Welcome Back!

I am welcoming myself back to blogging. It's only been since May of '07 that I last posted! Oops!

Lots has changed, and lots has stayed the same.

Changed:

1) I'm growing my hair out. (not weight or running related item though)
2) Right foot injury, so this years running schedule will be interesting since I have *several* 1/2 marathons planned. But I will be good and do what needs to be done. I'm sure loosing weight and stretching more would help.
3) I'm back on "the diet". Although yesterday and today I didn't journal my food (YET), and it's only day 4. Another oops!
4) That's all I can think of right now!

Same:

1) Still need to lose weight.
2) Still thinks that the act of weight loss sucks badly.
3) Still knows it must be done.

Life update

Yes - I'm still here. Barely.

As of 04/02 we have our house up for sale (no bites yet), so that had kept me busy. Other things have been brewing as well that have been keeping me from my running and blogging. Excuses, excuses! I know. Lame.

Yesterday we did the First Annual Beach Wellness 5K Race out at the State Park. I enjoyed it, because it was the same course for Run By the Bay so I knew it. Didn't set a PR, but it was good to be out running! Ran into my trainer JH - always good to see her. Hopefully the weather will warm up and we will be able to resume our workouts like we want to.

Next weekend is the Flushing Tax Trot. Another good race. Nice residential run through a pretty neighborhood. My mom will be there to race also. Last year the Tax Trot was my first run ever. I finished in 35.22 (11.24 pace), I see no reason why I can't beat that! (keeping fingers crossed)

Off to do more laundry!

Bay City St. Pat's

If you have been checking here every day, wondering how the race went . . . wonder no more. I even have pictures!

For starters, I did not beat my best time. I was 5 seconds off. Will try again next time. J on the other hand, smoked his previous PR with a time of 25:21! I finished with a 32:32 and mom walked across the finish with a 52:29.

Here we are after the race. Thanks to our friend B for taking our picture!

Next is a picture of me, far left. The best part of this picture is the fact that J wasn't taking a picture of me, he was shooting the girl in front of me who is our friend B's niece.



J didn't even see me, nor know I had finished the race until I walked up to him after I finished. He pointed her out to me later and I told him she was either right in front of me or right behind me so I should be in the picture too - and I was! I did pass her in the end, and beat her by 11 seconds. That gives me great satisfaction, because she walk/ran the whole way. There are always people in a race that I am in that will run fast, then walk . . . then just as I catch up to them, run again . . . then walk. It is as if they hear me coming and think "OH NO, we can't let HER beat, me!"

Sorry the pictures are so dark, it was very sunny that day.

So now you ask what's next? What's next is the Flushing Tax Trot, which was the first 5K I ran (last year). It is a nice residential run that is pretty flat, and I'm pretty confidant that I'll beat last years time of 35:22. :-) At least I had better!

Besides the Tax Trot, my treadmill training from here on out will not only be rolling hills, but also inclines - since the Mackinaw Bridge Memorial Day Run is about 68 days away, and I need to start working on my 5% incline! You might think a 5% incline is not that much and you are right, but a 5% incline for around 2.5 miles which is also the Entire Beginning of the Race - then it turns into something!

Another thing I seriously want to start working on is my EATING! Yes, I know how to eat . . . too well actually! I need to forget how to eat a few hundred calories per day. So even though you've read it here before, I'm going back on the food journal. Wish me luck!

03.10.07

Nothing new going on, I've just been quietly updating my mileage - and not updating my weight. Next Sunday is the Bay City St. Pat's 5K, so right now that is what we are looking forward to. I've got one week to work on my "rolling hills" and see if I can beat the pants off my time from last weeks race. :-) Keep your fingers crossed.

We might also have the weather in our favor for once, it might be in the 40's next Sunday. Of course that might put a monkey wrench into my running, because it seems I do better in colder weather. We shall see, we shall see.

I definitely plan to have pictures for the St. Pat's race - so stay tuned.

Tracking the Bunny - "It's About Time"

J & I got our custom Champion Chips in the mail Friday. Now when we register for a chip-timed race we can use our own chips. They have Mickey Mouse on them for the 15th annual marathon & 1/2 marathon and the date - pretty cool. We just have to keep the two straight of which number belongs to me and which one is his.

Now when we do big events, (like the Disney 1/2 marathon) if someone knows our chip numbers they can sign up for email or text message (on your cellphone) updates of our splits. I'm not sure if the Crim has this service or not, but it's a neat feature.

