Three years ago today #memories It was around this time that I registered for a 100 miler in Denmark to give me enough fear to get my ass out the door when I was struggling to get into the routine I needed and wanted. #running #consistency #thestruggleisreal #runstreak #daytwo #winning #notreallytho #onedayatatime *comments from today* Oh the run streak. Sometimes I put the cart before the horse and start pursuing something before I have all my ducks in a row. Holy metaphors Batman. I still have some chaos to sort out in my life before I can commit to another run streak. The dust is starting to settle, things are coming together but I’m not there yet where I can pour myself into my training.

Two years ago I couldn’t have imagined how I would let go and truly flow. There was so much uncertainty and so much change. I made so many sacrifices …and I just let go. This created space in my life for something truly amazing and beautiful to enter and I know without a doubt that I made the right decision. I embrace change. I am fearless. Life begins outside your comfort zone. I will continue to boldly go where I’ve never been before and create the absolute adventure that is my life. I do what I have to do to get what I want and I know what I want. Sometimes I lose focus and direction but when I give myself the time and space I come back to what really matters and what is most important to me.

weight: 148.6 lbs

dimensions: 36-28-38.5

I worked last night and drank green tea and vegetable broth all night. I am on my way to get a body composition scan done. I will post the body composition results.

Starting stats:

height: 5’10”

weight: 151.1 lbs, 20.8% body fat

dimensions: 37-29-39

Juice 1: I bought a bag of mandarin oranges yesterday and green grapes and a bag of organic carrots and ginger. I will Juice these after the body scan.

Juice 2: Lettuce, celery, cucumber, Granny Smith green apple, lemon, coconut water, ginger. I will juice that later today. I will take pictures and upload a post when I prepare my juices.

So this is day 1 of my 40 day juice fast. I will keep my blog as the platform for tracking this content as it’s for my own purposes and I want before during and after photos for comparison. I want to see how my body changes when I allow it to detoxify, release the toxins stored in fat tissue and what not.

Posted @withrepost • @davidgoggins Your mind wants to grow so you have to feed it. Your mind doesn’t ask “what have you done for me lately?”, it asks “what have you done for me today?” You have to apply pressure to things in order to make them grow.

When you are in the hurt locker, you have to take great pleasure in the fact that no one wants to be where the fuck you are right now. Take great pleasure knowing that your mind is stronger than the conditions being put in front of you.

When it’s cold outside, I must go on.

When I’m tired from a bad nights sleep, I must go on.

When I look in the sky and the clouds say rain is coming, I must go on.

When day is too hot, I must go on.

When I lose my job, I must go on.

When my spouse leaves me, I must go on.

When death hits close to home, I must go on.

Because no one else wants to, I must go on!

Life is fucking relentless, I must go on!

At the end of this journey, there may not be a pot of gold but there will be a shit ton of self-respect! A lot of people in life are very successful but I think very few are fulfilled. Fulfillment comes when you know you tried your hardest and have given your absolute best when responding to life with “I must go on!”

Delayed gratification gets harder when you’re overtrained, according to a new brain-scanning study
— Read on www.outsideonline.com/2403076/overtraining-mental-effects-research

Oh deer 🦌 upon reflection of 2017..😳

I explored Mount Douglas Park for the first time this morning and I learned that they are in need of park ambassadors. 🙌🏻🙏🏻💫 Well sign me up! I am excited to help out so I can learn about this beautiful place and get to know it inside and out. I visited the Saanich website and found that there is a GPS-enables Map of the park for smart phone. Hooray 😃 I do love getting lost but this map sounds like a stellar idea. As a future Park Ambassador I need to know my way around the park. 😉

From their site:

We received many suggestions for a map from park goers who lost their way in Mount Douglas Park. Thanks to our partnership with the Mount Douglas Park Society, you can now download a GPS-enabled map of the park to your smart phone. Never lose your way again!
— Read on www.saanich.ca/EN/main/parks-recreation-culture/parks/parks-trails-amenities/trails/mount-douglas-park-gps-enabled-trail-map.html

