consistency, motivation, happiness, heart rates, and other random thoughts

1. Consistency: that's the key, right? What good is a week with 7 workouts if you so exhaust yourself that you do nothing for the next six days? A plan needs to be stuck to. After a full week off, I ran Friday, did Pilates/elliptical yesterday, and ran, sort of, today. And saw this:


2. Motivation: The sort of was this: I spent another whole day home with my sick daughter. (Thankfully, her fever and bone-crunching aches were gone today, leaving her pale to the point of grey, without any energy whatever, but good mood. She lay on the couch all day while we drew pictures, read out loud from Harry Potter, and just chatted about this and that.) By the time my husband got home with a carload of groceries, it was nearly 5pm. (Daylight Savings time, so bright and sunny. We'd forgotten about it, so he left for Sunday School with younger daughter an hour late!) I came up with a bunch of Very Important Things I had to do before I could go out, and puttered around looking for water bottles, camera batteries and other distractions for even longer. I had a sore musclet here, an ache there, and generally a Bad Attitude: It's too cold. I have things to do. I'm tired. I am a horrible runner and can only walk. Etc. But finally I went, and after I walked the first five minutes I just decided to run for a little. And it felt OK. It was a very lazy run - 2 or 3 minutes at a time, stopping to take pictures all along the way. But I think it's OK to have a run like that once in a while - not so goal oriented. I will edit this post later tonight to add some of the photos I took - bluebirds, deer at close range, stubbly cornfields, cow's feet, setting sunlight. Nice. I was out about 35 minutes and at least I got my blood moving. (Oh and the sore muscles felt fine, and I LOVE MY NEW SHOES!)
And on my run I also saw this:

3: Happiness. My daughters' bodies are jawdroppingly perfect. PERFECT. Long slender legs, flat bellies, elegant necks, huge shiny blue eyes. They are also CHILDREN - they haven't gotten the shots of hormones, the bumps and bruises, the stretchmarks, and all the other marks of being an adult human female. The women we compare ourselves look more like 9 year old girls (except for the big boobs) than 99% of us will ever. And yes, I admit it, no need to pretend otherwise: my body is not as beautiful. It is fat in places theirs isn't. I have flesh that moves when I'm standing still. I droop. (And did when I was 9, for that matter - I NEVER looked like my children do.)

So. I still get to choose how I FEEL about that. I can try to change my body, and I do. But I don't have to FEEL bad or sad about how my body looks, not if I don't want to. How my body looks is mostly out of my control. How I feel about it is not.
I also saw this:

I call it, "Ice Face."
4. Heart Rates. I am meeting with Triathlon Goddess Tina, who is now a certified personal trainer, to learn more about my personal heart rate zones so I can work out more effectively. She gave me homework: to find my resting heart rate first thing in the morning, before I get out of bed, for three days in a row. That is harder to do than you might think: how much does one's heart rate go up just rustling around looking for the watch, trying for a few minutes to get an accurate pulse on one's neck? I think I came up with 60 this morning, but I might actually wear the strap to bed tonight to see if I can get a better one tomorrow.

Other random thoughts. It's all mental. (DUH!) I think I can't because I always couldn't, or never did, or was teased for never having learned how. To overcome a lifetime of "I can't" takes constant conscious intentional purposeful reframing my brain. Because until I believe that "I CAN," I never will.