I'll have to post a picture of what it looks like - coming soon!

Rolling Hills

I've been on the treadmill the past TWO days in a row! If you realize that I haven't ran for 18 days before that, I deserve a (small) standing ovation - or a kick in the pants. Plus, yesterday I also did about 15-20 mins of weights & abs. While my arms aren't to sore, I can feel my abs! Yeah, I still have abs - the fat hasn't swallowed them up! I decided to actually do weights after seeing my upper arms (the fat bulges above my elbows that are hiding my triceps) in the mirror after using the treadmill. I thought it was a vast improvment over thinking about doing weights.

I've decided to break away from what is "safe" and try out a new program on the treadmill called rolling hills. Despite it's name there is no change in incline, just speed. I heard a rumor that if you want to improve your pace you need to mix it up. So I'm mixing it up.

Rolling hills starts off at a painfully slow walk for two minutes and then a little bit faster for another two minutes. Then the fun begins. Every thirty seconds the miles per hour increase by .5 until you reach your peak, and then it goes back down in thirty second increments. For me, that's starting at 4.0 miles per hour (15 minute mile) - up to 6.0 miles per hour (10 minute mile) and back down to 4.0 miles per hour until you run out of time, which is whatever you've set it to be. Then with 4 minutes to go, it automatically does a cool down.

Since I'm only on Day Two, I have no opinion on how it's working to improve my pace, but the "change of scenery" is nice.

We have the last Reese race next weekend, so I'm going to try to rollling hill it as much as I can between now and then and maybe see a slight difference with my race results.

Stay tuned.

Just checking in . . .

Nothing new here, but thought I'd write a post so no one thought I was dead. I'm still here!

Committed

The title of this post can mean different things to different people, so I'll let you decide. :-)

For at least 6 months now, J & I have been dreaming of our first half marathon. Sounds pretty easy - distance wise. Just run the Crim (10 miles) and then a 5K on top of that. Bang - half marathon. We even have one picked out, the Walt Disney World Half Marathon at the beginning of 2008.

We have been checking the web site, and last year it said the marathon & half-marathon fill up around July since they only let a certain number of people register. Well, I went to the web site yesterday and it said that registration was already at 85% capacity. So, we went ahead and registered last night!

No one expects to visit the Mouse and get away cheap, and this is no exception. $95.00 to register for the race, $8.95 for a commemorative pin, and $38.00 for a commemorative ChampionChip - all to celebrate this is the 15th year of these races. Entrance into the park for race start and awards ceremony, Fitness Expo and t-shirt are all things included in the $95.00 fee.

Okay, now the web site says they are at 95% capacity! Looks like we snuck in just in time. You can check out the action here: Disney Marathon Weekend. So now in a week or so I can start scoping out airfare and hotel prices. We already know we are going to stay on campus, at one of the Value Resorts they have. To say we are excited is an understatement. We are committed!

Reese Winter Road Race

Well, we survive that one. The weather predictions for yesterday were right on the money. It was cold, and it was windy. It was also snowing - or maybe just loose snow was blowing around?

I was also well insulated. Too much so. Within the first 5 minutes, I was sweating. But I stayed bundled up to prevent freezing. I also remembered to bring a scarf to breathe through, so I'm not wheezing today like I could be.

Almost 75 runners and 5 walkers showed up yesterday. We are either the dedicated or the crazies.

The thing I forgot to bring was the camera, so no shots of me or J crossing the finish line. Even though it was bitter cold, I was happy to see J and our running friend B waiting for me at the finish to cheer me on. I sped up at the finish and gave it my all (as usual) and finished with a nasty side stitch and my glasses so fogged up from the scarf-breathing that I was in a stupor trying to walk off my side stitch. Plus at that point I needed my sunglasses from the glare of all that white.

The YakTrax were a blessing. The start and the finish were all ice and snow. The roads of Reese were surprisingly clear of snow, unlike the side streets of Bay City which are crap to drive on. Since you are not suppose to use them on dry pavement, I stayed off to the side as much as possible and ran on snow whenever I saw it available. I bought the glow-in-the-dark ones, just in case I feel it necessary to go for a late night jaunt during the winter. (Which is pretty much anytime after work here in Michigan!)

