Update

I had really hoped to be feeling well enough to go to the gym today, but am still feeling basically crappy (due to the antibiotics I think, does anyone else get this?) and on top of that, I have a very sore neck (probably from lack of activity). So I've got a heat pad on that and am starting to feel stressed out - it's now been one full week since I last ran.

Plan is to do a short run on Sunday, whatever I am up to. By then my antibiotics are done, and my hope is to be feeling a lot perkier by then.

Sicko

Gosh, I feel like I haven't been here in ages - I'm in that sicko limbo where time and space contract to a minimum and you can't remember what you used to do with all your time...

The good news is the heavy artillery (even though I hate to resort to antibiotics) seems to be working and since this afternoon I am starting to notice some improvement. Just the fact that I am sitting here behind the computer instead of lying in bed or on the couch is a huge indicator of how much better I am feeling!

I had two sick children home today, too, perhaps that helped? We actually quite enjoyed ourselves watching old home videos of them as little toddlers (because there is nothing on TV during the day here in Belgium!) - they say laughter is the best medicine and we sure were giggling watching Felix learn how to walk (by falling on his rear end a LOT).

I haven't the slightest idea when I will feel up to running again. All the family coaches assure me that it will be fine in the long run, and to tell you the truth, yesterday I really didn't give a hoot. But things are looking up, as they tend to do, and I am feeling hopeful that I might actually be able to do SOMETHING this week. We'll see - you'll be the first to know!

A Quiet Sunday

Congratulations to all the Turkey Trotters - you all did so well! Great job!

Today I did not run. I can't remember a Sunday in a long time that I haven't run - it feels weird. But unfortunately I have got some lung/throat/coughing/achy/feverish thing going on and really am feeling bad and not up to moving about...so I didn't run.

I am taking good care of myself - testing out all of the remedies Linda and I taught in our workshop, so I am hopeful that I will feel better tomorrow, and if I do, I plan to go to the gym for an easy run. But I don't think I will be able to make up the 14 kilometers I was supposed to run today.

But I am thankful that it is just an illness and not an injury and I think I will be fine. Just seven weeks to go!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Even though it's not a holiday here in Belgium, I am with you all in spirit on this special day - it was actually always my favorite holiday. Nothing to worry about except cooking and eating and hanging out together.

But here it is a regular Thursday. I am going to the gym to do my speed workout and then my good neighbor Kristel and I are driving to Scherpenheuvel to light candles for our kids' exams and have lunch out together, which we haven't done in ages. Later, when the boys get home from school we will fix a nice somewhat Thanksgiving-y meal together and read a book about Thanksgiving and think about what we are thankful for. Which is a lot!

I hope you all have a great day, and good luck to everyone who is doing a Turkey Trot today. May your feet be light and your spirits high!

And thanks to Wen-Chin for letting me post the adorable squirrel photo she took in Canada!

Felix's Favorite Day

Felix says Wednesday is his favorite day of the school week because it is only a half day. Well, who is going to argue with that? I have to say I like Wednesdays too, it's nice to sit down with the boys and have a nice warm lunch together, especially on a rainy, chilly November day. Today I am going to make Jenny's vegetarian lasagne recipe.

I walked the boys to school this morning and this way I got in 30 minutes of moderate exercise already because I know I will not be able to drag myself into that cold pool this evening! And once I get my lasagne in the oven, I am going to do my strength workout before the boys get home from school. So I will be all set!

Quick Post

Just a quick post this morning as I still have to eat lunch and then go to my writing class. I had to do 45 minutes this morning and since it was raining I drove to the gym to get on the treadmill. But I couldn't get in! My membership had expired! Oh no!

Not to worry, they let me in to do my workout and said we could sort things out after I was done. So I ran 6.3 km in 45 minutes, it went quite well except for the top of my left foot which has been hurting since Sunday, right around the big toe joint. I wonder what that could be?

Then I had the pleasure of paying for my new year's membership while dripping with sweat. I have never spent so much money and been so stinky at the same time!

Quiet Monday

Monday and the two youngest are off school today. Which makes for a quiet, get-things-done kind of day. I got my strength workout in this morning, just to get it out of the way and the week off to a good start!

Look out Donald, here we come!

Half Time!

Only eight more weeks til Pluto gets to hang out with two of his favorite girls again!

