Weekly Reads: The Dead Moms Club

One of my favorite actresses, Casey Wilson, mentioned The Dead Moms Club: A Memoir about Death, Grief, and Surviving the Mother of all Losses on her podcast several months ago. As a member of the super shitty club herself, I was excited to pick it up based on her review. It was amazing. I may be slightly biased as Kate Spencer's mother also passed from pancreatic cancer, so there are portions of the book that were so eerily similar that it gave me goosebumps. But this book is basically the entire conversation that I would like to be able to sit down and have with my friends who have also gone through this experience, except I'd just cover myself in snot and tears and not get out a single comprehensible word. Someday that might change, but for now, this felt like that conversation I've been dying to have.

Of course there were tears, but more than anything there was just so much, "yes, this. exactly this." as I felt like someone actually GOT IT. I, too, want to stand on a table when I'm having a particularly rough day or week or month and say, "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND MY MOM DIED?!?!" because that's how I feel. I would recommend this for anyone who has gone through a loss, but especially those that have lost their mother. I want to buy a million copies of this and just pass them out as time goes on. I don't want anyone to join me in this super shitty club, but man, it's only a matter of time until that happens right? Because that's life. Uff da.

My rating: 5 snotty, tear filled stars with a side of 5 snot filled laughter stars

Summary from goodreads:

Kate Spencer lost her mom to cancer when she was 27. In The Dead Moms Club, she walks readers through her experience of stumbling through grief and loss, and helps them to get through it, too. This isn't a weepy, sentimental story, but rather a frank, up-front look at what it means to go through gruesome grief and come out on the other side.

An empathetic read, The Dead Moms Club covers how losing her mother changed nearly everything in her life: both men and women readers who have lost parents or experienced grief of this magnitude will be comforted and consoled. Spencer even concludes each chapter with a cheeky but useful tip for readers (like the "It's None of Your Business Card" to copy and hand out to nosy strangers asking about your passed loved one).

February in Review

Total Miles:  120.14 up from 102.37 miles  last month.  41.8 miles last February. 2/12 months of 100+ goal--check!

Total Time:  20:05:05 up from 17:17:04. 

Total Runs: 17 runs, for an average of 7.07 miles a run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

2/19/2018 – 2/25/2018:	39.1 mi	6:35:18	10:07 / mi

Most hardcore run: 8 miles with tempo portions, solo, in 25-35 mph winds AFTER I had just gotten over an insane cold. Where's my gold medal??

Favorite run: 13.1 miles with Toni through snow and ice. The miles flew by. Like insanely fast.

Favorite Race: Frostbite 4 Mile.

Favorite Jam: Tegan and Sara's Every Chance We Get We Run. Still. 

Spring Half Marathon Training Week 5

Monday Planned: Recovery  5 miles 
Monday Actual: Recovery  5 miles in our first day that felt spring like. Toni and I were basically giddy on the entire run. Total goofball runs with the excitement. Also we dressed alike without planning it which gets us an A+ to start the week.

Tuesday Planned: 5 miles with strides. 8x100
Tuesday Actual: 5 miles with strides. 8x100. Another day, another matching run. Hah. We got in some strides and the miles flew by.

Wednesday Planned:  GA 4 miles
Wednesday Actual: We actually snuck in 4.2 miles because I was really close to 120 miles for the month and I didn't want to short change myself. Ha.

Thursday Planned:  GA 5 miles
Thursday Actual: GA 5 miles, solo. Womp. We broke our identical streak because Toni had some stuff going on with her family and had to head back to WY. I was in such a big hurry (and was bummed I didn't have my buddy) so no picture after.

Friday Planned: Rest
Friday Actual: Rest.

Saturday Planned: GA 9 Miles
Saturday Actual: Long run 9 miles with Melissa. Toni was out of town, so Melissa and I met up for the long run. I was shocked by how many frozen icy/slick spots there were on the out portion. Neither of us was feeling great. Luckily once we hit the turn around, Melissa got some water to drink, we flew back toward the store on our way back.

Sunday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Sunday Actual: 4 recovery miles in all the wind.

