True or False

True or False?

Pressing the elevator close door button over and over again actually speeds up the door and makes it close faster.

I see so many people in this city that tap that button repeatedly, not wanting any more people to get on the elevator, but it never really seems like the door closes any faster. And, the button is located near the controls for the Fire Department, which makes me think it's not even active all the time.

When a person does this, most notably in my office building, a little bit of claustrophobia sets in. I'm a highly claustrophobic person, which may seem surprising since I chose to live in this insanely claustrophobic city.. What with all the people, and subways, and tiny apartments, it probably seems like someone like myself with stay away from. I didn't think about this first.

Anyways, if you know, let me know. A lot of times I feel like I might yell at the person beating on the button for fear of malfunction. Knowing that it doesn't even work might help.

I need some sleep!

I've been a little MIA lately because I've had so much going on with work, the wedding, and my personal favorite, migraines. Migraines, oh how I love you. You really know how to ruin my night and keep me from sleep.

I tossed and turned for hours last night, trying to ignore the immense pounding above my eye. I finally decided to spare Ryan (even though he was snoring and probably didn't even notice) and went to the couch. The couch is a little bit of bliss because it's always nice and cool and dark in the living room. However, when you're forced awake by the shooting pains in your head, you start to really focus on all of the little noises that go on at night. There's the hum of the refrigerator, the clanking of the pipes in the radiator, and my new personal favorite, the drip drip drip of our humidifier. The humidifier was purchased to prevent the hacking that occurs in our dogs at night from all of the heat in the apartment, so the noise annoyances are a toss up. Although if you'd ever heard our dogs hack, I think you'd agree that the dripping is a bit more tolerable. Hacking is a noise that I absolutely can't stand. I used to have a colleague that would do it constantly at work and it mortified me. But anyways, I digress.

So there I was, cozied up on the couch, trying to count sheep, or shoes, or anything I could to fall into a slumber, when I feel a little scratching on my leg. I didn't even have to look over to know what it was. My little dog, Gisele, always has to sleep near me, regardless of where it is, so I invited her up on the couch with me.


It didn't take long before my other dog wanted to join us. He's a little less polite, and just hops up to wherever he wanted to be. Most times he thinks it's completely fine for him to lay right on top of you. I have to remind him that he's not a cat. So the three of us cuddled up together on the couch, which basically paralyzed my legs all night.
Needless to say, I did not sleep well. The whole point of this is to tell you that I don't have a running post today, so check out this one below. The author is blogging about my favorite author, Brendan Brazier, on his site Vega. Check it out, and check out his products and books.

http://www.vegacommunity.com/profiles/blogs/the-lesserknown-perks-of

...But It Doesn't Matter

This week I started week 2 of my marathon training program. I'm supposed to run 16 miles total this week, with 3 tonight, so overall not too bad at all.

For me, it's so easy to get distracted and make excuses. It's late, I'm tired, there's a blizzard outside, there's a shoe sale I should go to, and on and on. One of the biggest challenges for me when attempting this marathon, and most things in my life, is learning discipline. I need to train myself to train. In my training book, the authors talk about listing all of the excuses that you may have, then ending it with 'but it doesn't matter'. So, there's a torrential downpour outside and I'm exhausted, 'but it doesn't matter'. I like this idea. It puts a positive spin on everything and makes all of the excuses not seem as legitimate.
I'm sure this is an approach that I'm going to probably be relying on a lot in the next couple of months.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Hope everyone is having a great day. Ryan and I went to our first New York Rangers hockey game. It was so much fun! I had no idea I would enjoy hockey so much. There were two fights and even a marriage proposal. The poor guy got denied while the entire arena watched. The woman was so horrified that she got up and ran out.

What did everyone do/get for Valentine's day? I got a great pair of shoes, 2 dozen roses, and a treated to a nice breakfast of New York's best bagels- H and H bagels. I'm so lucky to have such a great guy!

Now we're off to dinner. Have a great night!