Today we all finished the first eight weeks of half marathon training; just eight more to go! I can't believe it is getting so close. I've been a bit lax about my strength, yoga and swimming the last few weeks with other activities vying for my attention, so my goal for the next eight weeks is to make those a priority again.

This morning we ran eight loops around the lake, which meant 11.2 kilometers. We finished it in 72 minutes - a whole 11 minutes faster than the exact same distance I did on the treadmill on Monday! Just gives you an indication of what a struggle it was to be on a treadmill for that long, not to mention how being out in the cold helps too! I hope and pray that the next few Sundays are going to be amenable, weather-wise, to running outside. It was gorgeous today, sunny and bright, with a temperature of 5° celsius (what is that in °F anyway?), we started out with hats and gloves, but by the end I had my jacket tied around my waist. It was amazing, though, how quickly after we stopped running I started to feel really chilly and had to get it back on, fast!

I just made the yummiest chicken for our lunch, even our pickiest eater liked it! So I thought I would share the recipe:

Chervil Curry Chicken

chicken breasts, no bone and skinless (about one per person)
curry powder
a big handful or two of chervil
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
parmesan or pecorino cheese, grated
butter or olive oil

Sprinkle the chicken breasts generously with curry powder and rub it in well. Put them on a plate in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes (while you get your side dishes going), in the meantime, heat up the oven to 400°F. Wash and dry the chervil, remove the thickest stems.

Slice the chicken breasts lengthwise, but not completely through, which should form a "butterfly" shape upon opening. Garnish each filet generously with chervil, cheese, salt and pepper and then roll up, fastening with a skewer or toothpick.

Grease a pyrex oven dish with butter or olive oil, and lay the rolled up chicken breasts in it. Bake uncovered for 20 minutes, then sprinkle each breast with a bit of grated cheese and bake for an additional 5 minutes until the cheese gets bubbly and starts to brown.

Enjoy! We had ours with cauliflower and a brown rice pilaf and some sliced fresh pineapple. Yum!

By the way, if you have to buy a set amount of chervil and you have a lot left over, it makes a delicious soup. You just make a regular vegetable soup and throw the chervil in the last couple of minutes and then puree.

Finally Friday

Yes, it's finally Friday and I'm pooped! Last night's workshop went very well, but again, after Linda left I just could not seem to get chilled out enough to fall asleep. I felt like I was awake all night (until the alarm went off of course)!

So, I worked on my writing assignment for my class this morning and I didn't really feel like going to the gym for my Friday cross training but I knew I would feel better both physically and mentally if I just went and did it, so I did. But my legs felt like buckets of cement - from the "hill" workout yesterday or just plain tiredness? Who knows? I hung in for 30 minutes, burned 233 calories and decided that was going to be as good as it got today, and headed home.

Hopefully I will get a good night's sleep tonight and feel better tomorrow!

8 on the 8th Run

Nancy has come up with a great idea to keep all of us running bloggers motivated - a virtual race! Check out her idea at http://www.nancy262.com/2007/11/virtual-race-for-running-blogging.html All you have to do is run 8 miles on the weekend of the 8th of December and post your times on http://www.runnerslounge.com/ in the 8 on the 8th group forum. Cool! I am in!

Yesterday's workshop went really well, I am pumped up for this evening: our last one this year. I just got back from the gym where I did "hills" on the treadmill (it was just too cold to run outside, I am not used to the winter yet!). I did 6 km in 45 minutes, alternating the incline up and down randomly...and now my legs feel wobbly so it must have done some good!

A Quick Note

Just a brief post...this afternoon my writing class meets for the first time (and I am a teeny bit nervous about that, but in a good way!) and then tomorrow and Thursday Linda and I have our November workshops, so I may not get around to posting the next couple days, but I didn't want to worry anyone! Have a great week!

Do the Math!

Last night I sat down to look at my lovely chart for my half marathon training program and try to figure out how I was going to re-arrange this week for myself. Since we had done 30 minutes yesterday, I feel okay counting that as my easy run that I would normally do on Tuesday. Then I was looking at what I was supposed to do yesterday (15.4 km) and what I have to do next Sunday (7 km). I was still debating about flip-flopping those two runs, but I didn't want to set myself up with four really long Sunday runs in a row. And I didn't want to have to go changing later weeks unless absolutely necessary. I really wanted to get the things in that I was supposed to get in - but I was still apprehensive about doing 15 on the treadmill...

