Mother, Run, Hike

Happy Sunday! I hope you had a fantastic week!! Last week I got bored with my own Week in Review, I think some changes are needed, just don't know what those are. Workouts  Tuesday - 4 miles ( 2 of hill repeats )  Wednesday 3.5 easy + Weights Friday - 7 miles long run  Sunday - weights Monday was a loong day of waiting at Social Security Administration, turns out the funnest part of changing my name, has been going around calling myself Ana Soto, the administrative side of it has been a tiring quest into federal and state buildings. I spent 2 hours at Social Security just to update my name. but at least they were nicer than I remember my last visit to that office.  I was really tired after, so when I picked up my son from his Dad's, we went for ice cream!! My current favorite ice cream is the Dairy Queen vanilla coned, dipped in chocolate.  With my son being on baseball, I have to do my runs extra fast, and then go see his games. He is in the junior...

Happy Friday! I hope you are having an awesome day!! Since I became a Citizen last week, and I am still bragging about it, today I bring you the 5 things I'm most exciting things I want do as a citizen of The United States of America:  1. Vote - the number 1 most important activity a citizen can do. I know people don't like to get "Political" but trust me, our banks, our phone provider, our employer, our health insurance, our grocery stores, and many other services we pay for, get political and they pay good money to pass legislature that will benefit them. We can put our vote where our interest are. 2. Run for Office - During my citizenship interview, the Immigration Officer asked me why I wanted to become a citizen, he appeared shaken up when I said I wanted to run for office. ! I might run for school board... and make my way up to Governor... Kidding... I meant Senator. I would really love to start with a local office and see where I can go.  3. Volunt...

I work in an office, where most days we use our normal office materials, tons of paper, staples, pens, hole punchers, computers. But occasionally, we use hardware tool for random work. In my office, I am the keeper of all the hardware tools. Here are the random tools I keep in my desk Hammer Story behind it: I work with files that have medal prongs, and when we add tens of pages, those prongs bend out of shape. I used the hammer to straighten them up, but they were too loud and not very effective. I kept the hammer in my desk, because the "active shooter" evacuation plan has us locking ourselves into an office with no other exit... the plan will be to use the hammer to break the window. Long Nose Pliers Story behind it: This pliers are perfect for straightening file prongs, to remove staples that are stuck and for getting paper out of the jammed shredder. When I have to do several audits, the pliers come in super handy. A set of screwdrivers...

Happy Monday! I hope your week is off to a fantastic start! Workouts Monday - 4 miles tempo + 20 min weights Thursday - 2 miles, 45 min Zumba and 15 min weights Friday- 6 miles tempo Saturday - 2 mile hike Sunday - 4 mile walk On Monday I watched in complete awe all the runners in Boston. Those conditions were brutal, yet story after story, so many amazing people completed the race! I also proudly watched Des Linden win the race... well, not so much watched as saw Twitter updates. One would think that after seeing those amazing stories of people running 26.2 miles in the rain, I would be motivated to run outside, but I wasn't. It was cold and rainy, I wanted to run, but I didn't' want to hate it. I ran loops at the small track at the Y. 66 loops exactly! On Thursday I went for my citizenship ceremony, it was a really cool event and I was very glad to have my family there with me. After my son's baseball was cancelled, I went for a 2 mile run, t...

On my Weekly Review earlier this week, I mentioned that I got a letter that I have been waiting for since last August. Well, that letter was the letter informing me of my Citizenship Oath date and time. My Naturalization (for Citizenship) Oath Ceremony took place on Thursday, April 19th. With this comes a name change for me. As of this date, I will become Ana Soto, finally leaving my married name behind. Ana Willshier was a great woman, but Ana Willshier lived scared for almost 7 years. I was scared of so many things, to be alone, to be wrong, to be weak, to hurt, to be disliked. So, I over compensated for everything and turned stone cold mean to hide the fear. Maybe I'm getting off topic, but this has become a very emotional change for my life. As I was thinking of the meaning of this huge change, I think of all the work that I have put on getting to this moment. I originally filled out my application in 2006, but I was scared, of the test, of the fee, of losing myself. ...

Two weeks ago, the company I work for announced a company wide Wellness Program, that included a Step Challenge, from information fed to the site from our wearables. I was curious, so I joined the day it opened to the company, and quit 3 days later. Let me stop here, and give you a brief story on my step counting. I stopped actively trying to reach my steps goal of 10K stesp when my Fitbit fell apart, in 2017. My Forerunner still counts my steps, but I never had the same amount as I did on the Fitbit. On average, I hit 6,000 steps on non running days. It takes another 30 minute walk for me to get to 10K steps. But on running days, I easily hit 10-15K steps. Until I went crazy comparing myself with an overachiever. The day that the challenge started, I logged on just to see what the site was like and saw that a person had already logged on and uploaded their walking data and had 5,000 steps by 10:00 am. No big deal, a runner who wears a step counting device knows that 5...

