So a little while back I spoke about Battling mid-life and how one of the things I would love to do is help people. While I have had a successful career in the lab, helping people in general, is something I’ve always enjoyed doing. Be it an inspirational quote, or a quick chat, I love helping people feel better. So, when I was afforded this Exciting opportunity to be an Ambassador for Novo Renew, I jumped at the chance. In the last month or so I have really enjoyed promoting these amazing supplements I just can’t stop talking about, and I don’t just talk about them, I take them as well. I’ve loved the feedback I have gotten from those that started taking them as well, and my favorite customer (My DAD) just ordered a second bottle. WOOHOO!!!
So while I may be tired after working all day, I truly have a passion for Novo Renew, and plan to continue to spending a couple of hours each night working on spreading the word about these life changing, all natural, amazing supplements.
Click HERE to order yours, risk free! Use code Michelle25 to save 25% off of your order!!
My #tbt goes back to 2013 when I crushed my goals for my second marathon. My first marathon was in 2012 and my knee gave up at mile 17 but I didn’t quit…I finished in 5:23. One year later and a lot of determination landed me with my current marathon PR of 4:25, and I even negative split the race meaning I ran the second half faster than the first half. It was one of my proudest moments and this picture captures the sheer happiness running brings to my life. (And I still wear that exact same visor…LOL! I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen apart!)
Thanks to Novo Renew I have hopes that one day I just may run another full marathon!!! Check HERE to learn more and use my code Michelle25 at check out to save.
Have you ever ran a full marathon? Do you have aching/sore joints and muscles? Remember, these supplements aren’t just for runners!!!
Wednesday I went out for my short run after work, and felt incredibly strong. I always wonder how I can pull these runs after working all day, but I got it done and it felt great. Fast forward to today’s long run, and whoa…but we’ll get to that in just a bit. I haven’t gotten a chance to write since my last post about mid-life due to crazy schedules, but just thought I’d share a little about my week last week.
Like I said, my mid week 5k went great. I settled in after the first mile and was able to let go and just run. While I often miss my once speedy average pace of 9:15 for short runs, I will celebrate my time no matter what. I didn’t get to run much for the year of 2016 while my husband was deployed, and 2017 was busy playing catch up for the year I lost with my husband, and moving my family across the country to start our Florida adventures.
This weekend started out really lovely. Friday night I cooked dinner and we relaxed at home. Saturday my husband came up with the idea to drive to Clearwater to watch the sunset and have dinner with one of our neighborhood friends. It felt SOOOO great to have my toes in the sand!!!!
Today was my long run. The last one before the Gasparilla half marathon on the 24th of this month in downtown Tampa. We had ten miles on deck, and I knew as soon as we walked out of the front door, that this run was going to suck. Mile 2 my stomach started to talk to me and we had to make a pit stop at the house after mile 3. (I don’t think Mexican food is a good idea before a long run, especially when its going to be blazing hot with full on sun with absolutely no clouds for miles. Thank God for the breeze!!). Mile six, the same thing happened and we had to swing back to the house yet again. We had gone 7.5 miles and I just didn’t think I could keep going. I drank some Nuun and had some Huma Gel, but I was still grey and pale. My hubby said I needed to stay home, and he was right. He finished out his ten miler, and I spent the next 30 minutes getting my body temperature regulated. Looking at my Garmin stats it showed my heart rate had gone to 195 bpm. Yikes. This will definitely be my last long distance race this season. I’ll stick to 5K and 10K distance until the fall/winter months, or until I cave and get a new treadmill. (My Mom had given me one back in IL, but it was old and just wasn’t working anymore so we had to get rid of it).
For dinner tonight I made Beef bourguignon over cauliflower mash and it was amazing. To keep it keto friendly I omitted the carrots, but I feel like it was missing something with leaving them out.
Please click the links for the recipes!
How was your week/weekend? Are you training for any specific races? How do you handle running in extreme temperatures?
This year on the blog I will be talking more about some good ole real life adventures and life in general. My goal is to write more, and knowing I have struggled with making myself a priority over the last several decades, I thought this would be a good Saturday evening topic.
Looking back on my life, my priorities have always been targeted on something other than me. My husband and taking care of things while he was gone on deployments, my kids and their happiness, and my job and juggling work and home life have always left “Me” at the end of the very long list of things I have been responsible for over the last several years. Because of the large bucket of balls I have juggled over the years, I have lost friendships, and somewhat have sort of lost myself. Now that my kids are getting older (one is grown and so far still out of the house but still struggling to find her way, and one is now 12 and is becoming more independent and self sufficient), I really want to see how I can make ME a priority this year.
Here’s a few things I have in mind for the upcoming year:
I’ve updated my resume and am ready to start looking at progressing in my career. I’ve always taken the back seat to make sure I am home for my family, but I think the time is now to see if I can actually move forward in my career.
