When Getting Through the Holidays is Challenge Enough

“When do you want to run this week? Does Wednesday work?”

It’s Sunday morning and Marla and I are sitting on our bikes waiting for Spin class to begin.  

“Yes…oh wait…no…my online grocery order is coming on Wednesday morning.”

“You’re getting online groceries?”  She looks at me a little quizzically.  

“Yes, my Mom’s coming Wednesday night and I have no food in the house, I have to work after I pick her up and I don’t get paid until Tuesday at midnight.”

My beautiful tree
Decorated by an army of five nieces and nephews
They are my Christmas joy.

Ahh the holidays. A minefield of physical and mental challenges. Never is the tension between light and dark so pronounced on so many levels. 

First the literal. You wake up in the morning and it’s dark, and when you get home at night it’s still dark. Heaven help you if you don't have a window seat at work. Even the cheery Christmas lights struggle to illuminate this heavy backdrop for the season of joy. 

Then on the figurative level with the inevitable pressure to be extra happy.   I’ve been struggling with this one for about 20 years now.  I am 100 times better than I was, but it doesn’t seem to matter how hard I try or how much therapy I pay for,  I still miss my Dad at Christmas and I still cringe a little at midnight on New Year’s Eve when I don’t have a date and it’s the kissing moment. 

Finally, there's the battle between healthy living and the season of parties.  Those of you who know me, know that even without the aforementioned factors to escape from, I appreciate a good party.  Thus arises another tension, the desire to indulge my true nature and stay out late, drink lots, eat cheese and wheat and then blame it all on the anticipation of Santa Claus and wrap it up with a bow by calling it a remedy for the holiday blues. 

Me and my Dad.  1973

The older I get and the more people I talk to, the more I realize that I am not alone. By the time many of us reach middle age, we know that some sadness in life is a simple fact. No matter how much we roll our eyes and wish things were different, we shouldn’t be surprised when the holidays are fuelled by the tension between factors like money, emotion, food and the lack of time.

So how do we make the best of it? How do we cope? How do week keep our fitness goals on track?

I've read quite a few articles on this from the experts.  All of them call for restraint and adoption of strategies.  Most of the strategies they suggest are good ideas in theory, but they don't take into account the competing tensions of the season and seem to require super powers of self-denial that in my flawed humanity...even after all I have accomplished...I just don't have.

So this year, I have decided to create a few survival strategies of my own. Hopefully being realistic and accepting  a few simple truths will make the next few weeks a little easier. 

Truth:  I will sometimes be sad. 

Strategy: See grief for what it is…evidence of love.  

Truth:  I may find myself throwing a couple of pity parties about everything including my lack off and need for self restraint.

Strategy:  Get over myself.  I have the best friends a girl could ever ask for and I’ve worked really hard and achieved great fitness and lifestyle goals over the last few years.  I have gotten past bigger challenges than these next two weeks and I have the next six months of the 43 Project to plan.

Truth: In the case of certain parties, I won’t be home before midnight, I will drink and even if I eat before I leave home, I will get hungry. I may eat cheese.

Strategy:  Ok…it happened.   I had tonnes of fun.  I won’t use it as an excuse to go buck wild for the next two weeks.   Practise self forgiveness. 

Truth:  I stayed out late and I don’t feel like training today.  

Strategy:  Look at my training schedule and try and give myself a rest day on the day after a party.  That said, I need to pick my parties, I can’t do this for all of them.  I am training for the 5km Resolution Run on the 30^th of December.  Maybe I can occasionally consider making an adult decision and get home at a reasonable hour.

Truth:  There's a lot of fun stuff happening over the next couple of weeks.

Strategy: Stop thinking so much.  Enjoy the moment. 

So with my online grocery order busting out of my fridge and my holiday plan in place, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support over the last six months. Your notes, our conversations and your posts on my blog page have meant the world to me and have kept me going.  My heartfelt best wishes, prayers and blessings for the holidays and the New Year go out to you and your family.  xo.    See you in 2013.

Never quit,

Mary

I will not be blogging next week, but will be back again clogging up your inbox and Facebook newsfeeds on January 2^nd

Horsing Around with Lucky Number Seven

I walk slowly, very slowly, from the GoTrain towards the stable. 

 “You can do this” I tell myself.  In fact, I really want to do it…I just wish all of my leg muscles weren't screaming in unison.   Today is my second consecutive horseback riding lesson.  Since riding Sky six weeks back, I have been obsessed.  For the last three weeks I have been riding once a week.   This is my absolute favourite thing to do. 

I get up to the Horse Palace and open the huge front door.  As I pass through, I’m like a character in a children’s novel that crosses the threshold from one world into another.  I become a kid again, a young girl that’s in love with magical creatures.  


I walk on and breathe in that horse stable smell.  I pass by one of the grey kittens, not sure if it’s Charles or Owen, playing with something.  He stops what he’s doing, his eyes narrow, he watches me as I go by.   I find Seven, my horse for today’s lesson.  

A chestnut Belgian Cross mare with a white blaze in the shape of the number seven, she has become my friend over the last three weeks.  I greet her and look in into her great brown eyes.  She puts her head down and tries to find treats in my pocket.

