Bring on the busy season!

Once again I find myself in transit. At the moment I am sitting in a lounge at the Frankfurt airport waiting for my connection to Nice, France. This current trip is with the woman's national soccer team and we are playing in France and England before heading home on the 8th. I must admit I was pretty excited for this trip, partly due to going to new places but I also realized how much I missed the staff and players, meeting at YVR before the flight was like a little reunion for me.

This trip is just the beginning of busy few months coming up, true doing therapy for a police dept does not usual go through any season changes but April and May both have conferences and there are always running races and soccer trips during this time. All of this piling together makes me realized my next month with out anything big plan is Sept and that brings us close to the end of 2013? How is that even possible?!?! I am still trying to grasp the concept that I am starting to book appointments into May. Time sure does fly when your having fun eh :).

I find that times like this is what I have to sit down and make a plan for how I want to get everything that I want to into this time period. I find this is often where people get lost or side tracked from their goals because lets be honest being busy can get overwhelming for anyone at some point and it is at that point where it is easy to go off track.

My goals for the next while are

• quality 8 hour sleep every night
• yoga wake up session (15 minutes) 5 days a week
• running 4x a week and build to 5-6
• continue following the Thrive Diet, this has been a big changer for me, I feel amazing on this whole food vegan eating plan. I follow it 85-90% for if I go out for meals or to a friends place I am not worried about following it 100% but while at home I eat all organic whole foods - CLEAN. let me tell you my body lets me know when I go too far off track, its like a food hangover

Life is a roller coaster - highs, lows, thrilling corners

So here I am again starting a new wave of blog posts, yes I am the most inconsistent blogger. What can I say life gets in the way and yes it has been a crazy roller coaster for the past few months. Good news though - I have managed to hold on!

As I have looked back to my posts in the fall I am reminded of my goals for 2013, perhaps that is one of the reasons why I blog, to help create a path towards my goals. Looking back my goals are still the same - working with soccer, my 3 races this year. However, my approach to them has had to have been modified.

The first bump of the year came with the ending of my relationship and finding myself once again single. It was quite the sharp u-turn which caused me to slam on the breaks for a moment until  I could get my wits about me. Once I realized that instead of slamming on the breaks I should rather ride out the turn and enjoy it for what it was, I knew this path I was on would still be exciting.

I am one of the first to admit that I take a great deal onto my plate, its tough when I like to do so many things. Sometimes when you like everything that you are doing it is tough to see that perhaps you are burning the candle at both ends when it comes to all of the things that you are juggling in life. I am not just talking about activities or work but everything like trying to keep my place too clean!
So to better handle these surprising turns I have worked on lightening my load so that they are less stressful and way more fun!

My approaches I have taken so far to enjoy this new ride are

• Waking up by doing candle light yoga, yes sometimes it ends up being at 4:30am but has proven to be oh so worth it - one day I will be gumby and not the Ms Tin Man
• Spending time with my girlfriends - possibly one of the most important things, my gosh the ladies in my life are amazing. I have done everything from trail runs, soak up sun in the Bahamas to enjoying a good ol cup of coffee.
• Which brings me to - no more caffeine in my diet for the moment. Part of this is due to my mind being very active on a quiet day, feed it caffeine and I come up with a lot of new ideas. Good in one aspect but not if you are trying to lighten the work load!
• Keisha - what can I say, it hard to beat spooning a fluffy dog
• Travel - ah yes more travel, not necessarily planned as vacation but hey if work wants to send me places I will take it! Between now and my birthday in June I will be heading to France, England, Virgina, Seattle, Nelson and Toronto........
• Last and certainly not least - remembering the things I love - skiing, mtn biking, running for the sake of running. Yes that means that I am not following a strict training program for my races. If my body wants to run I run, if it doesnt I don't. Does this increase my chances of not finishing my ultra in July? Absolutely. But its time to let me body lead the way for a while and have my mind take a back seat. Its worth it, the races will always be there. I am still planning to run them but whatever distance I complete I will consider a success.

Like I felt earlier, bring it on 2013, its going to be a great year :D

Gratitude

I have been inspired to write about gratitude today. A goal I set for my self this summer is to focus on being grateful for everything that I have. Its not that I feel that I have ever lacked in this area, I have always made a point to sit back and appreciate my life on a very frequent basis. I have been very fortunate this far in my life, I have been given some amazing opportunities and have been apart of some great moments.

I write this as I am about to start another day in training camp with the Canadian Woman's National Soccer team as part of their therapy staff for the first camp since they won the Bronze at the London Olympics. First, how many people get an opportunity like this to work with such amazing athletes? To travel with them? Share in their victories (I was on the field with the team in 2008 when they qualified for olympics the very first time) and defeats or learn about their personal goals and accomplishments? To top things off, during this camp I got to go to BC Place in Vancouver for the unveiling of the 2015 Woman's World Cup Logo, the World Cup will be held in Canada. Its getting to be a part of things like this that I am always asking myself how in the world did I luck out.

