Kristy Maute

Starting the Year off with Balance

Today’s run objective: run an easy 4.5 miles.

Definition of easy: 45 – 60 seconds slower than my half marathon goal race pace.

Number translation: 9:30-9:45 minute mile pace.

This run was going to be hard. My legs were feeling fresh from a rest day. I was ready to run. Go slow, go slow, go slow. I have harder runs to tackle this week. I didn’t want to waste my speed on an easy run.

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Cole got home on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, we began our family Christmas celebration. We celebrated with my family. We put out cookies for Santa. As the ball dropped signifying the start of a new year, we also waited for the arrival of Santa.

New Year’s Day brought a Christmas celebration to our living room. Cole and Chet opened new toys. They unwrapped packages and found new things to entertain them. Shortly after the wrapping paper dust settled, we headed to Christian’s mom’s house. It was time to celebrate the holidays with her.

Her sunroom was still decorated for Christmas. Presents filled up the space under the tree. I sat down to open my first package:

To Kristy. Love Ruth.

The tears started flowing. John was missing. Not only from the gift tag, not only from the celebration, but from life. I miss him. It never gets easier. The sadness is still the same almost a year later. I miss my Aunt too. I just miss them.

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Chet fell asleep on the way home from the celebration. Cole and Christian had a video game to beat. I put on my running shoes and headed to my favorite place. The trails at first landing were calling my name. I needed to be surrounded by my trees and water. My heart needed a moment to reflect.

As I drove to the trails, I thought about my father-in-law and my aunt. John was a quiet man. Even in his silence, his heart was filled with compassion and love. His eyes twinkled giving away his secret. He was always really good at loving me. My aunt was the exact opposite. She lived on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was full of life. She tackled everything with everything she had. There wasn’t anything she could hide. Her actions showed the world just how much she loved life. Just like John, she never hid her love for me.

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Run slow. Run slow. Run slow. I needed to see at most 9:30s on my garmin.

Mile 1 – 9:36. Perfect.

Mile 2 – 9:11. Uh oh.

Mile 3 – 9:39

Mile 4 – 9:50

.5 – 9:22

Final stats – 4.51 at a 9:33 pace

I got back to my car feeling like I had conquered the world. I was able to hold back and keep myself from running fast. My legs still felt fresh. My breathing was even. It was a hugely successful run.

A week ago, a run of this distance at this pace would have felt like a failure. I am capable of keeping all my runs in the 8s. I would have told myself I don’t need to see 9s anymore especially not slow 9s.

This week my approach is different. I’m focusing on proper recovery. I can hit all my key works, but it won’t matter if I’m not recovering properly.

Recovery is my focus. It’s where I have the real work to do.

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2013 was full of high highs and low lows. I thought the highs would balance the lows. I thought if I just kept moving healing would happen with both my heart and my body. I was wrong. I forgot to take time to recover.

High highs and low lows don’t balance each other out. They aren’t opposites. They are both extremes. They are both on the same side of the spectrum. I’ve been attacking life with full force. I’ve felt deeply, loved deeply, and charged forward. My aunt would be proud.

While grieving deeply and living life fully, I’ve been missing all the wonderful qualities my father-in-law embraced. I have been missing the quiet, the soft gesture of love, and the small smiles.

I will always attack life with full force. I will always run down the high highs. The low lows are inevitable too. Life will always deliver sad news. The sadness never gets easier. It can’t be replaced by a high high. They do not balance each other out. The same goes for running. The faster long runs are not balanced out by faster short runs.

It’s up to me to find the balance in my life. It’s up to me make the time to recover and to go easy. I need this.

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On the first day of 2014, a trail run at sunset gave me the wonderful gift of success. Success not in the form of a high or a fast run, but success in the shape of acknowledging exactly what my heart, head and body needs.

Tonight’s run was simple. It was easy. It was the slowdown I needed after a busy holiday season and a busy year. It was the compassion I needed after a holiday season with lingering sadness and a year of heartache.

2014 is full of promise. Shedding layers and focusing on simplicity is the exact balance that I need. Fill your life with high highs because life will deliver the lows. Just don’t neglect the moments that exist in between. It’s those moments that matter most.

No edit, just the pure beauty of nature.

Hello 2014.

This year has been a whirlwind. It’s been punctuated by some really high highs and some really low lows. Somewhere in the middle of it all, life got messy. I’ve felt out of balance for a while now, a bit overwhelmed and unravelled. I’ve learned that when these things start to happen, you do the best you can do at the moment, you tuck your head, and you just keep moving forward. The storm will pass over. My only goal lately has been forward progress.

This weekend it hit me over the head. I am tired of always hanging on. I’m tired of constantly making things work. Scrambling to hold it together is exhausting.