MTV Motivates Me

Ryan and I had a pretty interesting conversation today that went something like this:

Me: (Super excited after getting off the scale and feeling skinny) Hey Ryan, do you think I look any skinnier?

Ryan: (After a long pause) I can't really tell.

Thanks babe. He did follow it up with a 'but you look really good' but at that point I wasn't really listening.

Today was my long run of 5 miles, so by around 2:00 I had convinced myself to head to the gym. Luckily the place was deserted, so I had my pick of the treadmills. I was very excited to get my favorite one that has great fan on it. And, I got even luckier when there was a 16 & Pregnant marathon on MTV of episodes that I hadn't seen before. I got so in to it that I ended up running an extra mile. At that point I was a little tired, so I texted Ryan to have him dvr the rest of them.
Is anyone else excited about the season premiere next week? I heard that one of the teen's is from my home town.

I really love MTV for shows like this, even though I'm probably not their target audience. I started thinking this after I had seen about a million acne commercials. What other station can give you great shows like this and Jersey Shore?

anyways, I'm off to buy my Valentine's day present. We agreed that was a good deal this year. Not romantic really, but we both end up happy! Ryan got tickets to the NY Rangers which we'll go see tomorrow, and I am getting a fabulous new pair of shoes!

Follow Me on Twitter

A friend of mine suggested that I add a Twitter account to the page. Click here to follow me!
@wannaberunnerNY

Me= Not Athletic

*I'm trying to update the layout of my page, so you may see it change a bit over the next couple of days.

Today was Day 1 of my new waking up early ritual. I set my alarm last night for 6, then decided that maybe that was a wee bit too ambitious for my first morning, and reset it for 6:30.

6:30 turned out to be a rather unfortunate time because I was right in the middle of a great dream, but I dutifully turned the alarm off and stayed awake. It took a lot of mental coaxing on my part, but I did get out of bed. It wasn't much, but I feel like it was a start. Baby steps.

Since I didn't get up in time to do my run in the morning, I have to go tonight...or in the morning. I know, I know, I have to be more dedicated to my running schedule, but it's just so hard. For some reason I thought training would be more fun. I mean, I like to run, sortof, although I'm kindof defying my body by doing so. I am in no way built to be athletic. I have short legs and a little torso. Oh, and I have asthma. I'm definitely not physically cut out for this, which is probably what my body has been thinking lately. It tolerated me through my half marathon training, but this is a whole other story.

I'm sure my body and I will have a few heart to hearts as to why I'm attempting to do this. My guess is one of these will start around 8:00 AM tomorrow...or 9...or maybe 10. We'll see.

Morning Motivation

Today has been a good day so far. I’ve weighed myself and I’ve lost 2 lbs (yay me!) and my blog hit the 100 views mark! May not seem like a big deal, but it makes me feel good to know that people are actually reading it (Ryan doesn’t count)

Every night when I go to sleep I tell myself, maybe tomorrow morning I’ll get up a little earlier and go for a run, take the dogs for a long walk, do some morning yoga, etc etc, and it never happens. I even set the alarm on my iPhone for multiple times; once at 5:30, 6:00, and so on, but it never fails that I never see the day before 7 on a weekday. Ryan is so good about not nagging me about my alarm, because I know it’s annoying. Why even set it and allow it go off every 10 minutes, if I’m never going to get up on time? I think mostly it’s because I have ambition, just no discipline.

In the spring and summer it’s not nearly as difficult because I am anxious to get outside then. Going for a run in Central Park in the morning is one of my favorite things to do in the city. You get to see this place come alive, with the food vendors hauling their carts to their street corners, people out walking their dogs, and the hundreds of people that flock to the park to get a workout in before the start of their day. I like being a part of that.

But now during the winter when it’s yucky and dark out and cold, the only thing I want to do is hibernate under the warm covers. I especially feel this way since getting up early makes me envious of Ryan, still sleeping peacefully while I pull myself out of my slumber. I wish I could be like my little terrier, bouncing off the bed and walls (literally) at 6 am, fully of energy and ready to go.