Then it hit me! Do the math! Add up 15.4 and 7 and you get 22.4; just divide by 2, and do half today and half next Sunday. That way I still get all the mileage in as planned, it's just divided up a little bit differently. And the idea of doing 11 on a treadmill seemed much less intimidating that 15 for some reason, and it really made me feel better.

So I did 11.2 at the gym today, and it wasn't that bad, although I think your legs do get tired out more because of the very repetitive motion: they are always making the exact same movement, there is no variation for turning, navigating around puddles or dog poo...

I did the first kilometer nice and easy in 8 minutes and then took a potty break. Then I decided to break the remaining 10 into 2 km segments, taking a walk/drink break between each one. I got to 8.3 before I learned something new: the treadmills at my gym stop at 1 hour! So then I started back up for the last bit, and ended up doing the 11.2 km in a total of 83 minutes.

And there was always at least one free treadmill the whole time I was running so I was glad not to feel like a "mill hog"!

Update on "Rained Out"

After lunch today the weather seemed to clear up. When it had been dry for a couple of hours, Stefaan snuck upstairs and put his running clothes on and then came down (I was busy ironing and watching some silly movie with the kids) and said, "Let's go run".

We ended up doing 30 minutes and 4.2 kilometers - it was hard to run in the late afternoon, having had our nice Sunday lunch earlier, and I just couldn't face running the 11 loops as it would have started getting dark. it was still very blustery and the skies looked threatening the whole time. BUT we still got out there and did something, which I feel great about. This also gets me off the hook for my easy run on Tuesday, which is perfect if I will be doing a long run tomorrow and not to mention all the stuff I have to do (like clean my house!) to get ready for the workshops on Wednesday and Thursday! Yay!

I'll let you know how the long run goes tomorrow on the dreadmill - I am thinking of breaking it up into 3 5K's or 5 3K's. I just hope nobody at the gym gets mad at me for hogging equipment for so long! I know it's silly but this is the one thing I am most nervous about!

Rained Out

Well the stormy night has turned into a stormy three days and yes, we did get up and both of us put our running clothes on, but when we got down to the kitchen and heard the rain pounding on the skylight, saw the wind frantically blowing the trees in our backyard, and stepped outside and felt the temperature...we decided to wait a bit and see.

Now it's nearly lunchtime and I have decided to do the long run tomorrow, on the treadmill if need be. I was prepared to run in the rain, but neither one of us was prepared to face rain and wind and cold and mud for 110 minutes. So I will simply have to rearrange my workouts a bit next week, but my main priority will be to get the long run in. I'll keep you posted!

Photo: American Cemetary in Normandy. You can't see it too well on this small version of the picture, but it was pouring down rain the day we visited it and we had to stand for a long time under the sides of this monument, and admire this statue until the rain finally let up. If you click once on the photo you'll get an enlarged version of it, and then you can really see the rain quite clearly!

Stormy Stormy Night

Last night we had an unbelievably ferocious storm blow through Belgium. The shutters were banging and shaking all night long and even this morning it was blustery and raining. It even snowed already in the parts of Wallonia that are high altitude!

Poor Florian had to bike the 4 kilometers to school in it, but I dropped Stefaan at the station and then drove the two younger guys to school. They've been driven three times this week, that's a lot! My good neighbor Kristel came to check in on me on Wednesday after she had seen me driving the boys to school two days in a row - she was worried I was injured or something and wanted to know if I was okay and able to do my training! I was surprised and touched by her concern. I can't wait til things calm down a bit and we can go for our long delayed lunch out together, it's been ages since we've been able to get together.

The thing about the weather that is worrying to me is that we have to do our longest run to date this Sunday (15.4 km) and I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather reports are wrong and that this bad weather does not continue through Sunday! Going to the gym and running on the "dreadmill" (I love Amy from Runner's Lounge's knickname for it!) is not even an option, because even if I could make myself run on it for the nearly two hours it will take...unfortunately the gym will be closed for the national holiday of Armistice, November 11. So if anyone has any useful tips about running in really bad weather, let me know!

