WORKOUT – Ran outside 8.5 miles/1:17
Slow, easy, music-less recovery run. I’m trying to only listen to my ipod on long runs or treadmill runs and everything else go sans music. Or should I say Muzique?
SaraRM asked what kind of stain we used on our fence…
We used Minwax wood stain in Red Mohagony from Home Depot. It took almost 2 gallons to finish our fence. But then again, I probably got at least a half gallon on myself…
Jen asked what size of Nike Tempo shorts I wear…
Depending on what I can find on sale, I either buy a small or a medium. I always roll the waist up once because I just think it’s more comfortable.
Jessica Simpson in tempos. No, I don’t know what size she buys.
Deanna asked about heart rate monitors, “Should I be concerned with my heart rate and use this thing? Also, how does one actually CONTROL their heart beating?”
Ok, here’s how HRM’s work:
The monitor rests just below the breast, and contains a sensor that can read the electrical activity of your heart. The monitor also contains a transmitter. After the sensor reads the heart rate, the transmitter sends that information to a display, which can be worn around the wrist like a watch.
source
Nice butt ‘do, bud.
I personally don’t use one, but I know a lot of people do. With running, I can look at my pace and see how hard I’m working so I’m not as concerned with knowing my heart rate.
However, if I was doing other activites, like taking a class at the gym, I think it’d be great to know… Am I really working hard here or does it just feel hard? Am I slacking off? etc.
Some people are numbers people and love knowing exactly how many calories they’re burning, what their heart rate is, etc. If that’s your thing, go for it. It’s just not mine.
Readers opinions on HRM’s??
Since being injured in April 2009, I actually haven’t had another one. But I do have days when I ache, my legs and hips are tight, etc. If that’s the case, I’ll take a day off and run the next day.
If it’s a real injury, you’re going to need to take a lot more time off than a day or two; it could be a couple months.
But to answer your question, if something hurts a little or just doesn’t feel right, I’ll definitely take the day off from running.
*On a side note, I can’t preach enough the importance of stretching and icing. Do it!
I think pacers are a great tool for someone trying to hit a specific time goal because they take away the thinking part of running; all you have to do is keep up.
Some people might even run with their own personal pacer… say you’re trying to BQ so you ask a speedy guy friend to run the race with you and help you stay on oace and meet your goal.
That being said, I haven’t had much success with pace groups personally. In the LA Marathon, I ran with the 3:20 pace group for 14 miles and then lost them completely and ended up finishing 8 mins later. In Phoenix, I ran with the 3:30 pace group, lost them and finished a minute ahead of the group.
My PR marathon was ran all by my lonesome. So I haven’t really found that pace groups have helped me much… maybe that’s because I don’t train pace-specifically, maybe I just can’t keep a pace very well. Maybe because I belch loudly while running, I just don’t know.
sourceKristen asked, “SR- What’s your biggest piece of wedding advice for either the wedding day or married life after the wedding? I’m getting married in less than 2 weeks, I’m half about to have a panic attack/half excited!”
Congratulations Kristen on your upcoming wedding day! It will be one of the very best days of your life.
This is a great question that I haven’t been asked before, and I love to give advice. especially on stuff I know nothing about. anyways…
FOR YOUR WEDDING DAY…
As clique as it is, simply enjoy every second of the day because it will be over before you know it. Don’t STRESS over the little details because in the end, they don’t matter and no one except you will care about them.
I had an absolute dream wedding, and the things that I thought were so important to stress over beforehand… Are the fireworks going to go off at the right time? Is the valet parking being paid for so the guests don’t have to? Have any of the handmade starfish chocolate favors broken?… those didn’t matter at all in the end, and probably no else at the wedding even thought of them.
It’s a celebration of you and your spouse, not a production. All the small details are just the stuff that isn’t truly important.
FOR MARRIED LIFE…
Let me be honest: marriage is hard. It just is at times. It’s also the best, most important human relationship that I have. It is absolutely worth all the hard work. And it is work.