I have not been enjoying all the moody weather this past week. but I am glad we are finally seeing some warmer temperatures. Workouts Tuesday - 4 miles fartlek Wednesday - 3 miles (1 mile warm up, 1 mile intervals and 1 mile cool down) Friday - 3 tempo miles Sunday - 6 easy As I mentioned on my Friday Five post, my son's baseball season started last week, and practices are taking 3 nights/ week. I don't have the patience to be a sports Mom. On Tuesday we enjoyed some milder weather and ran at Wildwood park. Wildwood is a 3 mile loop trail around a lake, 2 miles are very hilly,  and 1 mile flat. I need run Wildwood more often, my legs need more hills. Wednesday was a coldish and cloudy day, but that made perfect weather for intervals. I don't like doing intervals, sometimes I still get a weird pain in my quad after intervals. On Thursday I got a letter that I have been waiting for since August of 2017... but I'm going to keep you in suspense for a fe...

Happy Friday! how are you today? I hope spring has finally warmed up where you are! Here in PA, we are having a beautiful warm day, I have to brag, it has been a cold start to spring. I'm Linking up with the Friday five 2.0 ladies at  Fairytales and Fitness  and  Running on Happy  . It was another week of busy work, runs and mixed emotions, so I'm giving you 5 random thoughts on this week. 1. Why is it still so cold ? I don't like complaining about the weather, because I have lived in Pennsylvania long enough to know the the weather will do its weather thing, but this week was cold again.... ok, so it wasn't that cold, but it felt too cold for April. 2. How do you even do that to shoes? On Monday, I picked up my son from his Stepy ( We modernized Step Mom to Stepy) and when I looked at his feet, his shoes were covered in MUD! I have been a mother of a boy long enough to know to keep extra change of everything in the car. It took me a half hour to wash...

Happy Show Us Your book day!!  Today I'm linking up with  Jana  and  Steph  for Show Us Your Books. March was a slower month in books, with the start of race season, I get distracted easier.  When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon 3/5 This book was very cute, and a welcome change of pace on my books. I liked the story, but I disliked that Dimple gave up her convictions so easily... I don't know why that bothered me. I recommended this book to my sister, she loved it. Living History by Hillary Clinton 4.5/5 I really enjoyed this book. I learned new things, especially that the Clintons have been under investigation for the most random things since the 1990s!! I work in a Welfare to work program, and I found it very disturbing that the Republicans wanted to create orphanages for children of those receiving welfare benefits! I also learned that a smart woman always makes men feel threaten... I really enjoyed the book....

What a week! This week was a serious rollercoaster of emotions! I don't use common phrases lightly, so please read on to find out how my week went.   Workouts  Monday- 70 minute run ( 6.60 miles )  Thursday - 4 miles and Zumba  Friday - 20 minute run  Saturday - 6.2 miles trail run  Sunday - 5 miles On Monday we did something different, and ran for 70 minutes, instead of a mileage. It was a different focus to run only looking at the time, not at miles.  On Thursday we found out about the Hershey 10K cancellation. I went through all the stages of grief. I was mad that it had been cancelled, I tried to find another 10K to run that morning, to hoping they were kidding and the are was not really cancelled.  I found out about the cancellation in the middle of my 4 mile run, so when I was done, I was still mad and went to Zumba in attempts to feel better. By 9:30 pm, I had decided that we would not register ...

Happy Friday! Today I want to talk about the races that never were... anybody who reads this blog knows that I am a huge fan of running races, but there have been a few that got away from me that I really have wanted to do. Most recently, the Hershey 10K scheduled for this Saturday.  I'm Linking up with the Friday five 2.0 ladies at  Fairytales and Fitness  and  Running on Happy  . I have been fortunate to have my health and no severe injuries, but other things have kept me away from this races. However, this week I have hit my record of races that I will not be doing this year... read on to find out.  Garden Spot Half Marathon 2018- I have had my eye on this race for two years, but scheduling has never worked in my favor. This year it wasn't ideal, but I was ready to commit. And when I went to sing up, the half marathon had sold out. I was really disappointed, I had already secured somebody to watch my kid, and was ready to run those hills....

I want to start by saying that I consider environmental consciousness to be extremely attractive. Whenever I listen or read about people who I admire, in the back of my mind there is always that thought "I bet he/she recycles". Quick story: I almost broke up with Roger upon finding out that he didn't recycle. He promised to fix that, and that worked out well. I started to recycle back in 2002, while teaching ESL. I was also working part time at a library, and they had a workshop on recycling. I was in charge of interpreting the workshop to Spanish. I was blown away at the impact that my trash was making to the world. In the last few years, I realized that recycling was not the only thing I could do to reduce my carbon print in the planet. It has taken a lot of work and a lot of thinking, and all of my efforts are still a work in progress. Here are some things I have changed in my life: Goodbye Plastic Bottles - Last year I gave up buying water bottles. I used to b...

Happy Easter and Happy Passover! Spring break is coming to a close, and with it, the anxiety will hopefully go away with it.  Here are some of the workouts for this week  Tuesday: 5.5 miles ( warm up, cool down, and 3 of intervals)  Wednesday : 3 easy and weights  Saturday: Bethany Beach Bunny Palooza 5K  Monday was one of the days my son had for spring break, and this year we decided to visit each of my siblings at work for a meal or snack. It was a busy day of driving, but a very rewarding day of family time and lots of food. We had breakfast, lunch, pan dulce, and gelato... we went from Harrisburg to Lancaster, Newark DE, Oxford, Kennett Square and West Chester.  Not a lot of walking got done, but whatevs! On Tuesday , after dropping off my son, I had to get some intervals in. I was not really in the mood, the weather was rainy and cold and the idea of running intervals does not appeal to me... But it got done. I realized that 5 miles ...