesday and Thursday morning when I swim and the yoga instructors at my regular classes. They may not care whether or not I show up, but somehow I feel like I need to go because they are there.

So without my regular infrastructure to keep me in line I am going to request that you be my accountability partner for the rest of my trip. Tomorrow morning I am going to go for a run. I am committing to do that and I want you to hold me accountable. I shall write a short post tomorrow morning to let you know that I did run. If I don’t I invite you to ask my why I haven’t done it. Would you do that for me?

What kinds of things do you struggle with in your life? How do you make yourself accountable or do you? What works best

8 of 42 P.E.I.

28 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

I am with my family on Prince Edward Island. Like many Canadian girls, I have wanted to visit P.E.I since I read Anne of Green Gables well over 30 years ago. I also loved the CBC television show starring Megan Follows.

The kids are amazing travellers. They put up with long hours in the van with minimal complaint. We left Waterloo at 4:00 pm right after the teens had finished their last exam and we drove until 4:00 am. We stopped for a few hours sleep at a little hotel in Quebec, then we were off at 9:30 am and drove the rest of the way through Quebec, all through New Brunswick and over the Confederation Bridge onto P.E.I.

The bridge is a very cool way to get onto the island. It takes about ten minutes and is 13 km long. I have wanted to drive across this bridge since it opened in 1997. It wasn’t as epic as I thought it would be–it was kind of like driving over the bridge that links West Bank to Kelowna, BC just waaaaay longer.  I would LOVE to do an out and back run over this bridge. I haven’t discovered any races across the bridge, but I think PEI Tourism should consider this! At this time there is no foot or bicycle traffic allowed on the bridge.

We crossed the bridge at around 7:30 pm and our immediate goal was to find somewhere quintessentially “P.E.I.” to eat. We found it at Water-Prince Corner Shop. Strange name for a restaurant, but wonderful fresh seafood. It is a tiny little place and it was packed with locals. We discovered that it had recently been featured on You Gotta Eat Here. We sampled the raw Malpeque oysters–one of my favourite things on the planet–and these did not disappoint. To eat fresh raw oysters that had been plucked out of the waters a stone’s throw from where we were eating was fabulous.

Well, for some of us!

We enjoyed various seafood delights for the main course: scallop burgers, lobster rolls, fish fry and *ahem* one order of chicken fingers! It was a perfect start to our P.E.I vacation.

We arrived at our cottage to find it to be the perfect set up for our family of 6. It has four bedrooms, a large well-equipped kitchen, a lovely glassed-in porch and it is right on the ocean. Here is the view from the porch–it looks over to historic downtown P.E.I.

We settled in and collapsed into bed for some well deserved rest. Falling asleep listening to the waves lap the shore made me ache for BC. I love many things about my new(ish) home in Ontario, but I miss the ocean. I have lived most of my life on the West Coast and some of that right on the Pacific Ocean. The sea is soothing to me. I can forget how much I miss it until I am confronted with it again. There is nothing like being close to the ocean.

The next morning we had a lazy breakfast and then headed out to Cavendish to visit the Anne of Green Gables Heritage Place. It was absolutely delightful. I would highly recommend a trip to visit it. There were many trails to explore and I while I didn’t get in a run or swim today, I did do a fair amount of hiking. It was an idyllic place.

I  realized on the way there that I had once again neglected the youngest two children; I had never read them the stories of Anne of Green Gables. The older two were well acquainted with both the books and the TV show, but as often happens with my two youngest, I had imposed my memory of reading these stories on them without actually having done it…sigh. I have slightly redeemed myself as I had checked the audiobook out of the library before we left and we started listening to the first chapter as we left the historical site. Hopefully this isn’t as bad a thing as the time I forgot to teach one of them to tie their shoes!

It has been a very full 24 hours on Prince Edward Island. Tomorrow new adventures await. Now to be lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves.

Rest well everyone.

Me as Psych Experiment

23 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

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Something very strange and unexpected has happened in the last month. I am running at a much faster pace and it doesn’t feel like I am giving it a lot more effort. It is like I broke through a wall or ripped heavy chains off me when I ran that first sub 30 minute  5km a couple of week ago. (Read about it here). I had built up this goal up to be a huge unattainable thing in my head. I have been frustrated for two years. Now remember I barely squeaked out a sub 30–it was 29:30–and I felt like I was going to puke at the end of it. In other words, it took everything I had to do it. Then the next time I went out for a run I felt light and fast and was shocked when I learned that I was running at a 5:27/km pace. How did that happen? I wasn’t trying to run at a crazy fast pace–I have been a consistent 7:15/km runner for EVER. I just seemed to happen without any more perceived effort on my part. Then when I ran the Triathlon last weekend, I had to do a 5km after swimming 750m and biking 20km. I felt like I was really slogging along super slow. I was shocked at the end to discover that I was actually running at a 6:30km pace–at the end of a tri!  My last two runs have been at a 5:45ish pace.

