Water

How much water do you drink? How much water should you drink? This is something I've been pondering at my desk job, feeling dehydrated from a long weekend. I've heard the 8 cups a day, but I've been doing research on how much our bodies really need, and have found the real recommendation is anywhere from a half an ounce to an ounce per pound of body weight. That's a lot of water! How much do you drink a day? Is it enough?

Monthly Update

This year has been full of change. I started the year with a 50 mile run that pushed me to the limit of what I had. Almost a month later, my hip is still recovering. I've been doing more yoga, and less running. However, the main reason I haven't been running a ton of miles is because in January I bought a house. Yep. Big girl stuff. In Los Angeles, nonetheless. 

For the past 7 years, I have been living in the South Bay of L.A., and commuting over an hour each way into DTLA to my job in L.A. City Hall. I've been spending at least 10 hours a week on the bus, if I'm lucky and there isn't traffic... and this is L.A. 

My previous daily routine was to get up at 5 and get ready for the day, leave at 6, get to work at 7, leave at 4:30, get home hopefully before 6. I had to go to bed at 9, so I'd have 3 hours a day to do everything I wanted to do. I often had to choose between housework, my husband, and running. I never felt balanced.

Now, I'm living very close to work just East of DTLA near the Gold Line. My morning commute has been 10 minutes, and in the evening I walk over a mile and take the train for 30 minutes. I've reduced my commute from 2+ hours to around 40 minutes.

I haven't really noticed a difference yet, because I'm unpacking and moving. However, I have started incorporating some minor changes into my schedule.

• I have a yoga mat in the living room, and have been doing plank pose, bridge pose, and a few other yoga poses every morning - even if only for a few minutes.
• I've been taking the stairs to my 7th floor office in the morning, and back down.
• I've been walking at least 1.5 miles a day, as opposed to none before.
• I've been drinking more juice for snacks - mostly Bolthouse Farms.
• I've been stopping at the store on my way home and getting 2 days worth of veggies, and cooking more clean nutrient dense foods.

There are some things that I haven't been doing though, that I need to resume once the move is done:

• Getting enough rest and sleep, and letting my muscles recover.
• Taking my vitamins and supplements every day.
• Running more.
• Reading more.

My mother gifted me a subscription to Clean Eating Magazine, and since I've moved I've made kimchi tofu tacos from it, and cooked soyrizo tacos, and some other vegetarian food. I'm working through the meat in my fridge, and then will be buying much less of it.

This weekend I went to ROGA at the Santa Monica Pier with my friend Crystal. We ran 3 miles on the beach, then there was a beautiful yoga session at the very end of the pier. It was beautiful and calming. The Santa Monica pier is the finish line to the L.A. Marathon. Santa Monica is where my grandfather grew up. Doing Warrior 1 and 2 looking out at the beach stretching North was emotional and calming all at once. My yoga intention was recovery, and in more ways than one. As I walked off the pier my uncle e-mailed me some poetry my Grampa had written a while back. I thought it was fitting seeing it where he gallivanted about as a kid. 

In 3 weeks I have the 30th L.A Marathon. My mom is coming down from Washington to run it with me. It will be our 6th consecutive LA Marathon, and we're looking forward to it. The goal is a PR for us both, so anything under 5:17 and we'll be more than happy... but honestly, we'll be running it together (and hopefully with our friend Leo who is awesome) and in the end we'd rather be able to say we ran together than ran fast... okay we're hoping for both though. Shoot for the moon!