Diary

I make a lot of deals with myself. You may be aware of my most current deals:
*When I get to my goal weight of 170 or less, I get to seriously explore plastic surgery for my tummy.
*When I weigh less than 200 I get eyelash extensions.
But I also make smaller, day-to-day, minute-by-minute kinds of deals. Yesterday the deal I made was for running. We had track practice, then a whole rigmarole of exchanging/losing/picking up/walking children to and fro various play dates, and after all that we were laaaaazy and tuckered out! You know that moment- you look at the other person who might be an appropriate age to make dinner and, with horror, you realize that they are every bit as bushed as you? That moment. And you kinda wanna cry a little because you know that if he feels anything like you do that you cannot, under any circumstances, ask him to make dinner… And if you have to eat one more box of Annie’s Arthur-shaped macaroni and cheese you’re going to go into the ugly cry. Yeah. That moment. That night. So you opt for the store.
I happily stood by the car door, all settled into a trip to the store for easy food when Bradley suggested that I might enjoy a run, instead. Erm. Not so much. I’ll admit that I felt guilty for just happening to overlook the fact that I wasn’t running, so it actually wasn’t a hard sell. I headed back inside to get changed, but made this deal: I would go around the large loop (1.8 miles) as fast as I could, following the route where I would be most likely to see my family on their way back from the store. If I saw them before I got home or if they were in the driveway when I reached the house, I could be done. If they weren’t there and I didn’t see them, I had to add another mile. I was about 1/4 of a mile away from home when guess who drove up?!

I tell you what, it was as if the paparazzi was after me. They slowed down and filmed me while I ran, hollered greetings and affirmations at me and just made me feel like I was really doing something exceptional! I love those people. I ended up with another quick mile (9:04) and a decent cardio workout. I’m looking forward to another good run tomorrow.
I was lucky my family arrived and took pictures, too. I decided to try a different angle for my derpy run pic of the day, and I’m just not good at selfies from the side. Obviously. But I included the picture because that ponytail banged me in the back of the head the whole time I ran. I shan’t be doing that again. And the picture of me in front of the bulletin board? That was my ‘I lurve ya, Baby, and I’m on my way home’ pic of the day and noticed how freaking long my hair is! Wow! Sometimes I just lose track, I guess. I’ve never had hair past my shoulders as patience is a virtue I learned later in life, so I’m continuously surprised by the long hair experiment. I’m glad Gigi talked me into it; it’s been interesting.
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Tonight we had our Brainworks Museum about pioneers and held the exposition for the families. My kids’ projects and reports turned out absolutely amazing and I was so proud of them. As I left my classroom, I realized that this was the final parent night of the year- after this the year starts winding down and coming to a close. It’s the time when I start to love on my students a whole lot and hang onto them harder for that last little while. It’s the both the best and worst time of the year, where we can ease up a little and laugh a little more, but that also makes me realize how much I’m going to miss seeing their cute little faces every day. I’m always surprised at how vulnerable we all become at this time of year. As a collective and community, we suddenly grow. Makes me miss them more.

There was running today. Of course, this was after the working and teaching and hot gluing a million little horses, hay bits and cardboard to the various projects presently in my classroom for our museum on pioneer history. I’ve assisted in two barns, one school, three homesteads, six covered wagons, seeing, cooking and I don’t even know what else in the past three weeks! When Thursday night (the family presentation night) comes and goes, I’ll be one happy teacher!
Today, my fitness goal was simply to run as fast as I could sustain around the ‘medium’ block. It’s only 1.4 miles, but I’m pretty satisfied that I did it and I did it well with an average of 9:54 and a total moving time of 14.5 minutes. I like that I still have a little speed! At one point, Bradley mentioned over his shoulder, that he thought we were supposed to be running faster. I was completely winded and astonished that he couldn’t feel my speed! Nevertheless, I picked up the pace and surged forward, even though I thought I didn’t have it in me. Later, after I saw that I did my first mile in 9:06, I teased that I had proof of my speed, and he admitted that he may have been challenging me! That wily ole fox! LOL! That nine minute mile (or thereabouts) makes me feel pretty happy, though, and I’m glad he lit the fire under me!

Today was the first day in what we hope becomes a neighborhood tradition: we texted a bunch of our friends and asked them to meet us at the nearby high school track for some communal laps. Only one other family was able to make it, but it was really nice to chat with my friend while Bradley did the same with her husband and we all ran about four miles. We ran at about 11 minute miles for about 40 minutes. I’m not sure, exactly, because this was one of those magical days where the technology and I didn’t work well together.

