warrior dash

Musing Moment 084: Post Race

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I don’t have much time at the moment to post everything that I have going through my mind. But I do feel the need to let everyone know that…

 

I crushed it. Like a bawce!

 

Thank you so much to everyone who supported me and who donated to my fund. I was able to reach $350 by the time I got to the starting line. That’s $50 over what I had originally set out to do, and the magic number I needed to be able to have access to the showers after my race. : D

All of you are amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Those words will never be enough to express the gratitude and warmth I feel at the thought of your kindness.

I love you all. Thanks for believing in me.

 

race

Pre-Shower

 

food

Warrior Victory Feast

Musing Moment 083: St. Jude Warrior

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It is the final week before my first ever Warrior Dash!

 

mellie

It is also my last week to reach
my goal as a St. Jude Warrior.

Please join me in being a warrior against
acute lymphoblastic leukemia by donating to my
St. Jude fund and help me raise
$500 for four-year-old Millie and her family.

 

 

Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated. Your encouragement is more inspiring than you can possibly imagine. It makes training so much easier to know that I have the love and support of the blogging community.

 

You guys are awesome, and I’ll be sure to think about each and every one of you when the going gets tough during my race Saturday! : D

 

I love you all incredible amounts of much,
Warrior Freya

Musing Moment 0081: Warrior Dash for Mellie

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Greetings!

 

As we begin the New Year and set goals for ourselves I wanted to take a moment of your time to ask for your support with one of my own, personal, goals.

 

November of last year I began training for a mud obstacle race known as Warrior Dash. I will be running on February 6th as a St. Jude Warrior, sponsoring 4-year-old Mellie in her fight against acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

mellie

My goal is to raise $500 for Mellie
before my race.

 

I am asking for you to please be part of the amazing group of people who help me reach my goal. By donating to my fund not only will you be showing your encouragement in my endeavor, you will also be helping to support a family who would legitimately benefit from you kindness.

 

Thank you so much for your time and best wishes in the New Year.

 

Sincerely,

Jen
(aka Warrior Freya)

 

 

Musing Moment 0073: Days 24 – 27

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It has been a while since I did anything with my challenge writing. Guess it’s time to get caught back up.

Day 24 – Time Management

One of my biggest time sinks was Facebook, which is why I was trying to delete the stupid thing. I would waste time scroll through looking at pointless comments from people that I didn’t really consider my friends. I had so many other things I could be doing, but for some reason I was always sucked into sitting there.

It would start out as needing to respond to a message, or reply to a post from a work buddy. Something legit. But all too fast it would dissolve into thirty minutes of wasted time. And most of the time I never got around to doing what I had actually logged into Facebook to do.

I was sick of it. Of all of the social media noise that I had going on in my life. I’ve removed over half of the “friends” that I had. That has reduced the noise considerably on my Facebook feed. I have also gotten rid of several other social media accounts, which has also helped to de-clutter my life.

I’m sure it could be better, but I also feel like I have gained much more of my time back. I like where I’m at currently, so for now I will label this as a success and keep on keeping on.

Day 25 – Celebrating My Success

Day 25 in the challenge has us look back and realize everything we have accomplished and figured out in our lives. Chalene wants us to write about our biggest, proudest moment, and then promise ourselves that we will celebrate it.

Well, my proudest moment was towards the beginning when I actually sat down and figured out things that I wanted to start accomplishing with my life again. My biggest moment was not letting depression win.

I’ve already celebrated this triumph this past weekend. I went out and got my new running shoes and a spiffy awesome new biking helmet. It was more money that I thought it would be, so I haven’t gotten the bandanas I wanted, but it was totally worth the extra spending and I absolutely love the new gear that I rewarded myself with.

I’ve wanted the new shoes for so long now, and the helmet, while it wasn’t a “need” gives me warm fuzzy feelings every time I put it on. I’m not going to feel guilty. I’m allowed to have things that make me better and help push me further. I’m worth investing in. My accomplishments are worth celebrating. Guilt free.

Day 26 – Affirmation

Day 26 we take a look at our priorities, goals, and values again and reaffirm to ourselves why we are making changes in our lives.

I’m doing this for my emotional health. I’m doing this because I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be a priority to myself. I am doing this because I’m worth it.