Today I did my speed workout (yes, on the dreadmill at the gym): it was 8 times 2 minutes at fast tempo, plus 2 minutes recovery, and it went fine. My left hip was a bit achy but nothing too bad and I managed to do 5.2 km in 35 minutes.

Brain Fuzz

I was really out of it this morning when I went to the gym because I hopped right on the elliptical machine and it wasn't until I was halfway done with my 40 minutes that I realized that I was actually supposed to do a speed workout today! Oops. First I was really irritated with myself but then I thought that I will just do the speed workout tomorrow, no big deal. But still, DUH! I guess being preoccupied with my groups yesterday and staying up late after they left to catch up with the latest news about the political crisis here in Belgium took a toll on my brain!

Yesterday I chose not to swim and instead had a hot chocolate in the café at the sports hall, while I worked on a writing project. It was just too dang cold to even think about getting in that pool! It wasn't a devastatingly bad choice (like skipping a Sunday long run or devouring a pizza at 10 pm would be!), but I was still a bit disappointed with myself, even though at the same time I didn't want to be too hard on myself. I find it hard to know if I am walking a good middle ground between the two extremes of "it doesn't make any difference if you slip up" and "every little mistake undermines your determination and motivation and makes it even harder to reach your goal". My hope is to get to a balanced and healthy place between these two mind sets!

If there was one important lesson that came out of my groups' discussions yesterday, it was that you do need to make any goal you have a priority project in your life and you can't let the everyday chaos of life get in the way of it. It's so easy to let ourselves be distracted by all kinds of other things and then feel stressed out and put upon when we think about, on top of all that, working on our goal. It helps to remember that we all choose our goals ourselves, and in most cases, no one is making us undertake these challenges. So if we choose to do it, we can choose to do it well, do it poorly, or quit and do something else. It's a choice, not an obligation!

The other lesson was that success can sometimes be dangerous! Especially if we allow it to let us get complacent. When things are going well we sometimes let our guard down, slack off, and think we are getting away with it! You think things are going so great, that you stop paying attention and you start to slip. It is a slippery slope, however, and once you start sliding down it, it's very hard to get yourself turned around and back in the right direction again. So the lesson is to be vigilant and avoid those slippery slopes like the plague!

It's All Good

As usual, the Daily OM was spot on today:

You cannot distance yourself from life's inconsistencies, irritations, and upheavals, but you can relinquish your desire for perfect order and gain peace of mind in the process. Needless aggravation is seldom worth the cost it exacts.

I had a great plan for today, I had even pow-wowed with Jenny about it. I had an appointment with my osteopath at 9 a.m. and I knew it made no sense to get all showered, go to the osteopath and come home at 10 and still have a 45 minute run to do. I have a ton of other things to do today to prepare for my group tomorrow. So I let Jenny gently talk me into the idea of getting up at 6 and doing the run first - which makes the most sense, of course! I even talked my husband into running with me, so I wouldn't have to run alone in the dark, set my alarm and drifted off to sleep, knowing that my plan was rock solid.

The alarm went off, I got up, got all my running clothes on, managed to get Stefaan awake and just as he was starting to get his running things together, I heard "the sound"... and looked outside where it was POURING like it sometimes does here... the kind of rain where if you just take some shampoo with you you can get showered while on your way. For a split second we looked at each other, and then Stefaan crawled back into bed and in a couple minutes was snoring again. What to do?

So I got showered, got my kitchen all cleaned up, got the kids off to school, vacuumed, practiced piano, and went to my appointment. As I drove home it was sunny again so I thought I could change into my running clothes and get out there and be done with running before 11. Came home and just caught my friend Jane's phone call as I walked in and while we were talking made my soup for tomorrow... and then it was 11:30 and raining again! Now what?

So I grabbed my gym bag, and drove to the gym, determined to get this dang run in! When I got there I realized, in all my haste, I had forgotten to change into my running bra (oops!) but I thought, what the heck, IT'S ALL GOOD! Things are going to happen, plans are going to be messed up, but at the end of the day...we just keep plugging along and doing our best and it's all good.

And with that attitude in mind I had a really enjoyable run (in spite of the fact that there was a whole lot of shaking going on!) and did 6.5 km in 45 minutes. Ha!

Back in the saddle again...

