gwennefarrell

In my last post I noted that I intended to run at least 5 days a week regardless of the weather. Well yesterday when I went to do my run it was raining and quite frankly Wednesday is when I get together with my coffee group and I didn’t want to show up soaked. I opted to run on the hated treadmill and actually used it as an opportunity to push myself a bit. Today I checked the weather app and it said it would remain cloudy for the rest of the day, it lied. I was about 40 minutes into my run when it started to rain. I finished the run and started my 5km walk despite the fact I was already getting cold and I was wet. I could have called home for someone to rescue me but I decided I need to do this so for a total of 1 hour and 50 minutes my workouts were in the rain. Gotta admit felt pretty proud of myself when I was done (though I also felt pretty cold).

I have been thinking lately that it is time to challenge myself and to stop being convinced that I am going to fail. To be honest I think my only failure will be if I don’t try. So where is this coming from? Well, I started thinking about what I have accomplished. Let’s leave aside the fact that at 56 years old I ran my first (and probably last) 1/2 marathon. I lost so much weight and kept most of it off that I no longer take any medications and my diabetes is in remission. This week alone I have done 3 6km runs and walked up Oxford Hill 3 times with the goal of doing each at least 5 times per week. Yesterday I deadlifted 72lbs which is more than 1/2 my body weight. Yes, these may all be considered challenging myself but I feel I am holding back.

As I have mentioned, when I was in Mexico I did online workouts with my fitness centre. Doing those meant no one could really see me. To me that meant I could try to improve on some things and if I wasn’t successful no one would ever know but me. So I worked on a couple things. Firstly I focused on taking my lunges to a much lower level. I was always nervous about this in class because I sometimes lose my balance on my bad leg. But you know what, I found that I can absolutely lunge much deeper than I had been doing. Secondly is I realized that my core has gotten so strong that I should be able to do full sit ups something that even in high school was a struggle for me. Well guess what, I am now doing those as well.

And so I started thinking, it is time to challenge myself every time I am at the fitness centre doing a class. No more using the weights that I know I can do but bumping them up another notch each and every time. I know there may be times when I have to back down a bit but that is ok. I proved it to myself yesterday doing those deadlifts in which we were doing 3 sets of 6-8 reps. I sucked it up and did 8 reps for the first 2 sets and when I got to rep 6 on the last set I thought about stopping but nope, I did 8 reps that round as well.

From now on I am going to ask my trainers to push me and not let those afraid voices in my head stop me from challenging myself. I’ve come this far but I know this journey is going to take me even further.

So I am back to hitting the workouts hard, well at least yesterday I did. I realized that since it was a holiday there was no bootcamp (when you are retired you tend to forget about most holidays) but I decided I could make that up. And so off for a 6km run followed by an hour long walk including a trek up the dreaded Oxford Hill. After a break for coffee it was off for a walk with the seniors walking group. There were only 2 participants yesterday and both bailed after only about a 1/2 hour (including my husband). I continued on for another hour and was really happy with the amount of time I ran/walked as well as my mileage and calorie burn. Today was not so good though bootcamp was pretty brutal. Then it was a meeting that lasted far longer than it should have and by time I got home this afternoon the remainder of my motivation was gone. No problem, I’ll make up for it tomorrow.

I mentioned that I have decided to focus on building up my running distance again. I am determined to get myself back to easily doing a 10km (words that still sound strange in my head). I am also hoping that if I work hard enough at my endurance when I get to Mexico the end for April I can do at least a 5km run each day. To accomplish this I know I am going to have to suck it up and run even in bad weather meaning rain and cold are not going to stop me (hmm, that maybe optimistic) and I my goal will be Oxford Hill at least 5 times a week. I’m pretty motivated right now that I can do this and I am going to build on my enthusiasm.