I AM a priority and I will keep working towards the goals that I want, not what other people say I should want.

Day 27 – Fixation

Sometimes we’re our own roadblocks. Sometimes we fixate on a negative thing, a negative outcome, and so we stop moving forward. We can’t move past this “thing” inside our brain, this fixation we have.

What is my fixation?

At the moment I do not think I have one. I’m focusing on my Warrior Dash. I’ve never done this before and so all I feel is the awesome forward movement of kicking it up a notch at the gym. I’m feeling good from biking everyday to work. I just did my first workout on the machines, lifting weights, in I don’t know how long. It’s a good burn, lots of endorphins.

I’m not scared. At least not yet.

I think as the date of the race gets closer I will begin to worry about not being ready enough. Not being good enough. And when that time comes I will have to remind myself that it doesn’t matter.

It honestly, truly doesn’t.

I’m not going this to be the best. I’m not doing this to finish the race and complete every obstacle. I’m doing this to prove that I can. That even if I don’t run the whole thing, or make it over every obstacle, that I have come so far. So incredibly far, and that I should be proud of simply having the balls to participate.

I shouldn’t worry about the outcome or the destination. I should simply enjoy the process, the journey, because that’s what it’s really about.

Daily Post 032: Thursday and the Laundry

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Today has already been a productive day so far, but before I get into that I guess I should recap yesterday because I never got around to writing before going home.

I did go back to sleep thinking that I would wake up when Trevor’s alarm went off. But I didn’t. Instead I slept until almost 11. I had enough time to go down to the leasing office to put money on the laundry card, but not enough time to actually do the laundry. Much lame. They also still do not have parking decals… grrrrrrr.

I ate, showered, packed up, then headed to school. I messaged Terri when I got in to see about making an appointment to discuss personal training. I checked my work email. They are doing a food drive event so hopefully I can convince everyone at the apartment to get rid of all of the cans of stuff they’re not eating. That would free up so much space in the pantry.

I talked to Bre and actually made a lunch date for later this afternoon. More on that later. I talked to Zane to let him know that I hadn’t had a chance to wash the clothes. He said he would take care of it when he got home, so I was super looking forward to not having to worry about that.

I created the PDF for the Project 1 activity for the Shading and Lighting class. I had a student come in and interview me about freelance, my experiences with it, and advice I would give new artists.

I tried watching the Lynda.com tutorials Tony has associated with his class, but I kept having connection issues during the second lab, so I gave up on that, saving it for today.

Both labs went well, but it was a very socially taxing day, and by the end of it I just wanted to go home. I changed back into my biking stuff, put on music, and headed home. The ride last night wasn’t as bad. I find that going slower on the final stretch makes it less nerve wrecking. Since there aren’t as many streetlights the sidewalk can be hard to see, so going slower helps.

Oh. I did get a reply back from Terri. We ended up making an appointment for 7:30 this morning, so I had that to look forward to.

When I got home Zane wasn’t there. He had messaged me saying that he was going to stop by the hookah lounge he used to work at. He’s planning on having a Pathfinder game there Saturday, and he wanted to make sure he was still on good terms with the managers and see what changes had been made to the location.

I hadn’t had an issue with it when he had messaged me, but on the ride home I realized that because he didn’t come home the laundry wasn’t going to be done, and the cats were most likely dying because we keep our door closed during the day, which isn’t bad when someone is home around 5 or 6. But 9pm is a little long to keep them away from the litter pan.

Of course to top it off when I got inside the sink was full of dishes.

Blah…

I was frustrated. And I knew I was. I showered first before doing anything. I needed some time to cool off, literally, and to reassess my night. I didn’t know when Zane would be back. I didn’t know what was going on for dinner, but I needed to eat something now. And I didn’t want to be angry when I should have known this was going to be the result of someone not being home.

The night wasn’t ruined, but I needed time to really see that instead of going with my knee jerk reaction for something not being done when I had been hoping it would.

After showering I took the laundry down to start the wash. I came back inside, ate, then did the dishes. There was still time left on the wash so I thought to go back to the room and stitch, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I was still frustrated, more because I was tired and still having to take care of things.