Today there will be no treadmilling. Today is recovery day from our evening with S & A. Red Lobster, drinking, and the three of them playing "Guitar Hero" on PS2. It's a miracle we are up at 10:30am, since we only got home around 3. :-) You have to have a little fun every once in a while! I'm surprised my legs are super sore, but I'm in pretty good shape.

02.02.07

Happy Groundhog's Day. Whatever that means.

Tomorrow is our 5K in Reese, and according to weather dot com, we are in for a doozy. The race starts at 10am, and they are predicting temperatures to be about 10 degrees F, but with the wind chill it should feel like -4 degrees F! Plus, it should also be snowing.

Tonight after work I think I'm heading to Runners to pick up some YakTrax so I don't slip and fall on my tookis. My tailbone is fragile enough, I don't need to kill it for good.

On the up-side, tonight is pizza night!

Will post results and hopefully photos tomorrow or Sunday. Wish us luck (from remaining frost-bite free!)

The Death of January

Last night has we were lying on the couch, J says "So, are we done running now?" He was referring to the fact that if we do not run by tomorrow, we will have not run in a whole week. So much for spending $_____.00 on a treadmill. I explained to him our busy work week (and school work for him also) and how all of the motivation I've had this week is to plant my butt on the couch after work and then go to bed. So with less than one week left in January, we are pretty much calling it a wash and starting fresh in February.

This weekend we will be cleaning the carpet upstairs and then moving our bedroom up there, so we will officially have a spare bedroom and a workout/office room. We can unpack the weight bench we bought, and J is getting me a Pilates ball w/DVD (he won a contest at work and got to pick a prize from a booklet full of "stuff").

So with an actual room to work out in, instead of the spare bedroom with the mattress up against the wall and the weight bench still in the box we feel we will be adequately motivated.

Next we need to work on the food issue. Sure we need items like sugar-free fudge sickles (35 calories!) to keep us going, and sometimes a handful of pretzels satisfies that need for a food that's crunchy, but we should not have succumbed to buy-one-get-one-free Doritos! BAD T & J, BAD!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to keep a food journal. I meant EVERY DAY, but I hate keeping a food journal, so I think I have maybe one or two days written in there. I'm going to make an effort to start on Monday and keep it rolling. I'm also going to make some foods this weekend that I can use for lunches instead of buying frozen dinners that I get sick of anyway. So "starvation", welcome back! I'm sure my body has never known starvation, but when you reduce the amount of calories you eat in a day - your body sure acts like it's starving.

I could even even be lazy about it and look through last years food journal and copy days that match the calories I want to be at, and I still haven't been doing it! Somethings gotta change. If I want to meet some of my other goals, like improving my 5K times, loosing weight will help me with that I'm sure. So far, I think every resolution I've made is in the toilet. Someone slap me, quick!

P.S. I hate winter!

Life After Calibration

By looking right at my weight loss ytd being a positive number, instead of a negative number - it appears that Red Lobster last night for dinner and then the rest of it again right before bed was a poor choice. Oops!

Earlier in the week running on the new treadmill was fast and fun. I was running for about an hour at a time, and doing about 5 miles. Then J decided maybe we should have calibrated the machine before we started using it. Life after calibration is slow. Now my pace is back down where it should be, and I'm huffing and puffing after 1 mile. Which is why I ran 1/2 of a 5K this morning. That, and we are getting ready to visit my cousin in Ann Arbor (shout out to JC) and we need to get to the bank and make tracks.

I think I liked life before calibration better. Reality sucks.

No Excuses

We bought a Treadmill and a weight bench yesterday. We used some of our Christmas money and the rest will come from our tax return. Of course it's not as heavy-duty and posh as the Precors we run on at Delta College, but it should be a good start.

The weight bench is just a very simple one with an incline, nothing fancy.

Now we have NO EXCUSES to work out! We even set it up last night in the spare bedroom (front) and J is working on getting heat upstairs right now so we can move our bedroom upstairs and turn the back bedroom into the "workout room" and the front bedroom back into the spare.

I should be able to update my Mileage YTD later today! I am 97% well again. Just a runny nose and a little rasp in the throat.

01/05/07

Tomorrow is the next Reese Winter Road Race in the series. Since I'm now starting to loose my voice, I'll have to sit this one out. Time to wait by the finish line with the camera and cheer J on, he is trying for a PR of 26.00. I'll post photos soon.

Time for bed - 'nite!