My advice is to start your marriage with the attitude that There is no way out so you might as well work at it rather than be miserable for 50 years. No matter what happens, you just stick with it because there’s no outs. period.
For you marrieds out there, what’s one piece of wedding or marriage advice you would give??
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{ 48 comments… read them below or add one }
Not married, but wanted to comment anyway. I love your advice about marriage… So many people these days get married with the thought of divorce being an “option.” Maybe it’s because my parents are still together and so are my boyfriend’s, but I just don’t see divorce as being an option! We’ve been dating 4+ years and have so many friends who have been dating <2 get married because "we're young and if we screw it up, we still have time to try again…" YIKES!
I love this post about marriage. My single friends always say they are waiting to find their prince charming where everything is magical all the time. I tell them they will be waiting a long long time. Marriage is work, but in a good way. I think the number one piece of advice is to just be happy with what you have and know the grass is not always greener. I always here from people that 1 out of 2 marriages end in divorce and my opinion on that is its true, IF YOU LET IT. Enjoy marriage and don’t let the little stupid things ever ruin it : )
I completely agree with your marriage advice. Just to expand on it a little, I would say – You WILL fight. A lot. And probably most of it will happen in the first year. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be married or that you don’t love each other, it just means you have to learn to compromise and sometimes consider someone else’s wants/needs above your own. Or maybe you expect your spouse to magically know what you need now that you’re married – doesn’t work that way. If anything, they’re more clueless!
Communication is key!!
I have so many friends who have fought with their spouse like crazy the first year (even if they dated for years or lived with each other beforehand), and they think there’s something wrong because everyone talks about the first year being the “honeymoon period”. And maybe it was for some people… but not for me, or the majority of my friends. The first year was definitely the hardest, but no matter how mad you get, I PROMISE you will look back and laugh about it with your spouse some day.
Best piece of wedding advice I ever got: You can only do so much for adults. I was so worried about making everyone else happy and trying to make them comfortable that I was a mess. (We had parking issues for our downtown venue.)My boss, who was invited, told me that you can only do so much for people, to do that and let ‘em figure out the rest. Marriage advice? My husband and I always seem to “break out” of a fight by making the other laugh. It’s really hard to fight about buying the wrong batteries at Target if you’re laughing at the dog.
Celebrating 6 years next month (um, wow)and I can’t stress enough that yes, “marriage is hard and it is work” and the one piece of advise I think is to “communicate.”
Communicate and don’t take the other for granted. It is easy to do living with someone day in and day out but remember what brough you together in the first place.
As for wedding stuff, could not agree with you more, the stuff you thought you’d worry about, you don’t or at least you shouldn’t. Relish that entire day because you’ll relive it in your mind over and over again. Or maybe that is just me.
Been married 15 years. I say remember how to be playful together. Laugh, joke, tease. Also, find activities you like doing together and make them happen.
Divorce is not an option for me, either. I am child of divorce and don’t want my children to go through that. Marriage is so dang hard some days and effortless the next. But, my husband is my rock and I have learned to lean on him first instead of others. Also, I found that the first year wasn’t the hardest for us, it was the third.
Marriage advice?
Treat him EXACTLY the way you want him to treat you. Thank him for tiny things – give him everything. Respect him because he deserves it – heck, he chose YOU, he must be pretty smart after all.
Great advice. I agree with you. I am 34 and my husband and I have been married for sixteen wonderful years.
Sure we don’t always agree but we never fight.
Marriage advice? Know that people change over time and be ready to handle their changes, and love them all over again for who they are not who they were or who you expect them to be.
Don’t ever marry someone thinking that they will morph into the perfect person or that you can train them to be something they are not. That’s a recipe for divorce.
I wear Nike Tempo shorts too. I love them!
Good lord I wish you could edit posts. I cringe when I see my typos . . .