I’ve signed up for a half-marathon the end of February with my husband. My training is on hold during the course of fighting this horrible cold, but I’ve still got plenty of time to properly train.
I will make more time for the friendships I’ve made here in Florida. I’ve been lucky enough to be blessed having an old Air Force girlfriend here, and have made a couple of friendships I hope to develop. I’ve learned as you get older, it really is harder to make friends.
Write more, and more often. Be it short excerpts, recipes, or just simple dialog, WRITE.
Above all else, love myself a little more. Stop counting the grey hairs and wrinkle lines, and remember that I have been through so much in my life. I have earned every grey hair and every line that is carved in to my face.
Lastly, continue on with my mantra of “Keep Movin’ Forward.” Yes, I am middle aged, yes, I will be 46 in a little over a week, but my life is far from over. I need to remember that it really is NEVER too late, and I still have time to do the things I want to in this life.
I watched one of my favorite movies tonight, “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” and was reminded that life may not always turn out how we wanted, but if we can touch other people’s lives and make this world a better place we should have no regrets.
What are your goals for this year? Do you have a favorite movie that resonates with you? I’ve thought about renaming the blog…any suggestions?
My day started out like any other. My alarm went off just before 6 a.m. although I had been up since 3…WHY? I had terrible nightmares of being tortured and I kept trying to scream for help, yet my scream wouldn’t develop in to any sort of sound. So I kept trying to scream until I woke up in cold sweats and had to walk around the house for a few minutes to calm myself down. Where do these dreams come from? You just never know, I suppose. I maybe fell back asleep for a few minutes, but as I reached over to push the snooze button and peaked down the hall to my eldest daughter’s bathroom I realized she had overslept. Crap…there goes my 8 minutes of snoozing (like it really matters, right?). I got up, woke her up, and prodded down the hallway to wake up my youngest. She’s always smiles in the morning, but something was off today…I asked her several times if she was ok? “I’m fine, Mommy.” We got ready, had breakfast, and did the routine of drop offs as we’ve done for the last 3 weeks.
This…the happiest girl in the world even when she is sick.
And then I got the call from my neighbor who takes my youngest to the bus. She had developed a fever, had the chills, and I needed to come pick her up. I of course had just made my last turn before arriving to work. I pulled over, called the lab and my boss letting them know I needed to stay home. Thankfully I work with amazing and understanding people. So after my 30 minute commute back home, I picked up my youngest and we spent the day on the couch watching Disney movies. Her fever broke around noon and her appetite came back briefly. We settled back in to our movie watching with my worry alert brought back down to normal and I found myself daydreaming a lot, and thinking even more about this whole thing they call life.
Since retiring from the Air Force in 2011 after 20 years of service I have fought to search for my niche in life. I think I have found it between all my hobbies of running, writing, cooking and photography but still find myself just another 40+ year old woman that is trying to reestablish herself. We tend to lose ourselves in our kids, our marriages and our careers but what really makes US, well, US? Having had been through a lot in my life and overcoming more than can be even put in to words I created my FB page that stems from this blog. I have spent the last 2 1/2 years posting, reaching out to others to remind them they are #more and #worthsomuch and to always #keepmovinforward. It was MY way to give back to the world because I know…I know what it means to hear those words, read that story or hear that song that touches you RIGHT at the VERY MOMENT you need it to. I know.
But since the changes of FB algorithms my reach is down to nil, and the time I spend “talking” to others trying to inspire with my every day life has fallen on deaf ears. I’ve collected the data, studied the stats and compared the amount of time I spent posting anecdotes, quotes, work outs and recipes to my page. And WOW…the numbers are truly nuts. I will stand by the fact that if I can touch ONE life, help ONE person, my goal is complete. But I can’t do this when FB hides the posts of everyone who refuses to pay to promote. Out of nearly 11k followers on FB, I am lucky to ‘reach’ even just 100 people. And this number continues to decline.
Yet for the better part of 2 1/2 years I didn’t blink an eye at getting up early to post something to start people’s days, another lunch time post normally and after work I would try and motivate with my work outs or an inspirational post. At the end of the day there would be a real life adventure, or a truth post, and I would bid everyone goodnight. And it made me happy, every, single, day to reach people.
Pic credit: Pinterest
But with the changes, I can’t keep spending that much time in a venue that doesn’t value my posts ‘worthy’ of being seen. So tonight I posted my last longish truth post letting everyone know I was still there, but that they can find me here. I have a lot to offer, I think…I believe. I just have to find the right outlet. I just want to help people…I want to be that voice that says, YOU CAN. Don’t give up.
So I’ll be blogging more, and FB’ing a lot less…because I know I have things to say and share.
Here’s my day in photos….Thanks for being here, y’all.
For dinner, shrimp over romaine hearts, avocado, cucumbers, radishes and cherry tomatoes!1:3 interval training, ran one minute hard, 3 at a steady pace for 21 minutes.
Movin' it with Michelle 