Fit with Ruthie

Had a great run this morning... only 2 miler.. but pushed myself just a bit and finished in just under 15 mins. so about 7:30ish mile for 2 miles right? Not bad for an old woman! LOL I have lost a bit of spunk.. not finding much to get excited about with my workouts. But you know its like old habit now so it doesnt have to be exciting.. I just do it. I plan on 8 miler on thursday and I am looking forward to it. I am a bit frustrated with something that happened on the trail where I run. A crazy guy attacked a man (his wife was with him) with a baseball bat. Thankfully another man (who i actually know) was right there soon after and tackled the crazy man. All this to say... now my hubby is hesitant to want me to run outside before the sun is up. Well.. and when I use to go at 4:30 its durn dark. so I am having to figure out what to do. I am able to do longer runs on Tues and Thursday right at sun up since we have no youth practice on those days (now that school has started) but I just h...

Well, I have managed to find and run in matching shoes the last few days! Go ME! woowhoo! On the workout front I had a busy weekend... but workout filled. Our track team had a info booth at a back 2 school event for our local homeschool group. We also did 3 workouts with kids at the event, aerobics (dancing) ha... the workouts were great fun and was such a blast to see all the smiles on the kids faces as we jumped and rocked out some sweat! Above is a photo and some of the kidos..that was in our local paper.... Coach Art in full swing.. I was on the back side of the camera (thankgoodness!) and was the Cool Runnings DJ for the event LOL. I rested Sunday.... including a 2.4 hour nap! Woowhoo! today was 2 hours of coaching and a bit of running with the kidos. I plan on doing a run in the am.... planning on 8 miler.. but will see how i feel :) Thats it for tonight.. I am bummed about Josha who fell on a hike yesterday and is unable to run for a while :( but happy my friend in China is do...

I got up got dressed, ironed my hubby's shirt and pants ironed, put some new songs on my ipod and headed out the door for 7 miles. The weather? PERFECT The wind? PERFECT The cloudcover? PERECT 1 Glycerine and 1 Ghost.....Not so Perfect. I ran 3.5 miles and decided to stop and stretch a bit... I propped my foot up on a light pole and looked down and thought "i didnt p ut on my Ghost this morning!!???"" and then looked at the other foot and realized I had two different shoes on! OH MY. then I thought.... 'what if people notice.... I will tell them I am experimenting, They will just think I am an EXPERT and two different shoes is the "NEW" thing... (bahaha) so I stopped stretching and RAN HOME! ... walked in the door and of course the kids thought it was soooooo funny. (YES.. I am HERE FOR YOU ENTERTAINMENT! among other things... laugh away!) Once I got both Glyercine's on I headed back out the door to finish there rest of my run. 7 miles felt good and...

So after I posted this below... I ate a healthy snack... 2 peaches cut up and some almonds, water. 10 mins later the tummy ache started......ended with servere tummy ache. Just like I use to get when i would eat 2 donuts and 1 coke! ... urgh! Being sugar sensitive is so very frustrating! Hypoglycemia on top of that sucks too! I am destined to a life of the same food every day... which is fine... once I figure out what those foods are. I would like to have a bit wider variety! Balancing healthy, and enjoyment in foods can be a tricky task! Ok. I have decided. I needed a plan. I have been floundering a bit with no real goal... disappointed that 26.2 wont happen on my 42nd birthday..... so... if you can do a full. whats better than a half? so here's my plan I will do the following plan to get me to 13.1 miles on the 24th. With the goal of getting it under that 2 hour mark!!! Also.. I will add the mileage up the week of my birthday to equal 26.2 total for a marathon birthday week :) wo...

woowhoooo! finally a great run again! 4 miler this morning felts great. Lesson learned.. rest and fuel are important! :) abwork afterwards... hot and stinky but happy! :) woowhoo! oh and I LOVED running to this song today:

I have been suffering the past 5 day or so with what I consider a power outage. My energy has been zapped... I have been having bouts of low blood pressure and have upped (again) my intake of water (which i had let slip) but today... was yet another day of just no get up in my GO> UGH! this afternoon when i was feeling really sluggish... (and I had been drinking my water really well recently!) I decided to put on my hot kettle for a cup of London Tea and then I decided to experiement a bit. I cooked a flour tortilla in butter and put a half a teaspoon or so of table sugar and a tad of cinnamon on it. I ate the tortilla and pretty quickly i began to get my energy back. This caused me to stop and think for a bit. When I was feeling GREAT and having loads of energy. I was getting my rest (IMPORTANT) and after my meals and snacks I was eating fruit or a balance of fruit and nuts. (for protein) ... well... over the past week..... i had stopped doing that. I would eat my meal and only h...

I like this video... I think its funny.... I totally get it.... But...... it also makes me sad. Sad because what the message of the video is that what's done is done and nothing can change that. Love yourself as you are and stop thinking about trying to improve your physical body. You are old, chubby and well, its just too late... so you just have to settle. My view is different. My view is that we don't have to settle. "You look younger every time I see you" --that's what he said. It definitely took me off guard. There I was in my Sunday dress with my hot cup of tea in my hand, fixing to return to Bible class. I thought WOW what a nice thing to say! What a blessing. I use to believe that my 40s 50s and 60s were doomed to go down hill! I just knew that when I hit the big 40 that things would start falling apart and I would have this snowball effect mentally, physically, and spiritually. I mean, come on... life after 40 was a world I didnt want to have any part of....

5 miler this morning. felt good. hip a bit tight... Will do weight workout tomorrow :) busy. more later :)

quiet peaceful run this morning. a quick 2 miles before 530am. I got to bed late last night (10pm) and it was pretty much dragging my butt out of bed... but I KNEW I would feel better for having done my run. so I did. Humidity level was way up, rained last night... when I was finished... I was again drenched like I had run a 10 miler! Pushups later at track and I called it good enough. Our practice schedule is changing for school.... which means evening practices on tues and thurs so I am planning on having some longer runs on those two days this fall. With my LONG(est) run being on Thursdays. Planning on doing atleast 6 tomorrow morning.. maybe 8 depending on how it goes. On the goals front... my hip is feeling great, and I am trying to decide what to do on my birthday. I am thinking atleast a half... but maybe a bit farther.... I might do something like a time frame run... but just cant decide. would it be realistic to do a full marathon on my birthday still? UGH its eating at me... ...

415 never felt so good LOL out the door at 450! 4 miles in 38 mins (including my stretching) ... wanted to get in 6 but 4 had to do as I needed to get back and make sure the kids were up and getting geared up for track. It was humid, dark and I could see lightening off in the distance. When I was done.. I was drenched in sweat. sooo soaked. and it felt so very good! so far today i have felt MUCH MUCH better! Eats are on track. ......after practice I did some push ups and bit of ab work. Need to do more ab work but will save that for tomorrow morning :) Favorite song on my run today was by remedy drive: now for "school", and chores and a trip to the library :)

bummer. the past two days I have been low. not depressed. but low as in low blood pressure. its my challenge in life I guess. Most people would think low blood pressure is a blessing. But when its low, like mine.. its not. I havent taken my pressure the past two days and maybe i need to invest in a blood pressure machine... but i can tell when its low. I have no energy, I get dizzy when I stand up... lots of things. The worst is if I just sit or lay down I want to just fall asleep. I have found the solution to my problem, drink more water, eat the way I eat and run. It's a balancing act and the past two days I have lost my balance. No run on Sunday morning started it all. Then this morning I woke up too late to go run early and so.....no run today. I DID feel really good after I went swimming but that was short lived. so. going to be bed early going to wake up at the crack BEFORE dawn and go for a run. I refuse to take medication when I know what works. I just have to be disciplin...