I stumbled upon your blog recently and this is my first comment
I just have to say that your wedding dress is an absolute dream, dream, dream.
This post was so encouraging to me. My boyfriend and I just moved in together (we’ve been dating for over two years). All of the sudden we started fighting so much more as we learned to live together and compromise. Anyways, it was nice to be encouraged to work hard at it, because I do believe we (and he) are worth it.
Sarah, thanks for answering my question! I regard you as a pro so I totally listen to what you say! Serious!
I’m married and I got a slew of advice cards at my bridal shower (my husband’s grandma wrote “Have a hot dinner cooked every night and clean ironed clothes every morning” ha! classic 50′s housewife!) but honestly, I would agree with what you said: it’s hard but it’s the best.
My advice is this: learn to admit when you are wrong, compromise, and let your spouse know how much you appreciate him. Those three are HUGE in making a marriage happy!
So true! I also am a firm believer that people can and do change, but only if they truly want to…so pick your battles. My husband no longer gets mad at me for my messiness, and I let it slide that he’s not always great about the trash or dishes. But communication is key. Sometimes just a simple visual aid can work wonders, like the sign I put up in the bathroom about putting the toilet seat (and lid) down. After our cat jumped in the toilet and I wrote that on a piece of paper he seemed to catch on really quickly. Bathing cats is no fun.
The first year was really hard work. Learning to communicate fairly is a constant struggle. Five years in and it certainly gets better, but I wish someone had mentioned that the first year is very challenging.
My advice would be to laugh A LOT and if you need help, seek help, therapists are worth their weight in gold!
Not yet married (3.5 months to go, woohoo!), but my parents have been married for over 30 years and not once I saw them yell at each other or lose respect. Have I seen them disagree? Sure, but they never lost respect for each other even when they saw things a different way.
Marriage isn’t something you opt out of when the going gets tough. There are some days when my husband breathes I swear I’m going to kill him. Others, I can’t stand to be away from him for an hour. Lots of people think marriage is just a race to the alter but what many forget is that the alter isn’t the finish line…its the start line.
Wedding advice – during the reception take just one minute to look at YOUR wedding. Take it all in. You’ve done all the planning and it will FLY by. That one minute might be the only thing that isn’t a blur. And…don’t forget to eat! We got to our hotel after the wedding and realized that neither of us had anything to eat except the piece of wedding cake we fed each other. My only option was strawberries and champange OR a $25 turkey club via room service.
Wedding advice? Start off the day doing something relaxing/as normal as possible to not let you get stressed out (I went for a 4-mile run w/ sister-in-law to get out the jitters!) And let someone else worry for you (I think my mom took that role!).
With marriage, I say never let the day end being mad at the other person…even if an issue isn’t complete settled, tell the person you love him/her and that you are thankful for him/her in spite of the point of contention.
P.S. I’m a big fan of old navy running shorts – sometimes they are on clearance and I load up!
I’m with SR on the wedding advice…don’t sweat the small stuff. At the end of the day you’ll be married and that’s all that really matters. Besides, nobody likes a super-stressed bride. BE fun, and all your guests will HAVE fun.
As for the marriage, my only peice of advice is to kiss your husband every day. It sounds easy and trivial but you gotta do it. I’ve been married for two years next week and have LURVED being married! Congrats and GOOD LUCK!
my married advice is keep the lines of communication open! if you get mad about soemthing then keep it bottled up, how is your hubby going to know that what he did upset you, and then you will just get more and more upset! always talk it out and NEVER go to bed angry! we have stayed up till 3am working things out, but never gone to bed angry!
Did anyone offer opinions on the heart rate monitor? I have one, and I love it! I actually got it for a 90 minute endurance spin class I did last winter, but I’ve found I love it for running too. Now that I have it, I don’t think I could ever go without it, it truly does make you work harder!
