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Planning a Wedding & Still Having a Life (And Friends)

Greetings from the friendly skies! Bo and I are currently en route to Bermuda by way of our first Jet Blue experience! Hopefully their friendly customer service is just the first taste of how great the experience will be. This week, I plan to blog at least once a day about our Bermuda adventures. But, in case I have too much fun with Nemo and friends or the mopeds, I have lined up some fabulous guest posts!

Hello Healthy, Happier Bear readers! My name is Heather and I blog at Hangry Pants and for The Knot. This post is entitled, "Planning a Wedding & Still Having a Life (And Friends), but it could be entitled How to Move, Get a New Job, Buy a House, Get a Dog, Have a Boyfriend, etc. and Still Have a Life (And Friends) because what I’ve learned in the eleven months I’ve been engaged applies, I think, to a lot of life events where we think nothing else could possibly be bigger/more stressful/more amazing than this.

heathercuteLast June I got engaged, and since then I’ve gotten a new job, house hunted, tried to maintain some kind of life and plan a wedding.

WeddingPlanning

  1. Single Task: Getting multiple things done at once is absolutely awesome, but I find if I am actively trying to do two things at once I make more mistakes, forget things, and end up having redo something. I’ve learned to fight the urge to multitask and really DO one thing at one time. For example, if I’m trying to blog, blogging is the only active thing I’m doing. I might have the T.V. or music on in the background, but my brain and hands do one thing.
  2. Have Dates to Discuss: I have an involved groom, but I learned early on that unlike me, he can only handle wedding information in small doses at one time. At first, the following occurred a lot: Me, "Mark, do you want a cake?" Mark: "No, I want lunch." Me, "No! I mean at the wedding." Yeah I guess even an involved groom is not a mind reader. What we ended up doing is having Wedding Dates to talk about what needs to done and make decisions. It’s fun!
  3. Have Dates for Fun: On the other hand, I think it’s important to have times when we are not discussing the wedding, otherwise, it becomes this event that takes over our lives. The weather is nice no, so we’ve been going on nightly walks after dinner where we try not to talk about the wedding.
  4. Ask for Help: People will want to help you. Often, they do not know what to do to help, so if you feel comfortable doing so ask them to do a specific thing for you. For example, my mom is totally in charge of ceremony music.
  5. But Listen To Your Gut: Everyone you know who has ever done what you are about to do will want to tell you just what you should and shouldn’t do. I always listen politely, tell them I will consider it and move on. Some people have really good information to share, and others are just bossy. You know the difference, so trust your gut. 
  6. Have other Interests: I signed up for a half marathon about a month before my wedding just so I would have something else to do! It’s important to me to maintain a sense of normalcy here. People warn me in a scary way about the stresses of being a bride, but I refuse to let a happy time turn me blue! Whatever it is you love, squeeze it in; make time for your hobbies, yourself and the people in your life. Talk about other things. Continue to be an interesting person!
  7. Smile: Whatever it is, a stressful time or a happy time, it’s temporary. Experience it all and smile!

*Don’t forget to enter my health & beauty giveaway!

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Marathons & Moderation: Guest Post #2

Hello Healthy Happier Bear readers! I’m Emily and I blog about my addiction to sweating at Sweat Once A Day. I love following Ashley’s posts about her fun, fit and fabulous life in NYC! When Ashley tweeted for people to write about balance during marathon training, I eagerly offered to write about one about one of my favorite subjects: run hard play hard.

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I’ve run 11 full marathons while holding a full time job (and a few part time jobs), dating, spending lots of quality time with my family and friends and partaking in my fair share of happy hours. If there’s one thing I feel I can speak with some degree of authority, it’s balance and marathon training.

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Here are my top 10 tips for how to run like a rockstar without sacrificing anything else in your life.

1) Embrace the Mornings.

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Okay, don’t hate me, don’t hate your alarm clock, stop pushing that snooze button.

If there’s ONE thing you can do to make your life more balanced during marathon training, it’s learning how to hear your inner rooster, rise with the sun and get miles logged before most people get out of bed in the morning.

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Through 11 marathon training cycles, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: I will never regret working out in the morning, but I will always regret not getting out of bed to get my sweat on.

You never know what will come up after work: a late night at the office, an impromptu happy hour, a dinner date with that hot guy from the gym. You will never have to worry about fitting in the spontaneous fun in life if you get your training over and done with before you head to work.

2) Get Creative.