What gives? Why can I run so much faster now? I haven’t really changed my training and I certainly haven’t been doing intervals or fartleks or hill repeats. The only thing that changed was the fact that I met my time goal. I had only intended to do this once to prove to myself that I could do it. What I never expected was that fact that by meeting this goal and running faster than I had ever run before I somehow recalibrated my pace button and now my normal pace is faster.

Weird.

I have learned all about extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy and the power of belief in my psychology classes. It makes sense on paper, but I really was not trying to apply this to my own training. The fascinating thing that I learned is that you don’t have to be trying to make this happen for it to happen. Our brains will do it regardless of our intent. How much more powerful would this be if there was a focused thoughtful intent behind it?

I will tell you my secret wish. I would love to be a sports psychologist with a practice focused not on the elite athlete–they all have huge supports teams–but for people like me. Women and men who will never be professional athletes, but those who go out at 5:30 am to train because it is an important part of their life whether or not they get patted on the back for it. Just think how much better we could all be if we had our own personal support person who encourages and provides insight into our motivation and offers direction on how to meet our goals? I want that! I want to proved that for others.

I think personal trainers offer a part of this service. My experience with a trainer-Martin from the YMCA– was to impetus for me to reach my speed goal; reaching that goal broke something in me–in a good way. I had to give the excuse (belief)  that defined my running–“I am a slow runner”. It has taught me that I can be better than I thought I could be. So now I have to make new goals. I am being totally serious when I tell you that I am shocked when I run at under a 6km pace, but on my run today along the Assiniboine River in Brandon Manitoba, I found myself pushing to make sure I stayed under a 6km/ min pace. Three weeks ago I would never have even attempted to run one km at this pace, never mind push myself to run 6km at under 6 min pace. Nothing has changed physically but a lot has changed mentally. Now I want to see what else I can do if I believe it.

One of my favourite sayings is a Zen proverb:

Leap and the net will appear

You won’t know what you are capable of unless you take a risk and try…

What barriers do you have in your life? What things have you not attempted because of the voice in your head that tells you that you can’t? Why is that voice in charge? Sometime someone else has to believe in you before you believe in yourself. I want you to go out and do that thing that you don’t’ think you can do. I KNOW you can do it; borrow a little of my belief and get it done. You WILL surprise yourself.

7 of 42–a Tri

16 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Today I competed in my first Triathlon.

Before I get too far into this I am going to put it all out there:

American Peeps click here

Bib 890

373rd out of 617

Total time 1:33:38:6

Category Place (female 40-45) 15/37

Gender Place  131/281

750 m Swim  15:00

T1 1:28

20 km bike  43:28

T1 1:59

5 KM 31:46

So first off–I had a blast! It was sooo much fun! I didn’t expect it to be so enjoyable. My tri coach Vy said, “don’t’ you love the atmosphere of a tri?” and I most certainly agree.  There are people of so many different ages and backgrounds and fitness abilities. I am so inspired by them. Several of my Y training group members raced in the Try-a-Tri in the morning and I got all choked up as I watched them. All the Y groups in the sprint yelled out encouragement and high fived each other whether we were passing or being passed!

The Sprint Tri started at 1:00 pm.  I was really nervous before it started. I must confess that I much prefer the training to the actual racing and only sign up for races to make sure that I get out there and practice.  Well I am so glad that I did this race. I felt like I actually competed instead of just finished. That was also a first for me.

The biggest challenge was to keep my focus on my closest competitor…that would be me. Now, it is obvious from my times that I did not place in this race. I am not a “serious age grouper” as some are blessed to be, but you know what? For most of the race this really didn’t matter as long as I could remember that the only person I was competing against was me. Now, I found there were moments when this was easier said than done. Let me break it down for you.

That is me in the sleeveless, full leg wet suit behind and in from smiling blue goggles!

The swim was spectacular! I enjoyed every minute of it–all 15 of them. So yes I am damn proud of this swim time. Some things I observed during the swim: 40-45 yr old women (purple swim caps) are serious competitors! I got a few elbows and kicks to the head, but I may have been guilty of one or two inadvertent contacts of my own. I kept a really even pace and focused on maintaining a consistent breathing pattern. I boldly started out close to the front on the inside and kept myself there (minus the decision to let a seriously vigorous elbower pass me).  The thing you may not know if you have never been to a tri is that the different age groups wear different swim caps. So all the ladies in my group were in purple.  I REALLY enjoyed swimming passed  pink and blue capped swimmers (younger swimmers, I might add).

