Changing for Good.

That's me!

Greetings, readers! I am still working on my Hawaii post. In the meantime, though, here's something completely different. Yesterday, I had the lovely experience of being a guest preacher at Pasadena United Methodist Church. My sermon is below. Two notes:

-The book I reference in this sermon is Changing for Good by Drs. James Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente. There's more about the book in the sermon. For now, I'll just say that I highly recommend it to both clinicians and laypeople and you can buy it here.

-In this sermon, I talk about how to help a loved one who is having a problem and/or engaging in destructive behaviors. I advocate being patient with them, but I want to make very clear that "being patient" does not mean tolerating any kind of abuse. Take care of yourself first! 

Luke 16:19-31

19“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— 28for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Changing for Good

I was thrilled when Pastor Marshall asked me to preach here and I’m very happy to be with you today. But I’ll be honest: I wish I had been here two weeks ago. If I had been here two weeks ago, I could have preached on the parable of the good shepherd. I would have loved to preach about the good shepherd. Who doesn’t love the good shepherd? Instead, I’m preaching on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man- a story that makes me miss the good shepherd! The good shepherd is a story I can get behind. This story leaves me scratching my head. It’s obvious what we’re supposed to think. We’re supposed to know that Lazarus and Abraham are the good guys here, and the rich man is the bad guy. But by the end of the story, I feel a little confused. 

Yes, the rich man does a terrible thing. He witnesses the poverty and suffering of Lazarus day after day, right at his own gate, and he does nothing. The rich man has more than enough resources to care for himself. He wears fancy clothes and feasts every day. Surely, he could spare something to help his poor neighbor. Even worse, he knows that God wants him to help Lazarus! He knows the stories of Moses and the prophets, which are very clear about our responsibility to people in need. 

Every time that the rich man sees Lazarus and doesn’t help him, he commits a serious sin. So, we can’t be surprised at what happens after he and Lazarus die. Lazarus goes to be with Abraham, and the rich man is punished. What surprises me is what happens next, when the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his 5 brothers and convince them to change their ways. To me, this sounds like a reasonable request. When he asks about his brothers, the rich man isn’t trying to escape punishment. He realizes he made a terrible mistake in his life and he doesn’t want his brothers to go down the same path. I would think Abraham and Lazarus would want that too. If the brothers change, they will be saved from damnation after death. But even better, they could help countless needy people like Lazarus while they are still alive. Wouldn’t that be good for everyone? When I first read this story, I felt bad for the rich man and frustrated with Abraham. Why can’t Abraham send someone to talk to the rich man’s brothers? 

Then, I thought about something that happens to me at work all the time. I have training in pastoral counseling and I work as a therapist. People come to me every day to talk about their own personal problems, but they also tell me a lot about other people’s problems. My clients tell me about their mothers’ money problems, their fathers’ alcoholism, their siblings’ stubbornness and their childrens’ bad relationships. My clients care about their families and friends and they suffer when they see their loved ones suffering. Many of them want to help, but they don’t know how. Sometimes, a client will ask me if I can talk to their loved one for them. They say things like “You’ve helped me so much and you’re a professional. They won’t listen to me, but I’m sure they’ll listen to you!” Sometimes, my clients take out their phones in the office so they can make a call, right there and then.

I want to help my clients as much as I can, but in those moments I have to be a little like Abraham. My experience and my training have taught me that most people don’t welcome an unsolicited call from someone else’s therapist. Therapy can be helpful, but it works best when people choose it for themselves. My clients find me helpful because they chose to work with me and we have a relationship. To their family and friends, I’m just a stranger. It’s unlikely to help if I call them, and it might make things worse. 

When my clients ask me to talk to their loved ones, I have to say no. I tell them it wouldn’t be appropriate. People are often frustrated with this answer, and I don’t blame them. I have my own family and friends, and I can relate to wanting someone else to make a change. When we care about someone, its hard to watch that person struggle or make a mistake. Its natural to want to do anything and everything that might help. Have you ever watched a friend or family member struggle with an addiction, or a bad habit, or an unhealthy relationship? Situations like these test our relationships like nothing else. We wonder whether or not we should say something to the other person. We struggle to find the right words to express our concerns. We don’t know if our loved one will listen or get angry with us for meddling. Even if the conversation goes well, we don’t know if it will make any difference. All too often, when we take the risk of confronting a loved one about a problem, it doesn’t seem to help. Our loved one doesn’t make the change we want, and we wind up feeling hurt and frustrated.

