This is tough.

This sudden, 4-years-after-the-last-post blog entry has been brought to you by the beginnings of a Facebook status update started this morning that just went on too long. There will be no clip art, no updates, and nothing but something I needed to spew out of these fingers...

This 10k training has been tough. Tough to make decisions not to go out, or to go and leave very early. Tough to not be a zombie all the time. Tough to actually get through the runs themselves. Even tougher to do all the good recovery things I'm supposed to do after them.

I see the how excited my friends are for me I'm running these days, but it hasn't quite registered for me yet. It's like I know from a distance that this is quite the accomplishment, but it almost feels like all that amazing stuff is happening to someone else. 

I'd love to take a break, start up in a couple of weeks again, but I know how detrimental that would be to. And I have people counting on me to be there for them (just like I count on them to be there for me). 

I've been in a vicious cycle of poor nutrition contributing to more exhaustion contributing to no energy to dedicate to my nutrition. Work hasn't helped much, asking longer hours of me. 

I already know running 12k today will ruin me. I have good friends supporting me and not expecting much out of me thereafter today, and I need to make sure to take care of myself day after day this week. 

1. Looking Forward 2. Small Victories

I started to continue with the updates I promised, but it felt like I was just recounting events without energy or emotion. So should I think about any of those events, get excited and find some energy, I promise I'll write about them then.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward. I took a week off of my physio to give my knee a bit of a rest, but I'm back at it this week. With the exception of one bad day this weekend, I've been keeping diet in check. And I've worked with my husband to come up with a regiment at the gym that will keep me focused and on goal.

Weigh-in day tomorrow - I'm pretty sure I sabotaged my weight loss this week with that bad day, but I don't anticipate a gain. As long as I stay on track, I'll be good.

Finally, on the subject of overcoming mental boundaries, I think I achieved some semblance of greatness yesterday. It had been over a month since I got on the back of the motorcycle. I felt terrible that day, both in my nervousness and for the fact that a friend had come up from Toronto to ride with us. She went on her way and my husband took me home.

Yesterday we were invited to go out for a group ride. There were five other bikes and the riders had different levels of experience. Riding with others meant that I had something else to concentrate on besides everything that usually worries me, and I didn't have to worry about navigating.

And it was an incredible experience. By the time we got home we'd probably been out for about five hours. That's five times longer than my longest ride. The weather was gorgeous, the wind was still for the most part, and the scenery was breathtaking.

Most of all, I am better for it. I am so happy I went.

We interrupt these updates with an update.

I had planned on getting this blog up to speed on all the areas of my life, but life itself was interrupted.

Two days before my last post, I aggravated my knee injury. For those who don't know, I dislocated my patella (kneecap) in 2006. Since then, I've aggravated the injury from time to time, but I always get back to normal after a couple of days of rest.

This time I went two weeks and really felt that it was only getting worse. After leisurely walking around for a couple of hours on my vacation, I started feeling shooting pains in my ankle. My breaking point was two days later during an exercise in karate that had me walking out of the class in tears.

I scheduled an appointment with the local physiotherapist and walked out of her office feeling more confident that this would be the last time I have to go through this. She discussed my assessment with me (it's amazing how many physiotherapists don't) and set up a plan that I feel is truly going to get me strong enough to start some real physical activity. Then I can start to shed the weight that is causing the stress on my joints in the first place.

There you have it, a little side track from the bigger picture. We will return to our regularly scheduled updates after a short message from our sponsor...

Update #1: Life Direction

When I visited my blog to post my last entry, I found it ironic, though not entirely surprising, that my last entry was March 28. I imagine that I would have continued had circumstances been different. But on March 29 I was let go from my job, citing that probationary objectives were not met. I could get into the specifics, but they were kind of ridiculous. Let's just say that 'fit' was likely the real issue.