My transition to the bike was alright. My clip into my bike was comical. It was not terribly smooth. Somebody was yelling “Don’t stop!” but my feet weren’t clipped in yet and I got flustered and miss them AGAIN! Arg. Some nice person said, “take your time” and that got me refocus and clipped in.

I learned a lot on the bike. I really do not have very much experience on the bike. I decided that I would not push it and just try and figure out how this bike race thing actually worked. What I learned was a) there are a lot of people who know less than me and do things like ride slow on the left side and b) there are a lot of SERIOUS riders who take the ride SERIOUSLY. They bark and bellow “left! left!” and wiz by you at alarming speeds. After the fact, I realized that I could have pushed the bike a lot harder, but I was a wee bit worried about my legs for the run so I really tried to pace it out. Now I did struggle A LOT when someone with a 40-45 written on their calf passed me (your age is written on your calf so you can identify who you are competing against in your own age category). That was when I had to remind myself to focus on my own race and no one else’s

The transition to the run was smoother than the first one. I was really concerned that I wouldn’t have enough left for the run and put my shoes on a wee bit slower than was necessary to take a few deep breaths–then I was off! It was VERY hot, like 32′ hot. I felt like I slogged through the run. My guesstimate was that I was running at a 6:45-7:00 per km pace. I really felt like I was crawling along. My focus for the entire run was to NOT STOP RUNNING. It was hard, but not awful. The volunteers made it all bearable with their cheers  and offerings of water. A big Thank You to all of them! I was shocked when I saw my run time. If you remember it was only 2 weeks ago that I cracked the 30 minute ceiling of the 5km. So quite honesty I have no idea how I ran 5km in less than 32 minutes at the end of a tri, but I don’t care!

That is me in the white hat, # 890

I had no idea what my times were until about an hour after the race. To be truthful, I didn’t care. I was just happy to finish. Then I found out that I did better than I expected–and I cared.  🙂

It was a fabulous day. I am so impressed with the amazing people who showed up today to race and cheer and volunteer. One of the women in my tri group placed in her (my) age group, but she wasn’t one of the ones who elbowed me! I would have been clueless without the dedicated coaches in my tri training program especially Vy and Caity. They are relentless and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The encouragement and commraderie of my Y training group team mates. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

So now I am off to ice my oft-mentioned hamstring and glutes. It has been a very good day.

Motivation: it is all in your head

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

motivation, psychology, triathlon training

So for that last year I have been taking a variety of psychology courses and learning all about brain function and how the mind works. I have posted before about my Sports Psychology course. A fair bit of time has been spent on learning about motivation, what is it and where it comes from. I believe I have a fairly good cognitive knowledge of what it is (and even memorized some nifty mathematical equations that attempt to quantify it), but more to the point I have had a pretty weak working knowledge of motivation.

It is easy to be motivated about things that you know you can do; in those cases the self efficacy–the belief that it can be done–is already there. So I know I can run 5km or swim 2km or ride 50 km therefore I am easily motivated to do such things. What I don’t do is any of these things FAST and I have struggled with even attempting to do those things FAST. See, they are hard and I don’t believe I can do them.  I  self-handicap by always referring to myself as “super slow”. Guess what happens when you say something enough times? Yup, it is true!

Some things have been falling into place for me with regards to motivation and my beliefs about my physicality over the last few weeks. It started with a session I had with a personal trainer at the YMCA. If I haven’t gushed about the Y yet this month let me do so now. This place if friggin’ awesome. One very reasonable monthly fee and all the fitness opportunities you could wish for are at your finger tips; including a free session with a personal trainer. Martin, who specializes in duathlons and teaches my spin class, is the trainer in question. I really appreciate him because he never raises his voice and has a relaxed way of instilling an unquestionable level of confidence in you…and that is what I am discovering motivation and belief is all about. At first motivation may come from an external source–someone else believing in you and telling you that you can do it. Now this type of motivation will only last until you are actually trying to do the thing in question, but another’s belief in you can make all the difference.

So during our training session I was on the treadmill–feeling embarrassed–telling Martin what a slow runner I am. After he asked compared to whom? He asked me what my goal was and I sheepishly told him that I wanted to run 5km in under 30 minutes. So as I ran he showed me how to use the treadmill to do interval training and kicked it up to a 6:15 min per km pace which I could run comfortably. The treadmill was just a warm up for our session so I only ran about 3km, but I after I got off the ‘mill Martin pointed out that I was actually running at near goal pace and not really having to work that hard. “It is all mental with you” he told me. “You can run 5km in under 30 minutes, no problem.”  Huh?