I need some sort of morning motivation to get me out of bed and on the go, and not so rushed. Because that’s what I end up being nearly every morning: rushed.

I did a little research online to see if there was advice (non-medicated) to help with my little problem. I came across one site the recommends disciplining you to just get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Don’t think about it, don’t hit snooze, just get up. This one sounds a little easier said than done. If that was all there was to it, millions of people would be doing that by now.

With that said, I think that this could be a good starting point. You practice at everything else in your life to succeed, and this is just another task that must be worked at. I couldn’t just complete this marathon with training and preparing myself for it.

This approach is about setting a wake-up ritual.

I’m going to try it tomorrow and let you know how it goes.

Do you have any motivators that help get you up in the morning? I could use the suggestions!

The Happiness Project

Mother Nature decided to blanket our city in a blizzard today, so there's not much chance for running outside. It's really coming down like crazy. I'm hoping to make it to the gym tonight for another 4 mile run.

Aside from that, I've been reading this great book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. It's about setting resolutions for yourself throughout the year to help you focus more on being happy. For example, treating your spouse with more respect or making strides in your job to increase your happiness. You can even go to the author's site and create your own Happiness Project and set your own goals. Check out the author's blog here: http://www.happiness-project.com/

**Well, I decided to venture out into the snow to go to the gym. I think any direction I walked, the wind was blowing hard in my face. Those snowflakes feel like needles when they hit your face
and I got my poor running shoes wet by mistaking a HUGE puddle for the sidewalk. There's nothing more enjoyable than running in soggy shoes.
When I got to the gym, I found out that they were closing early because of the weather, but I had about 40 minutes that I could get a decent run in. Thanks to the weather, the gym wasn't nearly as crowded and I actually got a good treadmill. (This also goes for the subway. I actually got a seat during rush hour!) You know how it is- you get used to a certain gym and the equipment and you scout out the good stuff. The treadmill I got tonight had fans on BOTH sides. Those are never available! So that and a re-run of The Office made for an enjoyable run. Now let me take a sec to complain about NYSC. Right at 7 one of the workers came upstairs to where all of the cardio machines are and turned the lights off, saying they were now closed. What!? How can you even do that while people are still running? Isn't that a little dangerous? I understand that they wanted to get home, but that is absolutely no way to run a business. I go back to what I've always said about customer service in New York- there's not any. Or if there is, I rarely experience it. My guess is that location is getting quite a few complaints tonight from some unhappy exercisers.

Bridal Bootcamp

I spent half of last week recovering from a hurt knee and the other half making excuses why I shouldn't go running. I did have one decent excuse- my best friend Rebecca came in for the weekend and there was no time for running, only shopping.

However, I did realize today that my wedding is 3 and a half months from today and this bride needs to get in gear. So this marathon training is doubling as bridal bootcamp.

Some things I've realized since I started training:
1- Don't EVER start training for a marathon when it's freaking cold outside unless you have a nice warm car to commute to the gym in.

2- Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream does not count as a good pre-workout snack. You will pay for that later.

3- Running outside in the cold is ridiculous....and brutal.

Since I only had to run 3 miles today, it seemed silly to walk 6 blocks in the cold to get to the gym, so I put on a few layers and headed outside. It all started out well enough. I turned my ipod on to Lady Gaga and started around the block. Halfway through Just Dance it hit me: this was down right painful.

Pros of running outside- You run fast in order to convince yourself that if you run fast enough, you'll warm up, and this whole silly thing won't be so bad.

Cons of running outside- You never truly warm up because your ears are on the verge of frostbite and your lungs feel like they'll never stop burning.

After weighing these pros and cons, surprisingly the cons won out and I decided to just walk the 6 blocks to the gym. I made my way to the treadmills, picked one, and started running. That's when #2 on the list kicked in- Ben and Jerry's= not a good workout buddy.

I wrapped up my run and walked my freezing self home. Tomorrow is my next run of 4 miles. I think I'll be more properly fueled, and prepared, for this one.