Thank you for the comment! And thanks SR for including my question. I’m going to try mine out
Best wedding day advice I got . . . be sure to get a piece of wedding cake. My co-worker who gave me the advice didn’t get a piece of her cake. When she told me this advice I thought who doesn’t get a piece of their own cake. Know who. . .my husband – that’s who. We fed each other a ceremonial piece and then when we were to sit down and eat our cake, he disappeared . . . to the bathroom to wash his hands. When he came back out, I was done with my piece and all of the cake had already been served up. Tragedy too – it was delicious!
You have pretty much summed up my feelings on marriage. I also look at it as a lot of work and no way out – or else I wouldn’t have done it. I don’t see marraige as a do-over unless death, major infidelity, or criminal stuff is involved (but then I wouldn’t marry someone predisposed to the latter two situations). But entirely worth it.
Oh, and with time, the wrinkles and marriage squabbles and such get better. Personally, I say to wait a little bit before kids too (if you have the biological luxury of time), so that you can get through some of the first years of adjustment.
HRM? I don’t want it to impact my running pace. I run whatever pace I feel like running. I don’t want the HRM to tell me I’m working too hard!
I’m getting married this November. In my relationship I know we aren’t perfect! And I am not seeking perfection because I think that is a recipe for failure. There are things about my husband to be that are not my favorite qualities but when I am feeling dissatisfied or upset I remind myself to think of the qualities that I do enjoy about him. If I focus on the negative, then obviously we will be uphappy. So in essence I know that we are not trying to achieve perfection and to always be thoughtful of the qualities about him that make me love him. yay for love!
I always love your question and answer segment. We live by that motto on marriage. there is no way out.
I’ve been married for almost two years now, and I would advise that you hold hands and demonstrate physical affection daily…especially when it’s the LAST thing you FEEL like doing!
I can’t imagine running a marathon with a balloon wrapped around me. I’d be like “GET THE EFF OFF ME” and then pop it.
We are getting hitched next summer. Enjoyed reading all the advice!
Also getting married next summer- love all this advice!
Also, the Nike website has Tempo shorts on sale, if anyone is interested. Not sure if they still do this, but but you used to get free shipping with your first order.
Top 2 Tips for Marriage (according to Morgan):
1. A couple that prays together stays together. A couple the lays together stays together.
2. You need to be your husband’s best friend.
You can love the crap out of your husband, but you still have to LIKE him. Laugh with him. You have to enjoy being with him.
marriage – apologize and talk thru issues. not talking is a big problem. laugh A LOT. spend time apart. write a love letter for no reason. don’t go to bed angry. never sugar coat – be honest about feelings and thoughts and the need for sparkly gifts.
HRM’s – i am a numbers person. i have a calorie/workout goal. it keeps me motivated. i also focus on my HR because i want to increase my cardiac endurance. so when i did spinning the other day and my HR didn’t go past 174 that was way better than 194 (what it used to be) which tells me I’m doin somethin right for my ticker.
i would imagine that SR’s HR is pretty low when she runs, and probably pretty low when she’s sitting down moderating these comments. that’s a good thing.
On the wedding day take in every single moment of the day. It goes by so incredibly fast and in a flash its over. Sadly I barely even remember our ceremony!
My MIL told me this and at the time I thought it was strange but think it was my best advise. She said to have “low expecations”. If you arent always expecting more you can appreciate it more when it does happen instead of being upset when it does not happen.
Marriage isnt always happy, sunny times. I think people get caught up trying to be the perfect husband and wife and living up to high expectations that aren’t realistic for them.
Holy long post sorry…. PS Love your fence.
Dear Skinny Runner,
You are quite like a superstar/celebrity that I go oooh and ahhh over because you are one speedy runner, you just run 8, 9, 10 miles on any given day, at a speedy speed, just because you can.
Today, after reading your marriage advice, I have respect over the top of my head for you! I like how you are honest about marriage being hard work. And I love it when you said to treat it as there’s no way out. People these days take marriage lightly and it is refreshing to know that there is someone who believes in fulfilling the marriage vows.
