My thoughts on exercise

Exercise is vital, it is not always convenient, but it is vital. I believe that everyone should be physically active every day for an hour. The sweaty, heart-pumping kind 5-6 days per week. One day per week, you shouldn't have to think about exercise, but try to move around (i.e. a leisurely walk or dancing around the house with your kids). Like I've said, I am not a fitness expert. Yet, exercise is what sparked my interest in studying nutrition. I grew up dancing, but never had a dancer's body. That was my form of physical activity. Then in high school I joined a gym with my friend and became addicted to classes. We would sometimes go to 2 classes a day. I really got in shape and my joy for exercise continued through college. I took a nutrition 101 class and found my passion. College was a carefree time, I worked hard in school, but doing what I wanted when I wanted is something that (as a mother) is long gone. I would spend hours at the gym. I wish the thought would have occurred to me to start training for events (1/2 marathons, marathons, triathlons, etc), I don't know why it didn't...I had all sorts of time to do that.

As a working mother, getting in 60 minutes of physical activity is difficult. In the past 5 years since I've been married I have been pregnant twice, given birth twice, and tore my ACL, MCL, and meniscus wake boarding. Each of those events put my body through intense stress and exercise was not always an option or a convenient one to say the least. I was able to work out during my second pregnancy which allowed me to get back into exercise sooner after birth. Thanks to my mother I have been doing Pilates for almost a year now (I fell in love with it after my knee surgery, it did more for my knee than physical therapy ever did) and have recently {tried} started running. I feel great. For the first time in five years my body feels more mine than it has in a while. Therefore, I have decided to utilize this time to really push myself and complete a half marathon.

This is going to be a huge task for me. I am not a runner and will still not consider myself a runner after I finish the race. One of the biggest drawbacks of this type of training for me is justifying the time away from my family and getting adequate sleep. Some times I find that mothers get too into training that it becomes obsessive. While I don't believe we really need more than 60 minutes of physical activity per day, I do believe that we should really push our bodies every now and then.

So, wish me luck! All you running experts out there...send me your success stories, tips, techniques, and secrets for training. I will post your responses on my blog, plus I will need all the help I can get!