Perseverance

Last March the leader of our women's ministry asked a lady at our church, Marie, who teaches aerobic classes if she would consider holding a class for the women at our church. She said yes and she also used it as a giving ministry for herself and donates part of money to mission trips to Haiti. It is still going and has become very popular. We meet on Mondays and Thursdays for an hour of kickboxing/bootcamp class.

Marie has done a great job of motivating us to get healthy. One thing that she does that I really enjoy is she will introduce us to something new and then re-visit it a couple of weeks later. I like this because you get to see how much stronger you are getting.

One of these is planks. Do you know what a plank is? It is like a push-up but you are on your elbows and you just hold the position. It sounds easy. Try it. It is really hard! It is excellent for building your core. When we started the class most of the women, me included, struggled holding the plank for even 15 secs.

As I started getting stronger I seen something about "plank wars" on Twitter. You challenge people to see who can hold a plank longer. Here is a picture from June of us having a plank war on the deck.


At that time I still had to really work to hold it for a minute. Imagine my surprise when I timed myself the other day and made it to...

2 whole minutes! It just shows what perseverance can gain you. I'm having so many "God moments" and lessons through the training I have been in.

"As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy." -James 5:11

Pinterest

Have you heard of Pinterest?

Are you on it?

Are you addicted too?

I introduced my daughters to it and they love it to. It has provided a lot of entertainment and discussion for us. The latest of which involved our poor dog. We ran across this picture of the "Most patient dog in the world"...

Source: chubaandcompany.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

So of course we had to see if our sweet Allie was as patient...

Anna getting it started.

Kaylyn figuring out how to get the bones under her lips.

Allie trying to lick the bones. TOO FUNNY!

She is waiting patiently to be done and yes, drooling.

If you aren't on yet and you need an invite just holler.

One year Anniversary

Do you remember this post "My first 5k"? Today I ran this same race again. Last year I couldn't even run the entire time. This year was a different story. Not only did I run the entire race I hit my goal of running it under 40min. I haven't seen the official time yet but I think it will be around 38:13. I am already planning on running it again next year and have set my goal at 32 min. It's time to "train my weaknesses" which for me is speed. Stadium stairs and hill work here I come!

Here is my running buddy Karen and I after the race. We started our "running journeys" together with this 5k last year and continue to spur each other on. She placed 3rd in our age division today! Obviously speed is not a weakness for her. We both want to do a 1/2 marathon. We are looking into one for next April. Feel free to start praying for me now.


This run was especially fun because we ran it with a group of ladies from our church's women's ministry. Be sure to check out Kim's post about running the race with her daughter.