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There are never enough hours in the day. I tackle this unfortunate fact of life by making sure no hour goes to waste.

When time is tight, I’ll get creative with my training schedule: run home from work at night, run to happy hour, stretch during a conference call, run errands…literally.

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Why waste 30 minutes on the subway in the morning when you could use that time to run the three miles to work and cross your training off the overflowing to-do list for the day?

3) It’s okay to miss some workouts.

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One of the biggest mistakes during marathon training is to adhere too closely to your training schedule. Don’t stress out if you miss a 3 mile easy Wednesday run. If there’s one workout to prioritize during marathon training, it’s unquestionably the long run. As long as you get that in, you’ll be golden on M Day.

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Some things are more important that sweating. Please do yourself a favor and choose to prioritize your best friend visiting from out of town, your boyfriend’s birthday celebration or meeting a work deadline over squeezing in a shake out run.

4) Pick a Night to Party Like a Rockstar
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When I trained for my first marathon, I learned to live for Thursday nights. I was too worried about my Saturday morning runs to go out on Friday evenings, so I would take advantage of Thursdays to go out like a champ.

Instead of limiting yourself to never going out, or stressing about always being tired, pick a night to do it right and stick to that so the remainder of the week you can get good sleep and be focused on preparing for the 26.2.

5) Reward Yourself

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There are some mornings, days, evenings during marathon training when you’re just not going to be motivated to log your miles.

One of my favorite ways to overcome this challenge is to reward myself for dominating my training plan. I’ll tell myself “do these 5 miles and you can drink champagne with the boyfriend” “finish your long run strong and a guilt free bottomless brunch is in your very immediate future” “get out of bed to run at 6am tomorrow and your favorite salad place is serving lunch”…you get the picture.

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There’s no shame in a little personal bribery mid-marathon training.

6) Con Your Friends to Join

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Marathoning is a foreign concept to many people.

How many of you have gotten the question “how long is the marathon?” That’s what I thought.

Get your friends involved. Have them join you for 3 miles of your long run, get them to meet you for brunch after a 5k, bribe them to make signs for your race, get them drunk and convince them to sign up with you…I mean, no…that’s what I meant.

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Your friends will get excited about something that’s so important to you. Help them figure out how to become a part of your marathoning world and you’ll get to spend more valuable time with them while getting your training/racing done at the same time. Golden.

7) Make Friends While Training

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The best thing I’ve done while training for various marathons and triathlons, is to put myself out there and meet people who are also in training. Look for running groups, fellow bloggers/tweeters or triathlon clubs in the area with group workouts.

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Take a chance and go. I guarantee that the worst thing that happens is you have a good time. Many of my best friends in the DC area started as strangers on the internet or randos in some running group I found in the neighborhood. Do it. Trust me.

8) Cut Corners

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If you’ve ever read my blog, you know that I don’t shower. Ever.

I’ve learned that if I can squeeze in a run at lunch, but not a shower, it’s worth it if I can make it to my best friend’s birthday BBQ.

9) Lunch on the Run

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The best way to balance training for a marathon with a full time job is to utilize your lunch breaks for quality sweating.

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Now, I by no means have a job that grants me a full hour to lunch on a daily basis. But on days when I can sneak away from my desk, I do. And I find that having a midday run helps me accomplish more than usual in the morning before I lace up my running shoes, and the noon endorphins refocus me for the afternoon workload.

10) Love Sweats

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Before I tricked my boyfriend into dating me, he had never raced before. Sure he ran for fitness, but getting him involved in the all-consuming world of running/triathloning and sweat addiction has helped keep me sane and balanced while amidst my many training cycles and has given us a new passion to bond over and keep our relationship exciting.

And single people?

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Do you know how hot sweaty men are. Refer to tip #7 and start meeting some new men in spandex. I’d be lying to you if I told you I don’t spend every minute I’m on my bike checking out the muscley calves of the hot boys who pass me.

Happy running and marathon training to all of you! Run hard, play harder and you’ll be dominating 26.2 miles in no time. Thanks again to Ashley for letting me hang with all her lovely readers for a bit and consume more than my fair share of her blog space rambling about my love for sweat filled marathon training!

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Marathons & Moderation: Guest Post #1

 
Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope the weather is better in your neck of the woods than what we’re dealing with in New York City. It has been raining for the past three days and I literally thought I was going to float away this morning on the way to the gym. Oh well! I can’t complain too much because last night there was actually sunshine during the NYRR Wall Street 3 Mile race!
 
