Welcome to 2012! I love how excited everyone gets about health and fitness in January. Runners and walkers fill the trails while sweaty bodies pump away in the gym. My last seven years as a personal trainer taught me to take full advantage my clients’ fantastic post-holiday motivation. Here’s an inspiring quote I saw from my days volunteering in the physical therapy department at the Ballard Swedish Medical Center. Read it right before your workout!!!

WHAT IS A WORKOUT?

- A workout is 25% perspiration and 75% determination; it is one part physical exertion and three parts self-discipline.

- Doing it is easy, once you get started.

- A workout makes you better today than you were yesterday. It strengthens the body, relaxes the mind and toughens the spirit.

- A workout is a personal triumph over laziness and procrastination. It is a way of preparing for life’s challenges and proving to yourself that you have what it takes to do what is necessary.

- A workout is a key that helps unlock the door to opportunity and success. Hidden within each of us is an extraordinary focus. Physical and mental fitness is the trigger to release it.

- A workout is a form of rebirth. When you finish a good workout, you don’t simply feel better; you feel better about yourself.

~ Antoine T. Velour

Tim Sinnett working up a sweat in Colorado

October brings us the best holiday of all – Halloween! If you’re like me, costume 5ks are the highlight of your year.
After running a couple dozen road races in costume over the years, my closet costume fetish has officially been exposed. Costumes make racing ever more fun and let me tell ya, guys definitely do a double take when they get passed by a girl in a red-and-white polka-dot tutu!!!

Check out a post on the Brooks blog to see me in one of my favorite race costumes – Lady Gaga! http://talk.brooksrunning.com/2011/06/17/brooks-id-member-dressed-as-gaga-wins-fremont-5k/

If you’re looking to run a road race this month, but aren’t sure which costumes work well for racing, then look no further. I’ve done the arduous hours of research to discover the costumes and accessories that do and do not work well for racing:

Costumes/Accessories that work:
1. Capes (in fact, they make you even faster!)
2. Wings (light and small are best)
3. Tutus (fun on women, hilarious on men)
4. Full-body morph suits (crowd-pleaser! visibility is limited, though, and they aren’t great on hot days)
5. Hats and tiaras (as long as they are secured to the head/hair, they work really well)
6. Boas
7. Hand-held accessories that are light and stiff such as swords and pitchforks

Costumes/Accessories that don’t work:
1. Wigs (unless they are on really well or you don’t plan to sprint all-out at any point)
2. Full-body animal suits such as the Brooks Beasts costume (even on a cold day, you will get sweaty and no one wants to be stuck in an outfit full of their own B.O.)
3. Masks (fun, but very hard to breathe in and see out of)
4. Hand-held accessories that are big, bulky, and/or floppy such as a lasso/rope or a baby in a Baby Bjorn

The best thing about racing in costume is that you will get cheers from tons of complete strangers. So, if you choose a wind-resistant outfit, you may just have the fastest race of your life! Plus, you’ll look good doing it. : )

Recently, at my friend’s graduation party, I strolled past the table with fudge and the cooler full of Mike’s Hard Lemonades (common party pit-stops for me). No problem for the new and improved Runnin’ Rosie. While my friends water-skied on beautiful Lake Washington with Mt. Rainier as a backdrop, I sat in the boat and passed up my turn, even though every fiber of my being wanted to be flying though the water on such a hot, sunny day. The potential for injury just wasn’t worth it. Fortunately, I got my adrenaline fix a few days later on Disneyland roller coasters!

So if you happen to see me rollerblading around Green Lake with a margarita in one hand and a cupcake in another, please give me a guilty glare and remind me that nothing tastes better than the taste of victory. : )

“You could be so good if you would just focus!” The words of my old coach, Chuck keep ringing in my ears. Despite a track record of fast races and good grades, my closest friends would describe as easily distracted, overly enthusiastic, and not exactly, well, focused. In high school, my cross country teammates nominated me for the “Space Cadet” award and gave me a headband with bobble-head eyeballs. It’s not that I can’t be disciplined; it’s just that the world throws so many wonderful opportunities in my direction that I find it hard to say no to things. Three parties in one night? Sure! Take on an extra job to help fight cancer? Sign me up! Overnight relay on the east coast? Fun!

The very characteristic that so many people seem to love about me – my enthusiasm – can sometimes also be my detriment. My challenge, should I choose to accept it, is this: I must learn to channel my enthusiasm and focus my energy into a worthy goal and trust that I will have time to do all the other things in life later on when my running goals aren’t quite as lofty. There will (unfortunately) always be homeless people in need of food, for instance, so the opportunity to volunteer in a soup kitchen again isn’t going anywhere. The Grand Canyon, as well, isn’t going anywhere and neither will my desire to run from rim to rim.

(Drum roll please)….I am hereby committing myself to staying focused and consistent with my training in the next year and I will make the sacrifices needed to reach my true running potential.

Six weeks in to this season’s training schedule, I can already tell my hard work and sacrifices are paying off; I feel strong and tough, eyes laser-focused straight ahead, ready to tackle anything in front of me.

