I have a real love hate relationship with the holidays. I can't be the only one right? I love giving presents, and cooking, and spending time with my family, but sometimes everything else just makes it miserable!
Daylight Savings is such a bummer; who enjoys the sun setting at 5pm?! No one can drive once daylight savings starts either! The holiday traffic is horrendous. People turn into such Scrooges. They are more worried about getting to their destination before you and will run you off the road to do it. But the biggest bummer (to me) is the weather. In the Gulf South, winter for us is rain and cold, it's cold that Northerners would laugh at, but for us it's cold! When I'm off work, all I want to do is lace up my Brooks and run. I often can't though because by time I get home from work it's already starting to get dark and it's either raining or cold and 90% humidity. Nothing about that is motivating to get out of the house and I refuse to get a treadmill because it is just so BORING! I usually workout in studios, but I'm taking a break from them right now until after Christmas. I plan on hitting Yoga, Pilates, and Cycling pretty hard after the holidays to step up my cross-training routine. I was doing Orangetheory for 2 years, but just recently quit. I enjoyed working out there, but it was time to move on. After the holidays I'll be trying out Studio Hop and Class Pass to see which one is a better fit for me. I'll also be trying out a Bikram yoga studio in New Orleans, which I'm really excited for! But until then, I'm stuck staring out my window at the depressing weather. Other than the weather decreasing my motivation, there is the pressure to spend more time with family and friends. I feel super guilty if I can't fit it all in. Brunches, parties, making cookies, simply hanging out, it all becomes increasingly overwhelming. I know you can't be everywhere at once, but I wish I could! Do I go to the work Holiday party or do I hang out with my family? Do I go to the movies with friends or do I stay at home with my husband? Throw in my part-time job and it becomes a whole cluster! (I don't know how people juggle everything they do with children and can't imagine what's going to happen once I throw one into the mix!) During these times, I have to remind myself that missing a run or two is okay. I won't die and can make it up later. I won't automatically gain 10 pounds from skipping a run. When I do finally get to squeeze in runs though it's pretty magical. The stifling heat of Southern summers is gone and my times are immensely faster. I feel more confident in my runs and myself as a runner. If I go after work, the Holiday lights are starting to come on and it brightens up my runs even more. The park I normally run in sets up a huge light display that is filled with families making memories. I am reminded of childhood holidays of decorating the tree and playing with all my Nana's Christmas villages. Despite all the hustle and bustle and Scrooges though, the holidays are still a pretty magical time. Even though I complain about these things, I know there are people who would love to have these problems during this time of year. I understand the importance of family and how much it hurts not having some around. I know there are parents who struggle to feed their children during the year and can't even begin to figure out how Santa is going to come. I try to give back all throughout the year, but especially around the holidays. I encourage everyone to donate your old clothes and running shoes and anything else you can to those who need it more than we do. (Vietnam Veterans of America will pick up from your house for free and don't make a profit off your donations.) At work we raise money for families of our students who need some extra help. Sharing, giving, love, and compassion; these are the real reasons for the holidays. I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year!
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Where to start with this one?! This was such a crazy experience! I loved every minute of it.