#homesweethome  I would never be able to afford a lovely home like this that has been well functioning for a family of five for decades. Now with the three kids grown and living in Courtnay, Nelson and Japan with their families, there are four bedrooms upstairs that are empty. Home sharing is such a smart move. Not only does it help single professionals like myself who are new to the community or foreign university students like my two sweet roomies Anju and Kanika, it also helps to service the expenses for the home owners. Why wouldn’t you rent out the empty rooms in your home? My new Mom and Dad hehe, landlords, are very methodical in their selection criteria. They have house rules established and a handout of expectations. The house is very secure, always being locked whether we are in or out. It’s locked down like Fort Knox!

I grew up in a sweet little community of 5000 people in Vanderhoof, B.C. We never locked our doors. We actually didn’t even have a key to our front door. I remember my mom and I went on one of our many horse-showing trips, or maybe it was an eventing Nick Holmes Smith camp in Chase Creek? We would ask the neighbours to keep an eye on things. Doors would be left open. And we never had a problem ever. Our vehicles would always be unlocked. So rather recently this summer when I forgot to lock my car doors after I came back from a trip to Enderby.  I was very saddened with what I found, or didn’t find, when I woke up the next day.  The night before I came back and was so tired.  I took one load of stuff upstairs and once I sat down I just couldn’t go back down for another trip so I went to sleep. I had just planned to move to Enderby to stay with my amazing kindred spirit Glen. So, I had basically all of my favourite things I didn’t want to leave home without. Brand new $500 tent. Four different Henckles knives. My Filson computer briefcase with my MacBook pro charger in it. (Thank goodness I had the sense to bring my MacBook Pro in!). My leatherman. A Thule sling backpack. My Shawnigan rowing touring bags (when we went to nationals my first year in St. Catherine’s Ontario and then my second year when we competed in New Zealand). Gone. There were more things. But I came downstairs the next day and it was absolutely cleaned out.  It was a real wake-up call, pun intended.  Part of me was kind of thankful that I didn’t have to bring all that stuff back upstairs.  Really, it’s just stuff.  It’s all replaceable if it’s really important.  It was actually a bit of a blessing in that it helped me part with the things I’ve become attached to. The things I couldn’t, or rather didn’t want to, do without. But I digress…

Going back to my current living situation in my very safe and secure home. There are multiple doors to every section of the home. It’s really cool. I absolutely don’t want to buy a home in Victoria ever. The expense of the type of home I would like in the neighbourhood I would want to live would be astronomical. That makes zero sense. And then I would be overworking just to get by. I learned my lesson with the way I chose to live my life in Kamloops. I got excited with my income but then I started overspending. I think this was also my way of coping with difficult feelings: I was numbing. But I don’t need to talk about that anymore. I’ve worked through those issues in therapy and I understand myself better now. I am no longer in that frame of mind. I am a work in progress of course, because aren’t we all? I am moving in the right direction of decreasing my living expenses so I can work less and do more of what I love: run, bike, swim, basically just get outside and just live. I have found the quality of life that I want and I haven’t even been here a week.

I also really like living with other people. I was really lonely in Kamloops.  I was married for seven years and then divorced and 10 months later relocated my life to Kamloops.  I met some really great people in Kamloops but as is understandable people have their own lives and routines and friends and I didn’t have any friends who would invite me out. Basically. I know I can take initiative and I tried to multiple times but they were busy or not interested or whatever. So, I just ran. A lot. I trained by myself. I overworked. I lived my life so fast and hard that I couldn’t feel my feelings; again numbing. I had some unhealthy relationships. But anyway, going forward…