Total Mileage Planned: 32 Miles
Total Mileage Actual:  32.71 miles

Weekly Reads: They Both Die at the End

I absolutely love love love Adam Silvera. He always writes the most amazing teen books, full of romance and sadness and strong LGBTQ characters. He may be in my top 5 favorite teen authors. The premise of the book is perfection. The execution was a little bit slow for me. Or maybe I just took it slow because I knew "They both die at the end" and I wasn't ready for that to happen? I don't know. It's a good read, but not my favorite by the author.

My rating: 4 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Adam Silvera reminds us that there’s no life without death and no love without loss in this devastating yet uplifting story about two people whose lives change over the course of one unforgettable day.

On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.

Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day. 

Clothes Buying Freeze 2018

In early January, I read an article about a woman who didn't allow herself to buy any clothes, shoes or accessories for an entire year. 

First thought: That's crazy!
Second thought: I wonder if I could do this.
Third thought: I should totally do this.

I love clothes. I love workout clothes, I love running clothes, I love yoga clothes, I love to look nice for work, I love to look nice on the rare chance that Kyle and I go out, I love to look nice when I'm on vacation and take thousands of pictures.

I am employed by a running store for goodness sakes! I see their cute clothes every single week at least once, if not 2-3 times. There have been times that I've gotten paid to teach yoga and left with $0 in my pocket because I've been eyeing an item all month.

But, last year, I did a huge purge of items--stuff, junk, clothes sold and donated. And it really helped me think about what I purchased, for the most part. But at this point, I don't need anything. I have more running clothes than a human could need or want. I have so many cute clothes for work for all the seasons, and shoes as well. Nothing nada.

So I should be able to do this, right? I recruited Toni to be my sponsor, but within the first week she bought a jacket. Fail.

I created a set of rules for myself to follow: I can buy something if it's a necessary replacement item (ie: bra,  I'm on the verge of not fitting in my one pair of jeans, so those might need to be replaced, and a warm winter running jacket as mine is an XS from 7 years ago, and rides up over my belly every time I run). Additionally: I received some gift cards from friends and family to 605 Running Co. for Christmas and my birthday, so those can be used on whatever. I also anticipate needing some new running shoes as mine cycle through with too many miles. But a J Crew sale? Nope. A Modcloth frenzy on dresses? No ma'am.

I'm two full months in, and it's been....challenging. There have been some cute things that I almost bought without thinking until my brain reminded me that I wasn't buying clothes.

And just so you don't think I'm just saving this money, don't you worry, I fully intend on using the money to decorate our house. We've lived here for almost 2 years, I think it's about time it looks like it!

Meditation Practice

I have very important news to share: I've started meditating again. Cue applause as well as balloons and confetti falling from the ceiling. I used to have a very strong meditation practice. While doing yoga teacher training I fell in love with the peacefulness that my meditation practice helped me achieve. I would meditate almost every day anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes depending one what I could squeeze in. I quickly learned that even a short meditation is better than no meditation at all.

But when both of my parents got sick, a time where I should've clung to my meditation practice, I stopped completely. My anxiety was through the roof, and I could not sit with my breath without my mind spinning out of control freaking out over what the future had in store for my family. Ugh. Not fun.

After my mom passed away, I started meditating again, sporadically and it was paramount in helping me move through the grief process. In the past few months I've kick started my meditating to bring it back with consistency. Oh, how I missed it dearly. My favorite part of meditating, for me, is that doing it regularly gives me a moment or two to pause before reacting to something or someone. I'm an incredibly reactionary person by nature. And it's one of my least favorite qualities about myself. I really appreciate my brain giving me just a couple of seconds to inhale, exhale, and think before I react in a way that I might regret. Being an adult is hard, man.