Abraham voices a difficult truth in this parable, which is that change is hard. We can’t force the people we love to change, even when we have their best interests at heart. We can’t even force ourselves to change. How many of us know we need to exercise more, eat healthier, or budget our money better? Sometimes, we have all the reasons in the world to make a change and still find it difficult. 

Therapists like myself have known for a long time that change is hard, but we haven’t always been very understanding about it. We see clients every day who say they want to change, but struggle to make it happen. Not long ago, we were taught that clients who don’t cooperate with therapy are being “resistant” or “avoidant.” The conventional wisdom was that those clients just weren’t ready to change, and that we couldn’t do much for them until they got ready. Many of us believed that a person had to hit “rock bottom” before they would be ready to change. We were a lot like the rich man in the parable: we thought that something big and dramatic would have to happen to convince a person to change their ways for good.  

Of course, there’s a big problem what this attitude: it doesn’t help people. If I tell my clients that I can’t help them until they are ready to change, what are they supposed to do? How can they get ready? Fortunately, some very smart doctors and therapists have been working on this very question. I took my sermon title today from this book, Changing for Good. Changing for Good is a book by three psychologists who did a study of 1,000 people who made big life changes on their own. Some of them quit smoking or drinking, some of them lost weight and kept it off, some of them overcame problems with spending or gambling. The authors of Changing for Good studied how they did it, looking for lessons about how to help people change. This book and a few others like it have led to big changes in how therapists and other helpers treat people with problems.

The biggest idea to come out of Changing for Good is the idea that change happens in stages. Most of the time, big changes don’t happen the way that the rich man in this story wants them to. Most people don’t have big, life-altering experiences, see the error of their ways, and change right away. Instead, most people who change go through a long, slow process. It starts when a person has a problem, but doesn’t realize it. It continues as that person becomes aware of their problem, decides they want to do something about it, and figures out what to do. If the person succeeds in changing, they might spend the rest of their life working to maintain that change. Throughout the process, it’s normal for a person to make mistakes, fall back into old patterns, and have to work to get back on track. 

Once we understand that change happens in stages, we have a better idea of how to help someone change. When clients come to me with problems, my job is to figure out where they are in the change process and how I can help them get to the next stage. If a client comes to me and says she wants to quit smoking, but doesn’t know how, then I can help her research ways of quitting and coach her as she tries them. I have a very different job if she tells me that her kids and her doctor want her to quit smoking, but she wishes they would leave her alone. In that case, I need to help her think about what her doctor and her kids are telling her and consider that they might have her best interests in mind.

So how does this affect the rich man and his brothers? What can we do when we see someone in our lives headed down the wrong path? How can we help our brothers, sisters, parents, friends, or children change? 

First and most importantly, we can talk to them. In our parable, Abraham doesn’t believe that the rich man’s brothers would change, even if Lazarus rose from the dead to confront them. I think he’s probably right. As dramatic as it would be to get a message from a spirit, the rich man’s brothers don’t really know Lazarus. I think it would be much more meaningful if the rich man could talk to his brothers himself. Many people who successfully change say that concern from their loved ones helped them realize they had a problem. If we are concerned about someone we love, we should go to them and tell them what we notice about their behavior and why we want them to change. We should offer to help in any way that we can, whenever they are ready to accept help. 

Then, we need to be patient. Sometimes it takes a long time for the words of concerned family and friends to make a difference. In Changing for Good, one of the authors shares the story of a man named George, who came to him for therapy. George had many problems in his work and his relationships. George was also an alcoholic, who was in deep denial about his drinking. The therapist listened to George tell his story for a few weeks, and then gave his honest opinion. He told George that he was never going to solve his problems if he continued to drink. George didn’t like that. Instead of quitting drinking, he quit therapy. Four years passed. Then, to the therapist’s surprise, George came back. He said that he had been really angry when the therapist told him to quit drinking. But it had made him think. Then, over the next four years, other people in George’s life confronted him about his drinking too. Over time, he started to realize that the drinking was hurting him. When he decided that he needed make a change, he went back to the very therapist who first confronted him about the problem. They started working together and- slowly but surely- George turned his life around.