While there, Gigi practiced her triple jump and all the kids ran a few laps. I feel weird saying I make my kids exercise, but I feel like we force our kids to do vital things like eat vegetables and go to school, I also think that we have parental responsibility to keep their hearts healthy and muscles strong through exercise. Our kids just go for it, now. Jude ran a half mile today and Gigi did 3/4 a mile.
When they aren’t running and we are at the track, our kids play in the sand pits intended for the long jumps, high jumps… All the jumps. We drag along a bag of sand toys and they happily construct sand castles while we wave at them each time we make our way around. With the added benefit of another family at the track, our kids had the best time!
I hope the Sundays in our future are similar to today. I hope our numbers grow and our neighborhood families have one more opportunity to come together as a community.
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I felt pretty good as I finished out my week as a runner. While I didn’t meet the running schedule as completely as I had hoped, I did up my mileage and run further distance. Today I ran about four miles and I plan on running fast two milers on Tuesday and Thursday of this week. Otherwise I want to run a four miler once or twice and a six mile run on Saturday. We will see what works. This could be a wild week with a track meet on Tuesday, late work night on Thursday and girl’s sleepover on Friday. I’ll do my best!

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I’m not going to lie, this week I did not run as much as I intended. Seriously, spring is a tricky time of year for me. It seems like I make a plan, and then the plan just gets overtaken with the reality of life. I’m okay with this. In a few weeks school will be out in the craziness of the end of the year will be done. Today, however, we were good kids. I knew I wanted to go for a longer run today. First because I skipped two runs this week but secondly because I feel like it’s really important for me to start pushing my mileage up. I’ve decided that my short runs are now going to be 4 miles or greater, which means that my long runs will be between five and 6 miles from now on. It seems scary in theory, but today as I was running I was all the way up to 4.5 miles and still felt like I could’ve pushed further. That just goes to show me that the more I run and the farther I run the more endurance I’m definitely building. I’m proud that I’m able to recognize that I’m ready to add some distance to my run. It feels really good.

For a a while I was thinking that my speeds were pretty consistently below 10 minute miles or within the 10 minute mile range. This week I spent some time on Strava going through my running feed and discovered that it was actually pretty rare for me to break below a 10 minute mile last summer, last fall or last spring even. It was good to make that realization as I have been thinking I have been failing as a runner lately. I’ve been feeling slow and so it feels like I backslid. After some reflection time, I realized what was really going on was my fast miles were on really short cardio workouts when I had promised myself that if I went fast I wouldn’t have to go very far,whereas all my slower times are when I’m usually putting some distance under my sneakers. That makes sense- I need to go slower for those endurance runs. That said, I definitely see the value now of time trials, intervals that integrate speed and short, fast runs fairly frequently. I need to time into the Disney Half Marathon, and that has me slightly concerned, but I feel like I’ll get there with lots of regular running and training.
I have decided that I probably will give myself until 2016 before I go to the Disney Half Marathon. That way I don’t have to stress about speed quite as much, quite as quickly. I can take longer and not force it as much, focus on endurance of distance for now. And I believe that I’ll continue to lose weight and the lighter I get the faster I’ll get too.
There’s a run on October 26th fairly close to where I live called the River Run. It’s 13 miles along the Snohomish River, and it seems nice and flat and distractingly beautiful. I’m thinking my birthday gift to myself for my 41st birthday should be this run. I don’t have to register for a while yet, so I can make sure my body can do this thing before I send in my dollars, but I’ll keep you posted. 🙂

Yes, I realize now that I had something in my teeth, no I didn’t realize it at the time. Just love that I was smiling through the run today, greeting everyone, with a hunk of breakfast in my face. Nice.

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Not me. In fact, I’m thinking I’m at that special age in a girl’s life when she stops wearing shorts. A few years ago (and a few pounds ago) I thought it might be that time, but then the getting in shape/weightloss brouhaha shook down this year and I was hopeful that just maybe, just perhaps it was time. My legs and saggy thighs would look amazing and I would be able to wear those five to seven inch inseams…

Specimen number one is a size 14 denim number with a five inch inseam purchaser from Old Navy. Five inches seemed like the right idea, until my butt seemed grow a few inches in these things. They definitely brought out that nice, wide mom-butt look that the 40-year-old-mom set is looking for. Eye roll. Specimen number one proves my point- I look awful in shorts that are long enough to cover my inner thigh droopiness.

