Mental Health and Being Active #BellLetsTalk

January 28, 2014 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 23 Comments

I’m a firm believer that being active; exercising, working out, physical activity – whatever you want to call it…. can help keep you focused, deal with stress and keep you sane. I’m not saying that it’s the end all be all for everyone but being active for me keeps me grounded, helps me deal with life stresses, lets me escape for a little while and keeps me sane.

I run. I play soccer. I do DVD workouts. I ski. I snowshoe. I walk. I try to bike but not a strong skill for me. I swim. I play with my daughters outside.

I enjoy team sports and individual challenges.

I value the benefits of being active. I value how it makes me feel physically and mentally.

It’s part of who I am and hopefully will always be.

I’ve never been depressed, sad at the appropriate times but not depressed. I’ve never been diagnosed with a mental health disorder though I have experience times of great stress and anxiety. I do however, have a family member who does suffer from depression and at times that has been hard to understand.

But you support. You be there for them. You talk about it. You engage them in life.

I am writing this post as awareness and to support the #BellLetsTalk day that is happening in Canada. You don’t have to be a subscriber of Bell to add the hashtag of #BellLetsTalk. You simple just have to type it in any message you tweet today.

Those Bell customers you can text, tweet, call long distance and share an image on Bell Let’s Talk Facebook, in return Bell will donate 5¢ every time you do text, tweet, call etc. Bell Let’s Talk Website

They have already had 20,134,357 tweets, text, calls and shares…keep it up! Let’s help raise awareness of mental health issues and help raise money for some much-needed initiatives. Photo: We've surpassed 20 million tweets, calls and Facebook shares! That's an additional $1,000,000 for mental health initiatives. Keep it up, everyone! http://ow.ly/t2eE6 #BellLetsTalk

Last night I managed to run 7k – something I haven’t been able to do in a long time (for many reasons). I felt like I accomplished a little goal of increasing my miles, pushed my body and improved my state of mind. Physical activity is important to me that’s why I make it a priority in my life over other things.

Help end the stigma around mental health and hashtag your tweets peeps! (Or call, text, share).

What has “being active” (exercising, working out, physical activities) done for your mental health?

How do you support someone who might suffer from a mental health disorder?

Piper’s Run in 2013

December 30, 2013December 30, 2013 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 10 Comments

All I can say is, What a Year! Lots of fun things happened at Piper’s Run in 2013; little feet, outdoor fun, running, time with family and friends, hard days, hard nights, gatherings, play dates and a whole lot more.

A few of your favourite posts (and mine too):

January: A New Year a new way of living life as a family of four. This was the month of figuring out life with two little girls and managing them on my own as my husband worked days and nights. I struggled for a little while with How to Love Two Children Equally but in the end managed to figure it out. I started to get active postpartum and start the long haul of losing the baby weight.

February: Blogging took a backseat to everything and I was okay with that. I had a baby and toddler to focus on. I tried to get out as much as possible but sometime would take Baby H walking indoors.

March: This was the month I had the BEST PARENTING DAY EVER, along with feeling like Super-Mom for a day! This was a good month 🙂

April: Lilly had her first hair cut, I went stroller running for the first time and had my first “Mama’s night out“!!

May: This month was the month I started (and never) finished monthly challenges. At least I tried. I also started my Operation Get Fit for the bridesmaid dress. I was rather focused on working out so I could fit into the dress – hard work pays off.

June: All of a sudden I had a 3 Year Old and6 Month old…just…like…that!

July: I struggled with trying to balance it all and the fact that I take on too much and turned 33.

August: It felt like a quiet month yet busy with the girls. I gave up milk and Coca-Cola (no, I didn’t drink these together) and posts on the TOTS family page about How it’s important for Girls to play in the dirt too!

September: We traveled with the girls to Halifax, hit up Target for the first time and went to a wedding and we ate some good food from a local Food Truck.

October: I managed to do two runs this month: Valley Harvest 5k, the Miles for Miracles 5k but more importantly, Lilly ran her first race and we survived Halloween. We also had a great Thanksgiving with my family.