Just as we have to be patient while we wait for our loved ones to recognize their problems, we also have to be patient as they try to change. We have to understand that change is hard, and our loved ones might try and fail many times before they get it right. In church, we have special words for this: forgiveness and grace. 

I experienced a little of this just the other day. My husband and I are both people who used to be sedentary. We always knew we needed to exercise in order to stay healthy, but we had a hard time doing it. Then, we each went through a process of changing our behavior. Now, we both go to the gym on a regular schedule. We have classes that we like to take every week, and friends and trainers who expect to see us. But, like many other people who have changed, sometimes we fall back a little. Recently, we took a 2-week vacation. When we came back home, it was hard to get back into our early morning gym habit. For 2 weeks, we planned to go every day, but didn’t make it. This past Thursday, we missed one of our favorite morning classes, and I felt really guilty. So guilty that I resolved to go to the gym that afternoon after work- no excuses. So, I went, and guess who I ran into at the front desk? Our trainer from the morning class. Our trainer who hadn’t seen me for a month. I didn’t even let her say hello before I started apologizing and making excuses. But after a minute, she cut me off and said “I’m just happy to see you here now.” I remembered that comment the next day, when I didn’t feel like dragging myself out of bed again. If she had acted angry or chastised me, it would have been easy to get defensive. Instead, she welcomed be back with patience and understanding, and that made me want to get back on track.

Being brave enough to confront our loved ones about their problems can make a huge difference. So can offering help and being patient as they go through the change process. These are all things that any good therapist or doctor would do. But as Christians, we can do something else: we can pray. We can pray for our loved ones as they deal with their problems, and we can pray for ourselves as we try to help them. We can ask God for strength, courage, patience, and grace- all of the things that it takes to make a big change. We can seek counsel from a pastor or pastoral counselor. And we can trust in the good news we heard two weeks ago: that God will search for those who are lost until they are found. Yes, it is hard to change and just as hard to help someone else change. But we never have to do it alone. 

Amen.   

While you wait.

I've been back from Hawaii for about 3 weeks now, which is almost exactly how long I've been working on a blog post about the Kauai marathon. There's a lot to tell. I'll finish it soon, I swear, but while you wait, please enjoy this video. Its a promo for the 2014 Kauai marathon, but the footage is of the 2013 race. It captures the race really well. If you listen closely, you can hear me snickering when Dean Karnazes talks about how marathons take "a long time- 3 or 4 hours." I wish, Dean!

Month of Mayhem, part 1: IronGirl Columbia and the A10.

Aloha! I'm writing this from the saddest place on Earth- the airport, leaving Hawaii. Over the past week, Andrew and I celebrated our (belated) honeymoon ran a big race! On Sunday, I ran the (brutal) Kauai marathon and he did the (also challenging) half-marathon.

 

The view from one of our morning runs.

 

I'll write more about Hawaii and the marathon later, but first I should explain that Kauai was leg 3 of what I have dubbed by “month of mayhem.”

What is a month of mayhem? That's what happens when a normally organized person like myself signs up for a bunch of late summer events independently without plotting it all out on a calendar. Then, when she does look at a calendar, she sees this:

Sunday, August 17^th: Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon

Sunday, August 24^th: Annapolis 10-mile run

Sunday, September 1^st: Kauai marathon

Sunday, September 8^th: Iron Girl Rocky Gap Triathlon

Oops. Just in case that wasn't enough fun, I had my little wisdom teeth debacle (see previous post) which nixed a few key training weeks. So, I headed into this month poorly prepared and fairly scared. Fortunately, with three events down, I can say- so far, so good. Here's the report on legs 1 and 2:

IronGirl Columbia

When IG was my first tri in 2011, I was terrified and prepared really well. Two years and four additional tris later, the fear is gone. While its nice to line up at the start without my heart pounding, I could use a little of that fear back as a training motivator! I went into this year's event fairly well prepared for the run, moderately prepared for the swim, and poorly prepared for the bike. Not surprisingly, my race performance corresponded with my preparation (or lack thereof) in each area.