Specimen number two are also a size 14 from Old Navy. This time round I went with the daring three inch inseam on some olive colored cargo shorts. From a distance, I’m all like SCORE! the fit is good, the length doesn’t widen my booty… But then there’s this when you get up close:
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You’re welcome for not making that full sized. I think I’m sticking with capris and skirts this summer.
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Today was a loooong day. Regular school stuff topped with a staff meeting followed by a track meet and finally life at home with children. I wanted to cry when I realized I had to make dinner when I got home. Life can be so unfair.
Anyhow, got home, helped my dear husband make some quick vittles and decided to spend some
time outdoors by way of tending my garden. With headphones. Playing New Kids. At one point this very cheesy but sincere NKOTB song came on and it was about going out with a bang. I got all excited and pumped that I am doing that- I’m starting the second half of my life strong so I can do it without compromising more than I really have to. Then I wanted to skip and run all over the yard so I decided to go for a run and ran my fastest mile in a while of 9:54! Yahoo! It was really fun. Sure ended my night with a bang, too! >

On Saturday morning I woke up, like usual, got out of bed, like usual, and when I got undressed to get dressed, I took off my shirt, like usual. Which means I invert it over my head and use the opportunity to stretch out my shoulder blades by pressing out against the pressure of the inside of the shirt… Heretofore, my favorite morning stretch.
Except…
On Saturday morning I did it, streeeeetchTWANG! Suddenly my back HURT. Like, all capital letters HURT! Right under my left shoulder blade! YEOWTCH! I stood there for a moment, tried to re-stretch to make… Whatever it was, pop back into place and stop hurting. But it didn’t. I called out to Bradley who helped me limp to the bed (do I sound pathetic, or what?!) and he promptly gave me a back rub. A few hours later, once again, after back rubs, Aleve and the hot tub, I was able to move again. We took it easy over the weekend- just a little running and hiking- and I thought I was good to go.
This morning, there I was, AGAIN, pajamas coming off, streeeetch, and BOOM. I did it again without even thinking about it. It was so bad this morning that I was certain I’d have to go home after my work meeting* to soak and lay around. But again, Aleve, shower, back rub and I was able to drive to work.
So… Today I got home and, after careful consideration, I decided to take a few days off of training. I feel like a wimp, but I’ll feel stupid if I push a little injury into being a big one through bullish behavior.
What am I going to do, then? Well, today we walked about four miles at a fast pace. When I run, I hold my upper body tight and build a lot of painful tension all around my bra. I think this injury is totally related. Boo. Hisssssss. So, for now, I am walking. The whole time today I just kept thinking of how much faster this would go if I ran, or how many more calories I would be burning if I were running. Ah well. Moving is what is most important.
I also started thinking about some of my early days of calorie counting and really careful strategic eating. One of my biggies was no night calories. I could drink tea, diet soda, water or anything with zero calories, but nothing ‘real’. Tonight I brought some herbal tea up with me to the bedroom (another strategy- avoid the kitchen after dinner) and hunkered down upstairs to write and plan the week’s outfits (intentional, busy activity to avoid thinking about food). I’m also trying to dial back the calories, but it’s staff appreciation week this week at my school and they provide the most delicious lunches alllll week. Best week all year.
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I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here in Washington, we’ve adopted a lovely new teacher evaluation system. While fabulous in theory, and in practice it does make for great reflection, it’s added a genuine amount of stress to many teacher’s lives. If not in the putting together and thinking of the thing, then the stress it causes just by being new, thus, unpredictable.
Anyhow, I had my final evaluation for the year and earned marks that exceeded standard! I can finally let out the breath I’ve been holding all year! I can relax and just enjoy my students while we finish out the year. We may or may not have celebrated with fancy beverages at home after.

