One Summer, Three Life Changes

I had every intention of consistent blog posting after Henry’s birth and I probably could have managed it. For whatever reason, I have been gifted with the ability of strong habit maintenance whenever life gets stressful. Not that Henry has been too stressful — I have been lucky to have for my first child a chill baby, but you know what I mean. But add on to that a cross-country move and preparing to start a new job, and well — life has been, well, rather full at the moment.

Doing the touristy Jo’s Coffee picture. 

We’ve been in Leander for two and a half weeks. Our mattress is still on the floor. Henry is still sleeping in the pack and play. The bookshelves finally went up this week (priorities!) and about half of our belongings are still in boxes in the garage. We still have not found a CrossFit gym. My runs are still more walks than runs. And mainly I feel like I am starting completely over and things still just do not fit (especially my pants!).

Henry, aggressively happy amidst the detritus of unpacking. 

Still — the kitchen is unpacked. I did my first week of meal prep for dinner and lunch this week, trying to ensure good habits before the school year begins. Henry and I went for our first “run” together yesterday. We managed to make it to mass downtown on Sunday, even if we failed to find parking afterwards to walk the boardwalk on Lady Bird Lake. I am loving the H-E-B’s (not Heb’s!) curbside pick-up for grocery shopping — definitely makes life much easier. I love planning for class. I love not having the pressure to write a dissertation anymore.

I told Bruno I was not sure I wanted to continue with this blog anymore. I was not sure I had the time or will have the time when the school year begins. When it comes to living here, when it comes to life now, I want to start how I plan to continue — whether that is with running, food prep, bedtime routines with Henry. For the past few weeks, I was not sure that blogging had a place in that “continue” part.

Bruno suggested that I try once a week, explaining I did not want to waste all the writing, all the posts I have already put out here on the blog. And so, taking his suggestion, I will try to keep at it, once a week.

I need to remember that I am in a transition period right now. As things start to settle, a routine will develop. Life eventually will develop some normalcy, some rhythm. Living in the Austin-area, full-time teaching, and most importantly, being a mom are still all so new to me. Eventually they will not be so new. Eventually Henry will sleep through the night. Eventually I will be able to run longer than four minutes at a time and will feel confident on my bike again. Eventually this place will be home.

 

 

 

 

Monday Miles : July 1 – 7, 2019

Well, I started running. I only added a minute of running for every four minutes of walking. It is a small step. A minute feels like nothing. But it feels big in that I have not ran for months and here I am starting to make my way. In some ways, I have a lot of hope. I am thinking about goals, especially now that I have a baby — what is possible, especially time-wise. But in other ways, it feels like I am starting completely over. Again. I fear I will never get faster, never go longer, and just stay in a sort of stagnant state, never improving. A little dramatic, I know.

I also did my first actual CrossFit work-outs this week. Yes, that is plural : work-outs. I did a rowing wod on Friday and joined for a partner wod on Saturday. Both days hurt in a good way. But I was happy to be sore in that just had a hard work-out way on Sunday. It felt good. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to start adding more weight yet. My core just still does not feel that stable. It feels stable for what I’m doing, but not more.

I’m hoping for a few last visits to my first and always favorite crossfit gym before we leave on Friday. We said a preliminary good-bye on Saturday and that was hard enough. I am going to be very sad for the official good-bye on Thursday.

Other than that, this week’s work-outs will probably be a little sporadic. We leave on Friday, so the main work-out will be packing and getting things in the truck and u-haul.

7 – 1 : Walk – 20 minutes, 1.17 miles.

7 – 2 : Walk/Run – 25 minutes – 4 minutes walk, 1 minute run – 1.63 miles. 2 x 15 bridges, 2 x 30 clam-shells.

7 – 3 : Rest.

7 – 4 : Walk/Run – 25 minutes – 4 minutes walk, 1 minute run – 1.64 miles. Bridges and clam-shells.

7 – 5 : Crossfit (!!!) – Rowing intervals. 1000m – 4:20 (this might be a PR for me); 500m – 2:16; 250m – 1:05; 500m – 2:20; 1000m – 4:40. So — yeah, this hurt. I’ve never been much of a sprinter and I was hoping to do a little better on my 500s (my last one, I was super pregnant and did 2:02). Still — it was a good way to see where I am and try to keep pushing forward.

7 – 6 : Crossfit (!!!) – Partner PK. Bruno was my partner. It was nice to work out with him again. 5 x 10 back-squats using 10 lbs. dumb-bells; 10 dead-lifts using a 35 lbs. kettle-bell; 400m run. All the weight stuff was heavily scaled, but I still felt it on Sunday. I ran every single one of those 400m. 1.31 miles (according to my watch).