 

No fear here!

 

I posted a better swim time this year compared to last year, but felt like I struggled more. I just couldn't hold the proper form, which meant I had to work way harder than I should have. The good news, though, was that I never had a moment of feeling afraid or like I might not be able to finish. Having experienced that feeling in pretty much every other tri I've ever done, it was a relief to have some confidence!

 

Forcing a smile for the camera.

On to the bike! This year's bike course was pretty different from previous years. Going in, I had some vague hope that “different” might mean “easier.” That hope was promptly dashed. The new course was every bit as challenging as the previous course. On one particularly difficult hill, a very kind biker on a road bike passed me on my hybrid-with-a-broken-lowest-chain-rig and said “I honestly don't know how you are doing this on that bike.” It was a nice boost and made me feel good about all the time I spend lifting weights! Still, this may prove to be the ride that pushes me to finally buy a better bike.

SO HAPPY to be near the finish!

I went into this year's run resolved to take it easy. Knowing I had three more events to go this month, I didn't want to push it and wind up super-fatigued for days. I ran when I could and walked when I had to. It was my weakest run performance in this event, but I still pulled out a sprint at the end and felt fairly good overall.

As usual, the best part of IronGirl was seeing lots of my local athlete friends. I started the morning with my friend Christin from the Wonder Women group:

 

Making our coaches proud.

I also saw several other Wonder Women and a few friends from the Striders. This year, I was most excited for my grad school buddy, Jaquisha. Jaquisha is an accomplished runner and all-around great athlete. I always knew she was capable of doing tris and encouraged her to give it a shot. What I didn't know, though, is that she's deathly afraid of water and swimming. This year, she decided to try IronGirl anyway. She spent months with a coach learning how to swim and bike. She told me she cried at nearly every swim practice. Nevertheless, she pushed on and made it to the start line of IG.

As soon as I finished my race, I was dying to know how Jaquisha had done. I thought there was an 85% chance that she blew through everything like a champ and finished an hour before me, a 10% chance that she struggled in the water but made it and kicked butt at everything else, and maybe a 5% chance that she had major trouble on the swim. I found some ladies from her charity team and asked about her. They told me that she finished the swim, but spent over 2 hours in the water and was at risk of not finishing the bike course within the time limit. I was simultaneously terrified for her and deeply impressed. I was so worried that she might not finish in time, but so amazed with her for pushing through on the swim! I am not a quitter, but I think I may have given up on the swim after an hour. Pushing through for over 2 hours is simply remarkable.

Andrew and I weren't able to wait for Jaquisha because we had to get home for a friend's party. So, as he drove us home, I frantically hit “refresh” on the IG results being posted. Finally, I saw Jaquisha's name- whew! I was thrilled for her and she was thriled for herself. Way to go, friend!

The A-10

Regular readers of this blog will know that I was the victim of an apparent A-10 curse in 2010 and 2011. My luck started to turn in 2011, when the race was cancelled, but I met my future husband on what would have been race day. Then, in 2012, the curse was broken when my then-fiancee ran the race with me. I am happy to report no curse activity in 2013! In fact, this race was fairly uneventful.

Given all of my training hiccups in recent weeks, I've been doing my long runs in run/walk intervals. (I'll write more about that soon.) This isn't my usual way of doing things, but its been working for me. For this race, though, I really wanted to run the whole thing. Even though I planned to run Kauai with intervals, I had some psychological need to prove to myself that I can still run 10 miles with no breaks before marathon day. Andrew took a saner approach and worked in some intervals. Judging by our finish times, intervals were the right choice!

I wasn't trying to PR in this race. I knew I had no chance of approaching the 10-mile PR of 1:41 that I set last year. All I cared about this year was coming in under 2 hours. I pulled that off (just barely) with a time of 1:57. Andrew was a different story. He knocked 14 minutes off his time from last year to finish in 1:56. Even more amazing, he went from finishing 19 minutes after me in 2012 to finishing 1 minute ahead of me in 2013. I'm a competitive person by nature, but I can't help being thrilled for him. Way to go, husband!

So, that's the report on legs 1 and 2. Stay tuned for race reports on Kauai and IronGirl Rocky Gap!

