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Last night I tried Crossfit for the first time ever with Bronwyn! It was really intense, and really fun. I am planning to get a month unlimited pass and go 3-4 times per week. I need to get back into strength training and don’t seem to do it at home so I’m hoping this will push me. Plus it doesn’t hurt that I have this pretty significant event coming up in my life where I will be wearing a sleeveless dress all day long…

Crossfit last night was also my first workout since the marathon (well, if you don’t count mine and Eric’s dancing less on Monday night) and it was good to do something again. While I have really enjoyed being lazy, resting and recovering I know it’s time to get back into regular workouts. Plus I have NO energy when I don’t workout and dragging myself out of bed in the morning is the hardest thing ever. I still haven’t ran, but have a running date on Friday – in the trails no less so I’m jumping right back into it!

Right now I just want to focus on yoga and strength training and maintaining my running base (1.5 – 2 hour long runs + two other runs per week) until after the wedding. I am then doing the inaugural Kamloops half-marathon at the end of July with my girlfriend from Calgary (thank god Lisa talked me down from the ledge when I almost signed up for the marathon, which is 20 days after my wedding!) and I am also 95% sure I will be running the Kelowna marathon in October. Other things on the agenda are lots of trail running, gearing up for an 18K (or possibly 36K if I’m feeling ambitious and want to do two loops) trail run in September.

Originally I wanted to do another triathlon at the end of August but now I’m not so sure I will. I really did not enjoy triathlon training last year even though I loved the race itself. We’ll see. I’ll be digging my bike back out for bike to work week at the end of this month and then go from there.

So that’s where I’m at on the workout/training front right now! On one hand I’m itching to sign up for a race and dive into another training cycle but on the other hand I know that I should be focused on the wedding right now (and there is a lot to do, trust me!) so shouldn’t get myself too busy with *more* training.

What are you training for right now and/or this summer? 

I have been meaning to write a follow-up to this post for over a year. I haven’t been able to find the words but now I finally have.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a 6 AM yoga class. The first one I’d attended in months. At the end of the class the instructor read the article “Eight things I learned from 50 naked people” to us while we were lying in savasana. One thing really stuck out to me:

“Your weight is the least interesting thing about you”

In the last year since I wrote my 10 pounds post I have gotten better about letting my obsession with weight – and specifically losing weight – go. But some days are still a battle. Some days I still feel “fat”.

In the last year I’ve gone back-and-forth day-to-day and week-to-week on being happy with my weight, wanting to lose 5 pounds, wanting to lose 10 pounds, taking pictures of my food to be more aware of what I eat, tracking my food through My Fitness Pal, having tea every night and avoiding dessert, binging until I feel sick to my stomach, having great eating days and having crappy eating days, having good body image days and having bad body image days.

Where I am right now is I haven’t weighed myself in about 3-4 weeks and I’m overall happy with how I feel and how I look. I haven’t been tracking my food and have been doing my very best to eat intuitively. Right now I feel good about my body. That might change in a week or a month. I’m starting to be more accepting of the fact that I will have good days and weeks and bad days and weeks. I likely will never feel 100% comfortable in my skin 100% of the time. And I’m OK with that.

At this point, I’m choosing to believe that like life, the journey of getting “there” (even if you never truly get there!) is the most important part.

If you like reading my ‘Day in the Life’ posts check out Emily’s blog to read what Sunday, December 18 was like for me!

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After my top 11 in 2011 post I got a lot of comments about number 11, which was the contentment I felt with my life this past year. I feel content in my job, my home, my relationship, my activities, my family. Of course I still had some ups and downs last year, but overall I am very happy and content with where I am. I feel happy more often than I feel sad and that certainly hasn’t been true for every year of my life.

While on my mat in child’s pose with sweat rolling off my forehead yesterday morning I had a bit of a revelation; I think my regular yoga practice in 2011 is what helped lead me to reach this contented place.

I kicked off 2011 with a 30-day hot yoga challenge. I spent 41 hours in 30 days sweating it out on my mat. It was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done physically and mentally. I really wanted to do the challenge again this year but I start marathon training this week (more on that tomorrow) and I know that attempting to do 30 hot yoga classes in 30 days plus do my first month of marathon training would drive me very close to insanity, so I’m opting out this year. I’m kind of sad about it because I think kicking off 2011 with a determined focus on yoga and then continuing to practice 1-2 times per week throughout the year really did amazing things for me.

I felt better about my body than I ever have before.

I have become so much better about rolling with the punches.

I feel like a more calm, relaxed version of my former self.

Now-a-days when I want to freak out about little things that go wrong I’m better at reminding myself that it’s already happened, there’s nothing I can do about it so now I need to move on. I’m also better at looking at things with the 10-10-10 approach. Will this matter in 10 minutes? 10 days? 10 years? 99% of the time the thing I’m about to freak out about will NOT matter in 10 minutes, let alone 10 days or 10 years.

When I’m in the hot room, I’m there and I’m focused. I always leave my yoga classes with a calm and centred feelings and lately I’ve been working on applying that more to my day-to-day life as well.

I so often see people getting so upset about things outside of their control. I still do it often myself. But the fact is it’s not worth it. It’s not worth the stress on your body, your mind and your heart. If something is done, it’s done. There is no go-back-in-time-button to change things. I’ve realized this more over the past year and it’s helped me be more accepting. Like with the hacking incident last week. It’s over, it’s done, all I can do is move forward.

I wasn’t sure where this new outlook on life came from, and I just thought I was getting “wiser” as I got older but now I think that my yoga practice has a lot to do with it. I’m looking forward to deepening my practice even more in 2012 and seeing where it takes me.