BACK TO BERLIN: WEEK 7

Old picture (June, 2015)
to show last Friday's (3rd of March) Nike+ run statistics

“If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgement of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgement now.” 

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

This Week's Purpose

I love beginning the week (Week 7 27.02 - 05.03)  with a sense of purpose.  My purpose this week is to confront those things, thoughts, activities distracting me from being productive and from creating.  I would like to confront all of them by writing my thoughts in blogs.***** (please, see at the end of the post, how I fared with this intention)

“for the unexamined life is not worth living.” 

― Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates

What my marathon training is giving me, is the opportunity to change.  I know, I can change without necessarily running a marathon but knowing myself, specially in the last 5 years, running - specifically marathon running! - gives me the impulse to do many things I procrastinate on.

The Training Week - Stories and Statistics

27.02.17, Monday:  

10K biking (since P brought M to school in the morning, I only had to bike in the afternoon) - yup, we are back to daily biking after one week Spring break!  I felt my muscle chiding me for not stretching after Sunday's (26th of February) 11 km run.  

Tried the vanilla flavoured SKYR
and
I loved it the most from all other flavours.

I have been trying to find a good alternative
 to my favourite  Alpo yoghurt and so far, I like SKYR,
now that I discover they also have vanilla! 

I love the new features of IG! Specially the IG stories features.

It animates me more to photo journal daily!

REST  - "rest", yes from running. "Rest" does not mean complete resting in this running mom's world!

A part of me knew that I will not manage a shake out run.  I was itching to complete a 100 km month for February but that means I should have run 8 km Monday, and 10 km Tuesday.  

Well, the "old" Happy Feet would have done it. I ended up documenting my Nike+ statistics from 2012-2017 with pen on paper to get better perspective and to put an end to a developing manic cycle my brain was stepping into (overdoing just for the sake of statistics!).



The diligent upkeep of household chores were neglected during Spring vacation (UPDATE: redeeming myself in Week 8!).  Mondays, during normal school week, is the day in the week I try to get the chaos of the weekend in order.  Saturdays, is the day in the weekend, I would like to try to get the chaos of the week in order. I am not super strict on myself about this but giving myself structure helps a long way.

I think, I need a separate blog for this housekeeping ramblings! hahaha Long story short, I did what I could do at home, so that Tuesday, I can do at least a relax last run for February.



Current favourite meal:

After doing home made steamed buns, I made Chicken Mami! I will write more about new/old culinary adventures in a separate post.

This is such a treat on rest day and I am planning to eat this (or variation of this soup) on recovery days, as well.

Before I went to bed, I re-activated my @happyfitnl IG account.  I will be documenting my #STRETCHREVOLUTION challenge, there.  It's hard to do a blog series on everything I am doing. If you want to read about my slow evolution as a yogi, and my attempt to include stretching to my daily life, please follow me at @happyfitnl!

28.02.17, Tuesday:  

No biking today. (K brought M to school and picked her up after, together with her  best friend Y)

8K Yesss! DONE 8.28 km!!! I love it when the running stats somehow "tells a story" (this day is the 28th but since I obviously should not run a 28 km, I settled for 8 for 28! :D I know I am a silly OCD runner).   Doing this sort of stuff tickles my brain to it's happy place. :D

01.03.17, Wednesday: biked 10 km, ran 5.45 km, did 3 min planking and a whole lot of stretching (at least 20 minutes)! K helped me with my photos, today.  Specially the attempt at doing my first stretch photo for #STRETCHREVOLUTION challenge.

02.03.17, Thursday:  biked 20 km no running, even if I wanted to!  

What a stormy day! M is getting stronger and gaining more and more confidence on the bike.

SORRY, this video clip is not working (I am not sure if I alone can't view it on the iMac).

I'll try to find out how to do this right and update this blogpost.

Please try this video clip version:

I made a photo to remind myself, how important it is (specially  for long term healing!) to work on my book project BLANK SPACE.

POST about BLANK SPACE

P took my picture for #STRETCHREVOLUTION challenge!