After brushing her auburn coat and combing her blond mane, I put on her saddle.  I struggle a bit.  She’s not happy with me when I put the girth on her.  She lets me know.   Later, when the instructor tells me that I have put it on backwards, I think back and wonder if at that moment, she was trying to tell me I was doing it wrong.   Horses and I are still learning to communicate.

Finally it’s time to put on the bridle.  Like a royal princess bestowing an act of kindness on a peasant, she lowers her majestic head for me.   I feel privileged that this regal beast has agreed to let me ride her.  

The clock indicates the top of the hour. I enter the ring.  Once inside I meet Faith, my instructor for today.  I mount up. Seven and I walk around the ring.  Then we trot.  My legs are taking a while to get warmed up. They ache like crazy but I want to succeed at this more than anything I have tried thus far.  I push through and keep going.  Finally the blood starts circulating.

For the next hour we work on developing strength and balance in the way I ride.  We work on communicating with the horse. We work on my confidence and we even work on the two point position-- the position riders take as the horse jumps. It requires leg, core and glute strength.   This is a tough one for me.  To get past myself, I try and imagine Matt, my trainer, yelling at me.  “Come on Mary, squeeze your butt, squeeze your quads, suck in your gut--squeeze everything.”   And after a few unsuccessful attempts I suddenly I hear Faith, not Matt, with her English accent, saying, “that’s it Mary, you’ve got it. 

I exhale.

As our lesson comes to a close I come into the centre of the ring.  I pull Seven to a halt and dismount.  I am so tired that my legs nearly buckle underneath me, but I make it out of the ring and deal with Seven’s tack. Before I leave the world of the stable, I go back and say good-bye. 

On my way toward the big door into daily life, I think about how happy I am and how riding, while being a great work out for the lower body,  gives me that full mental escape I need.  I reach the door and put my hand in the middle of the long bar that runs the entire width. As I push down I am breathing a little easier and smiling a little more than I was an hour ago. Sore but rejuvenated  I take that step across the threshold back into reality. 


Never quit, 

Mary

Coming up:  I face the ultimate test...trying to stay on track during the holidays

Running and Reconnecting

Our High School Group
Me, Tara, Jocelyn and Kelly (missing from photo Martha)
Summer 1988

It’s Saturday morning, 7:30 am.   I look out between the blinds. I can see an icing sugar dusting of snow on the ground. It’s a chilly -4.  I am still a little bleary eyed, but I am up. I am scheduled to meet my high school friend Jocelyn whom I haven’t seen much of since the late-1990's and go for a run.  

Today is one of those days where life hands you a scenario you never imagined. If someone had told us five years ago that this would be our plan for today, I think both of us would have told you that there was greater chance of the world ending (as per the Mayan’s) in December 2012, than there was of the two of us running around High Park.  Yet here I was, peering out the window at the weather and feeling a little apprehensive.   

As fate would have it, my friend Jocelyn has been on a similar path to mine, like me, she has been seeking to make changes in her life and push the limits of her physical fitness. She is more than a little impressive. In the last three years she has taken 78 inches off her entire body, gained 35 pounds of muscle and just finished a triathlon.    

I hope I can keep up.

She arrives and I remark to myself how there is nothing in the world like the magic of an old friend.   They know exactly how to relieve you of any baggage you may be carrying.   As I am sputtering about an injured foot and apologizing because I am consequently only running 5 minute intervals, she just laughs and says “don’t worry about it.  I am here to run with you.”

We soon get moving.  As we head through High Park I notice how stark and sad the trees look, shivering naked in the breeze that blows in from Lake Ontario. The dismal surroundings are in sharp contrast with my mood.  I am having a great time and relieved to find that I am keeping up.    

The next few kilometres are fueled by great conversation.  She tells me about her life; her journey of positive change and the events that inspired her to start. We compare notes on how making a change in one area seems to lead to changes in others. We talk about how we both still consider ourselves to be "works in progress."

We stop. Laughing, we try and take our own picture.  Thankfully a fisherman comes by and takes it for us.  

As we get close to the end of the 5KM loop, my foot starts to give me trouble.  It happens just as we are about to start the torturous Spring Road hill. It’s one if those sleeper hills that doesn't appear to have such a stark incline, but about quarter of the way up your legs ache and you are gasping for breath.    

“ I've never made it to the top of this hill without walking,” I say to her. 

“So come on then, let’s do it together,” she says.  

Today, miraculously it happens. Sore foot and reduced training notwithstanding, I get to the top.  It’s a nice moment. 

As we are walking home, I think about how, strangely, running has taken on a significance beyond fitness for me and how through running I have come to connect with different people and myself in very profound ways.  I think about the vicissitudes of life and how opportunity for renewal presents itself in places like Facebook.  Had Jocelyn's status updates and my 43 Project posts not had a common theme, we might not have reconnected. I am very glad we did. Ultimately I think about how we could have gone for a cup of tea or had brunch, but chose to do this instead. Given path we are both taking, I think this was perfect way to get reacquainted. 

Never quit,

Mary

Coming up:  Horsing around in earnest and investigating the unfamiliar world of racquet sports