The Little Things

I can’t be the only one who loves to decorate her fridge? Right?!

It has to be one of my favourite things to do when I move into a new place. Here is my fridge now, I just moved in a little over three weeks ago. I will most likely be adding tons to it in the months to come:

What are you looking at? Let me tell you. One of my favourite pictures of me and my boyfriend after our first 5k together, a really good no-bake protein bar recipe, my Shakespeare finger puppet (every English Literature graduate needs one of these), a Barack Obama magnet that I got from my Mum (I think she wanted this one, but let me have it anyway, so sweet!), and some of the Lululemon Manifesto.

Here is the whole Lululemon Manifesto, and classic photo booth pictures with my boyfriend (these happen to be some of my favourite pictures).

Here we have a classic picture of me, my boyfriend, and some friends at a dress rehearsal for a choir concert (we were in high school when this picture was taken), a business card for a local personal trainer (I just love the card), and a pamphlet that I got with an Amazing Grass order.

Here is the bottom of the fridge and some more pictures and magnets. I love magnets! The really blue picture is of Sean McCann from Great Big Sea, the picture was taken from the front row at a concert and it is one of my favourite pictures ever!

Here is a close-up of my favourite part of the bottom of the fridge.

I wanted to show you guys a little more of what I am about! My decorating of the fridge or my magnetic board in my bedroom (which I will show you later) are not exactly like a Vision Board but it is a start for me. One day I will make a complete Vision Board, but for now I just like posting pictures and stuff I cut out of magazines to remind me of what I love and so I can look at my favourite pictures everyday!


It makes me really happy to put stuff like this together. Like I mentioned above I do have a board that is in my bedroom, and I will share it with you later. It has full pages from magazines with stretches for runners so I don't forget to stretch. Of course there is more, but there is a little bit of what the board is about.

Happy Running!

Size Healthy

Have you ever been discouraged when you are shopping for clothes, have you ever focused on the number that is on the tag? Have you ever been so discouraged that you left the store because a pair of jeans didn't fit the way you expected them to? 

Enter "Size Healthy"! Are you unsure of what size that is? It is the size that you are, and you are healthy! You are healthy and happy and a number should not rule your life. 

Thanks to Angela over at Oh She Glows I am now labeling all of my clothes “Size Healthy”. I love the way Angela put it,

“I never liked the number on clothing. It is so inconsistent and it varies so much by the store. I could walk into a clothing store and leave upset because I wasn’t the size I thought I should be. Some stores have vanity sizing and in some stores the clothing runs really small. You just can’t win!”

When I was focusing on size (because there was a time when I really cared about it, I cannot tell a lie) I would go to stores focused on getting the same size as the last and I found that sizes were never the same. At some stores you can be one size in one pair of pants and then have to go down for another, and then have to go up for another. Oh my!

When you really focus on those numbers shopping for clothes is no longer fun. Now that I am a “Size Healthy” I am happy and don’t find myself sweating over the numbers. As long as my clothes fit and I am healthy then I am happy!

Here is what I have been doing...

It feels so good to write this on my clothes because I know I am healthy and happy. It no longer has anything to do with what size the tag says.

I like to focus on how I feel rather than a number, it's as simple as that. 


Idea:

Go and visit Angela at Oh She Glows to see what she has to say about "Size Healthy"! I love reading Angela's blog, she always has interesting topics!

Happy Running!

Study While You Run?

Visions of accounting were bouncing through my head on my run this morning. That can only be because I have an accounting test on Wednesday and I have to say that I didn't spend enough time studying for it over the weekend, and I even had Family Day off. I guess I felt bad and because of that all I could think about were debits, credits, and what goes in an Income Statement.

Normally my thoughts are all over the place, but today it was mostly accounting. I listened to a podcast on my run and I am normally so engaged in what the person has to say and I take everything in. Today I realized that I can easily tune out the other person's voice and do my own thing (no offence to the podcast, I love it dearly, but I have a test coming up!). I think it is differnet when I listen to music because my thoughts will be influenced by the music I listen to, or I will be thinking about something and start singing the song and forget what I was thinking about. Oh the things your brain can do when you are running!

