Manitoba 1/2 Marathon finisher

 After all the training of the last few months (of course not as much as I should have), it finally came to an end on June 19. I had always wanted to run in a marathon, but after starting to train, getting injured and having to start again, I was really questioning why I ever said I was going to do this. But I did it. I can say now, after recuperating for two days, that it is a great feeling. I had two goals at the beginning of the race, to finish, and to do it under 3 hours. I am proud to say I reached both those goals. I did have to walk at some points but not as much as I thought I would. My first words to Kellin at the end were, "I'm never doing that again!". I have now decided, I might to do it again if I can keep up the training throughout the year and hopefully make some improvements on my time now that I know I can do it. Here are some pictures from the race.

Mother's Day

This year was my first (official) Mother's Day being a Mom. This used to be a very hard day for me. There always seemed to be a message at church about Mothers and the lasts few years, I just couldn't handle going.

But, just over a year and half ago, I found out that I was going to have a baby. I couldn't believe it. I had waited for this moment for a long time. I had anticipated it many times before, only to be disappointed. I had even had a false positive before. Needless to say, I was skeptical, but after a second positive test, I began to believe it. We had an early ultrasound to find out how far along I was. Kellin wasn't allowed in and the technician didn't tell me anything. I was very scared that something was wrong and the next day, my doctor called with news that the baby was sitting very low and their was a risk of miscarriage. Kellin came home and we began to pray and ask for prayer from family and some close friends. When Kellin went back to work, I opened my Bible and it opened to this passage

Isaiah 54
A Promise of the Lord's Protection
     Sing and shout, even though you have never had children!
          The Lord has promised that you will have more children
          than someone married for a long time.
    Make your tents larger! Spread out the tent pegs; fasten them firmly.
    You and your descendants will take over the land of other nations.
          You will settle in towns that are now in ruins.
    Don't be afraid or ashamed and don't be discouraged.
          You won't be disappointed. Forget how sinful you were
          when you were young; Stop peeling ashamed for being left a widow.
    The Lord All-Powerful, the Holy God of Israel, rules all the earth
          He is your Creator and husband, and he will rescue you.
     You were like a young wife, brokenhearted and crying
           because her husband had divorced her.
           But the Lord your God says, "I am taking you back!
      I rejected you for a while, but with love and tenderness
           I will embrace you again.
      For a while, I turned away in furious anger.
           Now I will have mercy and love you forever!
           I, your protector and Lord, make this promise."

Wow, I couldn't believe it. God is so faithful. I just had to trust him. And 8 months later, we had our precious little miracle boy. And this Mother day, I just looked at my little boy in awe and wonder. We didn't do much, but it was perfect.

Now I am a mother and no longer infertile, but my heart still remembers and goes out to all those without children. I saw a post on facebook from a guy and it went like this.
"Happy mothers day to my lovely wife. Happy mothers day to my friends who are moms. Happy mothers day to those who are not moms due to reasons they can't control, but yet they still give their hears to the children of others. This day is for you dolls as well."

I know it is called Mother's day as a day to honour our mother's, but it really is a day to honour all those who help to mother our children as well, you are so valuable in the lives of our children, so to all aunty's, friends, surrogate aunt's and grandma's and everyone else who touches the lives of our children with their love and nurture, you are so important and Thank You!

Training for the 1/2 Marathon

I have wanted to run the marathon, in some way or another, for a while now and have always made excuses in the past. Originally, I was planning on running the relay, but my sister-in-law and brother-in-law are running the 1/2 marathon and I decided I would run it too.

I have been training for six weeks now, about half way there. The first 4 weeks were absolute torture and I was not sure if I would end up running it. When you can hardly run 3 miles, how do you do 13? I kept asking myself, what have I got myself into? Of course, having this thought go through my mind for 2, 3, or 4 miles probably made it even more torturous.

Then last week, on my last run of the week, I found my groove. It sounds funny, but everything just seemed to be working right and I actually started enjoying it and finishing my run thinking, I could have run further. The first few weeks, I was working on my breathing, my stride, my tempo, and then back to breathing and stride and tempo, but I could never get it all together at the same time. But I finally stopped thinking about it so much and just did it (and stopped telling myself how horrible I felt), listening to my music instead of counting down the miles. Now I feel good about running the marathon and actually believe that I can finish it.

Lent

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday which starts another season of Lent. Lent is supposed to be a time of sacrifice for Jesus. It is a time to prepare ourselves, which includes repentance, prayer, and self-denial, for 40 days before Easter.

The first time I heard about lent was probably 9 years ago. I decided to fast from sweets and it ended up being easier than I thought since I have a big sweet tooth. I didn't spend any extra time reading my Bible, praying or any spiritual exercise. I just thought it would be a good thing to cut out of my life for a while. I didn't really get what Lent is about that year.

So, for the last year two years,I have fasted from somthing and replaced it with time with God. Last year, I fasted from media in the morning to start my day by spending it with God instead.