Fast forward to the next week. I was travelling for work and went for a swim at the Regina Y. I can comfortably swim a long way, but I decided to uncomfortably attempt some speed work. I got tired a lot faster, but guess what else? I was a lot faster! Boy did those old ladies in the slow learn learn a thing or two LOL!  Next I travelled to Moses Lake Washington which is much farther south and therefore much warmer. I mapped to a 5km route along the city’s triathlon route around the lake and went out for an evening run. Quite honestly, I was not focused on running fast, but on running 5km without walking. I am still increasing my mileage as part of my rehab and hadn’t done much running over 4kms. It was a beautiful warm evening and the scenery was gorgeous and so I ran. I was very surprised when I finished in 31.26. How did that happen? Then I did a trail run later in the week at Potholes State Park and I ran 5.3km in 35:35. Martin was in my head.

So this Monday while my son had a training session with Martin I decided that I would run 5km on the treadmill in less than 30 minutes. I wanted to use the treadmill because then I can be sure of my pace. I wanted to do it at the Y when Martin was working because my extrinsic (external) motivation was going to be that I could tell Martin I had reached this goal when I was finished. Seem like a strange motivation to you? Doesn’t matter…all that matters is that it was motivating to me!

So with my “run fast” playlist on my iPod, my newly broken in kinavara’s on my feet and the treadmill programmed for a 6 min per km pace (with a few  5.27 min per km intervals in there for good measure), I started to run. The pace was not difficult to maintain for the first 3 km. I was really focused (my trick is to not look at the distance or the time too often) and enjoying my music and watching the people in the pool below. The 2 intervals I did were harder to maintain and I felt quite tired as I hit the 3.5 km mark. At several points it felt like I physically had to push the thought of stopping out of my mind and replace it with how great I would feel when I reached this goal. I pictured calling Martin over to show him the time that read 29 something. I thought of how long I had wanted to break this time plateau and finally I though, “I can bloody-well do this so shut up and run!” I then had a couple minutes of panic as I was reminded of a blog I follow called “shut up and run” where the author frequently talks about farting in public places-something that would mortify me–and I worried about this happening while trying to break my 30 minute barrier.  The terror (and no gas) passed and this thought had successfully distracted me for a couple more minutes, so thanks Beth!

Once I hit 4km I did another pick up just to make extra sure that I would get in under 30 mins….the first three minutes of my run had actually been at a walking pace while I figured out the programming and I was worried that this would screw up my time. So even though I was quite tired at that point my rational was, “I can do anything for half a km”. At the 4.5 km mark I slowed back down to 6km pace and well, quite frankly I felt like I was going to puke, but I kept running and with .25 left to go I was so excited I felt like I could fly and puke at the same time!

The end result? 5 km in 29:30. And I did call Martin over who high-fived me and said he knew I could do it. Now I know I can do it. The believe of another person gave me the confidence to try and the motivation to continue when the going got tough, but now I have the internal belief that I can do it–because I did it! This will keep me running fast for the next 5km…and then next. Before I left the gym Martin asked me what was my next goal. Well a 10km in less than 60 minutes of course!

Small successes open up your mind to bigger possibilities. The mental part of it is so much more powerful than the physical part. Today at yoga the instructor was talking about belief. When you believe you can do something you can do it. Well hot off my running success I decided to believe her statement about belief. There is one move (no, not the standing bow pose) that I have been trying to master.

This is what I could actually do.

I visualized myself doing the full pose and not just the half that I have been able to do so far.

This is what I visualized doing:

Now while I was not able to do the whole pose, I did more of it than I ever have before! It was an awesome feeling! My instructor told me that if I had my neck out like this lady and not on the floor like the man I would totally have had my legs straight up in the air.

The mind is a powerful thing that can either prevent us from reaching our goals or drive us to surpass them. It is all in where our focus lies and we do have control over what we focus on. Sometimes we need another person to tell us that we can do it–to encourage us to try– and then miraculously we CAN actually do it, or at least more of it than we ever thought possible. What was the 2010 Canadian Winter Olympic Team’s moto? I don’t think they chose it to sell t-shirts, I think they chose it because it works!

When to stay home from the airport

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by 42kim in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

airports, Travel, TSA

10. You have packed full size shampoo in your carry on.

9. You think your belt buckle and pocket change will not set off the security buzzer.

8. You wait until at the border counter to start filling out your form.

7. You like to stop immediately in front of the exit doors to readjust you back pack or refer to your itinerary.

6. You try and sneak a too large bag on the plane and then complain when it has to be checked.

5. You pretend not to notice the long line of people that you just cut off.

4. You take off your shoes on the plane and share your stinky feet.

3. You carry a large pillow onto the plane.

2. You make loud snorting and sniffing noises throughout the entire flight.

1. You think it is appropriate to be rude and demanding to the flight attendants.

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