Part of what is working for me is dressing in very bright, colourful workout clothes. This past Christmas my family helped by buying me some awesome workout pants. Trust me when I say you just can’t help being happy wearing them. Just to give you an example, on yesterday’s run/walks I was wearing variegated workout pants with lots of pink, a pink workout shirt, pink runners, a pink toque (with a reflective band of course) and pink gloves. Of course my running jacket is neon yellow so that added a whole different aspect to colour coordination. Yep, you would have been challenged not to see me coming.

I really don’t care if my colours match or not. Seriously, this is a workout not a fashion show. What I care about is ensuring I am safe with reflective clothing and moreover that being bright and colourful makes me happy and motivated. I have several variations of the workout clothes (though not the running jacket and I may need to work on that) including several of the reflective toques. I’ve already picked out tomorrow’s clothes and trust me they are as bright and colourful as today’s.

So be bright and colourful or anything else that motivates you to keep moving.

The family decided to go out for lunch today. My husband suggested that he walk with me as that is what I had planned to do. I knew it was a 1/2 hour walk but he insisted on leaving an hour before we were due at the restaurant. Ok I thought, we’ll walk for an hour. Turns out he had no intention of walking any extra distance so I went off on my own for the last 1/2 hour. After lunch he decided to walk home but not with me. Apparently I walk too fast for him! Having said that, he has walked every day this week and I am proud of him.

As I mentioned a week ago I was heading off to Harrison Hot Springs to facilitate a labour course. Now to explain Harrison, the days tend to be long for the facilitators in terms of things like daily course prep. Moreover, the food there is amazing and trust me when I say there is plenty of it. I decided to let myself go a bit and enjoy the food (and beverages) knowing that I had some big changes coming (more on that at the end of the blog).

I wanted to make sure I got at least some days with workouts in. This was a bit challenging because the gym didn’t open to 6:30am (too late for an early morning workout), there wasn’t really time at lunch to do much and there was only a short period of time between the end of classes and dinner. And so 3 days while I was up there I did a 5km run at 5:30am. What I found surprising is I haven’t been running a lot lately but these runs really were not that difficult. I would have done at least one more but the temperature that early in the morning was pretty cold and made far worse by significant wind (Wednesday when I ran I had tears streaming down my face).

After the success of those runs I have decided I need to build back up. The last 10km I did was in the summer and I want to put that back into a weekly event whenever I am working out here (there is no way that when I go to Mexico in May that I will be running). So, I have come up with a plan to build myself back up to being comfortable doing a 10km. I don’t think it will be all that difficult because I know I am pretty fit and have a lot of endurance. I am starting my training on Monday and it will also include walking up the dreaded Oxford hill at least 4 times a week. Pretty sure it won’t be long until I am back at long runs every Saturday.

Tomorrow my husband, sister and I are starting Dry February. Ok, I know it will already be Feb 18th but we have done this for several years we just opted to delay it this year because of Mexico and Harrison. This means for the next 4 weeks (ending Mar 16th which works in recognizing not so much St Patrick’s Day but the anniversary of my beloved father-in-law’s death) we will be completely alcohol free. I am more than confident that the few pounds I gained between Mexico and Harrison will easily be dropped between the running and lack of alcohol.

One last thing, Dry February is a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. My sister and I do this each year to help raise funds in memory of our Mom who had stage 4 breast cancer when she died, for our Uncle who not long after Mom passed away from leukemia and for our Granny who was a skin cancer survivor. So if you are so inclined please consider making a donation to the CCS this month to try and help find a cure for this horrible disease.

Whenever we return from a long trip I realize how much I miss our pets. One of my cats tends to be standoffish if I have gone away for a few days but when it is weeks he wants tons of attention when we get home. The other cat, who we have only had since August, was a bit unsure of us when we got home but once he figured out who we were he just turned into a giant ball of snuggles. I mentioned the Corgi was super excited to see us and for the first 48 hours we were home she alternated between following me around the house with following my husband around the house. Now, all of them seem to have settled back down into a normal routine.