03.03.17, Friday:  

I am updating the 3rd of March (this training week!)  on the 8th of March! Half-way to my training Week 8! Yes, I know, shame on me!!! 

Don't worry, I will do something about this slacking on my daily updates before it gets bad.  There are 28 weeks to Berlin Marathon and I would like very much to achieve my mini-goal NO. 1 (document this Berlin Marathon 2017 adventure much better than I have done Berlin Marathon 2012!),  on my way there!

The photo below is a nostalgic photo.  It is the 3rd photo on my other Instagram account @happyfitnl.  I print/screen it, so I could use it on Nike+ app for my 8K run, to share it @happyfeetnl. 

Yes, yes, yessss! I am completely aware and not in denial: I am knee deep once again in using Instagram.  It is one of the reason I am not following the routine I set for myself earlier in regards to my blogging and book project. 

It's all good. Nothing to worry about!  Next week (this means Week 9 of my training), I will be stricter with myself because my going back to work is coming upon me, as well.  Time will have to be used conservatively.

More on that much later. :) Be patient with me, s'il vous plaît!

One cool thing about my (über) using IG again :D *insert ironic smile here* - I am having fun with my training and recording it like I have never done before.  Plus, it made me obsess less about the 13th of March!  It is the day, I will register officially here in the Netherlands as a resident! Say what?!  Again, more on that later.  

It's been busy and each day seems busier than the next.  The days are passing by faster, as well.  Luckily, I know myself much better now, after years of *trying* to document my (marathon) training minutely, I have learned never to trust my memory and write details down!

This foresight is helping me today! Even with my photo journaling of our daily activities, my Google+ gallery could not show me, or even give a hint, if I biked the whole day with M or not.  My Instagram gallery did, though! :D

Please read below: 

Sooo as a quick recap of Friday, once more -

Biked 20 km
Ran 8 km
Planked, did NTC, stretched!

Planking is less torturous and more and more meditative (as long as I keep at it daily and do variations; holding each variation to 30-45 seconds)

04.03.17, Saturday:  REST 

On this day, I literally vegetated on the sofa (the girls and I binged watched on NETFLIX).  I wrote  (notes and more notes on my #13HappyHalves 2016 project) but I was not as productive as I wished I was!  

As a result, more house chores piled up on top of those that were not done during the Spring vacation. Help! (UPDATE: this is getting better in Week 8!)

If this video clip does not work, please click on the version, below:

05.03.17, Sunday:  Yesss! This was a good day.  A good day to remember (remember, I am writing this 3 days later :D 08.03.17 !).

My Run:

Story of the 14,12 KM RUN

Family (breakfast) meals together are always great bonding moments

Sometimes the easiest way to get rid of the crazies is to do some shakies
hahahaha

Warm up before my yoga and later my longest run since November, 2016!

Hope the video  below of my "warm-up", works:

K helped me catch up on my #STRETCHREVOLUTION challenge
by taking pictures (in between her NETFLIX binge watching :D ) for

Day 3, 4 and 5!

Total  :  60 biking km / 36 (rounded off ) running km

***** P.S. On the purpose of this week - I made progress but I have to work more on this.  

I think it helps the process if I write about it, and I "failed" to do so, this week.  My experience has taught me working through my intentions alone in my head is not enough.  It is time to allot time for regular daily writing (not on Instagram but via hand written journal, or recording them in a blog) and stick to the schedule. - 08.03.17

✓ Week 1, 2 and 3 (Biking : 188 km Running (started 3rd week) : 21 km)
✓ Week 4 (Biking : 60 km Running : 13 km )
✓ Week 5  (Biking : 50 km Running : 29 km )

✓ Week 6 (Biking : 0 Spring Break! Running : 29 km )

Week 7 (Biking : 60 km  Running : 36 km)

7 weeks of Biking : 358 km
5 weeks of Running : 128 km

created 27.02.17 13:11, Monday
updated 08.03.17 17:37, Wednesday