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workforitandjustdoit · 10 years ago

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Montreal Hypothermic Half-Marathon 2015 Recap

This morning was no different, I felt like the past week and didn't want to race. Good thing my coach told me to take it as a long hard workout, made me less nervous about doing bad.

It was -18 (about -29 with the windchill), but it was a perfect blue sky and the sun was shining. I wasn't as cold when I started because I did a good warm-up and stayed inside as long as possible, my feet and body warmed-up after 2-3K which was good. The way out was awesome because we had the wind in the back and the sun hitting us. The "way back" from the loop was violent, with the wind my face was freezing and I had to push hard to maintain the pace.

I decided to follow the pace rabbit of 1:45 to give me a good rhythm, knowing that last year I did 1:46, I wanted to do a little better so it was perfect to follow him. We ended up finishing the first loop with an 4:55 pace instead of 5min/km but it was good because I was running well and I had more energy in me.

However after 8Km my knee started bothering me and after the first loop I could barely run but I kept pushing and I distanced the bunny because I knew I could go faster. Unfortunately after 15km my knee was just hurting so much that the pain was making me cry, I had to walk for almost 3 min, and almost quit because it hurt so badly. I ended up sticking to it and barely finished, no sprint finish and then I just collapse on my leg at the finish line...

Moral of the story I'm very happy I finished, I PR 3 min from last year in that race, but I'm not pleased with my race. I guess I can't always be happy but it was definitely a mental race more than anything and it can only make me stronger. Also this race is usually 7-8min slower than my summer's half-marathon due to poor conditions, snow, cold, wind, ... so let's hope the trend continue and I can achieve my goal of 1h35 this summer.

Now I'm in my bed in PJ's after a nice relaxing bubble bath with a hot chocolate and my homework.

Here's to 2015 racing season.

#triseason2015 #2015goals #raceseason #Hypothermic Half-marathon #half marathon #personal #workforitandjustdoit #workout #montreal #winter running #cold running #warrior #fitlbr #female fit #racerecap

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strmyweather · 10 years ago

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The Minimalist's Wardrobe

I want to talk about clothes for a second. (Which may be pretty shocking to anyone who knows me well.)

I’m definitely not somebody who cares tremendously about wardrobe. I like to be comfortable, and I like to look nice, and I definitely have the same body hang-ups as most women (though I will say that CrossFit has gone a long way towards helping me to love my muscles and not obsess as much about my middle). However, designer brands and seasonal trends are not phenomena about which I have any interest whatsoever.

Some of this might be an honest consequence of having grown up in Florida, where we pretty much had one season all year round. Leaves didn’t change color in the fall, and we wore basically the same clothes on Christmas Day as we did during summer vacation. Nine months of the year were swelteringly hot, and bodily comfort reigned supreme. Shorts were our uniform; for school, we grudgingly swapped our flip-flops and sandals for boat shoes or sneakers. As young children, my sister and I used to place tiny bowls of water outside the front door in February, and if the water was frozen in the morning, or if there was frost on the grass that looked halfway like snow, that was tremendously exciting to us. (It actually did snow once, when I was five, an event that hasn’t repeated itself since; I’m now 31.) All this to say that I had even less reason to care about clothes, since shorts and flip-flops were pretty much the norm in my house.

I was firmly in my mid-twenties (in PA school in North Carolina) before I really cared whatsoever about what I wore, and even then, it was less of a true interest and more out of necessity -- I had to have ‘appropriate’ clothes and shoes for clinical rotations in a medical setting. Further, North Carolina has more seasonal change than Florida, so I had to expand my options a little. Mostly, if I found a top or bottom that worked on my body, I bought it in several colors and mixed and matched as much as possible. The less thought required, the better. Fortunately, I was living in a relatively casual, diverse area, surrounded by a young, liberal, educated population, so the communal definition of ‘appropriate’ was still fairly lax. As an example, the female pediatricians I worked for prior to PA school generally wore something along the lines of polo shirts and khaki pants to work; in hindsight, the only difference is that in Florida, the khakis could have been capri length without anyone batting an eye. North Carolina was a step up the formality ladder, but only a small one.

When I got my first job as a PA, at age 28, I was living in Philadelphia. It turned out that, as a young professional in a true urban city, the dress code was abruptly stepped up several notches. I was actually reprimanded a couple of times for my clothes -- first because my Sperry shoes were 'too casual', then for wearing a pair of dress capris from Banana Republic. I had a hard time striking a balance -- clothing that was ‘dressy enough’ for the institution where I worked, but functional enough that I could still commute on my bicycle and easily squat down on the floor with small children. Someone with an eye for this kind of thing, or with one of those bodies that ‘everything fits’, might not have had a problem, but I struggled significantly. After a while, I became resentful of the whole thing, and getting dressed in the morning almost became an act of rebellion. My coworkers routinely wore dresses, heels, jewelry, all kinds of things that made me feel sloppy by comparison; yet, at the same time, I was the only one doing CrossFit, the only one with short hair, the only one using a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation. I felt very different from the rest of the department, yet I didn’t want to ‘give in’ and let them ‘change me’. There were many reasons for this to be an uncomfortable situation, but wardrobe was definitely part of it.