From Down and Dirty to Dog Days.

Since I last wrote, Andrew and I have done three races and I hit one major training snag. Here are the updates!

The John Wall 1-mile race

On Saturday, 7/20, Andrew and I completed the Striders' annual 1-mile race, which is the 4th leg of the Champ Series. This race is always challenging because it comes right in the middle of marathon training season, ie: the part of the year where I focus on running long and slow. Being asked to go fast all of a sudden is tricky. I have to try, though. I know some marathon training friends who simply run this race at their training pace in order to get credit for the series, but I always try to push a little harder.

This year, Andrew and I were joined by his younger brother Marquis, who was dealing with the opposite problem. Marquis is a recently-graduated high school track star, but he's used to running races measured in meters. A mile is a long distance for him.

This race is run in heats by expected finish time (over 12 minutes, 10-11 minutes, 9-10 minutes, etc.). Runners select their own heats. I always try to pick one where I expect to be challenged but able to finish within the allotted time. Two years ago, that was 7-8 minutes. This year, it was 9-10- a couple steps down. Andrew, on the other hand, moved up. Last year, he ran 10:33, but this year he knew he could do better and also chose the 9-10 minute wave.

Our heat started and Andrew and I ran neck-and-neck for the first two (of four) laps. Somewhere around #3 though, he pulled a little ahead. I tried to maintain my pace for lap #3 and speed up to catch him in lap #4, but it didn't work. He finished in 8:50 and I came in at 8:57. Considering that I ran 8:11 in this race two years ago, I was a little bummed about my time. Still, I was relieved that I managed to stay under 9 minutes and thrilled for Andrew! He had no idea he could run a mile in under 9 minutes and was really excited about it.

Two waves later, it was time for Marquis to run. It was pretty exciting to track him through his four laps and cheer as he went by. He finished in 7:30, which I think is a slow day for him. Andrew and I were still impressed!

Down and Dirty

The very next day, Andrew and I did another race: the inaugural Merrell Down and Dirty obstacle course 5K. I have wanted to do an obstacle course race for awhile now, but I was still very nervous going into this event. Having scrupulously studied the course details online, I was pretty sure I knew where my strengths and weaknesses would be. 5K trail run? No problem! Crawling through tunnels and other low obstacles? Easy. Push-ups? I love them! Wall and cargo net climbs? Uh-oh. Despite all of my weight lifting, I still find climbing challenging. I also seem to have a slight fear of heights that only comes out in activities like climbing. I have no problem standing on a 30th-floor balcony, but climbing a 10-ft. tire tower scares me half to death.

Going into this race, Andrew and I decided to forego our usual pattern of running our own races and stick together for the whole thing. Several friends who had run obstacle course races told us that sticking with friends is the way to go. We also learned from them that you need a good "before" photo, so we took this one:

Before.

The race went off in waves to try to minimize congestion around the obstacles. We chose a later wave and wound up in a pretty small group. The first few obstacles were no big deal for me: a low-crawl, a short water crossing, and a climb over some inflatable logs. The first climb was pretty easy too: it was basically fence with plenty of places to grab on. Still, I was impressed with how fast Andrew got up and over!

Then came the real climbs. First, there was a 20ft. cargo net over the top of an inflatable slide. This was pretty easy, but it was the first place that the fear of heights kicked in. When I got over it, my heart was beating so fast that I had to take a walk break to slow it down. After that, we reached the obstacle I had worried about the most: a climbing wall. Mercifully, they had lower options for those of us who were climbing-impaired. Andrew scrambled over one of the taller walls in a second and then helped talk me through the lower one. It took several failed attempts to even get up on the hand and foot holds, and I briefly considered giving up, but finally I made it!

Once we finished the climbing wall, I had conquered my biggest fear and thought it would be smooth sailing. I wasn't counting on the "Monster Climb." I had seen this photo on the race website, but didn't think it looked very scary:

Scarier in real life.

When we go to this, though, I realized I had underestimated it. It involved climbing up about 10ft, then across some netting, then up a few more feet, across again, and then back down the other side. Once again, Andrew scrambled over it like a monkey. I, on the other hand, took it one step at a time with my heart pounding, thinking about how badly I might hurt myself if I fell. Eventually, though, I made it!

