Never Give Up!

This weekend has been an inspiring one for me... for every time we slam ourselves, there is someone else wishing that they could be us. I know you may think that is not true, but I bet you .... there is someone out there. You are already someone else's goal.

This weekend started with a great 5K run. I met a wonderful gal in the starting corral who noticed by Jeff Galloway Run/Walk Timer and mentioned "hey I do intervals too." We started talking and I asked her PR (38mins) and what she runs on the treadmill (5.0) well I do neither, so I immediately became disheartened. Like a tire with a flat ... the air of my confidence began to slip. I told her maybe if I just kept her in my sites I would know I was doing well.

The race started and I felt good... fell into my groove quickly and just ran my own race. I passed that girl ... and then she passed me... and then I passed her again. As I passed her the last time she commented "your gonna beat me you know" I just smiled and told her to keep up the good work. I finished that 5K (with the finish line cruely up a hill) at 42:35 which was a PR for me. I was psyched!
This morning was the Scheels 10K. It was just another training run for us, since it was a down week, but I thought my running partner should have the experience of doing a 10K race too before the big half marathon. The weather was abysmal. Now listen, I am NOT a wuss I run in cold, rain, snow, sleet etc but this was the WORST weather ever. Standing out at the start line its downpouring... and I look around. Wow, this is the fittest group of people I have ever seen... uh oh ... this might not be good!

The race starts ... and we are maintaining a decent pace (a funny aside - remember last week when my shoe was covered in blood - well my husband cleaned it with dishsoap. Well when the water hit it ... suds and soap poured out of my shoe for miles. It was hysterical) and we can see people in front of us. I focus on a girl in a tan jacket - with the goal to keep her in my sites. We reach the 1.5 mile marker and the 10K breaks away from the 5K (which started 10 minutes after the 10K and we were unceremoniously passed by all the fast 5Kers). We run down this road... and its just us... I can see NO people around us. The road is a loop, so we are on one side and the fast 10Kers are on the other side.

As we run down this road... at least 30 people or more over the course of the route cheer for us "great job girls" "keep up the good work" "you can do it" and I start to settle down and just smile. So what if the weather sucks... we are doing this. We come to the end of the long road and volunteer says ... "turn left and then take the second right and follow the cones." So we turn ... run ..... turn run .... uhhhh there are NO cones.

We turn right at the next block because I have some idea of where we are going kinda... and there are no cones. We run through a parking lot that is under more than 1 foot of water. I have no idea where we are ... there are no cones.... LOL this is a problem. We decide to keep running ... somewhat towards where we are going...

Suddenly a teeny red car pulls up and a guy says "oh no you guys are still out here." Uh ... yeah where did you think we went? He says he will help get us back on course... so he takes us about 4 blocks. He then turns his car around comes back and says "sorry girls, I took  you in the wrong direction - here hop in and I will get you back to the course." I look at Katie and we both say "no thanks we will run."

Who the heck gets in a car in the middle of the race!! He finally gets us back on course... we get up the huge hill and there is a sweet man standing with 2 glasses of water that he got for us since they took the water station down. Onward we go... as we come into the last mile its starts downpouring sleeting -- I mean it was actually painful. Onward we go ... we finally get near the parking lot where the finish line is ... and we get stuck in the middle of the kids run... LOL nope not kidding! So I was passed by a 5 year old with alot more energy than I had at that point.

We finally finish! The guy at the finish line says "oh yeah sorry we took some of the course down" SERIOUSLY! This race had no time limit ... how poor. I have never been in such a poor run in all of the runs I have done. The kicker... I cant tell you if I got a PR or not. According to my Garmin we did ... when I went to check the official results... hmm they dont have one on either of us.

I guess sometimes its about more than PRs. Its about seeing what you are made of... seeing what you can handle. Giving up did cross my mind (heck crossing to the other side of the road where the 10K was running back crossed my mind) but in the end I would KNOW that I gave up. And I cant give up ....

So how do I apply this to life. Jeff Galloway once said "when you wake up the morning, never let weather be your excuse. How do you know that on the day of your big race the weather wont be the worst you have ever seen? So suck it up and get out there" and I live this quote to the fullest..... in all aspects of my life.

I do not give up! When times get tough ... I get tougher! I challenge you all to do the same, because I KNOW you can! We rock ... and are stronger than those weak people who never try. I may have finished in dead last today -- but I am tougher than those people who looked out the window and crawled back into bed!

Quick-- i am still here

So- i started c25k over too bit y'all know that cuz of facebook.