This morning's run was 6 miles and it was wonderful! I was having one of those moments around mile 5 where I was thinking that it would be nice to stop and start getting ready for school, but out of nowhere something came over me and I just wanted to keep running! Does that ever happen to anyone? It doesn't happen to me all the time so I decided to roll with it and keep moving forward! It is getting so nice out so I want to take advantage of the weather in case it decides to start snowing buckets.

This is not what I look like when I run, there are no coloured lines behind me and it isn't that nice out yet. [Source]

You might be asking "why is this blog called Happy (Running) Thoughts?"  Here is my reason...I love running, and I love talking about running and what I think about while I am running. At the same time I think about a lot of other things and do a lot of other things on a daily basis. I cook, read, go to school, find ways to balance school work and play, bike, laugh, spend time with people I love, walk, bake, do yoga, have happy thoughts and SO much more! I want to share all my Happy Thoughts with everyone!

Question:

What do you find yourself thinking about the most during a run?

In all honesty the majority of my thoughts are on the run and the music or podcast I am listening to. I also plan my day, make to do lists, think about groceries, drool over a recipe I saw on a blog and think about what I need to do to make it, and I think about how to catch up with my boyfriend because he is so far ahead of me!

Happy Running!

Don't STOP Believin'

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have had a rather relaxing weekend that was spent doing a lot of reading and writing for school. I'm in a college program for Office Administration Medical and Legal and there is a lot to do but I cannot say that it is all that hard... yet. I do have an accounting test on Wednesday and that sparks a little fear within me, but I plan on being very ready because I get all of tomorrow off to study because of Family Day!

We spent Friday night watching the Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics, and I have to say that I did enjoy them! In addition to that the events have been on in the background a lot while I've been working, that and Friends season four for white noise. Saturday evening I made something new for dinner, a Chicken and Broccoli Orange Stir-Fry...here is it before I added in the orange sauce. 

It was very yummy, we also added Soba noodles as a base. Here is some information about Soba Noodles. I got the recipe from the Clean Eating Magazine for March/April 2010, I don't think the recipe is actually on the website, but buying the magazine is always worth it. 

For Valentine's Day the family got together and had a nice dinner, my parents and grandparents got some fancy meal and my boyfriend and I opted for a pizza from the restaurant Atomica that had a thin crust, pesto, goat cheese and spinach. It was sooo yummy!! 

I am looking forward to a longer run tomorrow morning, with the extra day off I am going to take full advantage of the free time to run and study. I might even take some time to read The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, it is such a good book with lots of great information about football...not to mention a great story about Michael Oher.

Now to move on to more exciting things that involve someone writing on a STOP sign....

Look at what I found written on a stop sign last fall!! I giggled and pulled out my phone to get a picture! 

Whenever I see this picture it makes me think of all things motivational. I wanted to share some of my favourite quotes with you!

“What we do in life echoes in eternity.” - from the movie Gladiator

“It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” - Rocky Balboa

"You'll have to walk faster than that. You're gonna have to turn into freakin' Flo Jo to get away from me." - Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls

"The greatest pleasure in life is doing the things people say we cannot do." - Walter Bagehot

Question:

Does anyone have a favourite quote that makes them smile? I have used the Walter Bagehot as a signature in e-mails it really speaks to me!

Happy Running!

Thanks For Making Me a Fighter

Runner's World cover for March 2010 [Source] and a thanks to the article Mind Games that inspired me to dig deep and keep moving forward.