All year I’ve been craving simplicity: mountain vacation without cell phones or television, family movie nights, runs without a purpose. I’m stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in both our house and in my life. It’s all just too much. I woke up Friday morning, and I just wanted to get rid of everything. I wanted to remove everything from our home and life, and I wanted a fresh start.

All of this combined with some difficult transitions for both Cole and Chet (into the toddler world and early teenage years), made me realize that is exactly what I need to do. I don’t need to duck my head and keep moving forward, I need to put up an umbrella and take a step back.

2014 is about simplicity. It is about shedding layers. It is about getting back to the root of everything I love. Once the root of me is thriving again, I can add back the details I am missing.

While all these thoughts processed in my head, I knew I couldn’t tiptoe around how I was feeling anymore. Just making it work wasn’t good enough anymore. I have to take one giant step back. I need to lighten my load before I continue.

Back a step #1 – I transferred to the shamrock half marathon. This was a no brainer. It’s been a month of little sleep in our house, and I am exhausted. My head and my heart aren’t up for a marathon right now.

Back a step #2 – This one was hard. I cried more than a few tears. I’m taking a break from working with my running coach. Now I adore my coach and walking away was hard. Very hard. He has given me a confidence in myself that is priceless. I just need simplicity. I do not want my focus to be all about running. I still plan on running. I still plan on following a plan. I just need to get back to the root of why I run. I want to let my body absorb the progress it has made this year, so I can come back even stronger when I’m ready for the next marathon.

Back a step #3 – I’d like to date my husband again. I’ve missed our relationship this year. There is nothing bad going on in our relationship, I’d just like to give it some more attention.

Back a step #4 – We’ve been lazy about our eating. When you are just getting by with making life work, it’s easy to get off track. Our eating hasn’t been horrible, but we can (and we have) done better.

Back a step #5 – I’m doing a serious house purge. Need or want is going to be big discussion over the piles of toys and other things we collected along the way. How did we live in a 700 square foot house 4 years ago? Where the heck did all this stuff come from? Christian and I don’t even like shopping.

Simplicity. Nurturing. Getting back to roots. Loving. All themes for life in 2014. I hoping this is the year for balance.

Before a wonderful 7 mile run on Saturday

Soup-er Sunday: Football Soup

We are terrible sports fans in our house. Today may be the first football game I’ve watch all year. (My Wisconsin roots are hiding in shame. Go Packers). I was informed by my parents that today was an important game, so I decided a soup that suited football was needed. A soup for every mood, no? I pulled up Pinterest. I searched for football soup. I found this recipe.

“Football Soup”

Its a tortilla soup. If you know me well, you know my taste buds are Mexican. I can (and would) eat Mexican every meal of my life if I could.

Recipe:

5 cups of chicken stock
2 cups of diced bell (sweet) peppers. I used red, green, yellow, and orange
1 cup of water
2 cups peeled, cored, and roughly diced tomatoes (I used the Arkansas traveler tomatoes from our CSA), you could use canned diced tomatoes here if you wish, just drain the juice before adding to your soup
1 1/2 cups of fresh sweet corn, about 3 ears cut off the cob
1-2 red Serrano peppers*, seeded and finely diced
3 cups of cooked and shredded chicken (I used a combination of white and dark meat)
1 large yellow onion diced
2 Tablespoons chili powder** (NOT chili seasoning – you want just the dried ground up chilies, not the other stuff)
1/2 Tablespoon dried oregano**
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin**
juice from 1/2 a lime (taste the soup before serving, add the juice from the other half of the lime if desired)
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
*If you don’t like spicy food, eliminate the Serrano peppers from the recipe.

**It is important to use organic spices, because regular ones are irradiated, causing them to loose all nutritional benefits.

Prepare your chicken stock [or open the box(es) of organic chicken stock you bought], and pour it into a crock pot or large pot on the stove. Add 1 cup of water. Now add in the bell pepper, corn, tomatoes, onion, chicken, and spices with juice from 1/2 a lime.

Let simmer on the stove for about an hour or so, stirring every once and a while. Tasting your soup along the way to make sure the veggies have reached your desired consistency. If you’re using a crock pot (which I love to do!) let it simmer for at least 2 hours, up to 5.

Top your football soup with sliced avocado, shredded cheddar cheese, and maybe a dollop of sour cream. Tortilla chips or Fritos (this takes a little bit of the organic & local out of it though) are a pretty solid addition as well. Whatever you want!

I opted to leave the pepper out in hopes of it being kid friendly. I also tossed everything in the slow cooker for the afternoon instead of cooking it on the stovetop.

Another soup success. I already have a tortilla soup recipe in regular rotation in our house but it’s cream based. This one was much lighter, and I really enjoyed it.