Today I was reminded that I live in an amazingly beautiful place. We hiked through St. Edwards Park again today, just a short 3 miler or thereabouts… But man. I felt like I was in a ‘Visit the Beautiful PNW’ advertisement or something. It’s amazing here… It’s Mother’s Day today, and I was showered with homemade treasures- a cute little pinch pot from Boy and a beautiful optical illusion card from Girl. Jude wrapped the pot in tissue to make it look like a big piece of candy. It was so cute! I had a delicious breakfast served to me, an Indian food feast for dinner, a hike, a run/ walk, I got a pair of jeans, some new capris and even a new purse. I’ve been spoiled rotten today. My family is wonderful. 🙂
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, moms to be and those who are thinking of motherhood in one way or another.
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I’m coming clean: I didn’t meet my goals this week.
o______o
I know. There could be worse things and there are definitely some solid reasons for not doing better, so I’m not being too hard on myself, but still. It annoys me that the little things impact the big things. Perhaps it’s the myriad of changes (oh my, changes are afoot, I’ll let you know more about what the hay is happenin’ in the very near future) and it definitely has to do with the stress of my job and family and my crazy emotions of the past week… Lots of reasons. Not excuses.
So, what went well?
I ran about ten miles.
I lost a few pounds.
What didn’t go well?
Three of those miles were on the elliptical.
None of those were for my long run. I skipped my long run!
PMS ended on Friday night, if you know what I mean, and I allow myself to take it easy when that happens, so I skipped my big run yesterday and today we hiked, which was awesome, but it wasn’t running, though we did probably get about a mile of running in with the kids, here and there. I guess that’s the thing to remember, though. It’s okay to take my training as it makes sense. I don’t have to be this perfect model of weightloss and exercise. I’m still doing great. We kept comparing this Mother’s Day to last Mother’s Day and realized how very far we’ve come as a family.
That said, within this paradigm of ‘Tamara Shazam’ that I have created, I’m allowed imperfection and failures and I seem to forget that. I intend to use this space as an opportunity for transparency and, thus, accountability. I don’t want to publicly fail…not that I necessarily failed this week. This site helps keep me in line, but that just means greater accountability, it doesn’t mean perfection.
Ok, I suppose, from that, you get a glimpse into my inner workings, the circular logic arguments I get in with myself. 🙂 When I think about it pragmatically, obviously the training schedule I’m on is a little intense for me. I have to remember I can go slow, listen to my body. That said, I should be trained up, at this point, for this level of intensity. I suppose it’s reasonable to expect that I should try for the same 3-3-3-4 mile schedule again this week with strength training sprinkled throughout. Maybe this week I’ll be successful again like the week before last and I’ll finish strong. Cheers for a healthy week with good intentions!

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I like to get my runs done early in the week so they don’t hang over my head. We were busy Monday and Tuesday with various events, so I’m making both of my runs today and tomorrow (I already did one run on Sunday) with my longer run on Saturday.
Yesterday I wanted to run. Today, I wanted nothing more than to not run. But I still did. The first mile was brutal, the second and third were great, but then I decided to challenge myself. I decided to catch up with Bradley and run at his pace for the last quarter mile home. I picked up my pace and picked up my pace and picked up my pace and could not catch the man. I was running my butt off and was not an inch closer to him. Out of breath and wheezing, I asked him if he was trying to draft me. He answered that he was, and I burst into tears. It was not my finest moment, but I cried the rest of the way home about how I could never catch him and it’s so frustrating and wah wah wah. My sweet husband just looked at me and said that this was a hard run at the end of a hard day (first day of common core testing and other insanity) and I sure must be tired. I cried even harder because he is always so nice and even when I want to blame him for something he is always so kind that I can’t ever even believe that he would be mean or mocking!
As a side note, sometimes it stinks to be married to such a good, kind person. I never have a fall guy to take the blame for stuff my brain wants to deny its responsible for. I always have to realize own my own behavior! LOL
Anyhow, I walked in the door feeling defeated. I can’t even understand why. I did it. I ran. I made my training goal. think I’m a leeetle bit moody. Hmmm?

t

Workout one for this week is in the bag. I love those times in life when you force yourself to do something you didn’t really want to do to start with, and it ends up being magical. Today a friend of mine put the all-call out for someone to watch her kids for her while she went to hang some of her artwork. And since her kids are my kids’ favorites, it was easy to say yes and invite them over. After they left, I really wanted to get a run in, and Bradley had already gone while the kids were over, so I told Gigi to get dressed and she would be my buddy. She grudgingly went and put on her gear, and once we got started, she rocketed ahead of me. I tried to keep up with her, but she stayed just beyond the point where we could have a conversation… I was disappointed, having been seeking a bonding opportunity with my daughter, but I understood. I was ten, once, too and I remember my mom forcing me to do stuff. But still. Sniff.
About a mile into the run, she got a stitch in her side and had to walk, and turned to me full of accusing tears. “My side hurts!” She hollered at me. I told her that was fine, we could walk, and she just leaned into me, out her arm around me, and gave in. We walked quietly for a bit, and finally she was ready to run again. Just as we took off, the clouds burst open and started weeping down on us plentifully. The downpour washed away all the grief and hard feelings she was harboring, and suddenly I was running with my baby again; she came alive and we started chattering about Winnie the Pooh and blustery days and how Piglet might fare in our storm. We laughed, we ran, we hopped in puddles and played. By the time we got home, we were steaming, soaked to the bone and feeling alive and full of love! We talked our boys into a short mile around the block, and they came too, donning rubber boots and umbrellas. The rain finally let up right when we saw our house, perfect timing. We ended our workout with a soak in the hot tub and warm jammies for all. I couldn’t be more satisfied with today’s workout.