This year I have decided again to fast from a type of media. Media seems to be a theme for me because I find it relaxing and distracting. It doesn't take much thought or brain power. Since last year, I have continued to keep the t.v. off, for the most part, during the day (except for Matlock, my one indulgence) and then watch it in the evening. Hopefully this years fast will help me to cut down on how much time I spend on this media.


FACEBOOK
That is my vice. I am constantly checking status updates, checking out profiles, looking at pictures and playing games on facebook (which takes up more time than I would like to admit). Don't get me wrong, I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. But I don't even want to count up the time I spend doing it compared to the time I spend with God or other more important things. To me, it has become too high of a priority and so I'm taking a break. I still plan on checking my messages once a week or the notifications that come to my email. (Since lent begins 46 days before Easter, there is one day a week for cheating)

Feeling Crafty

I love being creative and sometimes I just don't have the time or energy to do the crafty things I want to. This week has been a great week to get my creative juices going again. It was through the craftiness of others who got it going again in me. I feel so inspired watching other people create and use their gifts. So, hopefully I can continue it and maybe even inspire someone else to do something crafty as well.

It started out with a Stampin' Up card party lead by my sister on Monday. It was nice to do this again, it had been so long since I had gone cause I missed the last one. We made 4 cards that you can see here that were simply beautiful, ate food, had a lot of laughs and a lot of fun. On Tuesday, I helped paint some signs for our Church. We are going through Freedom in Christ over lent and our Pastors wife made signs to hang in the church to go with this. They are painted to look like stain glass and are looking good already. It was fun, I have not painted in a long time, but there are still lots to do, so I am looking forward to doing this again. And the rest of the week, I have been working on some crocheting that I have wanted to do for a while but haven't gotten around too. I finished one item that I put on hold for a while and starting some new crochet designs that I have been wanting to do for a long time. I still have a ways to go on them but it is fun to do something new.

Benefits of Strength Training

There are a lot of women out there who are afraid of gyms and especially strength training. All the equipment can be overwhelming and scary, especially if you have never used it before and easy to injure yourself. The other reason why many women are afraid of strength training is they don't want to bulk up or look like a body builder.

There are some great benefits to adding strength training to your workout.
1) You continue to burn calories even after your workout. In cardio workouts, you can burn lots of calories, but once you finish, your body will only burn a few more in the next half hour. With strength workouts, you body will continue to burn calories for hours, and the more muscle you build, your body will need to use more calories for these muscles on a daily basis. So strength training can help you reach your weight loss goals faster.

2) Once you lose the weight, your body will looked toned and sexy. When you do strength training with smaller weights and do higher repetitions, you are toning your muscles rather than bulking up. It is harder than most women think to bulk up and build big muscles (although some women naturally have an easy time building muscle).

When doing strength training, especially at a gym with heavy and strange equipment, it is important to get proper training on how to use it. There are usually people working there who can show you how to use it safely, as well as show you exercises that can help you reach your goals. If you are doing it at home, and don't have lots of money to buy weights, there are some easy ways to do strength training.
1) use cans or other household items as weights. Keep them small, especially to start with, between 2.5 and 5 lbs.
2) buy tubing or exercise bands. These can be used for lots of different exercises and you can make it as hard or easy as you want or need for that exercise.
3) buy 2.5 or 5 lb weights. They don't cost that much and that is all you will need especially in the beginning.
4) use your own body weight. Lots of exercises can be done just using your own weight.

Paying to watch T.V.

When we were kids, we had to pay money to watch t.v. I can't remember exactly what we had to pay, I think it was $0.25 for half an hour or something like that. This was a way of discouraging us to spend too much time watching t.v. I think that as we got older, we had to read for half an hour to watch half an hour of t.v. to encourage us to spend more time reading. I always loved reading so I usually read more than I watched t.v. and it wasn't an issue. But for my sister, who didn't enjoy reading had a harder time with this.

I have decided to take this concept and use it to add exercise in when I am usually just sitting and watching television. For every half an hour of t.v. watched, I have decided to do a certain amount of exercise. Now this is above my regular workout and doesn't replace it. It is just extras. I got the idea one day while watching the show "Dr. Oz" and "The Biggest Loser". Both of them were giving easy exercises that you can do while watching t.v. or during the commercial breaks. Far too often I spend an evening on the couch watching my favorite shows and checking facebook or emails and hardly moving. At the end of the evening I feel lazy, especially while watching the Biggest Loser.

So, now I have to "pay" for t.v. by doing exercise. For every half an hour of watching t.v. I will do one of these exercises:
- 50 Jumping Jacks
- 20 Sit-ups
- 15 Push-ups
- 30 Squats
- 20 Plank Jumping Jacks

As these become easier, I can up them or add or change activities to make it still a challenge to do them. Another bonus is that it gives my body a boost and help work off some extra calories.