Week 2 5K

Bummer, but this is the only run I did this week. First off, I had 2 doctors appointments I had to adjust my work schedule around and I had a (failed) trip to Houston. On top of that, while I absolutely love them, the Olympics and their schedule is just killing me... Well, one more day, I can hang in there.

So here's the numbers for today:
Time: 37:44
AHR: 159
Calories Burned: 444

So today I worked hard to run as much as I could, whereas last week I was on the 2/2 run walk schedule for a while. That accounts for my huge drop in time and the increase in AHR. Good work!

Lightbulb and Week 1 of 5Ks

I have been working out very consistently 5-7 days a week since my last triathlon and I'm feeling great! Not losing any weight yet, gained a few in fact. But I'm feeling strong and energetic.

I started logging all of my calories to get a grip on what I was eating and how to start managing it better. Unfortunately, I haven't done a great job on the weekends, so I'll have to keep working on that. I went out for a run this morning and had an idea for something I'd like to try for a while. I run usually 3-4 times a week currently and at least once on the weekend, but I'm having a hard time identifying progress.

So whilst running on the track today, I thought it might be a great idea to do a 5K every weekend and log my stats and see how I progress. Today I started out on my regular walk/run intervals and had this epiphany mid-run, so today's run will be a little different, but it's a start. Also, I measured the 5K by running 12 laps on the outer-most lane and this is what the stats will be on. I also did 1 each of a warm up and cool down lap. I'm wondering how much of a difference there is between the inner lane and the outer one? I'll have to look that one up.

Anyways, here's the stats for this week's 5K: time: 42:31, average heart rate (AHR): 148, calories burned: 442.

Race Report

Sunday August 3 I participated in the River Cities Triathlon in Benton, Louisiana. It was a blast! This race was the best one I've participated in thus far and I'll be back next year. It was a different kind of race for me this time around. I didn't have anything to prove like on the first one and I wasn't rushing into another like my second. It's been almost a year since I've run in a triathlon and I don't have my same mojo that I was working last year. I've been working out here and there and eating poorly. I fell of the wagon. Additionally, I'm back 1 week from vacation where I let it all hang out food-wise and stressed my left plantar facia enough to make it painful. So, I haven't been pumping up this race, because I wasn't excited about it myself and wasn't too sure if I was just going to fall on my face and fail or what. Well, this race, it was a very positive personal journey learning experience.

Lori and Sienan and I drove out to Bossier City, LA on Saturday. Nathan stayed back in DFW doing "man" work with Uncle Craig; pulling tree stumps out of his yard. So, the race packet pickup at the local hospital lobby and the sports store was the next stop for my race number and rules. We then checked in to our hotel. It was blazing hot. The southeast, LA and TX in particular, have been having a major heat wave and we've been melting with temperatures between 104 and 108 and moderate to high humidity. We hit the pool and I read over the race info while they swam. I could already tell that this race was more together than previous just by their description of USAT rule enforcement and so on. After that, we grabbed some breakfast items for all and then went down to the Robinson Film Center in Shreveport to watch "What It Takes", a film about 4 professional triathletes and their Ironman Championship experiences in the 2006 season. It was very motivational and actually got me excited despite what I felt were many factors against me for this race. Hey, maybe this could be fun after all... On the way back to the hotel, we made a quick stop to catch a geocache downtown at a cool metal art "Zoo" in downtown Bossier City.

On Sunday morning we got up at 5:00am and loaded up the van for the 30 minute drive up to Cypress Black Bayou Park. There is an electricity in the air at triathlons. If you've never participated in or been to one, you should. It's exciting! We parked the car, unloaded and walked with hundreds and hundreds of other competitors over to the beach area. I went and set up in transition and Lori and Sienan setup at a picnic table. We found each other some time later and I went in to test the water while Sienan swam over to the platform to make friends and do cannonballs. The water was so hot! Probably close to 90 degrees. Since at this time it was only around 80 air temp, it felt better to get out than in. I decided my results were not as important as my health, so I would be focused on staying hydrated, keeping my heart rate at a safe level and replacing lost minerals.