Zane came home. He knew I was in a mood. He ended up helping me through it though. He switched the wash. We had dinner together because I was still hungry. The salad I had eaten wasn’t cutting it. I ended up having an egg sandwich with half a cup of coffee.

Zane wasn’t feeling well. He hadn’t eaten for most of the day, and then smoking at the lounge was making him feel sick and headachey. He ended up going to sleep. I brought the wash in but left it on the kitchen table because I didn’t have it in me to put it away.

I had been resting on the couch waiting for the clothes to finish drying and would have fallen asleep if I hadn’t set an alarm to go retrieve it. I ended up going back to the couch when I came back inside and slept until 1:30 at which point I moved back to the room with Zane.

For some reason his alarm didn’t go off at 6 like it should have. We’re lucky I’m a light sleeper and that I woke up when Danielle started moving around. That was around 6:20.

We had a good morning together. Both of us heading out the door right around 7. Him for work. Me for the gym.

I met with Terri and we talked about what I want to do, what my interests are as far as physical stuff, and even went through some of the machines I’ve never been on. I got to do the pull up machine. : D

Totally don’t care if I did bad or not. I’m still going to sit here and feel like a badass for finally getting on it.

I think the meeting went extremely well. We’re going to be meeting on Monday and Wednesday at 7:30 am. That will take up my last two free wellness meetings. The others I will have to pay for. But for $25 a session I’m pretty ok with that. That’s so much cheaper than what the LA Fitness cost would have been. And I really like Terri. She’s super nice.

So that is taken care of and underway. I ran a few laps around the upstairs track while I was there, then showered and headed to work. The sun was a little annoying at 8:30. It’s at just the right angle to glare directly into my eyes. Maybe next time I’ll hang out in the sauna for a little while, then shower. You know… just so the ride is nicer. : 3

I got to see Marcus this morning, which meant we finally got to talk about the cross stitch piece he wants to commission me for. He wants it to be a Christmas gift for his girlfriend. I told him I could have a design made up hopefully next week. That would give me a better idea of how much time it would take. That would also, hopefully, allow me to finish Clavan’s piece first.

I’m pretty sure I could get it done in time though. It would be my first commissioned cross stitch. : 3

I also signed up for my Warrior Dash. Like, it’s official. I’m signed up for the race and everything. No backing out now. >.<;

It’s mildly scary. But in a good way. I’ve already linked the event to my Facebook and one of my friends has already mentioned how he’s run a few before and if I had any questions to feel free to talk to him. That’s reassuring. I’m sure I’ll think of tons of questions as I begin wondering what I’ve really gotten myself into.

I’ve also talked to Zane about the groceries. He’s going to be getting this week’s groceries since technically he was supposed to get last weeks but couldn’t because his check didn’t come in on time. He’s also going to get next week’s groceries because he gets paid that week.

Since we get paid on opposite weeks that’s how we’re going to do the shopping, too. Who ever got paid buys food. I think that will make it easy for both of us to keep it straight.

I’m also thinking about having another bit of a spending spree. I need new shoes. I’ve needed new shoes for a while know and I keep putting it off. But with how much I’m biking, soon to be running, and all of this stuff at the gym… I can’t keep putting it off. So no matter what, new shoes are happening tomorrow.

I also want new bandanas. One of my current ones has holes in it because I wear it so often. And, again, with working out it would be nice to have a few that I can cycle through.

Those things I can justify, and I’m pretty ok with them as investments.

I also want to get a new helmet, and this is where I have an issue. I have one. It’s the helmet from Frank. It’s not bad, but it’s a skater helmet, and I feel sort of weird wearing it. I want a sporty, sexy, red biking helmet that makes me look like I know what I’m doing.

It’s lame. It’s shallow. It’s vain. I still want it. And if I don’t get it eventually I know that I’m going to feel like I’m being denied something and it will become a point of stress and contention in my mind.

Why, Brain? Why do you do this to me?

So I don’t need a new helmet, but I will most likely be getting one so I can keep feeling motivated and amped about everything I’m doing.

I’ve put $300 towards the card. With not having to pay for groceries that’s roughly another $150 I could push that way. I’ve paid $60 for my race. I’m going to be paying another $140 for my certification.

