Wife Mother Runner Blog - Wife Mother Runner

I Have a Decision To Make

September 13, 2016

I have come to a point in my running life where I need to make a difficult decision. This decision is based around the Marine Corps Marathon. I entered the lottery for the marathon this year as a way of tossing my fate out to the universe, and I was chosen. So I accepted the fact that I was chosen and I have been training for it. I am coming to the point in the training where longer runs are required and these runs are intertwining with my family’s busy schedule of Fall softball season and back to school events, along with Fall activities.

If you read my blog you will remember that last year I had a very difficult race for the Marine Corps Marathon. This year, during my training I have been analyzing my stats from last year’s race and mapping out training runs against the elevation map of the existing course map. So I am preparing myself. Also, major changes have been made to the race course this year because of the changes going on with the Metro construction. If there ever is a year to do this race with a lot of leeway, this is the year. BUT, I am just not feeling it in my heart. If I am not feeling it in my heart now, what is going to happen on race day? I already feel like I am setting myself up for failure.

Last year Dimity McDowell, from Another Mother Runner’s spoke at a seminar for Girl’s Night Out during Hartford Marathon weekend. She mentioned that there are sometimes things that happen in our life that get in the way of our training, or can cause a shift in our focus. Changes in work, changes in family, health, etc. I did just start a new job this past summer and my husband has been struggling with pain lately. So there is a lot on my mind.

I finally vocalized my fear of this race to my husband today and told him I am considering deferring my registration this year. He supports my decision either way; but did tell me that sometimes we get burnt out with things we do. And that maybe I would benefit from the time off, or less pressure of getting in the marathon before my third Dopey challenge in January. I believe I will feel a big weight off of my shoulders if I defer this race; but then I will also feel some guilt because of all years to get a “redo” of last year’s race, this is the year to do it.

I have shifted a lot of my efforts and focus this past summer on getting healthier. I am eating better, working out differently and running casually. I wanted to enjoy running and not have it become a chore, which it has now become. When I trained for my first marathon, I enjoyed the training because it was leading me towards something I never did before. As much as I would love to do this race this year; I want to do it when I am strong and looking forward to it. Not as another, get it done for the sake of doing it. Yes, it is a race for redemption to make up for my horrible experience last year; but I want to cross that line having the feeling that I was prepared. Just like I felt after I finished my first marathon.

So I guess I made my decision. Now I have to work on the paperwork. Having said this out loud and writing about it; I can now also focus on getting some better half marathons under my belt as training runs. I have been struggling with those races. They used to be my favorite distance and I would like to also enjoy that distance again.

Follow Your Heart

September 9, 2016

I was listening to the DIS Unplugged 10th anniversary podcast this week and really enjoyed it. There was something that Pete said that I wrote down while I was driving. He said to “follow your heart”. Do we always follow our heart? I think many times we want to; but then we let our brain or our emotions get in our way and that leads us away from a path that our heart was leading us to.

This past year I followed my heart a few times. One was with a job change. I had been wanting to leave the job I was in; despite it being a relatively new job for me, and I needed to leave that job because my heart was telling me to. But it wasn’t easy to get into the place that I am at now, Slalom Consulting. I had to wait a long time to get this dream job. I call it my dream job because that is exactly what it is. However, I wouldn’t have found this job if it weren’t for my good friend Heidi leaving our previous place and going to Slalom. The day I found out she was leaving and where she was going I checked out their website and applied online. There wasn’t a position open at the time there but I kept in touch with the company and eventually they reached out to me to begin the interview process. One year later I am in my dream job. I followed my heart, had patience (I’m not a patient person), and I knew the paths would align for me to be where I needed to be when the time was right.

I also followed my heart in regards to my health this summer. In June I decided that I no longer wanted to feel the way I felt about myself. I was tired of feeling unhappy with my body and was getting a little burnt out with just running as my primary form of exercise. So I asked around on Facebook with some of my friends about this Beach Body thing that everyone was talking about and the 21 day fix and my friend Dale reached out to me and told me she was a coach. I knew this was the program for me to shake up my routine and clean up my food intake.

So far it has been very successful. I have lost 10 pounds and several inches and I can see some muscle forming that I hadn’t seen in about 15+ years! I am also feeling stronger in my legs which helps me with my running. I followed my heart when it said it was time to take charge and not make up any more excuses or just have one drink at night, or that cinnamon bread for breakfast was ok. It wasn’t and I knew it wasn’t. Now my diet is so clean and I am no longer having issues with my hearing condition called meniere’s disease. It was getting so bad that about every other week I was having problems with my ears feeling full and losing my hearing. I knew right away it was time to reduce the salt and alcohol that was going into my body.

