Healthy vs. happy

Happy belated Canada Day to you all, and Happy early Independence Day to my American friends!

I am happy to say that after a stressful couple of days, I have successfully unslumped myself and am back on the straight and narrow. And I'm driving a lovely shiny new 2002 Hyundai Accent. Not my PT Cruiser, but a good solid car nonetheless. I feel so much better for having it all settled.

Canada day is usually busy for us, since our agility team puts on a show in a neighbouring community, and then we head down to watch the fireworks. This year my good friends Kim and Andrea decided to join us. Kim is just embarking on her own wellness journey, and is still at the stage where she's uncertain about the results. Last night she turned to my mother and said "Do I look healthier?" After long reflection, my mother finally answered, "You look happier."

For a moment, Kim seemed a little disappointed, until I reminded her that being happy was part of being healthy. And she does look happier. She has energy. She's bright and enthusiastic. Her whole face and being reflects this. She has visibly lost weight, but it's her newfound vitality that I notice. She's actually starting to look younger.

I wonder sometimes if we forget the role of being happy in our quest to be healthy. I realized yesterday during my session with Shawn that he never asks me what I think about how I look, but always asks about how I feel about the changes I've undergone. And I realized as we talked yesterday that while I'm proud of the physical changes I've made, I'm more in touch with the mental and emotional changes I've made. It means more to me that I'm reaching a point where I'm becoming more comfortable in my own skin than it does to just be thin.

Had a great session yesterday; we did four different sets of drills, with each drill starting with a two minute sprint. Shawn's trying to work with me to help me improve my running and properly train for this 10K, and apparently this sprinting does wonders for improving pace and endurance. We started at 7 mph and got up to a 30 second 8.5 mph sprint at the very end. It was fun - hard, but fun. I'm amazed at how quickly my body adapted to that faster pace, until it just wanted to run that fast; at one point I was partway through a 7.0 mph sprint and Shawn increased the pace to 7.2 mph. I wasn't looking at the treadmill, and honestly, it got easier and more comfortable, so I thought he had decreased the speed. It wasn't until we were done that he told me he had increased it. I do think I'm going to have to brace my left knee as well as my right though, if I'm going to keep up this running. The right (which is braced) is swinging and striking in a straight line while the left (which isn't) is swinging in slightly.

Anyhow, have to go get duck food, hit the Farmer's Market, and find a container for my herb garden! Have a happy Saturday all!