As you may recall, I reached out via Twitter a few weeks ago looking for readers and bloggers alike who would like to do guest posts on Marathons & Moderation. One of my primary goals for this year’s marathon training is to find moderation. Therefore, I thought I’d reach out to some of the experts to provide their two cents on how to stay sane, injury free, and enjoy marathon training by using moderation.
 
The first guest post comes from one of my local favorites, Ellen! Hope you enjoy the first of many Marathon & Moderation guest posts. If you’d like to guest post on this topic, please let me know in the comments section!
 
 
 

Hi, Healthy, Happier readers! I’m Ellen and I blog at Keepin the Pace, where I talk about running, cooking and finding ways to keep up with the pace of daily life while making it all happen. When Ashley sent out the call to guest post on marathons and moderation, I jumped at the chance. I’ve been a reader for quite a while, and will be running my third marathon this fall. Moderation or balance is something I’m always striving to attain – and something others generally tell me I’m pretty good at.

Let’s be honest here, by nature, there’s nothing "moderate" about training for months to push your body to run 26.2 miles. I’m not saying it’s crazy, but let’s start by defining "moderation." Running a marathon (and training for one) isn’t easy. It’s taxing both physically and mentally and requires a lot of commitment. That said, it’s also incredibly rewarding. And the best thing you can do is define what you mean by "moderation." The clearer a picture you have, the easier it will be to ensure that you attain it.

This fall, I will be running my third marathon (NYC). My previous marathon experiences were very different from each other in many ways: training, attitude, performance. I’ve learned quite a bit training for both, and here are some things to consider…

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Do some research. You’ve chosen the marathon, you know where the finish line is – now there are a few months to figure out how to get to it. Outside of training, you’d like to keep some semblance of normalcy in your life.

Define what moderation looks like for you over a few months… over a week… over the course of a day. For example:

  • Over four months, I’d like to make 3-5 social events/month.
  • Over a week, I’d like to have dinner with friends/significant other three times.
  • In the course of a day, I’d like to eat homemade meals 75% of the time.
  • Most of my goals here are food-related (that’s where my head is), but yours may have more to do with hanging out with friends, keeping up with work, yoga, etc. Look at your big plan and pick a few attainable goals that will keep you happy.

  • Backwards plan. Mark that marathon on the calendar and mark it big. Then map your long training runs backwards from that date.

    • Know that training plans are generally created in a vacuum… a perfect world where weather and work and a social life don’t factor in to training. Read several plans from different sources (I can tell you some good books) and take each with a grain of salt.
    • Once you’ve read, think about what works for you. Relative newbie running a first marathon? Probably not a good idea to plan for a sub-4:00 marathon training 45 miles/week. YOU are the best coach you can have right now. Map out your long runs on a day that works for you. (Note: This isn’t always Sunday. For me, in the summer, Friday works better).
    • Loosely factor in your weekday runs — these may be subject to change as your schedule changes. Check up on them at the beginning of each week and adjust as needed.

  • Go easy on yourself. You’re already awesome, this much we’ve established (uh, you’re running a marathon). Remember: Your marathon will not fall apart if you skip your speed work on July 17. Nor will you bonk because you had to cut your long run 2 miles short in September. So really, plan ahead, but know that your plan is not concrete.
    • Weekly: Sunday nights I check out my running/cross-training plan to see what works with my schedule. I know that I may need to change things around sometimes, and that’s okay. Try to keep your long runs intact, know that your shorter weekday runs give a little more leeway.
    • Daily: Splitting runs is fine. Really. Perhaps on a Wednesday I can’t run 6 miles at a time… but I can run 3 miles before work and 3 miles afterwards. It’s still six miles. It’s a weekday. You have a real life. Your marathon will not suffer, I promise.

  • Reward yourself. This is a big deal. I know that dangling that carrot in front of me helps quite a bit when motivating myself to get out the door for a 15-miler in the August humidity. Tie your rewards to the task – long run in the heat? Get an awesome summer wicking top. Met your yoga goals for the month? Maybe some new socks are in order. Either way, keep yourself motivated with little rewards along the way, and you will be handsomely rewarded at the finish line of your marathon.
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The bottom line is, enjoy your training (as tough as it might be). There will be a time in your life when you think back on this fondly. Make sure you were good to yourself — and check back to my blog to see how I’m doing! Good luck to your running endeavors and I’ll see all of you NYC Marathoners on November 6, 2011 for a nice little tour of the boroughs 🙂
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