My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing. ~ Aldous Huxley

Today it was a walk up South Mountain, yoga didn’t happen due to scheduling conflicts and driving so this is even better I think.  We are approaching spring in Arizona, which is equivalent to summer where I grew up.  Today was 80 and slightly overcast, who wants to be stick in a windowless yoga room when you can be outside with this view?!

Plus the company was good, my best friend and the dog came out with so no complaints here.

I’m also not going to go into too much detail but I had my nail related casualty from the marathon on my big toe – Brazilian Jiu Jitsu will have to wait until tomorrow now.

As the race has come to an end and I’m going to only run recreationally, I’m thinking about tweaking a few things with my diet now that Im not worried about throwing my body off kilter.  I thought about doing a Whole 30 but honestly I want to be able to go out and have a drink if I feel like it for now.  I do think I’m going to embark on a gluten-free adventure, but aim for a clean eating version – no tapioca bread, gluten free cookies or anything along those lines.  This process usually takes some effort for me because its not something I think about on a regular basis – it has helped my mum a lot and really been good for me in the past so I think its time to get refocused.  I’ve already started cutting out some of overabundance of dairy I was eating starting with cheese, for now I’m going to keep milk in because I like it to make protein shakes. I will begin focus on phasing it out this week with the goal that by Sunday all foods that would be offenders will be eaten/gone.  I also need to focus on my taking in protein at all 3 meals and definitely increasing that as I go back to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, lifting, and yoga.

You have a choice; throw in the towel or use it to wipe off your face and keep running.

 

So, my first blog post is coming to you the day after I’ve run my first full marathon, and I’m not afraid to tell you I believe it to be my last.  I definitely think there are some people meant to run these distances and some people not.  I’m glad I can cross it off my list and honestly, I think I needed to do it to gain closure on my battle with my exertion compartment syndrome and I think I can say that my surgeries were 100 percent successful and although the marathon is coming about 4 years later then i thought it would…I did it.  I am so stiff today and I’m anticipating tomorrow being worse, but I’m going to try and hit up a yoga class and reign my body in.  It was the biggest push that I have ever forced my body to do 100% solo, hiking Mt. Whitney at least I had Jodi and David right there with me to help push me through.  Running a marathon you have no one but your body screaming at you and everything in your head telling you to stop – its definitely a mind over matter battle.  Now that its over I’m looking forward to getting back to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and yoga a lot more.  That was one of the cons that will keep me from doing this distance on a more regular basis, the training was so long and time consuming it didn’t really leave me time to do the other activities I enjoy as well.  I’ve posted a picture from directly after the race and my official time was 4:49:10 chip time.

 

Now it is time with summer coming though to focus on putting on some lean muscle and getting rid of this constant battle with insulin bloat from the running.  🙂  Some people’s bodies agrees with running, mine I think maxes out at a half marathon…and I’m content knowing that.  Now its time to get this 5’2″ 160 lb body down to 5’2″ 140 lbs, here we come pool time! 🙂  Good luck to me making it out of bed tomorrow and walking to the kitchen!

My first full marathon is done!