We queued up and with each wave sent out there was a giant canon boom thudding in all of our chests. If you weren't awake yet, you were then. I was nervous, but ready for the long workout. The water was really choppy and it was actually a rough swim. I got tangled up with other people quite a bit. When the fast swimmers from the wave behind us (Clydesdales) caught up with us, there were a couple who actually swam over me. Hello! Swimmer here... Because the water was so hot I was ready to get out, so I just focused on getting it done. In the end, I took 24:19, which was pretty long, but I am happy with.

I ran up to transition. I was concerned about my left plantar facia. I came back from Michigan and had stressed it with all the running around barefoot in the sand. But probably due to adrenaline, I didn't feel a thing. Never-the-less, I took my time in transition to get my gel insert in my shoe and my socks on. I don't usually race with either, but I was more interested in taking care of my foot than being 1 or 2 minutes faster in transition. I swigged some Gatorade, grabbed my bike and I was off. In the end it took me 3:44 in transition.

The bike was awesome! One of Lori's co worker's husbands had given me his old bike last winter so I replaced my "Costco-special", as I called it, with this new hand me down. I remember my friends teasing me last year after the Tri For Fun in Sacramento that my bike was probably the only one there with a kickstand. Anyways, this new/old bike was the best. Lighter, easier to move and equipment to get aero. The course included great scenery, was relatively flat with a few hills but nothing I couldn't handle. The road was smooth and the locals were out to cheer us on. I really enjoyed it. I took in 1 gel and a bottle of water on the course and was done with the 18.2 miles in about 1:13:49.

I switched it up in transition, took in some more Gatorade and took off after 3:08. My heart rate coming out of the swim was 161. During the bike it vacillated between 160 and 170. Because of the heat and humidity, I decided during the bike that I wouldn't let it get higher than 175 on the run. Once it did, I walked. This meant I walked more than half, likely 2/3 of the run portion, but I was OK with that. There were ample aid stations and they had ice cold rags available to cool your body as well as cold water to rehydrate. I trucked my way in to the finish and whew!, I was done. 40:50 on the run and 2:25:47 total. Pretty respectable all things considered.

Lori came and met me and Sienan was still having fun on the platform. I quickly downed a water and we got in line for the feast. Nothing compares to the drained feeling at the completion of a triathlon and subsequently when you replenish your body's fuels. They actually had a whole roasted pig, the meat from which went on top of the beans and rice with bread. We made quick work of the after party and packed up and got on the road.

In retrospect, I wasn't looking forward to this race. I wasn't as ready as I wanted to be and I was scared. What was I scared of though? Not doing as well as before? Once I accepted that I probably wouldn't it was fun. There were times that it felt that it was lasting forever, but then when I finished I thought, "Is it over already?" In the end, I did it and I'm really happy with how I ran the race. It was a great course. I had an awesome feeling of being a part of something cool and I was proud of myself for doing it when I had what I thought were so many things against me. If I can do that, then I can do anything.

The cool thing is that this race inspired me to get my butt back in gear and work on losing the rest of the weight I had wanted to originally. I still want to get down to 170, putting me at a "normal" weight. I've gained a little back and I'm at 207 now. In the last week, I've started working out in earnest with structure. I've also been documenting what I eat in a logbook and counting calories; something that I have resisting doing even though I knew I probably should for about 10 months now. It's working, I've lost a few pounds of the initial water weight and I'm sore from running and working out. A feeling I've actually missed...

What a great workout!

I've been having a hard time getting back to working out after being sick. Truly, this past week I probably could have, but "life gets in the way". Thus, I was a little nervous about working out with the Luke's running group today, but was encouraged by my coach Lea Ann's email reminding us all that there have been many sick and to ease back in and don't worry about what you missed, your fitness is going to bounce right back.

