The Things You Learn About Yourself

Adam has been traveling these last few weeks to a conference for school, so I have essentially living by myself.

It sucks.  A lot.  I miss him so much.  But! He's on his way home :D I pick him up tomorrow and I can. not. wait. !!!

But that is not what I wanted to write about, although it does factor in.

First, I find it much too easy to slide into unhealthy food choices when I am by myself.  Way too easy.  And I'm not going to lie, I slid down the slippery slope of bad-for-you food.  And I felt awful.  Not because of the guilt, although I am sure that was part of it, but I just felt sick to my stomach for days after I ate that crap.  Nauseous, yucky, uncomfortable. Blech.  Cooking healthy for one is definitely harder, but so worth it.  I never, EVER want to feel that way again.  If I indulge a little, like once in a blue moon, I don't think it will be like that.  I did have a few days pass after I had an indulgence and I felt fine.  It was when I indulged two, no I think it was three, days in a row for a meal each day, that I felt the worst for the next several days.

Blech. Blech. Blech.

But I also made another discovery over the last few months, and have an easy way to remedy the problem.

I like exercise and being active.  I enjoy playing sports and it's really fun to play team sports with friends.  I have many fond memories from my childhood of playing touch football on Saturdays with my family and neighbors.  And we (my Dad, brothers and now my hubby) still sometimes head to the local ballpark complex thing in my hometown to hit the ball around and play catch.  Invariably someone will pull a muscle or something.  But it's a lot of fun.  Family is super important to me and helping them stay healthy and be around as long as possible is a very big thing for me.

So, anyway, my biggest motivator it seems, is having some sort of 'event' breathing down my neck.

Which means I spent today looking up 5Ks in Michigan for me to run through out the winter.  (I don't do winter biking.  I am crazy, but not that crazy.)  I found one a month to run all the way through to the Capital City River Run event next year.  The first one up is the Turkeyman Trot on Thanksgiving morning.

You read that correctly.  I am hosting my first Thanksgiving this year, and I am running a 5K the morning of.  Yes sir/m'am.

Even though my work outs have been erratic since I started working, I want to have that extra push to keep it up.  Training for a 5K only takes 30 minutes, 3 days a week.  Am I tired when I get home from work? Yes.  I have been averaging 10,000 steps per day on days that I work, I'm on my feet, going from my desk to the copier, back to my desk, to the supply room and back, I'm everywhere baby!

But I know that I need to make my workouts more regular.  I have to.  The weight won't continue to come off if I don't get back on the regular exercise horse.

And stay away from the Pizza Rolls.

Cooley Law School 5K for Education

I did it!  I trained, I worked and I finished the first 5K I ever paid to enter.  And I ran the whole thing!  Woo!

I finished in 36:46, took 51st in my age group (according to the picture I took, but the online results say I'm 52nd), 336th overall for women and 609th overall.  My mile time was not very good, 11:50, but I have something to improve on for next year.

Next year I will be running in the 25-29 age group and the winning time for that was 19:21.  So that's my goal, to get my time down in the next year.  Guess who's going to be running intervals? (Me, in case you didn't guess!)  It won't hurt that if I make my goal weight by my birthday, I will be running next year's 5K with significantly less poundage dragging me down.  Even if I decide to maintain a higher weight than I currently am aiming for now, I will still be much less heavy.

Which will be very good.  For many reasons.  Besides the obvious of not having extra weight, I will hopeful not injure myself while running the 5K.  During the 5K I must have just been running high on adrenaline and not noticed, but my feet killed afterward.  My right foot still hurts, although less than it did yesterday.  Ice and acetaminophen will do that.

The big suck for yesterday was that I woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose.  Ick.  Not really what you want when you're about to run 3.1 miles.

Alright, race report: (OMG, I get to do one of these!)

Mile 1 (10:36, about 8:40am)


We had to rush to the starting line because we had to take stuff back to the car after we checked in (and now we can't find my keys).  I plugged into my phone for music and turned it up.  The air horn went and we took off, the 5K in one direction and the Half Marathon in the other.  I felt alright, but as mile one came up, I was starting to get down a bit, and was thinking about walking after I hit the mile marker.  I got to the marker and said, if you still want to walk after mile two, you can for a bit.

First Water Station


As we approached, I thought they were people waiting for certain runners and was cursing myself for not asking someone to water us.  Then I realized it was for everyone and I was happy!  I cannot walk and drink out of a paper cup let alone run and drink.  So after slopping a large amount of it down my front I stopped, finished the water and continued.

Mile 2 (22:42, about 8:53am)


I didn't let myself stop and walk here either.  I wasn't going to let myself walk at all during this.  And I am stubborn, especially with myself.  I kept on keeping on.

Second Water Station

There was a band playing along the second water station, which was nice.  I got some water, stopped to chug it down (attractive, I know) and kept running.

Mile 3.1


There were tons of people flanking the finish and the last bit leading up to the finish along the River Trail.  They cheered on everyone, not just who they came to support.  It was wonderful. Thank you! We really, really appreciate it!  I sprinted with everything I had left to get across before another minute ticked off the clock.