Monday morning, the boys are all back to school and I am back in my usual routine. After a meeting with Linda first thing this morning to prepare next week's workshop, I headed home and got my strength training out of the way. I had a lot of other things I could have done to put it off, but decided just doing it would be best!

Inspired by Nancy and Jenny's discussion of "girlie" pushups, I tried to do regular pushups (I managed two!) and then finished out the set with girlie ones. They are hard but not impossible!

My updated strength routine for at home is the following:

• crunch
• leg extension
• twist crunch
• side plank
• lower back extension
• squat
• pushups
• deadlift/shoulder press up combo
• angled calf raise/standing row combo
• hammer curls
• chair dips

I do two sets of 15 reps for each exercise and 30 seconds per side for plank.

By the way, I did get my yoga in yesterday evening and boy did that help with my tight leg muscles!

Act of Contrition

Forgive me hamstrings for I have sinned...it has been two weeks since I last did a yoga workout and you and my right gluteus maximus certainly let me know it today!

I could feel it even before we started running this morning, my right leg felt really tight just under my behind and along the whole back of my leg. The further and further we got with our loops around the lake the tighter and tighter it felt until I felt like I was just on the verge of cramping up. So I just kept my pace slow and steady and and promised myself that I would get right back on the yoga bandwagon tonight. I have simply started to get a bit complacent about that and my usual stretching...time to turn things back around! Obviously it does make a big difference.

Other than the tight leg, the run went fine - Stefaan sped up for the last half loop and got ahead of me, but I continued along and ended up doing the 9 loops (12.6 km) in exactly the same time I ran the last time we did 9: 85 minutes, which makes me very happy. We also changed up our usual routine by doing the first three loops without stopping (4.2 km) which took us 28 minutes. Then we did the remaining 6 in sets of two.

Next Sunday my plan says to run 11 times around the lake, which will be our longest run to date (15.4 km). Aside from getting my yoga in, I plan to really focus on good food, good sleep and good stretching this week in order to be in tip top shape for that run. It all counts!

And on another positive note, my youngest son's best friend's mom, Griet, ran a half marathon in Etten-Leur (Nederland) last Sunday and she finished in 2 hours and 4 minutes! Wow! Way to go, Griet! Her advice to me was to make sure we start out slow and don't get swept away by the crowd into running too fast - she and her group actually made this mistake and she said her last six kilometers were pretty tough. All the runners she had passed at the beginning ended up passing her at the end! But it is still a great accomplishment and she can be proud.

Total kilometers run this week: 22.55
Total year to date: 530.25

Fall Fun

We had a gorgeous day on Wednesday and really took advantage of it with our outing to Zoet Water (see photo). The colors on the trees were beautiful! The boys were hot to get to the natural spring, where we filled up our sports bottles and then continued on our way through the woods. Of course a fall walk in Belgium is not complete if you don't end it by stopping at a café for a coffee, or in the case of the boys, a pancake or waffle with ice cream, whipped cream, hot chocolate sauce, powdered sugar, or carmelized apples on it....I was good and limited myself to the coffee, but even that is a real treat here:

Yes, Mom and Mark, that's a mini cream puff on that little plate!

Yesteday we headed out to Stefaan's home town for the yearly tradition on the first of November to visit the graves of family members. It's actually a lovely tradition and the cemetaries look very festive with huge flower arrangements on all the graves. We bumped into Stefaan's cousin Dirk and his family and talked with them for a bit - turns out that his wife Nancy has also taken up running! What a funny coincidence! We both agreed that the best thing about running is how when you start out you can hardly run for 30 seconds and you can simply not imagine how you are ever going to run for 5 kilometers, but how you see yourself progress and get steadily better, and eventually you can do it. So hang in there, Joy, you're going to get there!

I'm getting so excited for the Corrida in Leuven...not only is Joy going to do the 4 km, but her hubby Patrice decided he's going to join us in the 8 km! If they still give out two bottles of wine for participating, we're looking at 8 bottles - that will make for a very jolly post-race party, ha ha!

Back to business...this morning I biked to the gym to do my speed workout, it was not so cold out which was nice. I did 7 times 2 minutes at fast tempo plus 2 minutes recovery. My total distance for the 28 minutes was 4.25 km. The running went fine, I felt kind of tired to start out with, but once I got going it was okay. I was sweating like a pig when I got finished - ugh!