That's Fit

Tomorrow is the New York City Marathon. Tomorrow is the day I knew was coming for a while now, and one I've for which I've been trying to prepare myself.

Unlike approximately 38,000 others, including my husband, I will not be running in the marathon. Instead I will remain with our seven month old son and perhaps scoot on down to the avenue in Brooklyn where all the runners travel.

Most of this was my choice. Actually, ultimately it was my choice. At some point along the way training for the marathon became too much. I had a new job and a new baby and my sense of family was being thrown askew with every additional minute I was out of the house. In addition to that, after I hit nearly fifteen miles at a pop I realized I didn't have it in me to do more.

Perhaps if I'd not just had a baby or not been breastfeeding and so focused on my new family I would have done better, tried harder, etc. There were times when I was so tired I couldn't go any further, times when stomach cramps frustrated and stopped me dead in my tracks.

Now that I've lightened up on the ever-so-intense marathon training schedule, I've started to enjoy running again. You know, running for running's sake.

There is a strong opinion among many that one should never run merely for the sake of running. One must always be setting and achieving goals, then setting bigger goals. One must be racing or going a further distance or doing more hills or some such thing.

Well, not me. Today I just ran for the heck of it. And it felt great. The only downside was the realization that I stretched out my favorite long-sleeved running shirt while I was preggers.

Actually, it was good timing that I loosened the reigns on the training schedule when I did. This past week I became sicker than I have been in years. To make matters worse the baby had a little something too, so we were sick together. Needless to say he was in a better mood than I was. He still got all the attention he needed, while I had to carve yet one more thing out of my life by not being able to run.

As people, and later, as parents, we set many goals for ourselves throughout our lives. Many of these goals are met and subsequently replaced by newer, often grander goals. We enjoy challenge in our lives--it makes us faster, stronger, smarter--kind of like the bionic woman.

But sometimes, every so often, a goal takes on a life of its own. Sometimes it becomes too large and looms out there in front of us as the golden carrot we will never reach. These goals become so enormous and encompassing (especially as we use all our energy to strive to meet them) that everything else gets left in the shadow of that giant goal.

And most of the time it's those smaller things, and the smaller goals, that are just as if not more important than the big goal.

When I first decided to run the New York City Marathon it was really for no good reason. I'd never wanted to run it in the past. I never had that strong desire that haunted my dreams. I enjoyed running, liked being fit, that kind of thing. But never once did I say my dream was to run a marathon, let alone the biggee in NYC.

Sometimes I think I just can't do this anymore. I can't run one more mile, take one more step. I feel like my legs are made of stone and my feet hurt so much they might explode out of my running shoes.

This normally happens towards the end of a run, when I know I have more miles to go and am no longer comfortable running. I've never been a competitive runner, so for me, to feel comfortable when I run is key.

But not always. Sometimes I hide in my comfort and forget to challenge myself. I enjoy a challenge almost as much as I enjoy comfort. Yet there are times when the challenge seems overwhelming. I can't make it up the hill, or around the park one last lap.

Then I start to think about all the other people in the park. Some of them are going through the same thing--struggling just to make it a few more yards. I start to think about the people who can't even make it to the park, those who can't run or literally can't take another step.

I think about an inspiring picture I took from last year's NYC marathon of a man hauling it down 4th Avenue in Brooklyn who had no limbs. He was kicking butt and having the time of his life. And he was working very, very hard. He'd worked so hard just to get to the marathon--I can't even imagine what it must have been like the first time he got on one of those machines and got going just using his arms.

Two weeks ago before a ten mile run I posed the question of whether running made me a better mother. Well, ten (actually more than that, say sixteen) miles and a lot of hills later I am here to report on my findings.

I'd been worried about the increasing time away from my son spent doing self-centered things like running up hills to help me lose the baby weight and train me to run the marathon--a dream that was never really mine in the first place, but that fell into my lap via the lottery last year before I got pregnant (and won a lottery of a totally different kind!).

I'd been worried about all the emotions that came up when left with all that time to myself. My voice was the only one who answered me when all those awkward questions about what I was going to do with my life now that I was a mother, and needed to DO THE RIGHT THING came up, along with all the emotions of having to move on, to let go, to live. Well, there was my voice, the inner voice, but there was also the answer of the pavement.

I could hear my footfalls like a steady heartbeat--tap, tap, tap, tap. My feet lightly tapping the road as I gingerly made my way around the park. And again. And then a third time. Boy, that was a LOT of miles. After a while I stopped remembering which lap I was on--I was so caught up in my emotions I'd lost sight of the fact that I was getting sore and tired.

Physical pain--say, giving birth or running a marathon--I've realized is nothing compared to emotional pain. The former I can deal with no problem. It ends, one way or another. Emotional pain is different. It can overcome you. You can ignore it, bury it, deny it--but it will always be there. And it will haunt you.