I would count this week as a success. I ran as much as I had planned, including not just a four mile run as my ‘long run’ for the week, but actually ran 4.5 miles today.
I’m ending this week feeling strong and capable. I ran 13.6 miles this week, all totaled. I did my strength training, and even discovered that long lost feeling of wanting to run. On Friday, after work, I considered a run in the neighborhood, remembered that Friday was just a weights/strength training day, then instantly I became full of sadness that I wouldn’t be out in the sun, running. I caught myself mourning the run that wouldn’t be and celebrated how much I missed running! That was such a good sign! I felt so proud of my body.
When I started running this week, I also started eating. I more than doubled my mileage from all of the winter weeks where I maxed out at 4-6 miles and the result, for the past few days, was ravenous eating. I was soooo hungry! It would start as soon as I woke up and all day my tummy was gnawing at me- FEED ME SEYMOUR! So I did. I let my gut guide me and I fed it, all week, to keep up with the running. I figured that getting in the condition to earnestly run again was worth the sleeve of Ritz crackers, the m&ms, the almonds, the extra bags of Pop Chips. My nutrition goal this week is to journal twice so I can look more closely at what I’m putting into my body and, generally, get back to some weightlosing eating habits again.
My other goal is to copy the fitness from this week exactly. I need to take three runs of three miles a piece, one run of about four miles, two days of strength training and one day of rest. Tomorrow I’m running three miles with a newer friend of mine. She is faster than me, so hopefully she will be challenged enough to enjoy the run. At the very least we can chatter like chickens for the duration. 😉
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I had a few celebrations this week for people I know and love.

I want to give a shout out to my friend who approached me on Friday to tell me how she is finished being the fat girl* and she’s been walking every day, she’s lost 16 pounds and she is determined to lose more. She cited me for being her trigger, her inspiration, but I find that ironic since a few years ago she was one of my primary sources of inspiration for my own weight loss project. I felt so proud of her and her courage in owning her project and taking the first steps to becoming her healthiest self.

Another friend of mine shared about how good it feels to fit into her jeans again. You know the ones- you tucked them away in the back of your closet as a depressing reminder of how slender you used to be…? Well, she fits them again. Doesn’t that just feel good? (Actually, I have two friends to whom this story belongs this week!)

An old friend of mine is following her husband’s footsteps (he’s lost about 100 pounds now, I believe) and is going in for a gastric sleeve herself, now. I’m so proud of her for committing to making this change! Cheers for a brighter future with a great jump start!

My cousin has lost 90 pounds in one year after having weightloss surgery! I’m so proud of her stick-to-it-iv-ness after staring in the face of so much adversity and making such a big decision. Amazing, strong woman.

One of my immediate family members has been running races and jogging all over the place whenever the opportunity arises.

I get so proud of people when they start making strides towards their happiest self. And to be clear, when I say happy, I totally equate that with the sense of self these women (and man) share, the healthiness they’ve achieved. As I’ve often said, if you’re fat and happy, please, enjoy. But if you’re fat and unhappy, that’s a hard place to be. Besides, making changes that will make you happier and/or healthier is infinitely more meaningful than just the number of pounds a person has lost.

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For years I was the fattest girl in the room, the fattest girl at my place of employment, the fattest one in my family, the fattest one in the circle of friends and I hated it. It was like being slapped in the face when she said that she was done being the fat girl because I totally understood. Even if it’s a false sense of self perception, it’s no fun being the gold standard for fatness that everyone else compares and measures themselves against. The fatness litmus test… I’m proud of my friend for standing up and saying she refuses to be that anymore and that she is being proactive about it. You go girl!!! 🙂

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