Ok, I’m a divorcee’ but hope I can still give some advice on what I learned! (Just FYI, my spouse cheated, probably b/c we were growning apart, so there was no saving the marriage).
I like to call my lessons learned the 3 C’s to a successful relationship:
Commitment: be 100% committed to the relationship and making it work.
Communicate: make your needs known and talk things out before they get out of control.
Compromise: think of the needs of your spouse and what’s best for your marriage, not just yourself. Sometimes you have to give in to keep the peace!
For marriage advice, I say focus on the positive. Sure, I could spend ten minutes being angry because my husband leaves his dishes on the coffee table instead of putting them in the dishwasher, or I could think about how he always gets my oil changed without being asked just because I don’t like going to Jiffy Lube. Similarly, everyone has faults that are probably not going to change, and are also not a huge deal in the long run. Recently I told myself that my husband is never going to be ready to leave on time for road trips and I can either just get over it or start every road trip in a bad mood. I guess my overall advice comes down to choose your battles, most things are not worth getting angry over.
Love this post! I used a HRM for the first time today. My heart rate was so close to max when I was running at a really slow pace, so I’m not really a fan of it. I kept seeing such a high number and it would scare me, so I’d slow down to a pace much slower than I should be training at. Now I know why people don’t like to use them.
i worked out with my HR at 190-200 for heavy cardio for a long time…so i started doing more interval work and my HR has come down. BUT..im the same weight and everything. so i’m healthy the old HR and the new HR. my fitness instructor with an awesome bod, and super strict diet, and teaches 7-9 classes a week has a HR that sits around 175 average but can easily spike at 190. don’t be scared. marathoners can keep their HR at 140 for miles. i can keep my HR at 180 for 60 min straight.
the most important factor isn’t how high (i mean 300 is a little much!!) but how fast it comes down when you stop.
You have to wake up everyday and decide you want to be married. You have to work at it.Every.Day.Of.Your.Life. It’s not as bad as it sounds, it’s just a fact. For a happy marriage, it has to be molded and worked on.
14 years of marriage under my belt, 65+ more to go!
Wedding advice: you are never going to make everyone happy ie. moms, dads, in-laws, siblings, etc….just make yourself happy because at the end of the day the seating chart doesnt really matter much!
Marriage advice: Keep talking. All the time about anything and everything.
Wow, I can’t thank you all enough, especially SkinnyRunner, for all of your amazing suggestions and advice for the wedding day and life after! Your comments have made me even more excited to be able to spend the rest fo my life with this man.
Laugh. Laugh a lot. And, hold hands when your argue. It sounds weird, but it really calms you down.
Wedding Day Advice: My favorite part of my wedding day was to look out at the reception, when everyone was eating, and realize that everyone there was known by my husband and/or me. So often, you go to a wedding only knowing one side, or a few people. On our wedding day, everyone there was there to support us and I still look back, 5 years later, and love that feeling of support.
Marriage: appreciate each other and learn to love the ways you complement each other. Don’t try to change your spouse, know that you and your spouse will both change over time, embrace it.
HRM: I love mine. I wear it every workout and keep a log of my workouts. I use it as an intensity guide and love to know how many calories it estimates I burn. But, I am a huge quantitative person and would love a Garmin, just not willing to dole out the money just yet.
BTW: I love your blog SR and the Lady Cat Blogs are great!
I didn’t read any of the other comments so I’m not sure if this has been said or not. My advice on marriage is no matter how bad your fight is never say divorce, and also make sure you do something nice for your partner everyday. It’s the little things that let them know you love them.
SR hit the nail on the head – marriage is for life so do what it takes to make it work. Divorce should not even be a consideration unless you’ve exhausted EVERY last avenue.
Nine times out of ten, that boils down to simply compromising where you can and actively listening to your partner when he/she’s attempting to tell you something.
Great post!
Thanks for the HR comments! (I am like ten years late on commenting on this post.)
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