Do you ever feel like your life is an Eagles song? I do. Pre-baby it was "Life in the Fast Lane." Once I ad the baby it became "I Can't Tell You Why." Now, as I prepare for the marathon of motherhood, a new job and the actual NYC marathon this fall, it's "The Long Run."

I'm finding that I'm spending more and more time out of the house, and less time with my son. It's not just the job and the desire to do a few small things for myself--I finally got a haircut this past week, then we went to a concert in New Jersey--it's all the running.

A schedule for my husband, my baby and myself that worked out well in the beginning is in need of some major adjustment. When I started running again a few months ago, I was out of the house for maybe a half-hour. Now, in August, I'm running seven miles at a time, and am out of the house an hour and a half. The plan is for more... much, much more.

Despite the heat and overwhelming humidity I ran nearly six and a half miles last Saturday. Today I will attempt to run over seven. I am, folks, living proof that you CAN get back into shape, even if you haven't run in a year. That's right--I stopped running sometime in June of 2006...I think. In fact, once I started running again it had been so long that I could no longer remember when I'd stopped.

To aid me in my quest to get back into shape, this week I bought new running shoes. For me, running shoes are the bane of my existence. I have a total love/hate relationship with such shoes. I need them to speed me along my course, to protect me feet and to give me a little extra bounce when I need it most (which, er, is always, especially these days when I'm carrying a little extra weight around).

I hate them because they never ever fit. I have horribly hard to fit feet. Or, at least, I thought I did. I need a wide toes box because the balls of my feet are rather wide for my otherwise slender foot. My ankles are ridiculously small so I need something that basically latches onto my Achilles tendon so the shoes don't slip.

Somewhere in the land of time before I got pregnant I spent what seemed like hours with a very helpful, professional young man who was a runner himself and who was more determined than I was to find me the right shoe. Previous to my encounter with him I'd spent the same amount of hours online trying to track down the same shoe I'd been running in for years, which, it turned out, even though I thought they were a great fit, were not right for my feet.

I'm not so sure that I would call it a vacation, per se, but I did recently take a ten day road trip with my husband and new baby to see both our families. We rented a car and went from Brooklyn, New York to Cleveland, Ohio, down to Louisville, Kentucky (my home town), back up to Delphi, Indiana, on to somewhere in Pennsylvania and then back to New York City.

The entire event was mind-boggling. Trying to juggle dealing with an infant, spotty directions, managing an SUV (and gas) and seeing all our friends and family really put a damper on our efforts to exercise.

That said, I did get a few runs in, all of them in Louisville. There is a one mile track all the way around my parents' neighborhood that I ran around over and over and over. It was so repetitive that at one point I forget where I was and thought I'd gone a lot farther than I had; turned out I had just decided to go the other way for a bit of variety. Sheesh.

I knew going into it that it would be difficult to find time--and places--to run on this trip. Since we were spending so much time in a car, which we're not used to doing, we got less time in walking as well. We sat and sat and sat and sat some more. We tried not to eat too poorly but there were times when we had to eat something and the only thing around was fast food joints.

This is pretty sad. I am just now getting to the point where I can post what I've written below. Between being a mommy, taking a road trip to see the families, taking the kiddo to the doctor twice about a face rash and trying to get my life in order (I recently got a new job) I've had precious little time to exercise, and even less time to write about it!

That said, and without further ado, I would like to point out that although it's been, er, steep, I have kept running....

The hills in Prospect Park are alive...with the sound of my grunting as I shimmy up them. I wouldn't exactly say I run up these hills, but I'm not walking either. It's tough getting back in shape after a baby, and these hills are a constant reminder of that.

Still, progress has been made. I am able to get up the hills, even the big one that is such a nemesis we've given her a name, Sheila. Sheila has three curves to her, the third of which is hidden until you make it to the top of the second curve, which is also the steepest. What's interesting to me is that Sheila is my enemy no more.

First there was the whole foods diet. Then there was the low-carb craze. Then eating organic was all the rage. And I'm sure you've heard of cage-free, free range and grass fed. Now there's eating locally. Well, eating locally isn't exactly a new concept--after all, farmer's markets have existed probably as long as farms, but it finally seems to be catching on as a dieting trend.

So what exactly does it mean to eat locally, and what are the benefits? I mean, we've all seen farmer's markets, perused their offerings and even occasionally indulged in some of their maple syrup candy and apple cider but what does eating locally really translate to?

"Local" is defined as anything within a hundred miles. That makes for a lot of possibilities in terms of food options, depending on where you live.