had a great run this morning. alarm went off at 415 but i didnt drag myself out of bed until 440.......... didnt want to push my hip, trying to take it easy back into mileage.... so i did 2 miles and came home. Loved my music, getting some alone time and the quiet. There were quite a few bugs out though...grasshoppers I wish i could go fish with LOL and gnats. When i got home and was getting ready for track practice (AKA trying to get unstink-i-fied) I felt what I thought was a bit of rub rash right on my rib where my Juno hits... I lifted and found a BUG! WHAT!???? a little brown bug was biting me and screaming "LET ME OUT OF HERE!" .. LOL.. so.. I gave him his wish and then I washed him down the drain! I thought it was soooo funny and another example of how you NEVER know what your going to get when you go for a run! so much like life! LOL.....

What a great morning I had. Its so amazing when something you use to force yourself to do, has transformed into something you cherish and enjoy. I am so baffled and interested in what the mind, soul, and body go through and how running can transform each part. People can call me "crazy" or "fanatical" or "she's one of THOSE kind of exercise freaks" and ... its OK. I will not stop "preaching" because I want everyone to know what its like. I want other women, moms, sisters, and grandmothers to understand that life isnt over when you have kids, life isnt over when it doesn't turn out the way you had planned. So many things in my life I thought would be different. I was so misserable for so long. Frustrated, trapped, alone, and wishing things were different. I wanted to be strong, and fit from the time I came out of the womb. The youngest of four has to either get strong or get run over. (dont get me wrong... my siblings were great ... yea...

The week off from running was not what I wanted... but in many ways it was something I needed. All last week I just felt off. Something just wasnt right. The first two days I was craving sugar, and carbs and just wanting to watch tv and eat. THIS was exactly the way I handle stressful situations in my life before. What was different this time is I KNEW why i was doing what I was doing. I was going to food for energy, for stress relief and relaxation. You see..... BEFORE ....FOOD was my best friend. Food was my pick me up. It scared me a bit... you know my story of starting over.....and all addicts fear that they will revert to their old ways. I wondered.....what if this is it? what if this is the beginning of months of not being able to run. What in the world would I do with myself? I realized this week that my life is totally different than it use to be. You see...those two days taught me that now my life is not about food being my best friend anymore.......running is. Now, I go to RU...

800 meters....jog...no pain! wooowhooooo!!!!! sore much? uh.....YES! back, hammies, obliques...alll SORE! LovE IT! feeling strong.....looking forward to some early morning runs next week. woowhooo!

so, whats a gal to do... mourning the loss of a whole week of running, missing the heavy breathing and happy lungs that come with running, the stress relief, the thoughtful quietness....... Here's what I did today. 80 of these: 80 of these: 75 of these (I found something other than pushups to get my heart reallllly pumping. Swinging the 8, 10, and 15lb weight like this... is a great heart pumping workout!) I did legs lifts and a bit of ab dancing......... now, I am off to mow the yard for "cool down" :) woowhooooo! I have lots of thoughts on whats going on with me......this week has been a mental reboot of sorts.. but no time to write about that yet............ ... Hi ho Hi ho its off to mow I go!

upper body today. shoulders, bis, chest, tris, dumb bell side bends for obliques. I did 4 sets of 15 on each with no rest in between. then abs (leg lifts) been a LONG time since I lifted. I enjoyed it.

So. What IF: What if I couldnt run anymore.................. Its been only 3 days since my last run and it feels like an eternity. You know my story. You know the theme in my life of starting over. Starting over is just the way it is. To be fit, to be healthy you have to learn to love starting over. Well, excuse me for been a big baby here... BUT I DONT WANT TO START OVER! there. I said it. You know.. I built up this mileage, I was feeling so great. Its been almost a full year since i have had anything to keep me from running. Frankly, I am a bit spoiled. My life is just not the same with out running. Running has become my relaxation, my freedom, my time alone and with God, my time to think, to cry, to scream, and to dream. What happens to me if that gets taken away? What happens to me if I cant run anymore? Someday.. when I am old and gray(er).....I know there will come a day when running and walking will not be possible. What in the world will i do? I think I will close my eyes and...