I know a lot of people feel like they can't meditate because they a) don't have time and b) can't clear their mind of thought. Well, as I've been reminding myself over and over lately, even a few minutes will help. I've started my day with meditation during the work week, and it kick starts my day in a really great way. One of my teachers recommends sitting up when your alarm goes off, hitting your snooze button and just sitting with your breath for that 7 minutes it takes for your alarm to go off again. Give it a try! I hate the snooze button. My husband abuses the hell out of it, so I never ever use it. So instead, once he gets out of bed, I set my timer for 10 minutes and meditate away. After really cold runs, I often find myself in an epsom bath for a good 20-30 minutes. Instead of spending the whole time scrolling through my phone, I listen to a 20-25 minute guided meditation. Bliss. So just making small pockets of time really helps and adds up over time.

Also, no one can clear their mind of thought. That's really not the point of meditation. If we all waited until we were masters at clearing our mind to even start meditating, none of us would ever start. Ever. Instead, no that going in to a meditation that things will come up. Thoughts will pop up. A to do list might form. You might have a SUPER EXCELLENT AMAZING SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM YOU'VE BEEN STUCK ON. (That happens oh so much to me, and I love it.) The trick is to acknowledge that your mind is wandering, pause, and then commit back to your breath. Even if you're incredibly forgetful, I promise you'll remember the super amazing solution to that problem you've been stuck on after the meditation is over, and surely your to do list will still be there as well.

I've been using the app Sattva for years. It's a free download to most phones. There are guided meditations, some challenges and badges, and it keeps track of your meditation minutes for you if you're into that sort of things. It has beginner guided meditations and music to stream in the background, and just a plain ol' timer if that's what you want. I've heard good things about headspace as well, but have stuck with Sattva so far.

Who's with me on the meditation?? Get started and let me know how it's going for you.

Mental Toughness W

It seems like we've yet to complete a long run that hasn't been on snowy icy roads. Oh wait, that's because we haven't. The roads/sidewalks/trails have been in varying conditions of #winter for all of February and we've just made the best of it.

During our 12 mile long run, I had the chips stacked against me. First of all, Toni was out of town, so I had to recruit a new running buddy. Secondly, I was teaching yoga in the morning, so I had to make sure that I hydrated and fueled properly so that I could run after it. And third we woke up to surprise snow. What's surprise snow? You might ask. Well that's 2-3 inches of sparkly powdery goodness that was on not a SINGLE G.D. WEATHER FORECAST. Surprise! It snowed.

I remained optimistic as I knew the sun would be out and it would be warm for the run. In fact prior to the surprise snow I had been counting down the hours to my long run because of how perfect the weather looked for the run. Finally I could have a strong long run! Surprise! g.d. it.

We decided to try the bike trail, hoping that it had a chance to melt off by 1pm. We jumped on and it was beautiful. Clear, melted, a little windier than I expected but it felt great. And that lasted for one half mile. And then we encountered the unplowed portion of the bike trail ie: the entire rest of the bike trail save for that singular half mile stretch. We stuck with it for about 3.5 miles, feeling like we were running on the beach in a Baywatch episode, except a lot more clothes and supportive chest gear.

We made a game time decision to deviate from the trail and head to some residential areas. My running buddy energizer bunnied ahead of me, taking us through some insane hills on the east side of town. And after we had hit our 4th one that also was snow covered, I was moments from a temper tantrum. We had a quick powwow and then opted to run toward the center of town to a residential area we were both familiar running in, hoping that at the very least we could run loops around the road.

Now let me remind you of a run a couple of months back when Toni and I were supposed to do speedwork at the track, and it was such a mess that I ran one mile and called it a night. Remember? It was one of my more proud running moments. Well since that point, I have had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with myself, vowing to become a bit of a stronger runner mentally. Taking a breath, a pause, and figuring out a solution before immediately jumping to a reaction. Sometimes my anxiety flares up in this way that it's just easier to quit and be done with it. I HATE that.


We had to run a giant hill to get to the area of town we were going to. And on many many unplowed sidewalks, and through giant frozen melted puddles of water through intersections. But when we got to where we were going, we could finally settle in, figure out some loops and get the run done. It took until mile SEVEN of this long run to actually enjoy running. That's a long damn time to be struggling and suffering. But when I realized this, while still running, I also realized that I had stuck with it and kept going. Which is not something Jeri from a few months ago would've done. And that's some progress to be proud of.