2017 is finally here. I have been embracing it for a full 5 days now, pondering where my focus might be this year. Balance. Along with gratitude, satisfaction and appreciation. These are what I plan to focus on.
- Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; rediness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
- Satisfaction: fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.
- Appreciation: the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something.
I am a woman who loves extremes. Extreme sports, extreme lust, adrenaline, fear…anything that gives me that rush that drives me. My highs are pretty high but my lows can get pretty low. When you find something that drives you, there comes a point where you exhaust your input and you seek more. I will be the first person to tell you that “I want what I want when I want it”. Period. End of story. When I don’t get what I want, or things don’t go the way I think they should go, I get pissy. I know this about myself and I try very hard to NOT be this way, but, again, I am a balls to the wall kind of girl.
I won the husband lottery when I met Greg. He understands the way I am, he navigates it VERY well and is pretty much the one person who can tell me NO and I listen. Mostly. And he knows this about me, and we have yet to have an actual fight. Some of you more alpha males out there might think that he doesn’t have “control” in our relationship…and you would be wrong. We have balance. In my own life, I may be wild and chaotic, at best, but in my relationship with Greg, we actually have a very balanced lifestyle and it works very well for us.
A lot of folks who meet me first, or hell, have known me for years, and finally actually MEET Greg face to face are quite surprised at how we are together, as a couple. I am very much the person I am when I am on my own, but I am also a wife and a lover and a partner when I am with him. Thus our dynamic is very different, for each of us, when we are out together. He has never felt the need to “control” me, nor does he need to. When we are together we are balanced. That actually happened very early on in our relationship and I think its one of the many reasons he and I clicked so well, because we just fit. We knew it from the moment we sat next to each other in his tiny little apartment and talked about getting married the night we met; and we know it now, 21 years later.
Greg is someone I am grateful for. Some one I appreciate and someone I am satisfied with. There is not another person on this planet that I can say that about. He is my anchor in this crazy world and he is always my happy place. Its funny, when I call him my anchor, he always thinks of it as a big weight that gets tossed overboard from a boat. When I say it, I mean that he is what holds me in place and lets me bounce back to my home, my life and my happiness when I am stretched too far beyond my limits.
Which brings me back to BALANCE.
I have spent the last few years going to extremes and last year I entered 2016 with 2 major injuries, my ripped IT band and a tendon release on my left wrist. I had a rough time recovering from both of those and I am very thankful I entered 2017 injury free. But with the injuries I learned a very important lesson, one my body has been trying to tell me since I started training for this sport in 2013, I am NOT young any more lol. I am 50 years old and I can’t train like a 25 year old and expect the same results. My body is physically and metabolically different. I don’t perform the same, I don’t recover the same, and finally I have realized I can not train the same as a 25 year old.
Thus balance is key.
Now, before we all start getting crazy ideas that I am hanging up my kit and walking away from fighting, remember…I am still that balls to the wall girl who THINKS she can do it all. So, what I have come to realize is that in order for me to still be able to do this craziness, I have to find my balance, in my eating, in my training, in my running, in basically everything. Even gaming!
After my big 50th Birthday celebration I needed down time. And in typical Amy fashion, I went to the extreme and pretty much just gave in to everything. I drank Coke, I ate sugar cookies, I played WoW all day long, and I sat on my ass. It was the holidays…and the end of the year…and I needed to reset. So I sort of just sat in my study, played video games and snuggled my furbabies all day long.
Did I need it? Yes. Did it feel good? Yes. Did I throw out most of my good habits for two and a half weeks? Yes.
I don’t regret doing it…but I do wish I’d had a little more balance (and so does my scale). But I do feel more clear about facing the new year and working on my 2017 goals. I don’t really do resolutions as they are firm decisions to do or not to do something and the only place I like rigidity is in men and weapons, thus I prefer goals.
I had my first test of balance today actually.
I went into my running app to get my 2016 numbers. I was not a happy girl (injuries be damned). So I did what any self respecting data tracker does (yes, I might be a little OCD when it comes to my body stats), I pulled ALL the numbers, all the way back to Jan 2013. I started this sport in June, 2013 so this is even before then!
Instinctively, I started freaking out. Running is the one place I have hard, solid numbers. Numbers don’t lie. Numbers are how we win. Winning is important…right?
(insert rabbit hole here)
I immediately wanted to top whatever the highest number was, because I had to be better than myself this time last year and I failed. Then I started comparing this year’s numbers to last year’s numbers, then I broke it down by month. Then I went a little more crazy and went back 2 years. Then 3 years. How am I supposed to WIN when I can’t prove it with numbers…write down ALL the numbers…figure it out…make it work!!!
and that’s when I finally stopped myself.
What I ended up with, finally, was a way to “balance” my insanity…because not even getting HALF as many miles this year as I did last year was wigging me the fuck out.
I wrote down my monthly miles for the past 4 years. I averaged them by month and decided to make a goal of the highest monthly average, which is 33.85 miles/month, which will put my mileage for the year at 406.20. My highest monthly mileage was in August,2015 and I ran 90.13 miles that month(wtf was I thinking). My knee jerk reaction was to run 91 miles every month…and I realized I was going way too extreme and reigned myself in. So instead, I set a stretch goal of 41.66 miles/month which will put my mileage at 500+ miles at the end of the year if I meet it.
Yes, there’s a little part of me that says “round up the numbers it’ll be better” but again, I am trying to find balance, even in my ocd-edness.
After actually typing all this out, I wondered what my actual average mileage was, overall. Its 23.18 miles/month. I went back and looked at my stats. I met it once in 2016. 4 times in 2015, once in 2014 and 4 times in 2013.
I kind of see a pattern.
Go to an extreme, body forces rest. Go to an extreme, body forces rest.
Balance. I need it. Numbers prove it. Time to do it.
So folks…there’s a little peak into what my brain goes through in setting goals. Yes, I know it STILL sounds a little insane, but that part is just Me. I have other fitness goals for the year that I will not bore you with, but I am also going to focus more on gratitude and being grateful. Satisfaction, even when I don’t meet my goal for a month or I miss something that could have been added to my “50 firsts by my 51st” list. I am still so much more satisfied with my life, than I have ever been and that gives me an appreciation for this beautiful world that we live in and the people I choose to have in my life.
I am typically a positive person, I look at the world through the eyes of an optimist. I prefer seeing the good in all things, and I want us to all be happy. Yet I know things will be hard, especially for us as a nation, over the next 4 years. But I hope we all try and look at the world around us and figure out how to make it better, and how to find balance, even when most think we are surrounded by chaos.
Chaos isn’t a bad thing…you just have to be brave enough to face it and work through it. That’s it. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. So find your strength, find your happiness…
Find Balance and be Grateful
Here’s to a great 2017 – skål
Amy Graham – The Bad Ass Valkyrie
The Badass Valkyrie 
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