So running NYC came around by chance. I've always wanted to do Boston, because it's Boston, but never really thought about New York. That changed when I was checking my email the first week teachers had to report back to school. I was in a long, repetitive meeting and checking emails to pass the time. I was deleting Spam messages when I noticed one was from Michelob Ultra advertising a contest to run the NYC Marathon with Team Ultra. All you had to do was submit what running NYC would mean to you. Easy enough. What did I have to lose? About 2-3 weeks later I got an email form a random company telling me I had won a prize, but it was a generic form email with nothing filled in. I dismissed it as spam for entering contest. However, a few days later (on the first Friday of school, which had actually gotten cancelled because the lovely New Orleans rain pumps were broken and it was supposed to storm!) I got an email that was exactly the same, but filled in that I had won a spot on their team! Of course I immediately questioned it! I called the number and it actually checked out! I had won a spot! Out of 6700 submissions, 95 of us were picked to run with Team Ultra. They had set up a Facebook page so we could all introduce ourselves and get to know each other before race day. We all started sharing our submissions, and the more people who posted, the more I felt like such a vain person for putting what I did! (More on that later.) Some of these people had been through so much! The one thing that became clear was that all of us had overcome something pretty devastating. It was funny to see all the haters on Michelob Ultra's social media once they announced they had selected a team. "I've run 20+ marathons and won championships, you obviously don't want real runners on your team!" "Oh , I guess i'm not good enough for your team, so I guess I'll switch beers now." You know, the petty internet trolls who get mad because they are the best. I hate leaving comments online, but really wanted to stand up for these people I hadn't met yet! Ultimately I left it alone, because I didn't want to start anything. As time got closer, we were blessed with amazing things from them. Clothes, travel expenses, pre-race dinner, transportation on start day, breakfast, heated tents and bathrooms pre-race (!!), and an amazing after party. It felt like we were celebrities! The course itself was pretty tough. For a Southern girl, it was quite cold (started the day in the 40s, no sun the whole day, then some rain towards the end) but I knew once I ran it would be okay. I set a goal for myself of 4 hours, but as long as I got under 4:30, I would be happy. My PR at that time for a marathon was 4:32:35. I just wanted a new PR. The 5 bridges and the hills of Central Park slowed me down, but I finished in 4:22:56. I was pretty proud considering with hills (which I can't train for) I still took 10 minutes off my time. Honestly, the crowds and my teammates kept me going. Spotify wouldn't connect at the beginning of the race, so I ran without music. This scared me because I need music lol. The crowds more than made up for it though! Everyone was so excited to be cheering us on. It was like no other race I've run. I also got the chance to see a friend and his son on the course who live there. My friend Lauren made the trip with me and was cheer squad leader! She had signs and a banana (which some stole, but didn't steal her phone lol) and lugged all my post-race crap around NYC with her just to cheer me on. Every time a Team Ultra member would pass or catch up to one another, we would check-in and make sure we were okay. It was a great feeling knowing that you had "family" running with you, even though you may have only seen them on the Facebook page. I crossed the finish line with one teammate and we took a selfie to commemorate it! After receiving my medal and food bag (prepackaged food bag for the win!!), we walked to get arguably the best item, the poncho! It was so warm and welcomed after run! (I still wear it here when it's cold, and even saw someone wearing it one day walking to work!) I met up with my sole sister Lauren who made the trip with me and we headed to the after party. The after party was straight from a movie. A church that was turned into a night club with lights, DJ, bars, food, picture station, and stretch area. Okay, so most clubs don't have a stretch area, but they should! We were even greeted with personalized finisher bottles of Michelob Ultra that had our times on them! I didn't want this experience to end! Sadly it had to, but not before Marathon Monday. I joined everyone who ran in wearing our shirts and medals around town getting our finisher gear and preparing to head home. I usually don't draw attention to myself, but I never got tired of people telling me "congratulations" and "great job!" It was a truly amazing experience! NYRR puts on one heck of a race and Michelob Ultra knows how to give the ultimate VIP experience. I've never done this before. My husband has a blog for our photography business, but I have no idea what I'm doing! Bare with me, I promise I'll get the hang of everything.
I've read a few blogs, used them for recipes and ideas. My good friend even has one: https://nolafitchick.wordpress.com/about/ you should follow it for other helpful fitness advice! I have always put off writing one though. Why would anyone care about me? People don't want to read this crap! People who do read it will just make fun of you behind your back. Then, a coworker's wife told me I should be documenting all my marathon adventures since it's something I'll want to remember. I thought "Okay, I could do that! Especially since I've run 3 and people who haven't run one or signed up for their first ask me questions all the time." Hence this blog. It's also easier for me to express myself in writing than in person. I have struggled with body dysmorphia and an eating disorder, so I have issues with telling people things face to face since I always think they are judging me and/or making fun of me in some way. This way, I don't have to see your reaction! And if you post something hurtful, I can delete it! (Not that I think people will, but in my mind that's what people do on the Internet!) The name came about while I was joking with a friend about podcasts. I listen to a few and we were taking about different challenges and said my blog should be called Rachael Vs whatever problem we encounter that week. Since it's almost the New Year, I decided to bite the bullet and start my resolution early! I hope you can follow my journey through everything! |
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October 2018
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