Thursday, July 20, 2017

Berlin Marathon Training Week 13 - Week 26







Blogger's Note:  


Due to daily life being busy, I had a lot of my weekly marathon update written in blog draft form.  Specifically  Berlin Marathon Training Week 13 - Week 26, all remained unpublished.  Until today! Week 13 is finally done!

Week 13 photo documentation

Instagram Story edits, helped me a lot keep track!

Beginning this week: Week 27, I will be regularly publishing training updates once again, every Monday.  Week 14 - Week 26 will be edited as time becomes available but I would like to finish them before my 6th RUNniversay (in 19 days!). Basically, I have at least a day for each unpublished blog draft.

Often, when I go back to piece together my own story/documentation, I can no longer recall why and how I did, what I did. hahaha ;)

This is  the original reason, why I started blogging after all: to remember and never forget! :)

The dates of the blogposts will  be the dates , they were created in draft form. I'll be publishing them with annotations (such as what you are reading , now! :D ) mainly to avoid confusion in the future!  

Specially if lots of time has passed in between; I've learned not to trust my own memory and simply write everything down. 

If you would like to read through/back from Week 13 until Week 26, you can find these posts under the tag:  



They (a total of 14 blogposts) won't show up all at once because I am still in the process of (20.07.17: 1 published blog!) finishing each post.  



It is always about the links, the notes for specific training days (thoughts/epiphanies  I had during the run, which I don't want to forget!) and my struggle to let go of my perfectionism, which makes it longer for me to publish!



Anyway! Taking a much needed rest  (from blogging, social media, training), and what I did during those breaks helped me a lot regain a more positive, productive attitude.  I've re-learned how to look at and approach everything with simplicity.  I hope my renewed energy, positive attitude, my never ending quest to simplify will continue on as I write my future blogs.

Week 27

SUPER happy, after being ill 4-5 days, a recovery/tempo run!
This was the first time I ran once again from the marina in Naarden,
starting from where our sail boat lay at anchor.

P.S. to Celebrating 172!

Once again to avoid confusion, even though I will be adding a total of 14 blogposts ("old unpublished draft post", which will be preceding (since they will be published on dates they were written in draft) the celebratory 172 published blogs, I still will count them as published after 172.

My apologies, I am confusing you, dear readers! :D  

It is simply a process of completing my Berlin Marathon training documentation.  One of the mini-goals of this 2017 marathon adventure, I am trying to achieve!

Celebrating 172! blogpost has been titled as such, so it is easier for me in the future to keep count of the blogs I will publish thereafter.


Celebrating 172!

This post was originally published 
on the Facebook Page 
of Happy Feet in the Netherlands.

07.07.13

This image was shared for the first time in this Running Fish with a Right Brain




#TBT Story. 

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions."
Abraham Joshua Heschel

On the 17th of July, 2017, I published my 172nd blogpost, here in Happy Feet in the Netherlands: SimpliFLY Summer.

The blog has been created January, 2012; this was 6 months after I began my adventure with running.

First blogpost was published 15th of January - it was entitled: Starting Line 

So today, 20th of July, 2017, I would like to start a daily TBT to celebrate a documented running life, and countdown as well my upcoming 6th RUNniversary (8th of August!).

Yes, it is 19 days of looking back, on how I focused on moving forward with the help of running and blogging.

If you are a long time follower of my blogging (since 2006!), let me know what Happy Feet in the Netherlands' blogpost(s), particularly left an impression on you. I would be delighted to hear from all of you!

Today's tbt post, is written last October, 2014: Turning My Kryptonite To My Super Powers

The blogpost was originally an entry to a contest to win a TCS Amsterdam Marathon starting number. SPOILER ALERT: I won! There was a plot twist, though. Read (again) to find out! 

The photo is a TBT as well. It was taken on the 7th of July, 2013. It was the month I got my Morton's Neuroma (injury). This was why I ran for the first time on the beach. I wanted so badly to continue training and running barefoot was the only way I could continue running.  

What I LOVE about blogging is I am reminded of things I could not believe I did! Here, I was off to run what in the end will be 16 km of barefoot running on the sand. Phew! I forgot the distance I ran! 
 

What I will always remember, thought was how much fun I had and how I forgot about stressing over the goals, that was slipping slowly away from me.




20th of July, 2017
09:58 

Monday, July 17, 2017

SimpliF(L)Y Summer!



I love this photo of M.
A  beautiful Summer memory.



“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” ― Jack KerouacThe Dharma Bums

Monday



Finally a blog update after two months of silence! :) How has your Summer been, so far?

Before I continue, my apologies for those, who visited my blog last Saturday, and did not see any published post.  I am not sure if somebody even :D noticed that  I wrote about my going back to "regular blogging" in my Instagram profile:



print screen of
@happyfeetnl
17.07.17


Plans


It was my intention to start posting blogs every Saturday.

Writing that intention in my Instagram profile was a way of making a commitment.  If or when somebody read it, did not really matter but the act of putting it "out there" is enough for me to prepare myself mentally and have something challenging to do, to look forward to.

Unfortunately, I felt unwell around Wednesday and by the start of the weekend, I was ill. So, Saturday evening I changed  Saturday to Monday as the day of my blog updates. My obsessive mind was soon put at ease!

Normally, you see, I would give myself a hard time about plans not getting accomplished as I envision them.  I would further on obsess mentally about the fact, that when I make plans, they go awry.

Yes, I have learned to be more flexible and less awful to myself!

Before I even became a runner, I've contemplated a lot of times on NEVER ever making any more plans in my life because plans going awry was more of a constant than plans going according to schedule and how I envision them.