To me, farmer's markets were always the opportunity to get a little something different than what you'd find at a local supermarket. I know the one in Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn used to house a woman we referred to as the Cheese Lady who always had THE BEST cheeses anywhere. She had this one spicy white cheddar with horseradish in it that was TO DIE FOR. Sadly, at some point she took her wares elsewhere.

We here at thatsfit.com periodically post blogs on how to torch calories, as well as the importance of more out than in to lose weight (and keep it off). Generally those posts involve things like walking your dog, taking the stairs or visiting a colleague instead of calling rather than the every day ho-hum of jogging or doing sit ups. Today I've discovered another list of how-to options for burning calories, and reading it was almost as fun as some of the list's offerings.

This list, titled "100 Ways to Cut 100 Calories," compiled by Women's Health, offers a fresher approach to burning calories. While everything on the list may not be realistic (check out the one for slathering on lip balm) it's at least humorous, and does remind us that everything we do burns calories and can be put to use in our fight against the fat.

For example, as mentioned in the title of this post, you can fly a kite for twenty minutes to burn off 100 calories. That sounds both realistic and fun. If the kite gets away from you and you have to chase it down that might afford you some additional calories torched.

As you may remember, I've been trying my darnedest to get back on the running track. For the past two weeks or so I've really been kicking it into high gear. See, I kept getting these emails in my inbox alerting me as to how many days I had left until the New York City Marathon, a race in which I was entered at first solely by luck, and now by determination.

As anyone can imagine finding the time to run with a new baby is difficult at best. Lucky for me I have a great husband who is as committed to fitness as I am and who is willing to sacrifice some of his running time for mine. Generally speaking the baby is OK with my periodic trips around the park although he mentioned to me he can't wait for me to invest in a jogging stroller. After all, the whole time I was pregnant I hoofed it around that park, and baby misses our trips together.

So everything should be going super well, right? Well, mostly it is, but one thing has been plaguing me more than an old boyfriend, and is equally unsuited to my style: cramps. I am no stranger to cramps; in fact, they've haunted me since I first got serious about running way back when.

Have you ever heard the stereotype about women being desperate for commitment? That stereotype used to really bother me a lot, especially since I was totally independent and never felt I needed anyone to be whole. Now that I am a little older and a lot wiser (I hope), and certainly a lot more fit, I wish that stereotype were at least partially true--but probably not in the way you think.

See, when I was about twelve years old I got tired of being the pudgy kid no one wanted to pick for the kickball teams. I wasn't obese or anything but I wasn't even able to make it around the block. And I was tired all the time. And bored. If I had been in better shape I could've played sports with all the other kids, and probably would've liked it.

When I was twelve I made a commitment to myself to get in shape and to stay that way. It has been twenty years since I made that commitment and I've held to it. I've smoked, I've eaten for therapy, I've lived off spaghetti, I've done it all. But I always came back to fitness. I always reminded myself that no one else was going to give me the body or the lifestyle that I wanted but me. I couldn't hire someone to run those miles or eat that salad. Nope, it had to be me.

With summer imminently approaching, and in some places already in full-swing, now seems like a great time to get the skinny on just how fattening food served at carnivals and street fairs can be.

Before I even read the article posted on eDiets I had a sneaking suspicion that elephant ears, which are basically fried dough, were perhaps not the most nutritious of snacks. In fact, I pondered if a low-fat, low-cal option even existed at fairs. Water, perhaps. Maybe cotton candy, although that's made of sugar.

It turns out, according to this article, anyway, that many foods I suspected were not so good for me aren't. I also learned that there are a few options for those of us out there trying to make the most of our carnival experience without all the fat.

For starters, cotton candy is basically sugar and food coloring. While you should be concerned about the amount of sugar you consume (some experts estimate it's over --- pounds per year per American) you needn't worry about fat, trans or otherwise, when eating cotton candy. What makes me more nervous about cotton candy than the sugar is the dye used to color it. Remember that rule about not eating blue food???

Well, looks like those Omega-3s have done it again. Every time I turn around it seems yet another study has been conducted on the benefits of consuming foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. Recent studies have linked Omega-3s to heart health and possible weight loss. The article du jour covers a study comparing the eating habits and blood pressure of over 4500 adults.

As one might suspect, those participants who consumed foods containing Omega-3s had slightly lower blood pressure. Although that might not seem significant, Dr. Hirotsugu Ueshima of the study was quick to point out that "With blood pressure, every millimeter counts." He added that the effect of the Omega-3s was cumulative. According to Dr. Ueshima, "The effect of each nutrient is small but independent so together they can add up to a substantial impact on blood pressure."

Foods such as fatty fish, walnuts, flax seed oil and canola oil all contain Omega-3 fatty acids. It was noted in the article that consuming such foods along with a limited salt and alcohol consumption and avoiding weight gain would make a big difference.

High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, can lead to stroke, heart failure, heart attack, failing kidneys and loss of vision.