Jen's Blog

I have been living with the Weight Watcher Smart Points plan for a little over three weeks now.  I shared a bit last week about my new journey.  It was hard (and a little embarrassing) but the wonderful and supportive comments I received made it worthwhile.  I know, despite how it feels sometimes, that I am not the only one who struggles with eating right, staying active and losing weight. My son  hunting eggs  So I decided to go ahead and keep sharing, if I motivate just one person it's totally worth it.  And since it's currently cold, cloudy and rainy at the end of April when I am writing this, it might just motivate myself to go down to the basement and hop on my elliptical. I weighed in Saturday, my third weigh in since joining, and was happy that I was down another 1.2 pounds, for a grand total of 7.4 pounds in three weeks.  Since it was Easter week and my goal was to stay the same I felt super happy to have a loss.  Especially since ...

As many of you know I am a reference librarian at my local library.  One of my duties, shared with the reference department, is writing blog posts for our reference blog.  I am pleased to share some of my blog posts here.  Topics range from  the personal, my life with diabetes, dieting and taking better care of myself to new authors I am falling in love with and genres that I want to share with others. Please visit my libraries webpage and take a look! Planning you Perfect Summer Vacation Beach Reads Women's Fiction Eat, Run, Live Keep Moving, Body and Soul Running Playlist Chick Lit Amish Romance

Two years after I had set out to run the half marathon I finally succeeded!  I originally had planned to run the race in 2014, but my Dad got sick and when he passed away I stopped training.  It took me awhile to get back into the swing of running, but this year when my husband announced he was going to give it a go I decided I would try again! I am not going to lie, it was maybe one of the hardest things I have ever done!  I feel like I could have trained more and I wasn't totally prepared but my goal going into the race was simply to finish.  I am happy to say that I did finish...it took me 3 hours and 28 minutes.  Two minutes short of the time goal I gave myself! My second goal was to run at least half of the marathon and I succeeded in that goal as well!  I ran to mile seven without walking.   Miles 7 and 8 I ran more than I walked, but my mile 9 my legs were starting to cramp up a little.  I mostly walked that last few miles, although I w...

I had so much fun with my oldest at the Color Run this last weekend...it was just the two of us on a cold morning! The race was a lot of fun and really well organized!

It's been awhile since I posted! My goal is to run 6 races this summer...ending with a half marathon in October! This is what I have so far... April 26th, 2014 - Color Run May 4th, 2014 - 5K at the Eau Claire Marathon June 20th, 2014 - UV Color Splash by Color Dash October 19th - Half Marathon!

I am not going to lie, the last few weeks have been rough!  The cold weather, the snow and my week long cold.  I did not exercise at all last week!  And I have been dying to run outside but I just can't bring myself to do it in the cold and the snow!  Add into that the home renovations we have been doing and the fact I started graduate school in.  Crazy! I did however get back on track this week!  I restarted week 3 of my 5k to 10k program, and I could tell I took a week off!  So far this week I have been active everyday except Sunday. Monday - Ran 20 minutes, 5 minute warm up and cool down, 10 minutes arm strength Tuesday - 50 minutes yoga, abs workout Wednesday - 40 minutes elliptical Today my plan is to get in 25 minutes of running, 35 minutes total.  Friday is elliptical and maybe yoga and Saturday is my long run for this week, 40 minutes. Also this week I decided to do something about the 10 pounds I gained over the holidays and I t...

It was a busy week here...as usual. I have one child recovering from a concussion and another came down with a fever. Thankfully the concussion is on the mend and the fever was shirt lived! I struggled this week though. The ten pounds I gained over the holidays started to get to me. I didn't get very many workouts in and I was either a little sick or just feeling the winter blues. Maybe a little of both. I was able to bounce back today after feeling sorry for myself forms few days. The wonderful massage I had this morning helped. Sometimes you need to take care of yourself in order to take care of anyone else. I did get two out of three runs in this week...today I got in 2 miles which felt pretty good. The first good workout I have had all week. Planning on getting another workout in on Sunday. Busy weekend here, basketball tournament for my youngest tomorrow and our 17 year anniversary celebration tomorrow evening. Also we will be finishing up our house projects hop...

I ran 5 races in 2013...the first one was the 2-mile Buckshot Run. It was over 100 degrees that day in August and it was hot! My goal was to run the entire two miles, and I ran most of it. I did have to walk on one of the hills. My time for the 2 miles was 29.35. Not too bad for my first race, I had only been running about a month at that point! Race number two was the Color Dash with two of my sons, Ethan, 15 and Evan, 12. My goal was just to run the entire time. I am such a slow runner the boys were able to walk/run with me. We decided to run the entire thing together as it was a fun race. I am happy to say that despite my slow running we were able to to run the entire race! Here is a picture of the boys and I all colored up! In October Ethan, Evan and I decided to try our hand at another 5k and we ran the Biggest Loser 5k. We all ran at our own paces and I had my first official 5k time - 41.09. The boys did well for their first race too - Ethan fin...