7 – 7 : Walk/Run – 25 minutes – 4 minutes walk, 1 minute run – 1.74 miles. Bridges and clam-shells. Lots of stretching.

Totals : CrossFit – 2 hours; Walk/Running – 1 hour 53 minutes, 7.5 miles.

Onward!

July 2019 Goals : The Year of 1% Better

If you’re new here, I declared 2019 the Year of 1% Better. Here’s a list of all previous goal posts.

January: Goals | Outcomes

February: Goals | Outcomes

March: Goals | Outcomes

April : Goals | Outcomes

May : Goals  | Outcomes

June : Goals | Outcomes 

I wanted to write this up yesterday, but Henry was not too keen on the idea of taking naps during the day. Nor was he too keen on sleeping this morning, but I guess that is to be expected from a one month old! So quickly — before he wakes up now, I’ll share my goals for July.

This month feels chaotic. We move next week Friday, so even though I’ve been working on class prep, I also have been packing and organizing. I donated a large amount of clothing and books. We do not want to bring a lot of furniture down, so we have someone taking our dining room table and couches so we can begin again. Even still, I have a few things I would like to work on for this month.

Begin to run again. I plan on easing into this. I’ve been consistent with my walks, but I’d like to slowly start adding some running to those walks. I started on Tuesday — I walked four minutes, ran a minute. I felt ok. It felt very clear to me that it had been a long time since I’ve run, but I also did not experience any pain during or after. It was just uncomfortable. Slowly, I plan on adding on to the minutes, but for now for three of my weekly walks I would like to add some running time. 

Read a chapter of a book non-work related daily. A lot of my reading lately has been in preparation for the fall, mainly American history. But I want to make sure I get in some fun reading too. Ideally, this year I would like to read one novel and one nonfiction every month, but that might be a little much for me to start on. For now – just a chapter a day. I’m currently reading Isabella: Warrior Queen right now. I don’t know much about the Spanish monarchs, but this has proved to be very interesting.

Daily Angelus. I’m pretty good at morning prayers (well, at least when Henry is napping). I have some coffee and that is usually the first part of the day. The rest of the day is usually iffy. I’ve tried to incorporate more throughout the day (like a daily rosary), but I can never keep up with it. Here’s to starting small — this month I’d like to say an Angelus later in the day either around noon or later in the afternoon.

Once again — just some small things. I think preparing for teach has provided me with a great deal of my goals and to-do’s for now. I’m really excited about teaching this fall, so that is fine. But as usual — I do want to make sure I have a few things to work on.

What are your goals for this month?

 

 

Monday Miles : June 24 – 30, 2019

And so finishes four weeks postpartum. Two more to go until I start running again. Not that anyone’s counting… And yes, I plan on taking it very, very slow.

Suddenly it got hot in Michigan! So hot that I am starting to wonder how I am going to handle the Texas heat in two weeks. I’m still walking outside, but I wonder if that will continue when I head South. I suspect the dreadmill…I mean treadmill…and I will become close friends for the exact opposite reasons I used one in Michigan. Even with it being the eighties up here and spending only twenty minutes outside, I return to the house drenched in sweat.

I made my first post-pregnancy visit to CrossFit last week too. Admittedly, I wanted to do the workout. It was body weight, so I figured it would be fine. Thankfully, my coaches are smarter than me and to the rower I went. Still — it was nice to be back and the rower was a nice change from walking outside.

For the most part, I’m feeling good. I still have about eighteen pounds of baby weight to lose. I gained forty-five pounds total, a good half of that disappearing in the first week postpartum. I’m trying not to care too much about it and focus instead on what I can do, but it is hard not to think about those numbers sometimes. Also, I would like to not have to buy new jeans. Just saying.

Here are my miles for this past week. This week I’ll start walking twenty-five minutes and hopefully will get another rowing workout in.

6 – 24 : Walk – 15 minutes, .8 miles. Romwod.

6 – 25 : Walk – 20 minutes, 1.24 miles. 2 x 10 : pelvic dips, bridges, clam shells.

6 – 26 : Walk – 20 minutes, 1.22 miles. 2 x 10 : pelvic dips, bridges, clam shells.

6 – 27 : Walk – 18 minutes, 40 seconds, 1 mile. Joined in for the warm-up at CrossFit. Row – 5k – 26 minutes, 45 seconds.

6 – 28 : Walk – 20 minutes, 1 mile.

6 – 29 : Rest.

6 – 30 : Walk – 20 minutes, 1.1 mile. Romwod. 2 x 10 : pelvic dips, bridges, clam shells.

Totals : Walk – 1 hour, 53 minutes – 6.36 miles. Row – 26 minutes, 45 seconds – 3.15 miles. All work-outs – 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Onward!