We completed our final obstacles in view of Andrew's family, who took some pictures. First, we climbed the "slippery mountain":

I'm all the way in the right-hand corner.

This was a little greased platform that you ascended by pulling yourself up a rope. I impressed myself by zipping right up, but then got a little stuck at the top. Thankfully, Andrew was there to help me get up and over. Then, we headed for the mud pit:

As gross as it looks.

As far as obstacles go, this was an easy one. The real challenge was getting over the grossness of having mud everywhere, including in my mouth and my eyes. After that, we crossed the finish line and got our "after" pictures:

Dirty enough?

 

 

My dog-tag medal.

All in all, this was a very fun event and I'm glad I did it, especially because it pushed me out of my comfort zone several times. I am also very glad that I had Andrew with me for support and cheerleading!

Tooth Hiatus

The week after the Down and Dirty race, I had all four of my impacted wisdom teeth removed. When I scheduled this procedure, my surgeon assured me it would be no big deal and I would probably only need a couple days off work. I took four just to be safe (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). The surgery went smoothly, as did the first few days of recovery. By Sunday, though, things started to go downhill. By Monday, I was in awful pain, which continued for several more days. I wound up being out of work for that Thursday and Friday, plus the entire week afterward.

All of last week, I was in a great deal of pain and semi-sick from the combo of pain pills and barely being able to eat. The most difficult part of the whole thing, though, was frustration. First, I was frustrated at my surgeon. When I called for help with the unexpected lingering pain, he just said "Well, back teeth are difficult. This isn't unexpected." (Why didn't you tell me that in the first place???) I was also frustrated to be sitting around my house for days on end, staring down many long-standing to-do list tasks and feeling too sick to do them. Finally, I was frustrated and worried as I watched the days until my next marathon (9/1) tick away, with me too sick to work out. Which brings us to...

The Dog Days 8K

My original plan for this past Saturday was to run 18 miles. By the middle of last week, I was questioning whether I would be able to run at all. This was worrisome for two reasons. First, I need to get long runs in to be prepared for my marathon. Second, I was scheduled to run the Dog Days 8K on Sunday, which is the 5th leg of the Champ Series. Being halfway through my fourth year of running the whole Champ Series, I did not want to lose my IronMan award over some teeth!

On Saturday morning, Andrew headed out with the Striders for his own 14-mile run. I gave myself a couple additional hours to sleep off the pain meds (which are still imperative at night) and then joined him toward the end of his run. My goal was just to see what distance I could handle. It was rough, but I wound up covering 5 miles, which was enough to reassure me that I could do the Dog Days (which is just under 5 miles). Andrew and I both spent the rest of the day recovering.

Sunday morning, we set out for the race and I felt lousy. Once we got going, though, it wasn't so bad. I passed Andrew in the first 2 miles, but he caught me in the 3rd and held onto that lead through to the end. He finished a little over a minute ahead of me and 8 minutes ahead of his time from last year! I posted my worst time in this race so far, but it barely registered. I was just relieved to have finished in under an hour and to know that my IronMan award remains secure.

So, now I am continuing my recovery and trying to get in whatever training I can manage for my upcoming tris and marathon!

ActiveLink update.

Back in April, I wrote a blog post about getting started with the Weight Watchers ActiveLink. I won't re-hash all the specifics (read the old post for those), but here's a quick recap: ActiveLink is a monitor that you wear every day. It records all of your movement and assigns you WW Activity Points based on your whole day's activity. For the first 8 days that you wear it, it assesses your normal activity and then assigns a 12-week challenge based on your current activity pattern.

I am currently in week 10 of my first challenge, and I must say that I LOVE this thing! Based on my assessment, my original goal for week 12 was to earn 4 activity points per day. I was sick during my assessment and less active than usual, so I initially thought that goal sounded easy. WRONG. Turns out that earning 4 activity points on days where I have a race or tough cardio workout is very easy. Earning 4 activity points on a regular workday with no cardio workout is very, very hard.