Big things are always the easy ones to be grateful for, that is why I am trying to focus more on the small stuff, being healthy, having a great fiancé and family, enjoying the forest during a trail run or the smell of snow, man do I love the smell of snow! Perhaps this is why some people think of me to be really optimistic but I even take a moment to enjoy stressful times, I find appreciating it for what it is and having a chance to experience those emotions (even When they feel far from great) helps me to deal with the situation better. I find if I focus on how bad I feel at the time it just feeds into how bad I feel, why would I do that to myself.

In a nut shell have you stopped to smell the flowers today?

The wonderful month of December...and training

December is the worst….yet in a way, the best time of year to start training for something.

December is great in that there is usually way too much food consumed and not enough exercises being done due to hectic schedules and training helps to balance this out. You make sure to get your exercise in and generally if you are training for something you need more food! Yes I know Christmas cookies and the sort are not the best so you do have to be careful but training during December should essential stop that December weight gain. 

It is bad in the fact that my schedule is CRAZY! (as is everyone’s). It seems there are Christmas parties left, right and center and then to top it off I am working a soccer training camp from the 12-20 of the month on top of my regular job and volunteer work. Some ways that I have been able to sneak it in are through short high intensity interval sessions right before work in the morning, run with my dog rather then taking her for a walk (she loves this if its in the bush but HATES it if it is on the road!) and space my injury prevention strengthening throughout the day. It is not too uncommon to find me on a sudden burst of air squats, Y&T’s or hip stability work if you were to open my office door. Most office people take a break and quickly chat with a co-worker but I am the only one in my office so that eliminates those breaks!

For the next week an a half I am going to have to be extra creative as I will be working at a soccer camp as well. I can get my prehab work done while watching practice but my conditioning training will have to be a bit more strategic. I may have to look at late evening workouts and to make up for the lost sleep have quick cat naps in the middle of the day (which are easier then mid-day workouts as I don’t have to shower after!)

All in all I am very excited to be focused on training again. I over trained in 2011 and just lost the drive to really commit to training but its back and I am stoked, 2013 here I come!

2013 = Big Year to Succeed!

Most people who know me would agree that I am not one to take things easy, generally its go big or go home. I am on a mission to find my limits and this year’s goals just may enough to send me packing.


GOALS
Goal 1 – Wentachee Marathon – get a PB, my PB so far is 3:28:32
Goal 2 – Sinister 7 (148 km) – Under 24 hour finish
Goal 3 – Trans Rockies Run – have fun with a great bunch of friends (ok so this one is not as much of a stretch…)


Sure there my be some obstacles in there as well
1. Looks like it may be another high travel year, fingers crossed that if I am staying in an unsafe area that the hotel has a treadmill. I can only skip for so long!
2. Wedding Planning – we are now planning our wedding for the fall – good thing we both want something simple
3. Work – I have big goals with what I want to accomplish with the VPD which makes my work day long and I am often exhausted at the end


MY PLAN!
1. Crossfit Endurance – less milage more weights = less chance of over training
2. Schedule Ahead – a must do if I am going to get my workouts in during my busy week days
3. Fine Tune My Nutrition – Clean eating 85-90% of the time and focus on my nutrient timing – pre, during, post and my regular meals
4. Supplements – Vega for my pre and post, variety of mid workout foods both natural and supplements, multi vitamins, vit D and fish oils to help my body recover.
5. AND THE MOST IMPORTANT – SLEEP, QUALITY SLEEP, LOTS OF SLEEP, DID I MENTION I LOVE TO SLEEP?

Mini Victory Post!

I am a bit excited about a mini victory at Crossfit today so I thought I would post it, I got a new deadlift PB today! 245lbs!! Woohoo!  I did start my Shakeology shakes today...maybe that was it! Then we had to do Karen - 150 wall balls with a 14 lb ball, it took me 8:37......legs are a bit wobbly now! Fingers crossed they are good for my course tomorrow!

USANA!

I am happy to announce that I am a independent seller of USANA supplements as of this summer. I am super excited about promoting these products after seeing the research on them. First of all they have very high quality vitamins and research has shown that they are much more bioavailable then the majority of the other vitamin lines out there. What do I mean by bioavailable? Your body is able to absorb much more of the nutrients in each tablet then they are of other ones out there. What every your body is not able to absorb, your body excretes it, usually in your urine. What’s the point of spending money on vitamins if they are just going to run through your body rather then help you?

Second, they are guaranteed to not have any banned substances in them. For the average person this is not a big deal but for a competitive athlete this is a BIG deal! Athletes have to be sure that whatever they put into their body does not have any banned substances otherwise there could be bad, career ending consequences. USANA stands by this so much that if an athlete tests positive due to their products they will give the athlete 1 million dollars! How many other companies out there are so confident in their product that they offer this? Well over 350 athletes trust USANA on their quest to top physical performance so why shouldn’t I?

Not sure if you need vitamins or what you should be taking? USANA has their True Health Assessment you can go through and it will offer suggestions on where you may need the help of supplementation – Check it out!  www.activfit.usana.com