Off and running

This morning I made my sad and lowly triumphant return to running. I mapped a two mile route through my new neighborhood and the neighboring hoods and set out. While I am happy to say that I ran the whole way (which I was glad for after several weeks without working out) it was more difficult than I would have liked. However, upon reaching my doorstep and checking how long it took me, I was surprised to find that it was only 20 minutes, which means I did about 10 minute miles, which would explain the fact that I had a stitch in my side the whole time and felt like I wanted to quit halfway through. My normal times are between 11-12 minutes, so for me it was quite a pick-up in the pace. I will have to get better about pacing myself.

The neighborhoods around here are beautiful, with lots of old, leafy trees and pretty lawns. The smell of fresh-mowed grass hung in the air around almost every corner, a testament to the fact that everyone else around here has been waiting as hungrily as I have for the spring weather to hit us. Goodbye rain, hello sun and 70's! That is more like the California I know and love this time of year. It was a nice introduction to what running around here will be like, too. Beautiful!

In the way of what might be TMI, I have a wicked bladder infection, which also made the running, um, interesting. Feeling like I had to pee the whole time, and knowing that even if I sat down to pee hardly anything would happen and it would HURT. I just tried to ignore it and keep moving. I am drinking unsweetened cranberry juice like its going out of style and just hoping I won't have to go to the doctor for pills. If any of you have tried and true home remedies for this, please share!

I came home to the man delivering my new refrigerator - gorgeous! Goodbye to the dorm-sized fridge and hello to grocery shopping. Hubby is off today, there is work to be done around here, and I think there may be sushi in my near future! Hope you all are having a great day too!

Moaning and groaning, but doing it anyway

Setting myself up for success is important. I had told myself all weekend that Monday I was headed back to the gym, which for me means having to get up at five in the morning. After two and a half weeks of not getting my butt out of bed, I knew it was going to be rough and I was kind of dreading it. But last night I put my workout clothes in the bathroom, my water bottle by the door, set my alarm, and kissed my hubby goodnight at 9 so that I could get as much sleep as possible. With all that setup, how could I fail? Well, I could fail by thinking that I set my alarm and turned it on, when in reality I did set it, but did not turn it on. Luckily for me my body knew I was supposed to get up, and I woke up on my own about 5 minutes early.

Today was my first day at the Anytime Fitness closest to my new house, and I was feeling pretty nervous about it. I really loved the one I went to by my old house, and knew (by sight only) the people who worked out at the same time as me, loved my class two times a week and, yes, even my evil trainer Randy. Going into a new gym, where I know no one and the layout is completely different? Not exciting for me. When I went inside, (thankfully I saw someone else go in first, or I wouldn't have known where the door was!) I tried to look like I knew what I was doing while in reality I was scoping the place out to locate all the machines I like to use.

Well, the new place is different. They have some of the same machines, but they are missing some of my favorites. However, they have a machine that is kind of a cross between an elliptical and a stairmaster, which was pretty cool. Their classes (which are severely limited) are not included in your monthly payment, but cost extra - which I can't afford. And as far as I can tell, they don't have anything like my class at the last place. They do have a Saturday morning bootcamp, but as I said, it is extra. Taking it would almost double what I pay now, for only ONE DAY A WEEK. Hmmm, let me think about it, no. Plus their machines are not as clean (really just where your feet go, but still,) the tvs on their machines only show news channels (7 of them - what the heck???) their foam rollers are squishy (which completely negates the point of a foam roller,) and there is no evil trainer Randy to give me free professional training advice. I sound like such a whiner! But one you find a workout place/routine that is really working for you and that you really like, it is so hard to have to change it! Don't you guys agree???

At any rate, I did my workout, and after my hiatus I have to say that it felt good. I think that I pushed myself pretty well. There is another facility that is a bit further away from me - 4.8 miles as opposed to 2.4 for the one I went to today - and I might try them out if I decide I don't like this new one. But I will give it the week at least. Apparently I can go there for a while before actually switching my membership over from my old location, so I will just feel it out. Have any of you had to change workout places and been upset about it? How did it work out for you?

One Week Later

Seven days can really fly by, especially when you aren't sure what day it is because your life is in such disarray. We got all of our stuff moved last weekend (I hesitate to use the term "all moved in" given the towering mound of unpacked boxes in our garage) and have been sloooowly unpacking, organizing, shopping, etc. We were without internet until yesterday afternoon, which was a pain. You don't realize how much you use the internet until you are without it. You also don't realize how much time you waste spend looking at things until you have those hours minutes free to do other things (like continuous unpacking.)