It was definitely back to reality starting yesterday. Yes, the alarm went off at 4:15am and I was at the gym for my 5:30am class. After class and a short re-hydration break I was off on a 2 hour walk. I will say it was lovely to be back to our beach again and it was such a nice (albeit a bit chilly) morning for a walk. I had to laugh at a pair of sea ducks that were playing with a sea gull. The gull would try to jump on the ducks as they went under water only to pop up a few feet away and then the game would start again. Of course at the end of the walk I had to go up a steep hill which is something I certainly didn’t have to do in Mexico as our complex there is completely flat. After the walk it was phone my seniors then off to coffee with a group of retirees I used to work with. Yes, back to the reality of my super busy life.

I should mention that my bootcamp class yesterday was a real dose of reality. While at the condo I have a choice between 6.5lb and 10lb weights. For most exercises these are lighter than what I would normally use but better using them than not working out. Of course back with access to heavier weights I felt I should be a cautious and give myself a bit of an opportunity to build up again. We were doing a round of snatches and I chose a 15lb weight which of course is 50% heavier than what I used at the beginning of the week. The trainer shouted out to me, Gwenne that weight is too light for you, get a heavier one. I complained a bit of having been using 10lb weights for this exercise for nearly 6 weeks and the response was basically too bad. And so I picked up a 20lb weights and laboured through the next few rounds. While it was hard I successfully got through it. I guess I didn’t really lose any strength while I was away.

Just a heads up, there likely will not be any posts on Tuesday or Thursday next week. I am heading out of town to facilitate a course for the week and trust me when I say I will be very busy well into the evening each day. I’ll get you all caught up next Saturday on how I found time to get at least some sort of workout in.

After a lovely trip to the condo we arrived home early this morning. The day started out as usual with me getting up at 5am and doing my usual 2 hour walk. Then it was do all the last minute cleaning around the condo including things like doing the left over food in the fridge (we don’t tend to throw it out but rather give it to our neighbours). Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave Cancun until 6:40pm and we were already checked in so we had lots of time before we had to leave for the airport. Unfortunately the small amount of work we had to do didn’t take very long and so time just dragged.

Our good friends decided to go for lunch with us in Puerto Morelos and we opted for a later lunch as we knew dinner on the plane was likely to be after 8pm. It was a really nice time sitting by the water watching the pelicans wait for fishermen to toss them some fish. One of them was quite smart and left the pack floating on the water and went to a different fishing boat where he was the only one there to receive the fish. It was a wonderful way to finish off the trip.

Then it was off to the airport where it was super easy to check our one bag. Cleared security pretty quickly then the necessary stop at duty free. I wanted to pop into Margaritaville for one last margarita before we left but they were obscenely expensive so I had a pricey glass of wine instead. We were at our gate in plenty of time and were surprise that they actually started boarding the plane early. Then it all went south! We sat on that plane for the next 3 hours as 2 different mechanical issues had to be repaired. We were in Business Class so it was a little better for us but still we didn’t arrive home until about 1:30am this morning. By time I got to bed it was around 2:30am meaning I had officially been awake for more than 24 hours. Yes, it was a very long day.

There was one uplifting experience when we arrived home. The dogs, especially our Corgi, were absolutely ecstatic to see us. The Corgi just ran around like crazy first to see my husband then running back to me. Today she is tending to follow one of us around I guess making sure we don’t leave again. I will say it is really nice to be welcomed home that way.

Sigh, this is our last full day at the condo. We have already done a thorough cleaning of the condo and are now working on the laundry. We will go to one of our favourite restaurants for lunch and pick up a few things we want to take back (whenever we bring checked luggage we always return home with clear vanilla). It will then be spending some time with our neighbours saying goodbye. I know we are back again in 10 weeks but right now that seems such a long time to wait.

Sunday morning my alarm went off at 5am and I hit the snooze button which is something I normally don’t do. When I went off again I realized I was exhausted so I turned it off completely and went back to sleep. Much to my surprise I slept in until 7:30am (I don’t remember the last time I did that) but I still felt tired. I realized that it was likely because of emotionally exhausting myself the day before after learning of the passing of my aunt. It was then that I decided I needed a break and that I was not going to beat myself up over that decision.