Part of me wants to do travel nursing, and I can always do that eventually, but right now what feels right is to create some stability in my life, learn how to be more frugal and enjoy the gifts that every day has to offer. It feels surreal to be in Victoria.  It is a mecca for a triathlete.  I will compete in Ironman someday. Somebody pinch me. Am I dreaming? But no; this is real. It was not easy for me to make drastic changes like I just did but I know what I want in my life and I’m not afraid to do what it takes to go out and get it. #qualityoflife #getbusyliving but still #worklesslivemore practice #selfcare #followyourbliss #dowhatyoureallywanttodo #itsworthit #itwillallworkout #yougetonelife #yourlifeisyourmessagemakeitinspiring. Oh wait blogs don’t use hashtags  #ohwell #livethelifeyoulove

1825 09/09/19 – Day 1 of Run Streak

After a nap that was very hard to wake up from after the recent move to Victoria U-Haul packing/unpacking sleep deprivation week, I am headed out for my first ever run in my new home in beautiful Victoria, B.C. 🥰 #consistencyiskey truly. Consistency is something that I struggle with when I don’t have a routine. I seem to need to have a race to be training for to create enough fear to get my butt out the door.

As I am receiving the “2 years ago today” Facebook reminders, I am reminded of when I started my first run streak to help me establish consistency. I had moved to Kamloops a year before and was struggling in a few different areas of my life and wanted more than anything to be consistent with running. So I started this run streak. I have all the pictures of my pre-run pics and post run pics. I would always take a picture before I headed out (like this one) for accountability. As I think every runner knows sometimes getting out the door is the hardest part. So once I was dressed and ready I would post a picture. Often I included motivational quotes from audiobooks I was reading or quotes from motivational speakers. I wanted to brainwash myself. I wanted to recondition my mind to believe that I can do anything I set my mind to. I choose what I let into my consciousness. I can and I will watch me. I protected myself from negative influence and truly created tunnel vision. I deleted the old mriruns Instagram account for reasons described in the first post of this account. Funny enough my Instagram handle is now the same as my license plate…it could only be 6 letters.

I have grown and learned so much over the last five years. I have worked very hard to become the person I am today. But I digress…going back to 2016…as well as that run streak, I also registered for a 100 miler in Denmark that was 11 months away. That’ll get my butt out the door. I hadn’t run longer than a standard marathon distance of 42 km, which was 6 years before. My first marathon was Vancouver in spring of 2005 before my first season of fire fighting. My second marathon was the Moose Moose trail Marathon in Prince George fall of 2010. Since before that race I was researching the ultramarathon in Denmark 🇩🇰 100 miles around the isle of Mors. I love Denmark so much and it will always have a special place in my heart. I lived in Denmark for a year for a rotary student exchange when I was 15. Well before my second fire season in 2006 I backpacked Europe by myself for 5 weeks to reconnect with my host families and friends. I had been wanting to go back ever since, now ten years later, but due to some constraints in my life that was unable to happen. But I knew that someday I would run that race. My life was such that I had absolute control over my decisions and I was determined as hell. So I made it happen.