Today was an awesome workout, I'm so glad to be back and I have renewed motivation. We did drills today: skipping, toe running, butt kicking and more. We then ran, 23 minutes! Another PR, woo hoo! I was surprised really at how easy it was to keep going. I think it was the pacing. Steady at 11:30/mile or so according to our other coach Ru Anne who I paced with for most of the run. Again, pretty darn good. To top it all off, after running we did 4 30 second sprints up a small hill as an intro to hill work. It was hard, but it was good to work so hard and have done it. I love running in a group, because you have the camaraderie and you push yourself harder than you would on your own. I'm really enjoying this group and I would definitely recommend it to anyone considering something like this.

I'll tell you one thing, I'm going to be one sore girl tomorrow. But no pain, no gain, right?

Recovering with Fun

Well, I'm just about over the heavy congestion from my flu and I'm officially on the mend. This weekend, we made a trip down to Glen Rose to visit the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and the Dinosaur Valley State Park. We had a great time. Fossil Rim is an African safari type park, where the animals roam free and you drive throughout the park. You are able to buy feed, and actually feed the animals, some by hand. The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time. Hey, what kid wouldn't: being able to stick their heads out of the sun roof and even ride on top of the van. The slideshow on my blog for this week is pictures from this trip. Enjoy!

Doh! The Flu

Man, I've never had it, except maybe once when I was a kid according to my mom and it sucks. It hit me quick and hard on Tuesday night last week and I woke up on Wednesday wishing for someone to put me out of my misery. Now my concept of the flu is that you're going to be feeling miserable for a few weeks. However, now a days there is actually a prescription you can get from your doctor to stop the flu called Tamiflu, as long as you get it early enough in the flu. That got me feeling pretty good in about 4 or 5 days and now I just have the cough and nasal congestion that started on Monday this week. I'm working my ColdBusters from Jamba Juice and drinking tons of fluids, taking ecchinasea (no idea how to spell that one), going to bed early and staying close to my cube at work. This has been helping and today I started to feel the congestion beginning to break. I'm going to start back up with walking and some jogging and hopefully at least go out with the group on Saturday for running. I was bummed to have missed the 5k last weekend, but, what do you do? If you've got the flu, you have to listen to your body, right?

Yet Another

This morning I did my long run (13minutes) and it was a challenge with the wind. Wind makes it feel like I'm running uphill or something. But again, I perservered. I set a PR for the mile. I don't have an exact second, but it was somewhere between 10:47 and 11:00, which beats my previous record by about 30 seconds. Woo Hoo! Tomorrow I've got a short run and I'll do my drills from the workout. We might have rain tomorrow morning, maybe because it didn't show this morning. Well, I'm loving running, even though it's hard.

PRs All Over the Place

This Saturday's run was another PR (personal record). Our workout consisted of walking 8 minutes, running 14 minutes and then walking another 8 minutes. I've never run 14 minutes straight and I'm quite proud to have completed it. I wasn't running my stop watch and I was depending on the coach to call out the start and stop times. I remember I was running along near the end and I was getting really tired, which for me when I'm running is that I'm having a hard time breathing. My lungs almost always give out before my legs. Anyways, that last bit was uphill and I was having an inner dialogue about stopping or not. If I were to stop, then I'd have given up, wouldn't know how long I had really gone for and been pretty disappointed in myself. On the other hand, if I continued, I would have set a new PR, cemented a sense of achievement of doing what I set out to do and have something to write about in my blog. Plus, I had the whole rest of the day to walk around and slowly catch my breath, that was not the time for that. So, I pushed through and did it! Woo Hoo!

This week I see some 13 minute runs in the schedule, and we have a 5K benchmark on Saturday. Things just keep progressing, more than I thought I could. It's awesome! Today, Lori and I warmed up on the erg rower and did our weight workout at the gym. Then we drove over to Lake Worth and went for a bike ride for around a half an hour. It was fun. Now I definitely have to put my seat on this bike. The pelvic-crushing seat on the aluminum frame of this bike is killing me. Time to put my cushy granny seat on. :o)