I did also decided that it was time to focus on what I have managed to achieve on this trip. We have been here 38 full days (not including travel days). On 35 of the days we have been here I have worked out and by that I mean often time doing 3 hours of exercising. The only days I skipped were the first day we were here (also known as shopping day), Jan 1st (for obvious reasons) and this past Sunday. I’ve walked as much as 25k steps in a day, stayed on top of my strength training and not once did I waiver on my determination that I have to be able to stay on my fitness regime while I am at the condo. Given that I have been successful over 90% of the days here, I figure that 1 extra day that I missed was ok.

And so, giving myself a break so that I had a chance to recover after devasting news was the right thing to do. Oh, and I will note that I still got in nearly an hour of walking that day so my Fitbit still counted that as a day with at least 30 minutes of exercise so it wasn’t truly a day off.

So today there is absolutely no preamble because my heart is broken. I received a call this afternoon that my beloved Auntie Karen had passed away. Auntie Karen was the first wife of my Mom’s brother, Doug. When they had separated I promised my Uncle that I would keep my relationship with her and more than 30 years later I am proud to say I have done so. She was an awesome lady and seriously I am falling apart at her passing as she was the last of the era of my Mom and her siblings.

When I got the news I was a bit stunned. We had learned in December that Auntie Karen had cancer but we were determined to get together in the spring. She seemed optimistic that things would go well so we were hopeful. But obviously we were wrong.

When I got the call today I fell apart. I said to my husband I need some air and went outside to pace along our front walkway. After doing so I suggested to him that he tell our friends in the next building what was going on because I had seen them sitting out on their walkway. However, they were quick to notice something was wrong and one of them came to check on me. My husband and I then went for a walk and ended up at that same neighbour’s place as I took some time to cry and grieve.

I’m sorry if this is a bit of a ramble but I am literally crying as I write this post. RIP Auntie Karen, I cannot express how much I will miss you.

Looking at my weather app it tells me there is a cold front warning. What that means is that at night the temperatures get down below 20 degrees Celsius. You would think that is not a big deal but let me assure you, when you are used to it being in the high 20’s each day it feels chilly. It has also means the past couple mornings I was really happy that when our neighbours came down to visit they brought me a light jacket because I have worn it both days. This morning was a bit colder than yesterday and I kept thinking I really need to bring down a pair of light weight pants because my legs were pretty cold. Ok, I know I’m not getting a lot of sympathy on this issue.

The last time we were here I was pretty proud of the fact that most days I did a workout. I do admit the longer we stayed the more I would slack off a bit. This time I came down here with intention of working out most days. By most I mean I knew the first day we were here I wouldn’t have time for a workout (too busy with things like shopping and setting everything up) and Jan 1st because you know, the day after a New Year’s Eve party. I even committed to myself that I would do some kind of workout on my birthday.

We are now at the 4 1/2 week mark (only 1 more to go) and I have stuck with it the entire time. Each week I have done at least 5 online classes and there has been walking done everyday. I acknowledge that Sundays I give myself a bit of break and just do at least an hour long walk but the rest of the days it is at least 2 hours of walking. Saturdays are the questionable day in terms of doing a class simply because it is our day out and if we are heading into town earlier in the morning I don’t have enough time for a class (though we tend to do a significant amount of walking in town which kind of makes up for it). However, there is not a day that I feel I haven’t done a good job at staying fit.

This time is different because of my determination that this become my normal routine down here as well as because of the technology. I have previously mentioned the system we managed to set up which includes being able to bring up the live online classes on the 55″ TV. Using the Mac Mini along with a good speaker makes the classes close to what it is like when I am there in person. I also acknowledge the trainers are really good at recognizing you don’t necessarily have the same equipment as they do when you are doing the online version and they give you the modifications you need to successfully do the workouts from home.

