Finally!

I'm finally back to running!  It's amazing how out of shape you get after just a short time.  Five months ago I was running 16 miles at a time.  This morning I was feeling tired after just a 5k.  Now granted, I am always tired when I run in the morning since I haven't had the entire day to store up energy.  Also, I'm sure I could have continued to run further once my muscles were completely warm (it was frigid this morning,) but all the same I wasn't any where close to where I was five months ago.

So what happened?  Five months ago we went up to Northern California to watch my brother-in-law compete in his first ever full IronMan Triathlon.  It was AMAZING and extremely inspiring, but also extremely tiring.  We followed him around on razor scooters, by car and on foot for his 13 1/2 hour day with back packs full of supplies and nutrients and cameras to document the entire journey.  

Now, I'm not suggesting at all that his triathlon was the reason for my slacking off on the running.  It was just that we were so tired when we got back, and then the kids went back to school the week after we got back  and after that colds ensued.  I did continue to run here and there, but nothing like I was before the triathlon.

After a while coordinating running schedules became challenging, and my drive began to dwindle.  Then when my sister encouraged me to join her writing group and participate in NaNoWriMo I sort of put running on the back burner all together, mainly because writing seemed to suck the energy right out of me.  Not only that, but every time I had a spare minute I was anxious to get back to my novel.  By the way, did I mention that I actually finished NaNo an entire week early with roughly 52,000 words?!  YAY ME!!!!  Anyway, I digress!  After months of not running I  finally stopped making excuses and drug myself out of bed at 5 AM this morning, and I have been feeling amazing all day!  It's amazing what those endorphins can do for you.  I was even in a much better mood today!  

So what does this all mean?  Hopefully, I will continue to run two to four days a week in an effort to condition myself for a full marathon before the weather turns to warm.  Originally I was shooting for Surf City Huntington Beach, but I doubt I will be ready for 26.2 miles by February 7th.  Instead, I will shoot for the Ragnar Relay from April 15-16 (If you haven't heard of this, check it out - it was the funnest race I have ever done!)  And hopefully a full marathon as well, maybe the OC Marathon in May, (although the two may be way too close together!)

When I'm not running I will be working feverishly to edit my NaNo novel so I can take advantage of the free proof copy offered by CreateSpace, YAY!  And who knows, perhaps I will begin another novel as well, although there is the whole energy depletion from writing issue to consider! So now that you all know my plan of action for the next several months, what type of goals are you all trying to set and stick to?  Are any of you writers runners as well, and if so how do you juggle writing and running?  Also, for all those who competed in NaNo, how did you do?  Did you finish your novels?  Are you still working on them?  I would love to hear from you!

Our 16 Hour Writing Day

On Saturday my sister, Patricia over at Simplicity in Volumes, hosted a 16 hour writing day for our writing group consisting of her, myself, my BFF, Jen and our good friend Darci. We arrived at my sister's house at 6:30 in the morning for a delicious breakfast from Panera Bread complete with soufflé's, bagels, fresh fruit and warm pastries all provided by my wonderful brother-in-law, James.

After we filled our body with fuel for the brain we began our marathon of writing promptly at 7 AM. Did I mention this was all being streamed over the internet on my sister's blog? It didn't take long for me to realize that I am NOT very focused in the early morning. It wasn't just that the girls were so much fun, I really could not transfer the images in my head to words on the paper (or keyboard.) Every time I got stuck I would look for my creativity by laughing with the girls or rubbing the zucchini genie (I'll get to this in a moment) or pulling a prompt from the "Block Box" which was a box filled with writing prompts to assist us along if we were feeling stuck.

By lunch time I had written less than 1000 words, but I had already laughed more in those few hours than I think I have in a long time. I'm talking tears to the eyes kind of laughter. Two more girls from or regional NaNo group joined us at this time, and after refueling with tasty sandwiches, chips and dip, and an assortment of salads we were back to the grind.

I'll take this time to explain the zucchini genie. My sister and her husband had removed all of the summer vegetables from their garden to plant their winter veggies, leaving a lone zucchini. Since all of their winter vegetables are too small to produce veggies, they sometimes forget to check the garden, which has led to the growth of zucchini of unusual size. The zucchini in question was figured to weigh approximately ten pounds.

After refueling with lunch, we all had a burst of energy and managed to pump out some words while having fun. It turns out that this zucchini was very versatile. We were able to tone our arms, play hot potato, rub it for inspiration, and a few R-rated things we won't talk about (wink, wink). Even with all this fun everyone seemed to hit a brick wall around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The words stopped flowing and everyone looked like they might find a corner to pass out in. That's when James came to the rescue once again with Jamba Juice's with energy boosters for everyone. Woo Hoo! This seemed to do the trick for a while.

Throughout the rest of the day we played, laughed, and wrote. James provided one last, delicious meal from Wood Ranch and then we dwindled down to just three of us, Patty, me and Jen. It wasn't until after dinner that I finally found my creativity and began to really write. We were all determined to put in a decent word count before night's end so we wrote and wrote, and played some more, then wrote and wrote. In the end, we had all put in more than 4ooo words, some of us with over 6000 for the day (great job Jen!) It was an unbelievable experience!

The next day I felt exhausted and could barely write three hundred words, but it was worth every minute of it. Sometimes you just need to surround yourself with fun, crazy friends to push you along with your creativity. Even though we didn't attain the exact word counts we wanted, we all came away feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the rest of this 30-day journey. Thank you to Patty for leading us, hosting this and being a great mentor. Thanks to James for feeding us and entertaining us endlessly. Also, thanks to Quinn at seeing, dreaming…writing for chatting with us when we started and again at the end to see us to the finish line. You definitely kept us from giving up. And thanks to everyone else who checked in on us on the livestream to give us encouragement. Last, but not least thanks to all you girls in the writing group for making it an amazing day, I truly haven't laughed that hard in a long time!