Friday, May 3, 2013

Love your tree.

Happy May!  I feel like as I get older these months fly way too quickly sometimes.

I will be totally honest, not much new to report here on the homefront.  Just lots of running, and a few attempts at healthy meals and smoothies. And work, of course.

April ended well, I ended up getting in 135 last month, which is my highest so far by 2 miles!  I did my long run for this week today after work.   To be totally honestly, I almost didn't do it.  I've been feeling kind of worn out the past few weeks.  I told myself I could walk and that we could just do 3 and call it a day.  As always, I get in a groove around 3ish miles and could keep on trucking.  Three turned into 11, which, coincidentally is exactly the number I was looking for with my marathon training schedule. Sa-weet.

As I run, I do math in my head about the marathon, breaking it up into small chunks in my head.  The last time I ran 7 miles, I was like, "Okay, 7 times 4 is 28, so if I can do about 3+ of these runs, I can do it."   Or, my 5k runs---"it's just under 8 5ks back-to-back."  For some reason, doing this really works for me--Dude, I can actually do this.  I may not do it fast, but I can fucking do it.  As daunting as the thought of 26.2 miles seems--I'm not overwhelmed at the thought of it.  At least not yet!   Every time I hear Daft Punk's "One More Time" on my running mix, I always imagine myself throwing that on at Mile 25 and just playing it on repeat until I cross the line--this weirdly gives me tingles all over--like, every single time, dude.



I watched a great documentary today called, America The Beautiful.  It was made a little while back in 2007 (holy shit, that's already 6 years ago?) and in the briefest way of summarizing, it deals with America's infatuation on superficiality in our society.  How women and men compare themselves and try to live up to impossible standards of beauty, and how we are set up to fail.  It hit close to home, because as often as I try to talk myself up and love who I am, I fall victim to the same comparisons.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and poke at the hips inherited from my mother and wish I had the money to make them smaller.  Or how silly I look when I smile--my cheeks are so high and big, that my eyes almost squint closed.  Or how small my boobs are since I lost the weight and how I would like to have me some bigger knockers.

The documentary loosely follows a model who is doing high-class fashion runway shows, getting great contracts, scantily-clad with more make-up then a drag show entertainer.  And she is gorgeous, I will give her that.  She is also TWELVE YEARS OLD.   Basically she hits it big for a while, the jobs dry up in the US, and she heads to Europe where she has a little success in London, and then moves to Paris to try and pick up speed.  They measure her waist--96cm, or 37.7 inches.  They tell her she is too big, and they only want to dress models with waists 90cm/35in or less as they save on fabric that way.   They interview another young gal later on in the movie, and she's 5' 10" and 130 pounds.  She is a rail.  They tell her they can't hire her until she is 115 pounds.
This is her AT 12....

Jesus Christ--us chicks get mind-fucked by the media on both a conscious and subconscious level. Don't get me wrong, the guys are not free from this either.  And you know, thinking about it now, it seems so silly--why do we make these comparisons?  Why can't we embrace who we are?  Why are we so easily influenced?  Why do I spend the time doing that to myself?!

FACT: My calves are jacked and could probably kick someone's door in. Awesome.
FACT: My eyes are huge, and I love it. *BLINK*
FACT: My ass could single-handedly bring men at war to peace.  Seriously, it's fantastic.

So that's where I'm at--and like I said in January, I'm working very hard at stopping the comparisons to other women.  Just can't do it--we're all built completely different from another.

As a wise African woman explained to another woman in the documentary:

"Do you see that tree?  Do you like that tree?  Well, look at that tree, do you like that tree?  Do you say this tree isn't pretty because it doesn't look like that tree?  Do you say this tree is ugly because it doesn't look like that tree?  You're a tree.  I'm a tree.  You've got to love your tree.  Love your tree.'"

Right on.



That all said, venting done,it's time for dinner, folks.  Trying out a turkey-loaf recipe--we'll see how that panned out...







Go Fork Yourselves,

Krissy<3