Something weird happened that day. I got in my car, drove home, and felt okay. Yes, I had some moments of doubt in my self-worth and other feelings that surface when one is let go from a job. But those feelings were completely overshadowed with a sense that everything was going to be fine. These zen-like feelings, though welcome, were so unfamiliar. The Shlo of not-so-long-ago would be having a balls to the wall freak-out about how life would be maintained and what would we do and and and. Instead, my partner and I had a good discussion about what this could mean and determined that I would take this time for me and figure out what to do next.

Wedding planning and a couple of karate-related events pretty much took over my schedule for the following three months (more on those in coming posts). Focusing on the short-term didn't allow for much time to think about the long term.

But now that those are in the past, I am having a hard time facing what's next. I could essentially go in any direction that is available to me, but I can't even open up my resume to update it or modify it for different types of jobs. Not to mention that the number of available opportunities within a reasonable commuting distance from our new home is frighteningly small.

We are stable, for now. Insurance benefits have us covered until January. In the meantime I've been trying to focus on my health, build up my endurance and strengthen my muscles (again, more on that in a comping post).

The thing is that sooner or later I'll have to face whatever demon I have going on inside, remember that I'm better than that stupid organization that lost out when they let me go, and start 'selling' myself to someone who believes that I can make their business better with me as part of their team.

Updates coming!

I'd been hesitant to pick this blog up again because I've been going through this starting/stopping cycle over and over again. But a lot has changed in my life and I'm feeling good about the future.

So a few updates will be coming your way about life, love, health, new directions. You know, about The Tao of Shlo.

The right trigger.

Whoa Nelly! Nearly three months since my last post. I feel like it's been much longer since I've felt like I can take on the world. But these last few weeks have been notoriously bad, even for me.

I've been eating poorly; my healthiest meal was likely Subway. I'd gone from drinking one to two coffees per week to having one every day. Tim Horton's became a regular stop on my way to work where I'd fill up on bagels and muffins and a fatass double double.

I'd been sluggish for days. I'd attributed my lack of energy to balancing some wedding planning while packing, moving, and just getting through all of my regular every day stuff.

Yesterday, still sluggish while drinking my third coffee, my coworker asked if I'd been sleeping well. I have, and despite the longer communte I'm not sleeping any less than before the move. She then asked if I take any vitamins. Eureka! It's so simple isn't it... my nutrition has been through the toilet so much so that apparently it's affected my brain.

So I'm clearing all this stuff out of my system. Drinking dandelion root and milk thistle tea to renew my liver. Eating mostly vegetables and protein for the next few days. Reminding my body that it does not need to crave sugar in all its glorious forms.

And find renewed energy to get my house unpacked and life back in order.

Top of the Year.

The holiday is over. And though I don't have eight families to visit over Christmas, I consumed my holiday excess through work events and lovely time with friends. And really, it's times like that where you shouldn't be restrictive about what you're doing. You shouldn't be over-indulgent either, but no one is going to deny me trying that pie or having a second helping of turkey.

But it's January, the top of the year and a good excuse to start fresh. You'll notice that my MFP weight loss ticker reads 0 lbs lost. I reset all my stats to shed the ideals and attempts of previous years. 2012 is a new year, and there's something about that number that's been speaking to me. Anytime we started talking about postponing the wedding date, I couldn't - there's just something about 2012 that tells me that that all the pieces will be tied together this year.

So what do I have on my plate this year? I've decided to trust in my knowledge of food and quit being so restrictive. I would like to rely less on processed, prepackaged food (within reason) and create more of my meals from scratch. And as a continuation of last years cutting out of any form of fried potato, I vow to cut out all deep fried foods from my diet.

On the exercise front, I vow to keep going to karate and absorbing as much information as I can. I will start my weight-lifting program, and once we move in the spring, I will restart my Couch to 5K running program.

And in the meantime, my partner and I will pack up our apartment, find a place to live, move, unpack our apartment, plan a wedding and get married. All by the end of June...the second half of this year is going to be a breeze!