So going back to November 2016 I decided to do a run streak to force the consistency. I have some awesome icelash extension icicle eyelash pictures; I found it and attached it as picture number ten. I had a 8 miler before Dayshift and I did an out and back. As I hit four miles and started making my way back it started snowing like crazy. Blowing in my face. And i foolishly had eyelash extensions so the picture shows the result of that. I was going to be late for work so I couldn’t stop I’d anything. I had to tilt my head to the side so I could see. I ran outside every day no matter what. I saw this as building mental toughness. It’s all good mental training as Scott Jurek says. I was sharpening the knife. I did all kind of things to force myself to train while fatigued. After working 12 hour shift shifts I would run errands during the day and then at 3pm head out headlight on fuel and fluids on board ready for 4-5 hour runs. I ran to the top of Mount Lolo from my place. I did sunset to sunrise runs. And did a 30 km loop twice. But I had set backs. I got kicked in the face at work which left me with a concussion and whiplash and two weeks off work. I couldn’t not be horizontal. My head was so heavy. Then I went to Africa with my mom for a month when we volunteered at an orphanage in Swaziland. For obvious reasons I couldn’t run long outside by myself. So I went into Denmark knowing it was a learning experience. I did learn. I have learned so much since then in so many areas of my life. I want to compete in 100 km and 100 mile ultras. I just turned 35 and I know that I am coming into my prime as a female ultramarathoner. I’m 20 pounds lighter than I was two years ago. I had a breast reduction going from DDD->A. Finally for the first time in my life I feel like my body can be efficient. I am excited to see what my body can do and I am going to be methodical in my training. Two years ago it was all I could do to just get the runs in and make it happen. Before I hired Zach Bitter as my running couch July 2016 I was doing it by myself. I knew that I knew enough to get myself in trouble but I was scared after the setbacks (running shoe to the chin, etc.). Now I also just accepted a part-time position that is 8-hour shifts. I want to work less and part of my reason for finding a cheaper place to rent was to offload some of the higher living expenses. Wow. So much on my mind right now. Okay, I’m going to get out the door and have my first run along the harbour. I feel like I’m coming back to myself. I will not run with music and let my thoughts jumble around and sort themselves out. 💞🏃🏻‍♀️💫

Part 1: This picture symbolizes how far I have come in my journey. They say it takes five years to recreate yourself. As of October 2, 2019 I will be coming up on five years since a drastic change. I did a photoshoot to celebrate my independence and freedom of stepping out of a unhealthy marriage/7 year relationship. The last five years have had a series of ups and downs and this move to Victoria marks things coming into the place where I really want them to be.

Without further adieu here is the image with caption:

Looking out the window, she sees all the wonders the world has to offer. Looking at the glass she sees her reflection. She has changed so much. She smiles. Finally she feels at ease. The best is yet to come. #reflections

Part 2:

In addition to this reflection theme, I just happened to be sitting here before getting ready for hot yoga this morning. I remembered an angle/concept from four years ago and snapped a picture, then went to yoga. While at yoga, the instructor read this poem to us and it just gave me goosebumps. It ties in so well with my reflective/introspective theme and mindset of late.

The poem:

“Go in and in…

Be the space

between the cells,

the vast,

resounding

silence in which

spirit dwells…

Be sugar dissolving

on the tongue of life.

Dive in and in…

as deep as you can dive.

Be infinite, ecstatic truth.

Be love conceived and born in union…

Be exactly what you seek,

the Beloved,

singing Yes,

tasting Yes,

embracing Yes

until there is only essence,

the All of Everything

expressing through you

as you…

Go in and in…

and turn away from

nothing

that you find…

Danna Faulds

From: Go In and In

2002 #reflections”

Part 3: Cause why not? This is a picture from my first ever shoot. I absolutely loved the whole process. I knew then that I would pursue this more when the time was right.

Fives years: so many lessons, so much growth. I’m in the best place I’ve ever been mentally, physically, emotionally and as I relocate my life again to a new city, I know that I will develop the lifestyle that is right for me. I got into such an unhealthy cycle of working too much, then spending too much and then working too much because I had to. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change a thing.

