Random thoughts

In March (well, I suppose it was the end of April) I lost my myfitnesspal streak.  I had a streak of over 2 years of faithfully logging into myfitnesspal.  Granted, I didn't always log my food, especially for the first 6 months or year, I would sometimes, especially at the beginning of that streak (I previously had a streak of over a year before this one), just log in so that I didn't lose my streak.  After losing my 2 year streak, I've been rather sporadic on logging my food.  (Well, there's losing the streak and then losing my mom that has made me less likely to care about what I'm eating.)

I posted the other day about getting myself a new Garmin watch.  One of the features of Garmin (I suppose it's actually the Garmin Connect app, not necessarily the watch) is that it syncs with myfitnesspal and will also keep track of my calories . . . so when I put the watch on and was looking at the app on my phone, I realized that in order to see my calorie intake, I need to actually record what I'm eating.  I suppose we'll see how I do with that.

Honestly, I have noticed that things that I used to care about don't matter so much anymore.  I attribute that to my Mom's death.

• *Side note - someone recently asked me about me saying "death," "died," and "dead" instead of "passing" or some other term that isn't so harsh.  And I realized that I use dead because I'm so angry about it.  Saying my mom "passed" or "is gone" is too nice.  It's just not fair or okay that she died and I want to use as harsh a wording as I can because I'm not okay with it.

Anyway, the other features of my watch that I'm obsessed with is the heart rate monitoring.  I looked up healthy resting heart rates and what I saw said 60-100 beats a min is in the normal range, but really fit people often have resting heart rates lower than 60.  I want to be considered healthy, so I've been looking at it constantly.  Right now my average is 59. yesterday it was 58 but for some reason last night I couldn't get it below 70 consistently, but I really, really want it to be lower.  It's ironic that I've been looking at it so much because I just recently read a post from MaryFran (shout out 2 posts in a row) =) where she talked about her brother going to the ER because he fell while riding his mountain bike.  While in the ER he fell asleep and the heart monitors went off because his resting heart rate is so low that while he was sleeping it dipped way down (which was fine for him).  I thought #goals! 

I've even been waking up at night (well, I always wake up a little) and look at it to see what my heart rate is down to.  I didn't see anything lower than 54 the first night, but Monday morning on my way to work I noticed it had gotten high (mid-90's) so I started deep breathing and got it all the way down into the 40's (while driving, pretty impressive).

I've thought that it would be a good thing for Chris to have.  I bet he has no idea what his resting heart rate is, but if he got as obsessed with it as I have become, maybe he'd work to get a little healthier.

So back to that post I linked to from March.  It's strange to look at a post dated March 1st.  My Mom died March 5th, and when I wrote that post I had no idea she was going to die.  She was in the hospital at the time, but we didn't know until March 3 that her condition was so serious.  It's like reading something from a simpler time, a time when I didn't have so much stress and sadness and worry about my dad.  A time when my biggest concern was my monthly goals, losing weight, hiking more, stretching more, and a running PR. So much has changed in just 7 months.

To lighten the mood . . . Maddox has been sticking his head out the window on his way to soccer.  He is such a goofy kid, I had to take a picture.  I posted it on Instagram and said something about not knowing I was raising a dog.  =D

Maybe I should go back and read the beginning of the year's posts.  Especially the goal posts.  I just read my posts from March, and the goals I had back then really were goals I'd like to work on.  Healthy eating, less wine, more stretching, hiking, and running.  Maybe having a focus on this type of stuff would be good for me for right now.

Last night I ran another 5 miles, and I have to say that I am enjoying not focusing on the pace.  It wasn't fast (9.43 min/mile), and while sometimes I have urges to be faster, when I'm starting a run the thought of going faster makes me want to quit.  I think consistent running will naturally make me faster.  It did in 2015 and before.  I was running my shorter distances at close to an 8 min/mile without trying. 

But honestly, while part of me wants to be faster, I am also okay with where I am right now.  I still would like to have a marathon of under 4 hours, but I think with consistent running and some speed work next spring it will be "easy."  (What a way to set myself up for failure . . .)