So here I am three months later, two months into my new job and three months into my new health routine and I am very happy. I’m very happy I followed my heart and I will continue to use it as my barometer and compass on new paths that life takes me on.

Feeding Others Fed My Soul

August 30, 2016

I had the opportunity today to do something I have never done before. I volunteered at a soup kitchen in Hartford. Why did I do this? Because the company I work for, Slalom, gives back to the community. They are very involved with community events such as mentoring high school students to help them prepare for college applications, to stuffing back packs for kids in the city, and helping feed those in need.

I was looking forward to this experience. Mostly because it was something I never did before and I wanted to make a difference. My children, husband and I have volunteered at the North Haven Animal Shelter in the past and gave to our local food bank, but I never interfaced one on one to hand someone a warm meal. It was such a gratifying feeling to do this.

We served 111 people today and I made sure to make eye contact and smile with every person that I served. Everyone smiled back and always said thank you for their meal, drink and dessert. It was really hot in the church basement; but those who were there did not complain and they even told the social worker who runs the soup kitchen that the folks at Slalom who volunteered were so friendly and quick in getting the meals out to each person.

As we were assisting with numbering meal tickets for upcoming days, and wrapping utensils, I was thinking to myself that I can’t wait to share the experience with my family tonight. Since my daughter has softball practice we may not sit down to a full-fledged meal tonight; but I do want to be sure we sit down and talk and I want them to know how my heart was filled by helping others.

I also want to sit down and appreciate the food that we will be eating because there are people in our own town who do not have enough food. We say it to our kids all the time, but I got to see it firsthand today. I am grateful for the food in my fridge, the clothes in my closet and the roof over my head; but am I really grateful? We need to open our eyes to see that not everyone may have it easy.

Rosa from the church told us that there is a great need for men’s clothing so I am going to ask you if you have men’s clothing that you can donate, please reach out to me. You can call or text me at 203-605-4652 or email me at pamela.frost@comcast.net and I would love to arrange to pick up the items to bring to them. All seasons, and all sizes are welcome of MEN’s clothing especially.

I am blessed and I needed to be there to see that today.

I’m Scared!

August 26, 2016

So I am officially scared. I am worried that I won’t make it to the bridge of the Marine Corp Marathon and will be shipped off the course on a bus. I did a 13 mile training run this past weekend and it was a very difficult run in many way. I chose a difficult path with large hills to simulate the hills we had to go up in the beginning of the race last year. I hadn’t anticipated those hills last year, and when I was climbing the what seemed like a never-ending hill that reminded me of the heartbreak hill, my balloon burst early on in the race. It took a lot out of me.

This year the rules are changing for the marathon. When you reach “the Gauntlet” at mile 17 you have to make it through by 12:33 p.m. or you will be diverted from the Certified course and won’t be recognized as an official finisher. You MUST cross the 14th Street Bridge by 1:36 p.m. This is different from last year where the requirement was to make it to the entrance of the Bridge.

So to start to prepare my mindset for what is ahead of me for the rest of my training and to also be successful with this race, I had to work on some data analysis. I sat down with a map of the course and printed out my splits from last year’s race to see where I was slowing down. I also needed to know where the elevation was increased and compare that to my splits to see if the hills had a significant impact on my speed. Ironically, the hills weren’t areas that I noticed problems.

At the beginning of the race, we sort of detoured from the rest of the crowd and our first mile was 14 minutes. The second mile is the hilliest mile and yes we did slow down there. But my weak areas came when I was mentally challenged. It is recommended by the Marine Corps Marathon, that in order to beat the bridge you need a 14 minute mile. I figured I had done several marathons before and that wouldn’t be a problem. Well, I didn’t figure I would be burnt out before the race even started so I didn’t maintain that pace. There was a bathroom break and I did stop at the medical tent so that does show up in the splits.

I am training much harder this year to make sure that I am including long hills early on in my training runs. As you can see from the elevation map on my last long run I climbed quite a few large hills, much larger than the hill at the MCM.