It was a blessing to be able to volunteer at an orphanage with my Mom in Swaziland for a month. To have that experience with my Mom as an adult was priceless. I loved being able to live on my Dad’s yacht for 3 weeks. It was amazing going out to sea with him: for three days we didn’t see land! I had so much fun riding the local transit. I found the discipline and determination to train for and run two ultramarathons. I did not finish (DNF’d) my first ultra in Denmark. The first distance for an ultra beyond a typical marathon of 42 km that I decided to do was a 100 miler (162 km). Ya know, just four marathons. I had a good plan and I hired an amazing coach (World recorder holder Zach Bitter). But then I got kicked in the face at work. Literally. Running shoe to the chin while I was taking off her shoes. Whiplash and a concussion had me sidelined to the couch for two weeks. Minor set back. Then while in Africa it wasn’t really safe for me to run long distances by myself outside (waist length platinum blonde hair, I mean obviously 🙄 …😬). So I went into Denmark knowing it was a learning experience. I made some crucial gear errors in not being prepared for the pouring rain. I got so cool and my Achilles started tighten up and then it started to really hurt. I thought I could walk the rest of the way but then it really started hurting while walking. So at 57 km I pulled out of the race. That was humbling. But with help from my coach I adapted my training plan accordingly. 8 weeks later I had an amazing injury-free finish at my first 100 km ultra in Arizona. It was incredible. The next day I was running down the hallway. I felt so good. I knew I would eventually come back and next time I will be running the 100 miler. I had an incredible 10 day cycling tour in Colombia. It was unreal. I cannot wait to go back. But I CAN wait. And I WILL wait. I’m 35. I have a lot of time to do a lot of things and I need to relax a little and grow some roots. (Addendum: or not I just realized that my part-time position ends in January then I’m casual – ✈️ travel nursing perhaps???) Plus there are equally absolutely incredible things available to me where I live. I don’t need to travel the world to have an adventure – I just need to travel out the door and take in the beauty that surrounds me. I absolutely love living in Canada. There is no other country I would want to call home. I am already connecting with the cycling and the ultrarunning community in Victoria. I had a massage yesterday and my massage therapist referred me to a really good friend of hers who is an RMT in the city I’m moving to and an incredible ultramarathoner. RMT ✅ Most is all I am thankful for my new found minimalistic mindset. I don’t need to spend money to store stuff to spend money to bring it down years from now. If I can do without it then I can do without it and get rid of it. This is such a huge change for me. I’m moving into a furnished bedroom in a cute house that’s 1.6 km from work. The couple renting the place have three kids who are grown. I am renting a room and a student from indian is renting another. The third room is a spare for when their kids visit. I can tell already they are such nice people. Really genuine. I feel good about this move and am really looking forward to this. MOST of all, I am looking forward to working 8-hour shifts. I have a part-time line and was offered two casual positions in the community. I like that I will have some variety and autonomy to my schedule. Working 12 hour shifts really are hard on me and I tend to overschedule myself so I am sleep deprived but I do it anyway. I didn’t realize what a detrimental effect this lifestyle choice had on me until I had 6 weeks off work after surgery this spring. Wow. All of a sudden I realized I was making a big mistake and I was stuck and I needed to make some changes. I have had a turbulent 8 months or so. Some things didn’t work out which opened the door to other avenues. Things are working out much better than my initial plan. I’m also finding what is right for me in my work and making choices based on my strengths and passion. So I decided I should rent out my condo not live in it. I need to decreases my expenses as much as I can so I don’t feel forced to work so much. I want to live! It’s taken me a while to get to where I am now. I had to go to dark places to make better choices and truly appreciate the places that ignite my spark and shine the proverbial light from within of loving kindness and calm. I’m moving in the right direction and it just feels right. I love change and I’m excited for this new chapter in the adventure that is my life. I love meeting new people! I plan to volunteer at an ultramarathon the day after I arrive. I am so excited to get connected with the trail running community and I am already getting so many welcoming messages on Strava from people who are going to be running. This year I volunteer, next year I run. 💜🏃🏻‍♀️💫

You know what just occurred to me? Maybe I felt like I was making up for lost time? From the time I was 23 until I was 30 I felt like I was in a cage. My wings were clipped. I felt like I couldn’t be the person I wanted to be and live the life I wanted to live. I needed a change. I was so isolated. I missed my family. They weren’t allowed to even step inside the duplex I purchased. It was a dark time. I am an extrovert and I love people. I don’t do well with being isolated. When I began free I felt so incredibly free. I wanted to do everything and anything I wanted. So I did. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve learned so much and I’ve grown as a human. I am a better person through everything I have been through. I wouldn’t change one thing in my life as it has shaped who I am and I’ve worked very hard to become the person I am today. My lessons altered my path to create new beautiful experiences and opportunities.