That means I have roughly $300 in “play” money that really ought to go towards my debt. Or… be spent on workout stuff. Not that I would spend all of that. The shoes alone would be roughly $100 though. I’m guessing the helmet would be around $50, but I honestly don’t know. The bandanas would depend on the ones I got. I like the $15 ones and I would most likely get two of those. Maybe three since I plan to keep one of my current ones, and I would like to have an even number because odd numbers are weird.

Arg. I need to think on it more. But… most likely tomorrow will be a bit of an expensive day.

I also have my lunch with Bre today, but I’m pretty sure we’ll end up going somewhere with a lunch menu, so it shouldn’t be all that expensive.

Anywho, that’s been my day so far. After lunch I’m going to go home and make some podcasts. Zane and I are going to go over the grocery list and take care of that. Saturday I have work from 1pm until 9pm so most of the day is shot. I’m going to try to get all of my play shopping in during the morning so I can have my gear for when I go to work.

Oh man. Biking to work with a new helmet. So much win.

Musing Moment 0069: Days 16 – 17

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Day 16 – Knowledge

Most of the time we need to have a little bit of extra information to complete our goals, especially if they’re personal improvement goals. Today Chalene encourages us to research. Find a blog, article, book, expert, something, that is related to your goal. Something that could help you get to where you want to go.

I started this a bit yesterday by looking for taekwondo podcasts. I think I’ve found a few that will work well, but I think I’m going to end up buying the book Sensei Mike recommended to me while I was going to the dojo.

I also want to get more information about the Warrior Dash. I think it would be good to keep reading and looking for tips and tricks for preparing for not only the race, but for getting in shape to begin with since I know I need to do more with my upper body and core.

I know I need to do a bit of digging around online and this is a reminder day to add those tasks to your to-do list. They’re just as important as everything else and deserve to be added into your day.

Day 17 – Reverse Engineering

This day has changed a bit. There’s more resources and such to go through than what I’m used to, which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that currently I don’t have the time to sit and do it. I didn’t factor this extra time into my morning. But it’s nice to see that the challenge is still updated and improved upon.

Reverse engineering a goal is a fantastic endeavor. A goal is really the summit of the mountain we are trying to climb. You can’t get to the top without taking all of the steps in between the summit and the base, though, and that’s what most people forget. You can’t instantly “poof” up to the top. You have to do all the work in between.

So… what is all of the work? What are the steps you need to take in order to get to the top of your goal?

That’s where reverse engineering comes in. Start from the top, then figure out how you got there. I suppose I really should do my research with the Warrior Dash first before trying to reverse engineer my goal of running one. I have a decent idea of what I ought to be doing, but I’m sure there’s more information out there that would help me along the way, or help me with steps I haven’t even thought of yet.

So I’ll most likely come back to this activity at a later time, but it’s good that I have it simmering in my brain. It’s helping to keep me motivated and excited. I’m actually starting to look forward to the race because I might not completely suck at it. : )

Daily Post 019: Is It Hot In Here?

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I’m mildly sunburnt right now. Which is frustrating. I don’t want to be warm. I want to be cool and to stop sweating since I haven’t been outside or really moved around for almost four hours now. I might try taking another shower just to see if that helps lower my core temperature down a bit. I’m literally sitting here in front of my computer with a giant blue gel ice pack sitting on my head, most likely looking completely ridiculous, but even with it I’m overly hot. And before you think that I’m over heating from not having enough water, I’m almost up to a gallon on my intake. I don’t know how much more water I can drink before my very being liquefies…

Other than the whole being too hot thing today has been amazing… and actually while I am writing all of this Trevor just came home and said that he felt warm too, and then looked at the AC and informed everyone that the AC is broken… wooo… at least it’s not just mean being a baby. So I guess we’ll figure that out tomorrow when I turn in the lease. Which, surprise! I was approved for the lease so we have a new lease papers for everyone to sign, and once it’s handed in I can get a parking decal for my car and not have to park forever and a day away from the apartment and worry every morning I wake up that it will have been towed away during the night.

And now everyone is out here around the kitchen table chatting up a storm while I sitting here trying to do my own thing… so I’m going to put this on pause so I don’t end up killing people since I can’t here myself think.