After the finish Meijer had donated bagels, fruit, water and apple cider.  All of which was awesome.  I had a bagel, an apple, some water and cider.  We also got a free beer from a local brewery.  I had a bite of Adam's pizza but didn't give in to the desire to get my own slice.  Also, my feet hurt, so I didn't want to walk around to find it.

We stayed to watch the Half Marathoners finish, and we had a friend running in it.  We stayed til she finished, her husband couldn't run because he broke his toe a few weeks ago. :(  It was really nice to see them.

Adam and I look forward to racing again next year, but hopefully we'll get to race again before that! (Read: when I find a job)

Well, that's all I got, I'm going to see if I can convince Adam to write his own race report to post too.

'Night!

Adam and I after we finished!

Yeah, I'm nuts

Remember when I posted a few weeks ago about how I was thinking about running a 5K on top of my Century Training?

Yeah, well I'm pretty sure I also posted that I decided to run it. I can't find it right now.  But I wanted to tell you all that I have confirmation that I'm nuts.

Today, after doing our century training, I waited about an hour.  Ate some watermelon, drank some chocolate milk and watched some M*A*S*H while I waited. Then I got back up and went out to run TWO days worth of training.

That's right. TWO DAYS.  I ran the third day of Week 5, and the first day of Week 6 back to back.  55 minutes.

And I'm going to do it again tomorrow, and finish the last two days of Week 6.

Then I will be caught up and only running 3 days a week.

So maybe I'm only partially whacko.

But the great thing is, is that I felt great.  I rode hard, ran so long and worked my legs to the bone.  But after both, and in between, my legs felt great.  Sure now, my knees are a little swollen and sore, but my muscles feel fine.  Adam is still recovering from our long ride on Sunday, which is crazy! I'm usually the one who is still lagging a day or two after.

This is wonderful!  I hope that this continues and I keep getting stronger and stronger.

WOO!!

I have a pretty chart

Remember when you were little and maybe you had a chart where you got a star if you did your chores at home, or in your grade school classroom for when you did something good?

Well, I wanted a visual thing like that for my own progress.

So, I went to the store and bought some of that really thin poster board and stickers and made my own chart!

Isn't it preeeeetty? It hangs out on the back of our front door.  Unfortunately, I made this before I decided - after my post yesterday - to train for a 5K.  So I don't have any space to add in my 5K training.  I'm going to end up printing it out separately, I think.  It'll be equally pretty though.

As you can see, I am tracking my century training, % loss up down to my goal weight, Pounds Lost in 5 pound increments down to goal weight, making sure I walk 5K every day and then I have several rows at the bottom to track my weekly losses.  Of which I suppose I could sacrifice a few rows of to track the 5K training, but my zigzag lines make it hard to write in a new goal to track.  Upon closer inspection though, I can spare a couple lines at the bottom.  The zigzags are the only problem, but one of those new labels that block out stuff behind it would work.  Or just a regular label.  I'll post a new picture if/when I do that.  Rest Day for century training tomorrow, so I start 5K-ing tomorrow.  I'm babbling, sorry.

And these are my pretty stickers :D  And the marker I use to record stuff.

I'll need to pick a new sticker out of the ones not shown... or maybe the blue bee ones will be for my trainings, 5K and Century.

Anyway, what are your goals? How do you keep track of your progress?  How do you reward yourself?

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Thanks to Kat at Living Like the Kings for the thought to ask you all questions at the end of a post!

I am crazy. Absolutely insane.

Recently (3 days ago) I set a goal for myself to walk at least 5K (3.1 miles) every day.  And I am proud to say that I have managed to do that every day since I started.  Yay!  I also am training to ride a century and I go to yoga twice a week.  But, today a new challenge arose when a friend asked me if I was planning on running any 5K races soon.

I told her I wasn't planning on doing more running until after cycling season was over, but if she found a 5K to run together before that, I would start earlier.

This begs the question: what the hell is the matter with me?!

With everything I'm doing otherwise, how can I do 5K training too?

But I am considering it, I even have the Couch to 5K Program page open right now and my calendar to add the training in as a separate calendar so I'd have it for reference on my phone.  And, conveniently enough, the week after we do our century ride in which entrance fees go to breast cancer research and League of Michigan Bicyclists, is the Capitol City River Run Half Marathon and CCRR Cooley Law School 5K for Education.  We have to drive a bit to get to the century ride and the 5K is right here in Lansing, so, I'd like to do it, even though my friend is already signed up to do the half marathon section of the race.

I've participated in the Weight Watchers Walk-it 5K day in the past (twice, this year and last), but I'd like to do an "official" race where I get a number an everything.

Again, what is the matter with me?!  I'm actually thinking about doing a 5K, where I would have to train 3 days a week, on top of the 6 days a week I'm training for the century?  And yoga.  But it certainly would push me to the 5K every day faster.

I am nuts. Crazy. Whacko.

There is a reason professional athletes are professional athletes, training is so time consuming!

And I have a lot of thinking, deciding and planning to do... yeesh.

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