November: My husband and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. I signed up for the Fall into Fitness 30 Day Challenge and blogged almost every day – sometimes twice a day. A few of my favourite posts from the challenge were:

Rest Day on Day 2 of the Challenge {Crazy, I know!}
The Value of a DVD workout
Don’t Judge a Book by It’s Cover
What’s a Workout ?

December: This was a BIG month for us! I returned to work after a year of being on maternity leave, my husband became a Canadian Citizen, we celebrated Hilary’s 1st birthday and celebrated Christmas!

After writing this post I have to admit, it’s been a pretty amazing year. I’m thankful for my little (and big) family, my friends and all the opportunities I’ve had in 2013. I’m all ready for 2014! Let the fun begin!

What’s one of your memorable moments in 2013?

Anything you can look back and wish you did differently?

I Think I’m Injured :(

November 18, 2013November 17, 2013 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 12 Comments

Okay, you are either injured or not, there is no in-between…right? Well, I actually feel like I’m a little injured but not really, it doesn’t make any sense. Let me back it up for ya….

Early October I played in a soccer game and felt like I injured my knee. I did not have a collision or fall down. Later that night when my knee started bothering me I just thought it was because it was my first game back in two years. Let me back up a little more….I had baby #2 almost 12 months ago now.

I had a lot of hip/pelvis and back pain during both pregnancies but after Lilly (baby #1) it took me a long time to recover. Recovering from Hilary’s birth was a lot better so I thought my hips/back would be fine this time. I got to be honest, I don’t think my body is back to “normal” yet. During that soccer game in October I felt the same pain in my hip/pelvis but it has since gone away – yeah!

Remember these photos (baby Hilary inside):

Don't be jealous

Anyway, I’ve been to an osteopath which is like having magic hands heal you. She was able to pick out old injuries without me telling her! But I just feel like I’m injured again 😦 I went for a planned 30 minute walk last Thursday with Hilary and Maclean. When we got close to our house (2 minutes away) they were paving the road and we were not allowed to walk down the street. There are no sidewalks in our subdivision so we had to walk ALL THE WAY AROUND to get home. Instead of doing the full 30 minutes I cut across through the school, a soccer field and two baseball fields, through a path and then was about 4 minutes from our house.

We walked for a total of 55 minutes so when I got home I needed to stretch out my legs – mainly my thighs. Later that night I could barely walk up stairs or squat down with Hilary … it wasn’t a pretty sight. I decided to take it easy and put the Thigh Challenge on the back burner…. 😦 I was really into it and was happy I was able to check it off my list each day but my left thigh is still tender. I’m throwing in the towel in hopes that my thigh will feel better. No soccer this week either and I’m not sure about running….we’ll just have to wait and see.

Source: http://woman.thenest.com/tight-upper-thigh-running-12124.html

Walking, walking and more walking … and some stretching.

How was your weekend?

Do you get injured very often?

When injured to you slow down, stop working out or push through it ?

Saturday night running

October 20, 2013 / Anna @ Piper's Run / 7 Comments

Last night I went for a run but not just any run. I was running the Miles for Miracles (satellite) run with two friends. I mentioned before that I would be doing this run to help raise money for Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome or TTTS. The main run was to be held yesterday in Ontario and we ran it here, in Nova Scotia.

After getting all of our little ones to bed….or at least calm enough to leave the house we met at 8 pm. We were supposed to be four mama’s running but one mama couldn’t make it. Sometimes you just can’t do it all.

I made “race bibs” for us with a picture of Jolene’s twins, our names and even gave us a number 🙂 Wearing glow sticks we headed out onto the gravel track which was 70% pitch black. The goal was to run an “almost 5k” (4.5k) as that;s what was planned in Ontario. I had worn my garmin to keep track of how we were doing. We ended up going the full 5k and not stopping once! Well done ladies!

Jolene is pictured in the middle (bottom photo) is the Mama to the twin girls AND a 3-year-old boy. She brought us a little goody bag: Wine, chocolate, granola bar and water. I brought granola bars and chocolate soy milk for us too!

Since we rarely get together without our children, we sat around for a little bit…chatted, ate and drank.

Congrats to Jolene for not only training over the last 2 months but finishing her goal run. Your twin girls and son have such an awesome role model and lots of fun adventures ahead.

See you next year Miles for Miracles.