Intermission

Alrighty. Now that I can hear the voices in my head again. Today has been great even though I thought it was going to be awful when I realized I had left my phone and wallet in my car… which Zane had driven away with for work. How was I going to have music on my bike ride to work without my phone?!?! Queue worst morning ever from which the day shall not recover.

If only there were a way to keep my MacBook from going into sleep mode… To the Internet.

Me: Google. Is there a way to keep a MacBook from going to sleep when you close the lid?

Google: Why, actually there is.

Even though Apple hates us and doesn’t offer any sort of functionality like that through the OS, there is a program called NoSleep which will keep your laptop “awake” even if you close it down.

Further testing was required, but after finding some tracks to stash in my iTunes I was able to verify that I could indeed use my laptop as a stand-in DJ while my phone was MIA. Day saved!

With the most important aspect of my day figured out everything else seemed ridiculously easy. And, might I add, once again productive.

I’ve started dividing up my to-do lists into four sections: Pre-work, Work, Post Work, and Reminders.


Pre-Work
Roughly 8:30am – 12pm

I started by cleaning the cat’s pan because Zane ran out of time to do it himself. I had set some pinto beans to soak overnight, so when I made it out to the kitchen I put them on the stove to cook since that was going to be a few hours. I took the laundry out to the wash, cooked the rice for the curry we were going to have for dinner, as well as the Spanish rice I’ve kept meaning to cook for the burritos I have in the freezer. I unloaded the dishwasher, cooked my own breakfast finally, even remembering to take my blasted vitamin pill.

The wash needed to be switched by then. I wrote for my 30 day challenge as well as posting the abstract piece I completed for my class.

I looked into canceling the domain for my 3D Blitz event. I got an email from GoDaddy a few days ago saying the domain is about to expire and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t set to auto-renew, which it isn’t. I’m going to let it expire I think, at least for now. While I’m not using it I can’t really justify paying for it again. I do think I will be running the event again next year, though. I’ve had a several students over the past few months ask me about the event.

I looked up information about the Warrior Dash. There’s a race in Florida… in February. I’m not sure three months is enough time. : x

There’s another race in North Carolina in June.

I don’t know what to do. Having dates makes it seem more real. Is it bad to sign up for a race even if you might not be able to do all of it? Is there a “failure” group that I’m going to get tossed into where people talk about how I couldn’t make the cut? Is there a path of shame that I’m going to have to walk if I can’t do it?

I need to figure out what I’m really doing in that area. Knowing me I’ll most like pick the Florida race, not only because it’s here, but also because it’s closer time wise. The sooner I try to do a race, the sooner I can get over my irrational fear. Who knows. Maybe I’ll do both of them and Florida will be my trail run. I’ll have a better idea of what to expect for the next one and my nerves won’t be as stressed.

So good information, if a bit scary.

I packed the mounting board and cross stitch projects that I want to mail out so I could take care of that while I was at work and had access to a mat cutter. I put the clothes away while I had time to, cooked the green curry, then showered. This whole time the beans had been going and they still seemed a little underdone to me. After four hours? I have no idea what I did wrong since they were supposed to cook in two… But either way I didn’t have time to let them cook longer so it had to be good enough.

Work List
Roughly 12:30pm – 5:30pm

I biked to work, with music, clocked in, had my tuna lunch with water again though I stayed inside this time. It was warmer today without the breeze so the AC seemed nicer against my skin after the ride.

I checked my work email. My Leave of Absence is underway. Huzzah for less stress.

I talked to Frank about buying the crate he had for the bike. I’ve been wearing by backpack as I ride, but I would like to try to keep it as sweat free as possible, which isn’t going to happen if I continue to wear it during my commute. I would most likely want a net of some sort to go over the create as well. Frank said he would check out Amazon for me and get back to me about the price for the crate. I guess they come in sets of two?

Eh. I’ll most likely do my own search tomorrow since he didn’t get back to me about it today. We had a fair amount of questions in lab though, so I can’t really blame him. I took a second to go through all of my Skype contacts and delete the people I never talk to on there. Much like what I did with Facebook before deactivating it. I measured out my dimensions for the mounting board, then went to one of the art rooms to cut it.

So far three of four projects are done. I just need to write letters to go with them. : 3

While I was in the art room one of the students was really interested in looking at my work. We ended up having a fantastic conversation. She’s still a ways away from any of the classes I teach, but I gave her my contact information and said if she ever needed anything or just wanted to chat again to feel free to reach out to me.