It is against my nature, though; I have to make plans! I need the structure, the anticipation, the energy making plans gives me.


After receiving a Garmin watch, as a gift from a friend,
I made plans to use it as a tool to sit less and move more.
The goal was humble: 1000 steps a day.

The number of steps was not the main goal; it was the consistency of moving daily.

SimpliF(L)Y!


Why did I "ramble" on about plans of resuming blogging ;) instead of diving into the update of my marathon training?!

9 weeks and 5 days to go!!!

Well, it is because in the process of training for my second Berlin Marathon, I went through significant transformations: mentally and physically, which made me happier and life feel so much lighter.

Mondays, making plans, and simplifying are just some of the topics that I would like to get into before I share the statistics and details of my marathon training.

These topics are things I had difficult issues with my entire life, and now I am getting better at them.  Significantly. All because of my marathon training.

I won't get into all of these topics on this blog! It will be too much for a single post.

One major thing I can share right now about my Berlin 2017 marathon training: the process has thus far been very rewarding; it  continues to make me happy and I can't wait to run the marathon in September.


Quote


Let me direct your attention once again to the quote at the beginning of this blog. 

If you are a long time reader, you know by now that I almost always start my blogposts with a quote.

I have 5 reasons for this:

1. I love collecting quotes and my blogposts are my way of archiving them.

2. Quotes are my meditative mantras; searching for a  "quote for the day" puts me in a positive mindset, before my day has even begun.

3.  The words in the quote  I chose for particular blogposts gives me something to focus on, when I write. The message behind the quote often makes me feel more centred and confident in writing the message, I would like to convey.

4. I always hope, that reading the quote at the beginning of a blog post gives my blog readers a clue about what my blog is going to be about or gives them the emotions behind the message I am trying to convey.

source: Google Images

(Daily) Blogging & Simplifying


Simplifying life has always been my personal goal and more so, ever since my second daughter was born 15 years ago.  The weight of motherhood seemed daunting the second time around.  My way of coping with situations I feel will be challenging is to either write my feelings about them or find solutions by reading a book(s)!

the book I bought in Germany
on the 5th of July, 2002
a month before my second daughter was born
(28th of August)


In 2011, 2 years after we moved to the Netherlands, I created the blog "My Daily Mooosings in the Netherlands" .  I wanted to document our "new life".  I also wanted to hold myself accountable to my goal of simplifying life.  I did this by focusing on the positive things in our lives, and by writing those thoughts in blog form rather than in my journals.


Week 26

Mixing it up a bit: I began the week with an LDR-
LOVED it!
17.9 km run
10th of July

I  have yet to accomplish a 365 blogging project in my 11 years of blogging (my blogging life began September 2006, as an anonymous blogger). 



Blogging about my marathon training (even if I have most of those blogposts in draft mode - currently 14 posts unpublished -  from my marathon training 2017 !) and how I have been dealing with the setbacks, have given me back the zest for blogging, I somehow lost or lose periodically.

I am contemplating on embarking (yet again!) on a 365 blogging project. Making plans...

The difference this time is, it will be a daily celebration of recording life, versus the process being a personal challenge (i.e proving to myself, I can do it!).  We will see, how it goes. ;)

from my Instagram Story
10th of July, 2017



Training for a Marathon 


The adventure of running 42 kilometres, the preparation, helps me simplify my life, the life I share with my beloved family.

M and I were photographed by the official graduation photographer while taking a photo of J.

Eldest after her graduation from middle school!




It truly lifts my spirit high to look back at 26 weeks of work I have put into Berlin marathon training -including the ups and the downs marathon preparation brings.

I soar with the thought, that almost 6 years after I made the plans, that I will run the marathon  in Berlin 2012 in my 40's, I am still running 5 years, later. I am confident, that I will continue to be a runner for many more years to come. As long as I am physically able to.

Week 15
My second medal in 2017

26th of April


Week 17

8th of May

Week 17

9th of May


Week 12

My first race in 2017

2nd of April

 OH, the Stats!


If you can no longer wait ;) 😄for future blogposts to see some marathon training stats, here you go! :D

I am truly proud, 22 days to my 6th RUNniversary, to share the mileage I have ran.

It is incomplete because I was not able to keep the records of my running statistics from August 2011 - August 2012.  Nevertheless! This fact, tiny detail in the big scope of things, does not diminish my sense of accomplishment.

January - July 2017




I began training for my first 5K on the 8th of August 2011

It was not until August 2012, a month before I was to run Berlin Marathon that I won a Nikeplus Sportswatch.

This watch was the first ever gadget, that helped me record my running statistics.

August 2012 - July 2017


P.S. Keep On Keeping On


Thank you, if you made it this far. :) I hope you did.

I hope, if you have been a regular reader, that you will take "hope" with you, after reading this post.

Hope for things to  get better. Hope that you can accomplish a lot with small continuous, consistent steps.

There has been extreme highs and extreme lows in my life.  I can tell you now with confidence, life goes on and it gets (yes, it always eventually does!!!) better, the more we all exert a little bit more effort to try to get to the next day.

Writing, documenting life, running, they are my tools to cope & at the same time celebrate life. You can choose your own tool. We all have what it takes to overcome life's hurdles and challenges.

I wish you luck! Hopefully, I'll "see you"again, here. Soon!


My last Instagram Story for July, 2017!

I used it to announce my blogging come back.

CORRECTION on the day and dates!

It'll be every Monday: on the24th & 31st of July.

We'll see how it goes for August.