Feelin' Good

I'm sure I've posted with that exact title before, but darn it, I am! I worked out this morning early and for a long time. Just had to bite the bullet and get the extra weight workout done for the week. Running is the priority, but things will "work" better with weight training incorporated and I know it. I did Sharon's full body workout series #1, because I have Lori with me. Lori's decided she needs to lose weight. I've become her trainer of sorts. It's pretty cool, and again I've wondered if maybe I should look at doing that for a job, but I'm not sure it would make enough to pay the bills. Anyways, I'm feeling good, I can feel the difference already when I take the stairs by two (as always), but now it's feeling much easier. Although it's difficult to get up early, and deal with having to go to bed early, I feel so much better having started my day off with a workout. I'm glad I'm back into it. Also can't believe I'm running 10 minutes at a time. Looks like according to the schedule I'll be up to 14 minutes on Saturday. Wish me luck!

Good Morning!

Today I wanted to write post-workout, when I was excited and had something interesting to say. Here goes...

I got up! In the morning, before work. This is something I've been struggling with for some time now, but I just had to get back to my routine and straighten everything out. That damn snooze button has been too alluring for too long. I went for my run per the group training homework, outside at the track, which was thankfully unlocked today. From my run meeting on Saturday, I picked up the idea of varying the surface of your workouts at least 1/2 the time so that you aren't running on concrete all the time. That is one thing I'm disappointed about in Texas. All the sidewalks, roads, trails and paths are made of concrete, so I don't have much choice when running. So the track was a nice variance for the feet. Tomorrow it'll be less running, so I'll go through the hood and down by the pond. Anyways, it was an excellent morning, a little humid making the air soft, breezy and about 62 degrees. Nice. My legs hurt from the workout yesterday, but felt great by the time I did my post workout stretches. Lori went with me and that was also nice. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's run.

Here We Come Now

Well, the first week only went 1/2 as well as the original plan. Finishing out busy January at work for the end of the month just overtook my schedule. But that's OK, you just get up, workout at the next opportunity and keep moving. The missed workouts in the week didn't affect things for Saturday's run. It was a great workout at Luke's and the 10 minute run I was so intimidated by last week was easier this week. In fact, we ran on for a while and before we knew it it was at 8 out of the 10 minutes we needed to run. And I didn't even feel pain or get out of breath. It was awesome! I took little man out to hit some balls at the range, played catch and went bowling yesterday. It was a very physical day and very fun. Today I hit the gym with Lori and it was a workout that was definitely needed. My muscle tone has gotten worse and it needs the work. I'm looking forward to the workouts and looking forward to integrating in a little more into the routine and I'm looking at a class or two at the gym, maybe spin or maybe cardio kickboxing. Tomorrow it's a 30 minute run, that's all she wrote for tonight.

The First Workout

So, the first workout was awesome. It was something I've never experienced before, being with a group of people all working out on the same thing. The morning was really cold and foggy and by the time we were done we all had little moisture droplets all over our faces, hair, jackets, etc. We started off the morning with a quick warmup, group stretching and then broke off into our separate groups to do our workouts. There is a running group, a beginning running group (mine) and a walking group. We got running homework and a preview of next week. This should be fun.

The rest of the weekend I did major house work and made sure and fit in some fun, fitness type stuff. Biking riding, playing catch, walking the dog and running around. It was good times. We've had a bit of a warm spell in North Texas and it's been nice. Well, I'm off to read my Complete Runner's Handbook and learn about running my first half marathon.

Good Times

Well, on Tuesday I signed up for the UpBeat running training group, part of the Beat Goes On spring program at Luke's Locker here in DFW. I'm pretty stoked. I have decided 2008 is the year I become a runner. It's something I think is cool. But, I really need disciplined running workouts because it gets the job done for my gifts of loss I have scheduled for myself this year. The first workout is this Saturday morning at 7:30am, frost or not. :o) I am a bit nervous, because the longest distance I've attempted is a 5k, and I see an 8k on our schedule in mid-March.

In preparation I've been out running the last few mornings and I really enjoyed my run today. It ended up being a 5k, in close to 40 minutes, which I thought was pretty good considering I haven't been running much for a few months, it was 28 degrees and windy. The diet has become dialed in and I feel my body shrinking and becoming leaner, not weight loss per se, just a "tightening". Anyways, it feels good.