One last thing I will note, yesterday because of the lower temperature I decided to try a run which I haven’t done in a while. Managed to do 6.5km before finishing off with an hour long walk followed by a bootcamp class. Pretty proud of myself for recognizing the weather made it so that there were no excuses for not running. I’m hoping to do the same again tomorrow.

What this trip has shown me is I absolutely can stick to my fitness routine while I am at our condo in Mexico. I am definitely holding on to no excuses while I am here.

I ran into one of my new doggie friends today as we were waiting for our cab to take us downtown. Unfortunately I didn’t have any treats for this handsome English Bulldog and I apologized profusely. However, his owner told me he didn’t deserve treats because he was a bad dog. Apparently he had gotten away from her and leapt into the cenote in our park (note this is a manmade cenote and is pretty filthy). His owner was quite upset because she thought he had nearly drowned. I do have to say, that Bulldog seemed pretty proud of himself.

So I guess you could question what on earth speaking Spanish has to do with my journey. Quite frankly it actually fits nicely with improving my mental health. So 2 years ago when we started coming back to our Mexican condo my husband and I decided to start doing some online Spanish classes. While he is pretty good at remembering to do them I am obsessed with ensuring that each and every day I get through a lesson. It is important to me, I’m sure you all remember that routine is a big part of my life. And so, every morning I spend a few minutes to get a lesson in.

I’ve realized on this trip that I certainly am able to read and understand the words. Yes, sometimes I am reaching for Google Translate but I know that my vocabulary is really starting to improve. But more than that, whenever I can I try and speak Spanish. Ok, I’ll be honest, often it is Spanglish but at least I am trying. Whenever I know the words, I use them. Yes, it is often the easy phrases such as gracias or por favor (cerveza is also used quite often) but that’s ok, at least I am trying.

Ultimately, how has this helped me? Well, it gives me a goal and something to focus on. I have always been an avid learner and so each time I think I am making improvements I am thrilled. Yes, it really is a part of my health and fitness journey because as I have said many times, a big part of this journey has been improving my mental health.

I have been working hard trying to master certain things that I have struggled with in my fitness classes. One of them has been doing reverse lunges. I don’t know why but these have been challenging for me and I always seem to lose my balance and never get my back knee bent enough. Well today I think I have finally conquered these lunges. How do I know? Because I got my knee bent enough that it was doing the snap, crackle, pop thing as the scar tissue got moved around. On to the next challenge.

This morning I did something that is unheard of, I slept in. Ok, really what that means is I slept through my alarm so didn’t get up at 5:00am but rather 5:30am. I get that doesn’t seem like a big deal to those of you reading this but for me it is huge. Don’t get me wrong, my sleep score for the night still sucks (as it has for 2 months now) so it wasn’t like I I was getting good recovery sleep, apparently I just got some sleep time between 3:00 and 5:30am (3:00am being the last time I obsessively looked at my watch).

When I got up I was now seriously off my morning schedule. Usually it is up before 5:00am, hit the road for a 2 hour walk at 6:00am, rest for 1/2 hour then online fitness class at 8:30am. Now I have mentioned that I don’t do well with schedules changing, something that no matter how hard I work on is always going to be a challenge. However, this morning I realized my body is sending me a message, I need to take a day.

If you are shocked by the thought that I took a day off, relax because I just scaled back a bit. I have been very diligent while I have been at the condo, 6 days a week doing 3 hours of workouts while Sundays I take a bit of a break and only do 2 hours. On top of that there is often extra walks and bike riding but I don’t necessarily record them as they tend to be fun time. Today I decided to only do 1 hour of walking and of course still did the fitness class.

I admit that is really not taking a day, it was just me giving my body a little bit of a rest. But, I had to write about it because my brain is screaming at me that I have slacked off. Logically I know I haven’t, I have worked hard the past 4 weeks that I have been here and I also know that losing 1 hour of walking will not have any significant impact on my journey, but still the crazy voices are there telling me something different. You know what, tequila will likely quiet them.

I’m just taking a day.