With my cross stitch endeavors done for the moment I started working on the lesson one activity for the Shading and Lighting class. I already have a list of notes on how it can be improved as well as a two podcasts I want to make to help support it.

I ended up staying at work a bit late since I wasn’t able to complete the activity during the lab. I also wanted to take a look at what needed to be done to add the classes I have been taking to the Career Path system we use at work.

One of the things was knowing the start and end dates for all 13 classes that I’ve taken… Shoot me in the face now… The start date actually ended up being easy to find. I was on my “Grades” page. The end dates were a little trickier, but I ended up finding them through the school’s calendar.

I also had to calculate how many hours I spent on the class work. I decided to go with 80 hours per class. That’s 4 hours 5 days a week. That’s 80 hours less than what I really ought to be spending on my work. I’m not sure how accurate that needs to be in all honestly. I guess we’ll find out during my yearly review.

With all of that done it was time to head home.

Post Work List
Roughly 6pm – Now-ish-thirty

Zane was home by the time I got to the apartment. The first thing I did after saying hi to him was eat. It felt like I was starving. I also drank more water. I could tell I was a little sunburnt with how warm I was. I showered shortly after eating then watched the final episode for Arrow’s third season.

I took the time to call my mom since she’s back from Germany. It was a great conversation. I got to tell her about my vacation and all the stuff I got done. I got to tell her about Zane’s first few weeks of work and biking to school and the Warrior Dash. She got to catch me up on her end of things. And none of the conversation was about emo, depressing stuff.

Since then I’ve had some of the green curry for dinner. I’ve cooked bacon since Zane and I are going to be doing BLTs and I like having two slices of bacon with my egg in the morning. I’ve logged my rides on RunKeeper, and here I am writing my blog.

Everyone has signed the lease so I can hand that in tomorrow, get my decal, and find out what can be done about the AC. Trevor gave me the list of expenses for this coming month, which I’m going to continue to cover so Zane and put all of his first pay check towards his bike. That’s going to be next weekend. So much excite.

I still need to make my to-do list, and I would like to sit and cross stitch for a little bit since I actually haven’t stitched at all today, and I’m a little wired still.

Tomorrow is a day off where I’ll have the apartment to myself. So much space and quiet and alone.

I will be biking to the bank to get a money order for the expenses, but I plan to do that shortly after waking up so it’s still cool outside, at least as cool as it gets in Florida in the middle of October.

So I guess I’m going to go, that way I can enjoy my night. I feel like I’ve earned it, what with getting 40 things on my to-do list done.

Musing Moment 0063: Figuring Out My Dash

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Day 8 – Breaking it Down

Today we’re supposed to take our uber push goal and break it down into a battle plan. What’s the next, most immediate step that needs to be accomplished? What research needs to happen? What calls need to be made? What things need to be purchased or obtained? Do other people need to be involved?

Basically you brainstorm out the whole thing so your actions become clear. The goal seems less daunting because it’s not just random ideas floating around inside our heads, it’s clear actionable tasks that can get done. You have your road map so all that needs to happen is to execute it now.

Well… with my goal of completing a Warrior Dash, there’s not really much that needs to happen as far as steps go.

Step 1: Find workout routines
Step 2: Do them
Step 3: Sign up for race
Step 4: Run race
Step 5: Feel like a badass

Seems pretty straightforward to me. The main thing with this goal is that it’s more time oriented. It’s not going to happen over night. It’s not going to be completed in the next month.

I guess I should figure out when I want to run a race, what would be a realistic time frame, and then set my sights on that date. Right now it’s just a nebulous, “I will run the race sometime,” but that doesn’t give me anything to really strive for. I don’t have a deadline to push myself against.

So finding routines to help with training, and then finding the race I want to run. Those are my next steps. Possibly finding high protein meals as well since I’m going to be doing more strength stuff than I have in a while…

Ok, ok… so there’s a lot of things that I can add to my battle plan for this goal… That’s the whole point of this, though. Thinking about what it’s actually going to take so I can set myself up for success.

Workout routines, training time frame, and meals. Off I go to consult the all mighty Google.