“Goucher’s candid admissions about her psychological struggles are rare for an elite athlete but they will ring true to any runner who’s ever battled doubts, setbacks, or mental demons. Which is to say, all of us.” That is how the article Mind Games by Bruce Barcott starts off. The Runner’s World article about Kara Goucher, in the March 2010 issue, focuses on how a lack in confidence can really bring you down even when you have the ability to be the best in the world. Barcott describes Goucher as “one of the most accomplished American runners of her generation.” He goes on further to describe Goucher and her accomplishments,

“[Goucher] was a monster in the middle distances: top-ranked American at 10,000 meters, second at 3,000 meters, and top five at 5,000 meters. In 2008, she decided to try her first marathon…the New York City Marathon. She came in third. Last year she ran Boston – her second 26.2 miler ever – and missed breaking the tape by a mere nine seconds.”

Goucher has done amazing things with her talent, but from reading this article I soon learned that she had/has those little voices in her head that deter her from being able to do her best all the time.

In all honesty I do not have the ability to be the best runner in the world, nor do I wish to be the best. Putting that aside I still identified with Goucher’s story because sometimes, no matter how far you are running, your mind can get to you and start saying things you do not want to hear. Here is how Barcott describes Goucher’s mind games, “her head has always messed with her. For as long as she can recall, it's thrown hammers at her feet. Some runners have trick knees or fragile hamstrings. She has an undermining psyche.” I think any runner can identify with these feelings, imagine you are almost finished a half marathon and you see the hills that are separating you from the last few miles that would take you to the finish line, and to add to that you weren’t having a great run in the first place. You start doubting yourself and your ability to run races; all of a sudden you start hearing this voice in your head that keeps telling you that you can’t do this. This is when you need to harness everything you have and start repeating your mantra, mine is “just keep swimming” from Finding Nemo. I came up with this when I started running more often and was running longer distances. 


Barcott writes of Goucher, “[she is] remarkably candid about her battle with the mental game. “Everyone has their weakness,” she says. “Mine is confidence.”” Goucher’s trainer Alberto Salazar brought in sports psychologist Darren Treasure to help combat these doubts that she was having. In the article I learned that Goucher eventually started using words such as “fighter” and “courage” to get her through the hard times in a race. I thought that that was something different, I have read articles on mantras and never thought of using one that was a single word. Since reading the article I have been channeling my inner Kara Goucher and using “fighter” to get me through the hard parts of a run. I do not run as fast or as long a distance as Goucher, nor do I even run races to compete against the other runners, but I think that using key words and mantras are key to making you feel powerful and strong. 

So what does Runner’s World think you should do so you can run with mind over matter? Here are their suggestions: [Source]

1.     Worry early, not late – Gloria Balague, a sports psychologist at the University of Illinois says, “identify your worries and train to overcome them. As you get closer to race day, focus on your strengths and the body of your training work.”
2.      Employ a key word – Darren Treasure, Nike Oregon Project sports psychologist has athletes focus on a key word during intense training moments, “then when they get to a critical moment in a race, they can invoke that word and get the response they’re looking for.” Treasure does note that just chanting “win, win, win” during the course of your race won’t cut it.
3.      Enjoy the motion – Balague says you should “get in touch with your body…notice how nice the motion feels when it’s in sync – arms, legs, back, posture. The idea is to relax, not tense up, and if you’re in touch with the positive feeling, you must less likely to be tight”
4.      Define success by your progress – mental trainer Jeff Troesch says, “measure [your] success in terms of [your] personal progress. If I can do a couple more reps than I did yesterday, that’s a success. I look for ways to get the athletes into the now, to strive for day-to-day victories.”

I like the idea of focusing on daily victories, I always feel good when I run a little bit further or a little bit faster than the day before. The same is true even if I ran a shorter distance but ran it feeling happy and comfortable the whole time. I can also say the same for just enjoying the weather and the music I am listening to. If I hit a rough patch in a run I repeat my mantra and change the music to something that I know is going to help pick me up.

Question:

Do you have a mantra? What is it? Do you have any songs that pick you up when you are not feeling great?

I still use “just keep swimming” and have now started using Goucher’s “fighter” to push me through that point where I’m not feeling great, or not wanting to push that extra mile. My pick me up song is an oldie but a goodie (according to me)…Machine Head by Bush off of the album Sixteen Stone.

Happy Running!