I've thought a lot about how to balance my goals and aspirations for this year because I have a lot of gifts to give myself and a lot of things I want to do. I thought it was going to be too much, but I have come up with this plan that I think catches it all. I think if I stick with this plan of working towards some goals and training for some fun things, that the gifts of weight loss and fat loss are going to fall right in line. So, here goes: I'm going to do UpBeat from now until May, and include weight workouts 2-3 times a week. After UpBeat is done, I'm going to switch my focus to include swimming and biking, getting ready for some summer and early fall triathlons, for fun!. Once completed, I'm going to shift gears back to running exclusively for the last 2-3 months of the year and get ready for the Dallas White Rock half marathon. Should be a great year!

Just Like an Old Friend...

I have resumed my workouts, beginning training for the race season this year. I walked into the gym and the guy at the counter inquired about where I'd been. They noticed? Cool. Ready for warming up, I headed for the stairmaster when my headphones just broke. Bummer, but I wasn't about to let that get in my way.

I had a great workout. It's always busy in January. I saw the old regulars and some new faces. I wonder how long they'll be around? People always start out in January and drop off as the weeks go by. The weights, machines and workout felt routine, like home. I've missed it... I've been working my core at home and running when not at the gym. I've realized that I much prefer running "somewhere" than on the track. The track is rubberized and "safe" for my joints, but it's boring. I realized I spend my time wondering when this interval is up, thinking about how hard I'm breathing, can I stop now, etc. I ran to pick up Sienan from daycare and ran back and loved it. It's rougher surface, but it was much more interesting. I'm definitely going to be mixing it up this year to avoid the burnout I experienced in October. I'm taking the slower, more scenic route this year, and I'm OK with that.

I've been roping in the diet as well. Lots of veggies, really focusing on the veggies. Lean protein and not too many treats (starches, sugars, etc.). I'm looking forward to burning the fat off my body and really shaping it up this year.

The race calendar isn't set in concrete yet, but there are 2 identified thus far:
1. First is the River Cities Sprint Triathlon in Shreveport, LA. I heard about this one in Austin last year and it's supposed to be really fun and has one of the best goodie bags around. I want to do a total of 3 sprint triathlons this year, so the other two will be spaced out with at least a month in between them all and what works in the schedule. If I'm lucky, one of them will be the sprint triathlon on Providenciales, Turks and Caicos in July.
2. Second, I am going to train for the 1/2 marathon at the White Rock Marathon in Dallas in December. I know I will be doing other small races along the way, they just aren't identified yet. I am looking at joining a running group at Luke's Locker that will run 4 or 5 months or so to learn more about running and doing it better.

One interesting tidbit from my past: I heard from my mom that an old acquaintence from Ashworth Golf Company has gotten fit and now does triathlons. Liza, if you're reading this: you go girl! And thanks for being my learning permit "chaperone" when I was learning to drive.

New Year, New Goals

I've been away from my blog for quite some time and it's time to get back. I'm ready to start a whole new year and I'm excited about the gifts I'm going to give myself this year. Here they are:

1. I will achieve my goal weight of 170 pounds this year
2. I will lower my bodyfat percentage to 20%
3. I will participate in 3 triathlons this year
4. I will participate in a half marathon this December.
5. I will open my eyes and my heart and focus on seeing things more positively than negatively.
6. I will refocus on spending time on myself, so in the end, I can spend more time on others. I will enable myself to do this by:
7. exercising and eating right
8. spending 10-20 focused minutes a day on time management and organization
9. focusing on the root of why I feel and react the way I do in difficult and stressful situations and working on changing myself for the better. (I know, this is vague, but it's something I need to work on and keep at the top of my mental carousel)
10. I will take more photography this year. I've been missing it...

I'm pretty excited about the gifts I've planned to give myself this year and I can't wait to get started. I did really well last year with losing 70 pounds, participating in 2 triathlons and a few 5Ks and drastically changing who I was, inside and out for the better. This year is going to be awesome, I just know it!