After I was hired for my current job in North Carolina, I had to go in for a meet-and-greet and some computer training. I agonized over what to wear. Bike-commuting wasn’t an option, which meant I could wear dresses again; furthermore, it was July and very hot. I settled on a sleeveless black-and-white striped knee-length dress from NY&Co with corkbed sandals. I remember asking my friend Katherine, a New York City native, whether she thought it was too casual; she considered very carefully, but ultimately voted in favor. “It’s a warm day, you’ve already got the job, and you’re not actually working.” Feeling a little nervous, I walked into the practice.

… and was greeted with, “Wow, look at YOU all dressed up!” The front desk staff was wearing scrub pants and long-sleeved T-shirts; my supervising physician was sporting a red polo shirt. The male NP who came to computer training with me was wearing khakis and Chaco sandals. The practice manager was wearing a tie, but confided, “Dr. X keeps telling me to stop wearing it.”

I relaxed immediately. This was going to be just fine.

Nowadays, I can wear almost anything I want to work, and all I hear is compliments, from patients and coworkers alike (which is VERY strange for me, yet wonderful!). Leggings and long tunics, Athleta stretch pants, corduroys with tall boots, sleeveless cotton dresses, jeans on Fridays, any closed-toed shoe that strikes my fancy. After a careful review of the employee handbook, I put hot pink highlights in my hair a few months back -- and everyone loved them. Granted, we’re a fairly casual practice, partly because of our location -- some other offices within our network do dress a little more formally, depending on their patient population -- but I’m enjoying the situation immensely.

All this back story is to say that my clothing style has evolved over the years, out of seasonal and professional necessity as well as personal preference. Now that I’ve reached a point where all those things are comfortably coalescing -- the clothes I truly love are ones I can actually wear on a regular basis -- one of my goals for 2015 is to pare my closet down to 100 clothing items. (By which I mean ‘real’ clothing items, not things like jackets, workout clothes, undergarments, etc.) This might sound like an odd endeavor to some, but it’s in keeping with the fact that I’m significantly minimalist in terms of my style -- wardrobe and otherwise. I lived quite comfortably in a 300-square-foot apartment in Philly, and the 600+ square feet I now have in Durham feels like a palace. I do CrossFit, which is a famously bare-bones workout routine, not requiring a whole lot of gear or fancy accessories (thus why our gyms are called ‘boxes’). I cook a lot of meals in the CrockPot and eat the same thing for days on end. To be clear, I do like the few possessions I have to be high-quality, versatile, and lasting; my Apple laptop has lasted me six years and counting; my last car was 12 years old before I finally traded it in. But I like simplicity. I don’t like clutter or extraneous material possessions, and I’m a fan of all things low-maintenance.

Therefore, regarding wardrobe, the three questions I’m trying to ask myself -- in no particular order -- are “does it fit, do I have occasion to wear it, and does it bring me joy?”

Honestly, it’s pretty liberating to adopt the mindset that if I simply do not wear something, that is a good enough reason to get rid of it. I think a lot of us hang on to particular clothing items almost out of a weird type of ‘guilt’, like ‘I spent money on it, and it’s practically brand-new, so I better keep it.’ But the fact is, if I can look at a piece of barely-worn clothing and say, “I have similar things that I like BETTER than this,” then, again, that’s good enough for me to throw it on the Donate pile. I’ve got it down to about 120 pieces so far, and I’m hoping to pare it down even more as winter draws to a close and spring begins in earnest.

I’m human -- I definitely have a few pieces of clothing that somehow keep making the cut despite my best intentions. I have two strapless dresses that I’ve barely worn and were pretty costly. I definitely have other dresses that I like better, but for some reason I’m having a hard time letting these go. Same with a black pinstriped vest -- I wanted one forever, and now that I have it, I have yet to wear it -- it’s been hanging in my closet for literally three years. And of course there are a couple of sentimental things I rarely wear but will never get rid of -- the skirts that I had specially made in Tanzania, for example.

However, keeping a running inventory helps me in several ways. When I’m in the store mooning over some potential new possession, it’s nice to be able to remember, “oh yeah, I already have something really similar.” It also works in reverse -- during the most recent closet purge, there was more than one occasion when I realized, “hmm, this shirt is about to fall apart, and I actually do wear it quite a bit -- maybe it’s time to go shopping for something similar.” And keeping a log of how many bits and pieces I own helps prevent me from filling up this ‘huge’ apartment with things I don’t need. As humans, we tend to ‘expand’ to fill the space we occupy, and I want to limit my ‘sprawl’. Some of the happiest years of my life were those during which I lived in furnished apartments and could easily pack all my possessions into a couple of suitcases or my VW Beetle. I find something very satisfying in the concept of being able to see everything one owns; it’s a sense of ‘us against the world,’ like, ‘this is all I need in order to exist and thrive.’

To summarize, I would rather spend my money and time on experiences -- travel, athleticism, reading, friends, adventures, writing, learning -- instead of endlessly straightening up my house or buying 'things' I don’t really need. My wardrobe -- in both quality and quantity -- is evolving into a representation of those values.

Anybody else struggling with wardrobe issues -- quality or quantity?

#clothes #minimalism #wardrobe #2015goals #simplicity

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