Dead End, lowest point and several reasons

Hi again,

one day before my 32nd birthday I thought it's time to get out again. Since my last post I have found out, what has been the reason for my weariness in the last months, have been hiking in Ireland, learned that I don't have a problem with walking in wet shoes (at least not in my trail running shoes, as ugly as they are), and have done some serious thinking about my goals.

Okay, one after another.

As you know, I had to cancel my 100 Day Challenge due to low energy levels. Which was really weird considering how much sugar (energy) I ate. When I went to my asthma checkup, I told my doctor and he guessed that my thyroid gland wasn't working properly. So they took blood and 4 days later I knew the reason for my weariness. Finally. I got my medication and after 1 month I start feeling better. Though I haven't lost any weight so far, in fact yesterday, was the worst day ever. 65,3 kg. Yikes. But I think it must have been a lot of water or so, since I weight only 64,1 kg this morning.

Anyway, one problem is solved. Eating properly, starting to exercise again and the medication will get me back on my way to Ironman or Marathon at first. Though not this year anymore. :(

Ireland was awesome. We've been to Connemara and the Burren, which is at the West coast of Ireland. We've even been to Inishmore, which is a really nice island. Though we had bad luck with weather, the group and the mood were absolutely superb. We've had a lot of fun and hiked a lot. Ever been to Kylemore Abbey? The victorian walled Garden is absolutely gorgeous and really relaxing. We were hiking six days, the worst day was the first. It was raining cats and dogs and we made a three hour hike at the coast. Even the best shoes went wet on the inside, mine were crooks. Don't buy hiking shoes from friend, go to a specialised store and get a proper consulting.
Anyway, the evenings in the pubs were nice and the food edible. Well, except for the cooked bacon which I hate.
I finished my Ireland trip with 4 days in Dublin, which were really relaxing after a whole week of hiking. I did some serious shopping (hey, I'm a girl, but I bought no shoes) and sightseeing. I loved the specialized DVD store. They even had the really old musicals. I could have bought the whole store, but I only bought 3 movies! "Blow Dry" (Comedy with Alan Rickman), "Annie get your gun" (Musical with Howard Keel) and "Under the Tuscan Sun" (Romance ? with Diane Lane).
Anyway, on Tuesday I hit the lowest point. I was at a point, where I had to do some serious thinking about my life. So I went downtown and sat down at Starbucks to think. I questioned my behaviour and unraveled some patterns of mine. Why do I tell you this? Because in this process I had to also question myself, why I want to do the Ironman. And for a few hours, I really wasn't sure, what my reason is and if I want to do it for the "right" reason. In the afternoon I walked to the Museum of Modern Art, which isn't that interesting, sadly. But when I got back to "my" Starbucks, I had found that I really want to do an Ironman, not just to get myself a racebike (which I really thought could be a reason for this and no this isn't a joke) but to actually show myself, that I have the discipline.
I can't say, that I've got lot's of new energy now, knowing that I not just want to do it to get some new things (that's my pattern I realised in Dublin), but to actually achieve something special. But I feel better and the energy will come back with time.

Well, this is it. Here I sit in my ugly but comfy armchair. Since my last birthday I haven't achieved that much. The last year was hell for me, except for starting this blog and my vacations. I loved being on Mauna Kea and watching the teleskops getting ready for a night of research. I loved hiking and drinking a whiskey at the summit of Ben Levi in Ireland. I loved starting out for my 100 Day Challenge.

So, what did I learn this last year?

Well, for one thing: You have to show yourself, in order to show your accomplishments otherwise, you will be overlooked.

Fashion and pampering myself is fun and makes me more comfortable in my own skin which leads to a better selfesteem.

High Heels accomplish that too.

I have the knowledge to be elite in all the areas, that I want to be, what I need now is simply practice, practise, practise.

Have a look at your thyroid gland every now and then, it might be the reason for some of your problems.

Don't have any offenders at home if you want to lose weight. (Milk chocolate (Kinder), chips and milk chocolate in my case.)

Okay, that has been quite a long post. If I find the time tomorrow I will post some pics from Ireland. Please bare with me, I have to prepare a whole french Dinner for tomorrow evening for 8 friends.

Believe in your abilities!

Prioritisation and French Women

Hi there,

first I have to make a confession, secondly I have some conclusions/explanations for me and you.

Confession: Two days ago I quit my running challenge for now.

Explanation: Remember that I told you that I need to find a new job?! Well, I really need to, my contract runs out in exactly 3 months. And I found it increasingly hard to focus on two things in the last few weeks. So I've decided to postpone my challenge until I found a new job and moved to my new place, wherever that might be. Next thing is, I was cutting back on the time I ran constantly, so that in the last few days I only ran about 10 min a day. Which is absolut nonsense to think of as training. So, I will go to the gym only thrice a week, but do a little more stretching and eat in a french way.