I also started doing the one hundred pushups plan. Dude! My shoulders are killing me!

Food.... Um..... No comment. Lol

However, now are freezer is restocked -- is it weird that I could live off of froZen veggies?

starting over

i am starting over today on my diet. the past week has been very crazy, busy, unhealthy, etc. 

my hubby and i are both on the dieting wagon, so we have cut out a few things to help us on our journey.  no soft drinks or fried foods for at least a month.  only eating out once just the two of us.  We can go to subway during the week and we will eat out for lunch when his brother comes to town which is usually once a week.

i borrowed the book racing weight and have started reading that.   i want to buy a body fat scale to help track my progress. 

i up'd my calories in myfitnesspal, bc i think with running 1200 was putting me in starvation mode and thus the reason for not losing. so i up'd it to 1500. we'll see how that works. 

i have a friend that is doing ww and she said she would buy the new books and the calculator for me next time she went to a meeting.  so i plan on doing that too as well as counting calories. 

i also plan to cut out my late night snack.  we dont eat dinner til between 8:30-9pm. and when we get home at 12 we both like to have a snack.  i am planning on cutting that out as well and just drinking a tea or water. 

i also am going to restart c25k and work on my speed. i know i can run for however long but really want to work on my speed so i think doing it with that program and running as hard as i can during the run intervals will help me get faster. 

any other suggestions? 

update

i haven't been dieting or keeping track of stuff on myfitnesspal.  waiting is not an easy thing to do.  i didnt get the answer i wanted but i am doing ok with that and know that it will happen if it's meant to be some day. 

so now that i am out of "baby making" mode  i can start focusing on losing weight.  starting monday my hubby and i are both going to get serious and start eating better. 

of course before we do we are hitting up the melting pot saturday night and chinese buffet on sunday.  he had told me we woudl go to the melting pot to celebrate when we were pregnant, since that is not happening any time soon we are going to go anyway and hopefully be celebrating the sell of our house.  we are still waiting to hear back if the people that are buying our house have gotten their loan.  it has seriously taken forever.  we were told last friday we would know, then told wednesday, then told today at 9:30.  it's not 2 with no word about it. :(  so frustrating!!

i am considering joining weight watchers too.  i need to talk it over with jeremy. i know several people that go to meetings and also several who are doing the online version.  not sure which i want to do if i will do it at all or just do it on my own by counting calories.  have any of you done one or the other or both?  which do you prefer?? 

Sickness Round 2

I have been doing good.
Making good food choices.

I was so excited to be back into exercising...  and then I got slammed with the cold again.  I wonder if I pushed it too hard coming out of it, or if I am just colossally unlucky, and the mom of 2 young boys, and am destined for this kind of cycling through the sicknesses?

(How's THAT for a run-on sentence??)

So:
Update on the sickness.
Last night was horrendous. I was coughing SO HARD that I was physically ill.  Today I feel  like somebody used my midsection as a punching bag.

I was able to do a phone consultation with  the Nurse Practitioner, and she called in a prescription for an inhaler, which I already think is helping, and some cough medicine with codeine, which I don't know if I need... but the sleep can't hurt.

I came home early from school, and had a nice relaxing nap before I picked my cutie pies up at daycare.
That is probably why I have not keeled over from tiredness yet!  Although, my eyes are definitely starting to get heavy!!

--

So on the food front- my latest fave is romaine lettuce.  Seriously! I can't get enough!  My lunch was a big old salad from the salad bar at the grocery store/pharmacy.  Dinner?  Romaine, scallion, and cheese salad.  Yum.

Okay... that's it for now.  Can't wait to finally be healthy, healthy, healthy.
*sigh*

jinx

i'm am probably jinxing myself here but oh well.  the last 2 nights i have eaten 2/3rd of a package of thin mints.  there are 2 packages in 1 box. both mornings after i have been down.  hmmm, this is the type of diet i could go for!! :)

weigh in

i went on and weighed in today. like mer we usually have a big lunch after church and it blows it for monday. so i weighed this morning and was 199.0!!!  this was what i was all the week before this past one. last week i was hovering 201-202 all week.  :( i was shocked i was down today bc i ate a whole row of thin mints last night by myself (well j might have had one or two) but still you the point. plus my exercise this week consisted my run 3k run yesterday and biking thursday. that was it!!

this week is THE week.  trying not to think about it too much but that's really all i can do. 

i have a 15k next sunday so i have to do more exercise than i did this past week for sure! 

mer - great job on your weight loss today as well!