Anyone else cooking soups on Sundays? The tradition was initially started by my sister. I adopted it for our family. My friend Heidi has adopted the tradition as well. You can find her recipes on her blog Loveeachstep.

Soup-er Sunday: Springtime Minestrone

Eighty degrees in December did not leave me craving soup. I wanted to grill out in my flip flops and drink beer. I resisted the urge, found a light crock pot soup recipe, and just drank beer in flip flops instead.

We are in the midst of a two week sleep battle in our house (I think teething turned into bad habits). Exhausted is an understatement. After 8 hot miles on trails this morning, I was very thankful for this simple recipe that cooked itself. The only task I had to complete was some simply veggie chopping.

I found the recipe on Pinterest (who needs cookbooks anymore?).

Springtime Crockpot Minestrone

We had Christian’s mom over for dinner before she leaves for the holiday. I was either distracted or starving, but I forgot to take a picture. Oops. I borrow my photo from the website.

The soup was a pleasant surprise. It all came together at the end better than I had expected. Blame my absent mind or my exhaustion, but I also forgot to add the peas. We didn’t miss them, but I will add them next time (since I now have a bag in my freezer).

This soup was perfect on an 80 degree day in December.

Nothing speaks louder than Love

It’s the holiday season. Houses are decorated. We put on our best clothes. We prepare nicer than usual dinners. We surround ourselves with family and friends. We give gifts to show our love. We present ourselves in the best way possible. This holiday has so many meanings for so many people. Whether you celebrate Hanukkah or the birth of Christ or Santa Claus, this time of year is meant to be a celebration of love.

If you’ve been any where near the news or social media in the past few days, I think you’ll notice a trend. Freedom of speech is being defended and attacked. Individuals are being defended and attacked. Defend. Attack. Defend. Attack. I’ve done my best to ignore it. I certainly have my own beliefs about homosexuality and Duck Dynasty.

Do I care if your gay? No. This world needs more love and I encourage anyone to embrace love. It’s that simple to me.

Am I gay? No.

Do I watch Duck Dynasty? No. I’ve never watched the show nor do I know what it’s about but I gather that they are a Christian family.

Do I attend church? No.

Do I care if you attend church? No. Again, the world needs more love and if this is where you find it, I encourage you to go.

Do I like the opinions expressed by this character on Duck Dynasty? Absolutely not, but he is entitled to have his own opinions.

Do I care if he was fired? No. The network has every right to have there brand represented however they want. I do feel bad for him for being punished for expressing an opinion though.

I guess my point is this, if I even have one. We are five days away from a holiday that is celebrated by both Christians and non Christians. We may not all agree about the reason for celebrating this holiday, but I think we can all agree that love should be the driving force behind the celebration. We can all connect over love. Our differences don’t matter.

Why aren’t we sharing love? Why aren’t we spreading love? Why do we care about a show and an opinion of a man and a decision of a network? I’m sure there are arguments to be made as to why I should care? And clearly I do care because I’m writing about it!

I care because I will never understand how we can promote and publish and feed into energy that continues to divide an already divided community, country and world. I recognize that I am also giving into this energy, but I hope that by observing, I can witness ways to connect. I can step back and see how this is causing more hurt than good.

All I see is what we are missing? We are missing love. We are missing compassion. We are missing humanity.

I believe we are all deserving of love. If we judge and determine worth by every single life choice made, none of us deserve love.

I’ve married and divorced.
I’ve cheated.
I’ve drank too much.
I’ve been dishonest.
I’ve made some really crappy choices in my 33 years.
I’ve been selfish.
I’ve been mean.

By all means, someone could (and probably has) judged me to be a bad person unworthy of love and forgiveness. But I am worthy of love. We all are.

When did we start turning our backs on people who are different then us? When did it become okay to abandon people when life gets hard? Even worse, when did we start turn our backs on the celebration of love?

We have five days until Christmas. Turn off the TV. Walk away from Facebook. Quit reading my blog. Let us use this time to come together. Spread love. Not to those who you think deserve it but to everyone. Doesn’t everyone deserve love?

We all love differently. That doesn’t make my love better than your love. It makes us equals. It makes us human. I makes us a community. I love my husband, my children, our planet, the color yellow, books, running and yoga. I love grapefruit and avocado. I love the trees and the stars. My love is what makes me ME. Your love is what makes you YOU. This should bring us together not tear us apart.

While we are decorating our house and putting on our best clothes, let us also make sure we fill our hearts with love. Not just for those who fit into your mold but for everyone. There is no such thing as too much love.

Quit attacking. There is no need to defend.

It is important to protect our freedom of speech. Being able to express ourselves, our differences, is what makes us great. If we are going to protect our freedom of speech, we have to protect our freedom to love. Nothing, nothing speaks louder than love.

I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t free to love him.