Wondering about the eating comment? Well, I found the book of Mireille Guiliano. I will start reading it today. (I know what you think, she can make time for reading this book but not for running?! Thing is, I need to read in the evening, to get enough sleep. If I don't have something interesting to read, I watch TV or youtube-vids and that is keeping me up the half night. Which is bad for my teint. ;-)

Anyway, I think eating for pleasure is a good lifestyle, especially since the other way is no fun at all. And it brought me only more fat(the other lifestyle).
Last night I enjoyed a glass of wine with my dinner. And I enjoyed my dinner (Maultaschen) a lot more than usual. I've even enjoyed two of my favourite cookies without feeling guilty about it, because I didn't binge on them. So I started out liking this "new" lifestyle. We'll see how it works out in the long run.

And on the bookhomepage www.frenchwomendontgetfat.com I found this nice quote:

French women are stubborn individuals and don't follow mass movements.

Which makes me like it even more.

My own lifemotto is:

The world is big and colourful.

Which is why I don't want to stay in the small town I live in now. I feel like I'm strangulated by it. I even enjoyed to stand in a traffic jam in Stuttgart last week and how sick is that?!!!

So, this is it for now. I'll keep you posted on my new lifestyle.

Day 4: Lovin' it

Hi there, Day 4 and still going strong! Yeah.

Okay, I'm still a snail and I just ran 1 lap more at the track but hey, no problems with motivation. 

Todays stats:

time: 33:30 min

in zone: 28:26 min

average heartrate: 154 bpm

This is much better than yesterday. 34 hrs of recovery time have done wonders, ran in the evening. My pulse hasn't gone through the roof when I put my running gear on and it stayed most of the time in my training zone, just under the threshold to the anaerob zone. Which is perfect when you ask Dr. Strunz. Yeah. Good day, good day. 

Okay, I have to do some whining too. As I told you, I went to see an old friend yesterday and we ate Dinner together. Well, Dinner was Pasta Bolognese. Well, I know most of you think now: Good for you. (It did taste good.) Because Pasta is runners favourite. But NOT mine! In fact I haven't eaten Pasta for months. I don't eat cereals, since I seem to be allergic to them. Afterwards tortilla chips and chocolate were served. Since I was invited I couldn't say no, could I. The end of it, nightmares, I mean literally I had some bad nightmares last night and I was tired until noon today.  Oh and remember yesterday I weighed 61 kg? Today it was 62 kg again! This SUCKS. 

And what really, absolutely pisses me off is that she laughed at me, when I told her my goal is to weigh 51 kg. You wanna know what is her reason for me to not get to this weight? My AGE. She's the same age as I am and she weighs about 57-59 kg, so that is all I could get down to. She doesn't even consider that I might have another benchmark than her. Yikes. It's a good thing I haven't told her about the 100 Day Challenge, otherwise she would have laughed and talked me out of it. Nonetheless I love her and I'm glad she's one of my friends. 

But yesterdays evening just showed me this: I definitely need new friends! Friends who are also triathletes and runners and can therefore relate to my goals and support me with their knowledge and some fun stories and might even train with me. So, yeah, as soon as I have my new job and moved I will become a member of a triathlon club. There is no club like this where I live and work now. So....

Okay, enough of the whining. I'll enjoy my chocolate iced donut now (yeah, I know it's bad for me, but I love it and I have eaten right the rest of the day) and a long hot bath with "The Alchemyst" (great book, if you like fantasy). 

Go for your dreams, make them true, only you can do it. 

100 Day Challenge

When we went to the Moritzburg today, I've had a fabulous idea. Why not start a 100 Day Challenge as Bunny Berry did? She made it a Raw Food Challenge and I make it a running challenge. From today on I will run every single day for 100 days. Exceptions, me being really sick and my hiking days in Ireland at the end of August. The hiking days count fully, due to the distances, days missed due to illness I have to add at the end. Other than that no exceptions.

First day is today. I've actually had a bit of a hard time to go out running at 8 p.m., since I have sore muscles from the run yesterday. But I've decided to have this 100 Day Challenge, so I figured today was a good day to start since it's the first of a month. Though my time was not good, I think did well anyway.

Todays stats:

time: 27 min
in zone: 21:24 min
average heartrate: 142 bpm

I did about 3/4 of yesterdays running then I walked home slowly. But we've had a nice sunset to enjoy, so it was a nice walk home. Even though my legs where shaking a bit. I think I'll grant my muscles a protein shake now.

At every ten days point, I will give myself a treat, like a journal or a book. At the end of whole challenge, I will grant myself a new Polar training computer. It coincides with my birthday anyway, so it's nice to go a bit overboard.

The real feat for me is to stick with the challenge, since I have a certain pattern. Everytime something goes well I lose the focus, which leads me to failure. This happened a thousand times and it's making me mad, cause I don't reach my goals. Even though I know that I could reach them. So this whole challenge is about discipline for me, because I need to develop this discipline or I won't ever do a Ironman. Can't have that, so here I go.