Anyhow, the last couple of weeks have been rough. Exercise was thrown by the wayside, regular healthy eating is nowhere to be found, and I am left feeling pudgy, soft, and cranky. There are so many reasons for this lapse (aren't there always?) but the main point is that I am unhappy with how I am living. So the plan is to get back to the gym - I am transferring my membership to Anytime Fitness to a center near my new house, and once my new fridge gets delivered on Tuesday it will be fully stocked with fresh veggies and fruits and proteins (the six of us are currently living with a dorm room-size refrigerator, mostly buying perishables on a day to day basis.) I miss the healthy version of Morgan, the one who wasn't cranky and tired and didn't feel greasy and gassy and gross.

Oh, and since I have been offline, I have missed out on reading others blogs, and am just now catching up! Tonight is the deadline, but I wanted to send anyone reading over to Jasmine at Eat Move Write where she is giving away some free food from Noodles & Company, who my hubby just happens to work for! They have some really good food at great prices, and no, I don't get any kickbacks for saying that! Even if you don't win free food from Jasmine's giveaway, find your local Noodles and go try it on your own dime - it will be worth it! And check out Jasmine's blog regardless - she is fun and is one of my favorite blogs to read!

Moving

Hey all. I have been absent from blogging, and am actually just stopping by to say that it isn't going to change right away. See, we're moving. Out of my mother-in-law's house. Where we have lived for the past 4 1/2 years. With all the difficulty that implies. So I am busy trying to get everything packed by tomorrow morning when everyone comes to help us move (in the pouring rain, apparently) and have had no time to sit and post anything. This move is major, something I have been praying for for, well, let's see, 4 years (that first 6 months here wasn't so bad) and yet, for some reason, I am not feeling excited. I like the house we will be renting, I like the area it is in, it is really close to Hubby's work so no more commute. But I always thought I would be jumping-up-and-down excited when I finally got to have my own place again. And I'm not. I hope it is just all the stress of packing that is causing this, and that when I get in there and start opening the boxes that I haven't seen the contents of all this time I will burst into joy. But for now I must get back to boxes and tape. I think I am developing an allergy to cardboard.

Fun-Scary

There is a definite downside to not posting things when the happen, and that downside is that the things start piling up and pretty soon you don't know where to start with the blogging. And while I had every intention of posting on Monday, it turned out that my weekend migraine had decided to linger, plus Hubby was off work and we had to take my oldest daughter to a doctor's appointment which ended up being a full-day outing. Tuesday I spent out with my mother-in-law (still with a nagging pain behind my eye) and yesterday my girl had another doctor's appointment at lunchtime after which we stayed in Sacramento for the next 5 hours doing various things. Anyway...it is now Thursday, my headache is continuing to ebb and flow, and I have a ton of stuff I need to get started on, but I am posting because if I don't I will let another day go by and end up with even more catch-up to do.

On Sunday I posted that I had fun-scary news to share. Well, I got my tax money and officially signed up for:

On September 4, I will be running my first half-marathon. Through California Adventure, Disneyland, Anaheim, and the resort hotels. And while this is super-fun, very exciting, and somewhat shocking and amazing to me, it is also scary as hell. Because the most I have ever run is a 5k. But I set my goal for this year, and I am going to do my best to meet it. Reading One Crazy Penguin's Princess Half-Marathon posts reminds me to be jazzed about it more than scared.

Immediately after registering for the race, I headed to my local running store to get new shoes - you can't train without the proper equipment, right? And since the equipment for running pretty much consists of lungs, legs, and shoes, I needed to get the last component. After the guy at the running store watched me walk and what not, (apparently I have a normal step - no pronation, which I guess is a good thing) I tried on a few different pairs of the suggested shoes. I ended up with these:

Very comfortable. At least in the store, since I haven't hit the road with them yet. That headache really killed me. But I am officially ready to start my training, and most of the time am excited about the race. I am trying to find a way to hold on to the belief that I can do this. I will grasp a true feeling of it once in a while, but it tends to slip through my hands like water, leaving me with a feeling of fear instead. I'm working on it.

It'll have to wait

I have news to share, fun news, kind of scary news, and I've meant to share it since Friday. But Friday got too busy, and yesterday brought me the Mother-Of-All-Migraines, which pretty much left me in the fetal position whimpering all day, until about 11 last night. It also left me with the inability to really see clearly this morning, so I can't type up a real blog post. So tomorrow, I promise, I will be back with news (and letters that don't change places as I type them.)