Dedication...

There is a lady that lives in my neighborhood and every single day she runs. I am assuming to work, because at the end of the day I see her running back (and it’s slightly uphill that direction). I’m not 100% sure where she is coming from but  I would say she runs anywhere around 3-5 miles one way. It doesn’t matter the weather. Today it is windy, snowing and extremely slushy so she must be getting soaking wet – but she is running. I see her in the winter, all bundled up, minus 20celsius – but she is running. I’ve even seen her on the weekends running the same route so not sure if she works 6 days a week or just heads out the same way on her day off. She has what I call dedication.

There is also a man that lives around here that is currently running a marathon a day. Yes, you read that right, 26 miles a day, 5 days a week. He takes Friday/Saturdays off. He has run 72 marathons so far this year. He has challenged himself to run 250 in 2010 to support a program called “Right to Play”.  Here is his website if you want to follow along with him. I actually found him in DailyMile and have been following his progress for awhile now. He has invited a lot of people to meet up with him and run but I am not at that caliber of running yet. But he has what I call dedication.

I think folks like Jack, Chris, 266, Jen, Tony, Roni, Syl, Debbie….  the list is a mile long – all of them have dedication in exercising and eating good choices.

I feel I’ve been pretty dedicated in my exercising since the beginning of this year. I’ve gained a ton of strength and flexibility and I’m starting to run again WITHOUT a ton of hip pain – I have learned how to work with that too.  I love exercising now but I really need to keep the flow going because summer is coming and I can easily fall out of the habit. Very easily. Mind you, I have a 100Km walk in September that I have to get ready for so I have incentive to keep moving this summer.

But I am not dedicated in the always making the right choice for food. I am wishy washy. I tend to (way too many times) give myself permission to go off track (another way to call this is a free day or cheat day). I tend to think “oh I worked out so hard, I can have a burger or let’s go out for pizza. High calories I just don’t need and are slowing me down big time. I probably do this once a week, and it is our night out (date night is what we used to call it). I eat really well during the week, during the day. Everything is ordered, keeping low calories. I come home at night and as long as we stay home, I eat well. Thankfully those date nights are only once a week (maybe twice). Sometimes  we do have take-out Vietnamese and I’m sure it is very high in calories (and carbs). But oh so yummy ß see how bad I am ? J

Now next week is going to be total write off for me, I accept that and I’m going to enjoy it. I am going to keep exercising though. Running in Mazatlan versus running here is much different. Because of the altitude. I am at ~3500 ft, Maz is at around 0 - it is easier to run there. Anyway, when I get back, I’m going to go through an elimination phase for eating and eliminate a lot of possible trigger foods. I want to see what my body likes and doesn’t like. I always have a chronic sinus problem. I’m always blowing my nose, I always have a headache (the altitude does factor in this – I have no headaches in Mazatlan), and a few other things. So I’m going to start by totally eliminating dairy (and that stuff is in a LOT of food), eggs, red meat, citrus fruits, canned or processed foods, wheat, gluten containing grains, some nuts and most sugars. I am also going to track everything I eat,  how I feel within an hour of eating, later in the day and even the next day. I’m going to see if what I eat today affects my training results the next day and how my body feels. Chances are I will only do the complete clean thing for two weeks and slowly introduce some things back in again to see how I feel and if I notice something negative, then I know that is a trigger food for me.

If you are interested, I can journal it here along with inside my book (shortened version of course) – because if I am writing it out for all of you to review, then I likely will commit better than I do if I am the only one I am accountable to. I kind of let myself off the hook more often than I should with some excuse or another.

I hope you all have a fantastic day!

Ttyl

Sandra