I want to be Wonder Woman. I love to race in her costume. Wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt to bed before every race gives me a confidence boost. I want to run super fast, have a fantastic career helping others get healthy, and be an incredible friend, fiance, sister, daughter, and auntie. Helping others gives me a rush and raises my self-esteem. Motivation has never been a problem for me….I want to travel the world, speak more languages, play the guitar, and cook gourmet food!

But, unfortunately, I am not Wonder Woman. Not even close. I am not impervious to pain and injury, and I don’t have an inexhaustible supply of energy. (Ever notice how superheroes never sleep, eat, or wear band-aids?). I have to take care of myself. I have to slow my life down, rest, and relax. A hard blow came crashing down on me this week in my physical therapist’s office: “You have a stress reaction in your foot. No running for six weeks.” I had no magic bracelets to keep the words from stabbing themselves into my ears. Essentially, my season’s over.

After feeling crushed for a couple of days, I recommitted myself to my goal for 2012 and made a promise to myself to take care of my body much better than before. To expedite recovery, I’m going to see my physical therapist, Neil from the Sports Reaction Center, three times a week for ultrasound and electrical stimulation. He’s taking great care of me by video-taping my gait, giving me specific exercises and stretches, and promising me that with his thirty years of experience working with elite athletes, he will make me stronger, more flexible, more efficient, and therefore much faster than ever before. I can’t wait! Until then, I will eat lots of protein, fresh fruit, and veggies. I will ice and elevate my foot, cross-train well, read some books on mental toughness, and watch LOTS of Wonder Woman cartoons!

Who is your favorite superhero? Who do you look up to? What do you do to take care of injuries?

Last weekend I raced the Bloomsday 12k and while I didn’t race as well as I wanted to, I came away with a renewed gratitude for my health and my ability to run. Over the weekend, I met amazing athletes from around the country and even around the world. Bloomsday, a 50,000 person road race in Eastern Washington, attracts a very competitive field, including the country’s best wheelchair racers.

The day before the race, I worked at the American Cancer Society DetermiNation team booth. A man named Jack walked up and told me his doctor diagnosed him with terminal cancer two days ago. He had run Bloomsday 15 times in a row and despite having cancer in 3 places in his body, he wasn’t about to let it break his tradition. I listened to his story and asked if I could give him a hug, which he graciously accepted.

The evening before the race, we had a VIP elite athlete dinner where all the athletes came together to mingle. Looking around the table, it was easy to tell the runners from the wheelchair racers…the wheelchair racers’ arms were four times as big! : ) I spoke to a young man who broke his back 5 years ago and has been in a wheelchair ever since. He took up wheelchair racing because he wasn’t going to let getting paralyzed from the waist down get in the way of his desire to be healthy, strong, and competitive. Now he’s shooting for the Paralympic Games. What an inspiration!

All in all, I could’ve walked away from the race thinking, “Damnit, I ran a minute slower than last year and got second place for Washington women instead of first again, which cost me $250 in prize money.” Instead, I made a decision to focus on the positive and have the best possible weekend I could, despite the race outcome. So when it comes to racing, while it’s important to have specific outcome and performance goals, it’s also important to keep an attitude of gratitude and positivity. Enjoy the whole experience. No matter at what time you end up crossing the finish line, remember how lucky you are to have arrived at the start line in the first place.

That being said, I can’t wait to defend my title at the Beat the Bridge 8k next weekend! First place gets a $1,000 gift certificate to Nordstrom and they sell wedding dresses now! : )

Mom, Dad, and my eight siblings

Four months before I was born, the doctor told my parents that I wasn’t going to make it. After eleven pregnancies and seven births, my mom’s body was tired. My itsy bitsy negative four-month-old brain thought, “Screw that! I wanna live!” So I fought and fought and bounced out a healthy baby girl. : ) Since day one, I ran around like crazy, struggling to keep up with my five older brothers and two older sisters. We grew into a family of eleven total and times were tough, but we made the most out of it. Unpaid light bill=lights turned out=great opportunity to play flashlight tag!!!

Thanks to the Ballard Food Bank, we always had enough food, though since most of it was border-line expired, I grew up eating for sustenance (mainly rice, beans, potatoes, carrots, and corn) rather than pleasure. About once a week, though, my dad did bring home a couple half gallons of cheapo ice cream and we attacked the cartons like hungry hyenas. “Don’t make a meal out of it!” my mom would yell as we competed over who got all the cookie chunks in the cookies ‘n’ cream carton.

Thanks to my strong sense of determination, I am alive today. I feel very confident that with this same strong determination, I will reach my goal of qualifying for the 2012 US Track and Field Olympic Trials in the 1500 meter race. In this blog, I will share my highlights and my struggles along the way, while answering questions and giving advice that will be helpful for new runners, advanced runners, and anyone out there who has a passion. Now that I’ve shared my story, I’d love to hear about you! What are your goals? What gets you fired up?