elderly

Okay, so this post definitely wins weirdest title for my blog so far. But did it catch your attention? 🙂

First I want to talk about my fartlek workout I did on Tuesday morning. In case you don’t know, a fartlek run is when you run at a faster pace for a shorter amount of time, and then a slower pace for a longer amount of time. (If you are wondering why it’s such a funny name, I looked it up and “fartlek” is Swedish for “speed play”. I learned that here.)

Tuesday I decided that I would run two minutes at my regular pace and then one minute fast(trying to sprint the whole time), and I wanted to do this for 30 minutes. Well I got to 30 minutes and I was really close to being at 4 miles so I kept going for 33 minutes. 🙂 What can I say, I like to try to run exact miles and not stop short!

So I had 11 minutes of sprinting that 33 minutes, and even though I was tired, I felt great when I finished! I was super happy with my time!

I averaged 8:08 for four miles, which I know isn’t all that great, but ever since I got back from our honeymoon and my knee started giving me trouble, I have really had a hard time getting my speed back! This was the best run I have had in a while, and I was super happy! Also, please notice the sweat droplets on my arm in the picture. I was seriously done with this run by 6:00 a.m., and I still sweat that much. That is a Texas summer for ya 🙂

I used to only do long runs because those are my favorite, but I know that won’t help me get any faster, so I have started to incorporate some speed training into my workouts, and I know it helps! I like fartlek runs because since you are always changing your speed it makes the workout go by fast and keeps it from getting boring.

The Wise

Yesterday afternoon I was going out for a bike ride when I noticed the old lady who lives across the street from us was getting out of her car to go inside. I hadn’t got a chance to meet her yet, but I had really been wanting to. I thought, “This is my chance. I can go over real quick, introduce myself, be a good neighbor by telling her if she ever needs anything she can call us or come over, and that would be it.” So I walked over, introduced myself, and just said that I had been meaning to come meet her ever since we moved in this past June but just never got the chance. She quickly smiled and introduced herself too. The conversation that I thought would be short and quick ended up lasting about 20 minutes.

In this amount of time I learned that she has lived at her house on our street ever since people first started living here, and she even told me some cool facts about our house we are renting! I got to learn about how much the neighborhood and area has grown and changed over the years. She also told me about her life and her family. She told me that she sees me outside running and exercising all of the time, and that she used to do all of those things too! “You just can’t do that when you get older though,” she told me with a smile. Every single morning though, she gets up, goes to the mall to walk, and then has breakfast with girlfriends. Now that is someone I look up to! She is still finding a way to exercise, even if her body can’t handle the way she used to work out. She even used to be a fitness model a long time ago! What a cool lady, huh? I can honestly say that I really enjoyed talking to her and listening to all of her stories!

It was such a good reminder to me that the older generation has so much wisdom to embark on us because they have lived through so much! I feel like we often find it easy to ignore older people because we feel like they don’t understand today’s world or what we go through, when in all honesty, they understand the world much better than we do! They probably understand what we are going through better than we do because they have learned from their own past.

I feel as if people also get so caught up in their own lives that they don’t want to take the time to sit and talk with an older, retired person. This is so sad, because where would any of us be today without that older generation? We have all had someone who is older than us invest themselves into our lives, and we should invest our time in their life too. This can be done just by sitting down and talking to them. You know older people have to get lonely at times, especially those who have already lost their spouse. Make someone’s day by inviting them over for lunch or dinner, or just for a drink one morning or afternoon! I can almost guarantee that by sitting down and talking to an older person you will learn at least one new thing about that person, about life, or about the world!

I am so glad I went over and introduced myself to our neighbor across the street. I learned so much in that 20 minute conversation and was reminded how important it is to make relationships with elderly people and learn from their wisdom. It is true, that wisdom comes with age. I hope that as I grow older, I continue to grow wiser so that I can impact younger people one day.

I have been very fortunate to have some amazing grandparents who are extremely wise, and who I look up to and love very much! Because of the basis of this post, I want to dedicate this post to my four amazing grandparents! I am not sure if they will even read this, but if y’all do, I love you MawMaw and PawPaw and Mammy and Pappy! Thank y’all for everything y’all do for me and for sharing y’all’s wisdom with me. 🙂