As you can see from the splits, the climb up the large hill (on a very hot, sunny, humid day) was my slowest mile. Mile 7 is where I stopped off at home to refresh my ice and neck wrap. But my average pace for fhe first 9 miles on such a challenging, hot long run was decent. I’d like to get it a little lower however. Miles 12 and 13 I had just run out of gas. I was very overheated. I was just brutally hot out and I don’t believe I had enough fuel on board with me to get this done effectively.

Yes, I am scared, but I am going to work on my strength and am hoping the weather will break soon and I can get in some long runs at a cooler temperature.

See that road in the middle of the field… that is the second monster hill I had to climb.

On the bright side I was listening to Another Mother Runner podcast about mental training and also Sarah and Molly were talking about throwing a wish out to the universe to find a quarter. But during my run I did find a shiny penny! So I said out loud that I wanted to find silver coins during the last 2 miles of my run. Guess what was waiting for me in my driveway when I got home! SCORE!

CFA Society Hartford Corporate 5K #loveyourfuture

August 7, 2016

I had the opportunity to run my first race as a member of the Slalom running team this past Thursday. I was excited to be a part of this team. Although I am on several running teams for runDisney and Team Chocolate Milk; this team is important to me because it is part of my new work life.

The race took place at Bushnell Park in Hartford and ran along Capitol Avenue and around the park. It was a very warm night and to be honest I wanted to try to race this race. I hadn’t raced a 5K in several years. You would think that with all the running I do, a 5K would be a piece of cake. But to be honest, I am not conditioned for a 5K. I used to be able to run a sub 30-minute 5K but now that I am training for the Marine Corps Marathon and the Dopey Challenge, while using the heart rate training method, my pace is not a sub 30-minute 5K pace.

I tried to push myself since it was a race and I wanted to see how I could do during a race, but it was an extremely hot night. Even though it wasn’t as humid as past races I did during the HMF River Front Scrambles (blog posts to come for those races), it was still 84 degrees with sun. I ignored my intervals in the first loop around the park; but then had to begin my 30/30 intervals because I was afraid I would run out of gas too quickly.

I finished around the 35 minute mark. I stopped for a runner who was having a seizure on the side of the road and asked the girl with him if she needed help; but since I am not a nurse I wasn’t going to be of much assistance to them so I moved along hoping that medical attention was going to show up quickly. It’s so scary to see things like this happen at races of any distance. It was a young man who was down, too. I was feeling the heat of the race. I couldn’t push myself any harder than I was or else I would have gotten sick. I had to realize that I am not fast 5K trained right now. 5K races for me are just for fun. My real important races are my half and full marathons and I will continue to train for them appropriately so that I can finish them in the time frames that I know I can safely handle and will be happy with.

Maybe one day I will go back to running fast 5K’s; but I think I like the challenge of the longer distances and my multi-day races like the Dopey challenge. It took me many years to build up for those challenges and succeed at them so I have to be happy with that.

I stayed to watch our General Manager, Jim Goldschlager and the rest of the team finish the race and then we all went back to the office. My family drove up to meet me after the race and check out my new office. The kids were very impressed with how different it looked compared to what they remember at Honeywell. Of course, it is different because it is Slalom. Everyone on the team had pizza, salad, beer, wine and played some Shuffleboard. Tim and Mohnish taught us how to play and it was a really fun night!

I’m very glad to be part of a company that embraces family and also glad to be part of a team that participates in many activities together. Looking forward to many more races and activities at part of Team Slalom!

SweatX Laundry Detergent Review

August 3, 2016

One of my favorite podcasts, Another Mother Runner, did a show on the science of sweat. Sounds like a weird topic right? Well it was very interesting!

I’m sure many of you have some of those running shirts that remind you of the many miles you spent together when you open your running clothes drawer. I also have some favorites. I should burn them now; but then I listened to this podcast. After listening to it, I remembered that I received samples of the laundry detergent SweatX that they mentioned. So I gave it a test. After a hot and sweaty run I put those ripe, stinky clothes in the wash with a little bit of SweatX detergent. You only need a little bit per load

I was very impressed with the results. The clothes smelled fresh after washing and drying them without a dryer sheet. And when I wore them again for my next run I didn’t catch a whiff of previous runs once I started to sweat in them.

Now when I come back from a run a put my clothes in the wash quickly after my shower and I use a conservative amount of detergent.

So like Another Mother Runner tweeted out, if your running gear is getting a little (or a lot) ripe, use code AMR15 to take 15 percent off of your SweatX Sport purchase! I highly recommend it.