I have tried everything: cleaning more, taking the stairs, walking to talk to co-workers. The only thing that gets me to my goal on a regular, non-workout day is getting home early enough to go for a walk with my husband. (Or, as others might call it, getting in a workout.) The reality is that I do a fairly sedentary job and spend a minimum of 90 minutes per day commuting. That is a whole lot of sitting time. Want proof that most of us sit too much? Get yourself an activity monitor. Within 2 or 3 weeks, I was already considering fairly drastic lifestyle changes to cut my commute and increase my activity. I'm still thinking about making those changes in the long term.

In the short term, I'm just being more diligent about getting workouts done, especially cardio workouts. Knowing that I will plug in my ActiveLink at the end of the day and stare at a big fat "0" is often enough to get me to the pool for a quick swim or convince me to go for that walk at the end of the day. In fact, by week 4 or so, I was doing so well that ActiveLink suggested upping my challenge to 5 Activity Points per day. I gladly accepted!

10 weeks in, I haven't totally succeeded in achieving my goal of spreading out my activity throughout the week, but I am doing better. ActiveLink builds you up to your challenge goal with smaller goals in the early weeks. In the first week, I was struggling to meet my mini-goal of 2 Activity Points per day. Now, I almost always manage at least that. On a weekly basis, I pretty much always make my goal (ie: 35 Activity Points/week), but I still earn most of those on the weekends. This week, for example, I have earned:

-22 on Saturday (10-mile run plus cooking and cleaning)
-15 on Sunday (triathlon)
-3 on Monday (work from home day with a workout DVD)
-3 on Tuesday (TRX in the AM and a day in the office)

The pattern is clear. I'm already 5 Activity Points over my weekly goal, but I didn't hit the daily goal on Monday and Tuesday, even though I did some exercise both of those days.

This brings me back to what I said about cardio workouts. The ActiveLink really rewards cardio (walking, running, biking, swimming) over any other exercise. The workouts I did on Monday and Tuesday were more strength-based, and those just don't earn many activity points. I would earn more going for a 30-minute walk than doing an intense 45-minute TRX class. This can be frustrating, as I'm a big believer in strength training with no intention of giving that up. But I have to keep in mind that the ActiveLink is from WeightWatchers, which means that it is focused on weight loss, and one glance at any "calories burned by type of activity" chart (like this one) clearly shows that cardio activities burn more calories. I know enough about fitness not to abandon my strength training just to do more cardio, but one positive of the ActiveLink is that it motivates me to do at least a little cardio (say, a short run or walk) even on strength training days.

All in all, I'm a fan of this little device and activity monitors in general. If you are thinking about trying one out, I say go for it. I can't promise that you will lose a ton of weight and become incredibly fit (that hasn't happened to me), but you will learn a great deal about your activity patterns and where you can make some positive changes.

Summer craziness.

It seems to happen every year: my June gets so crammed with fun events that it winds up being totally nuts and I can't wait for July. Weddings, birthdays, races, travel, preaching- its like my whole summer gets crammed into one month. This has been going on for several years now, but this year is the craziest ever. When Andrew and I married each other, its like our calendars got married too, and gave birth to more and more places to go and things to do. Here's the run-down for this summer so far:

May 24-26: Andrew went to KY for a bachelor party. I went to NC to see some seminary friends. While I was there, I visited the US National Whitewater Center, which is basically a massive outdoor adventure playground for grownups. Amazing.

May 31-Jun 2: Andrew and I were scheduled for my first tri of the season and his first tri ever, with his parents visiting to cheer us on. Those plans went a little awry when I injured my foot May 30th, but Andrew was triumphant! (See two posts ago.)

June 5: My birthday. For the second year in a row, I didn't have time for a real party because my birthday was surrounded by weddings, but Andrew and my family still made it nice.

A "cake" made of flowers, which Andrew sent to my office.



Best card ever from my niece.



 

June 7-9: Andrew and I went to Richmond, VA for an awesome wedding at a camp, featuring a bluegrass band and lots of friends from my Yale Divinity School days. Bonus: I managed my first workout post-toe injury.

June 15-16: Andrew and I went to another great wedding, this time for two of his friends in Washington, DC. The next day, we got up bright and early to run the Striders' Father's Day 10K. Not the strongest showing for either of us, but it did get us closer to IronMan awards for 2013.

June 21-23: I did my 4th annual stint volunteering for Camp Forget-Me-Not/Camp Erin DC, while Andrew spent the weekend going to my nephew's 13th birthday party and having breakfast with my parents. Who has the best husband?

Andrew teaches my family his unique photo stylings.

Which brings us up to the craziest of crazy weekends:

June 28-30: Two parts of this weekend were planned out months ago. I've known for a long time that Saturday was the first day of the Striders' 2013 marathon training group and also that Andrew's parents would be coming to visit and celebrate our mothers' close-together birthdays. As if that weren't enough for one weekend, Andrew and I made a last-minute choice to add some craziness. When I had to back out of the Rock Hall tri on June 2nd, I signed up for the Annapolis Tri Club's first-ever sprint tri on June 30th.  Even though he already had one tri under his belt for this month, Andrew gamely signed up too.

In previous years, I've gone easy on the first few weeks of marathon training and jumped in closer to the fall race season. This year, though, I'm signed up for the Kauai Marathon, which is a mere 8 weeks away. So, no skipping the early long runs! With that race in mind, Andrew and I got up bright and early Saturday morning and headed out on our first 10-miler since April. It wasn't easy, but we got to see lots of friends from the Striders and we took a lovely coffee-and-scenery break during the last 3 miles.

When we got home from the run, we took quick showers and set about cleaning the house and prepping food for the mothers' birthday party. Then, we drove down to southern MD in the afternoon to watch my nephew win 2 baseball games (yay!) and back home to host said party. We had a great time, until we looked at our watches and the drinks in our hands at 9pm and remembered we were doing a tri first thing in the morning.

At 5am on Sunday, we got up and packed our tri gear. The race was just a few minutes down the road inside the beautiful Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. From the moment we arrived, we started seeing friends: people from our gym, Striders, members of the Wonder Women tri group, even members of my high school and college classes. Andrew and I still can't get over the fact that all of our local friends are athletes, and we're thrilled to be part of that group! The sign-in and gear set-up, like all aspects of this race, were low-key. We didn't even have assigned spots on the bike racks, which was nice because we got to be next to each other and our friends.

When I signed up for this race, my brain somehow confused "low-key" with "easy." Big mistake. This race was far from easy. The swim was a pretty basic 1/2 mile out-and-back in warm, calm water. It would have been lovely, if not for the jellyfish. I got stung once, which I thought was a big deal until I chatted with people post-race and realized that most of my fellow athletes (including Andrew) were stung at least 5 or 6 times. The bike course was an easy 10 miles (two 5-mile loops), which I made hard by not training. Then came the run. It was billed as a trail run. In my experience, this often means "a lot of road and a little bit of trail." Not this time. This was a true trail race: mud, tree roots, steep climbs, and slow finish times. Beautiful, but very challenging.

I finished the race in just over 2 hours with a distinct feeling that it had not been my day. Just a couple minutes later, I watched Andrew cross the line, and realized I was witnessing a first. Andrew had started two swim waves- or 6 minutes- behind me. He crossed the finish line about two minutes after me. Thus, for the first time ever, he beat me in a race. When we got our official times, we learned that my math was spot on. I finished in 2:02; Andrew finished in 1:58.

Savoring his well-earned victory.

After the race, we finally got to relax. We spent the afternoon eating, napping, and going to the movies. Good thing, because we need to rest up for the rest of the summer. Events still to come: the rest of marathon training, 5 more road races (for both of us), 2 more tris (for me), a family trip to PA, Andrew's birthday, the removal of my wisdom teeth, and finally our honeymoon to Hawaii!

I'll sleep in September.  

Still an inspiration!

I was driving home from work earlier this week, dreading the first 10-mile long run of this year's marathon training season, when I heard a familiar name on the radio: Dr. Murray! WAMU was airing a story on the 4th anniversary of her death and the 5th year of the camp she founded. You can listen here:

http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/13/06/21/family_friends_remember_girlsup_camp_founder

This morning, as I was slogging through that first 10-mile run, I thought about Dr. Murray: how she helped inspire me to run my first marathon and how she continues to inspire me as I embark on training for marathons #4 and #5. If you need a little inspiration, listen to her story!