Below Zero and Travel advisory

So as many of you may or may not know i traveled to MN this past week and well let's just say it was a drink fest. I am not really sure what my problem is but i return home and return to my drinking days it's like I left 12 yrs ago and haven't changed at all. So i'm rather disappointed in myself and i think i planned to lose 6 lbs and instead i gained it in beer i think. ALTHO i did go to my Dad's in WI after 2 days and was excited to go run my 7 miles which i did do, asked my Dad which direction i should go as he's in a secluded part of the woods near a lake and a golf course ( i know it's absolutely horrible). So he suggested a route he knew would be nice and flat. (aahhh the things i miss about the north......flat roads) So off i go and i plan to make my way through the windy roads by the golf course and past the homes on the lake and i come to the road known as A yep gotta love the creativity of the natives. So off i go ( oh and Dad says before i leave, don't get shot it's hunting season) ha ha ha......off i go i kinda start to worry tho cuz i pass two seperate dogs wearing bright orange ........hmm self check......nope no orange on me. make my way to A that's one mile behind me. I run another 1.5 and i hear shots........shit seriously........turn around go otherway on A that's only another 1.5 and .25 to the main HWY so back up that same way 1.5 and back, and well if i do the math somewhere around returning to the golf course i was done........yay so proud i'm glowing. It's 30 some degrees and 4 o'clock i'm so happy......oh wait......phone just died......i'm a mile away from Dad's house are you kidding me this will end up being 8 miles.........damnit.....so i walk and i walk what seemed like an eternity......surely Dad will get in car and come to look for me as i told him no longer than 1 hour 45 min........nope......getting sore now and i've completely cooled off and it's soooooo cold out here, anyway i made it home sore for the rest of the evening and woke up and not sore at all.......sweet.......then the week went downhill from there.......drinks monday nite........drinks tues nite........drunk wed nite at strip club.........thurs time to go home and catch flight......no other workout done at all......
Take the weekend off at home knowing i was supposed to face an 8 miler on sunday. it's snowing and below zero i'm so not in the mood for this shit........blow off.....
Monday.....back to normal but snowing and below zero........blow off

tues.......below zero hubby at work all day......get's home at 6pm hand over baby and off to try new Gym, I am going to go run........little bit of sarcasm in my husbands voice as i leave immediately upon his return so out of guilt i cut my run short as i said i would be a tad over one hour.........got 3.5 miles done and boy did i feel like shit.....do not watch biggest loser, listen to ipod, take out frustration all in one workout.....equals disaster. But i went so it goes. so it goes. Today; Wed plan is to get on my eliptical 45 min and Do my Jillian DVD while my child naps altho she's changing her naps on me currently so i'm not sure when it will be but i will do it, i felt really strong when i got home last night and ate a great dinner. In looking back at my week, what i did to myself is so unforgiveable and so much like that old fat girl. I hated that. Never again will i allow myself to fall into my old patterns, time to make new ones there......

After the long weekend

As I'm sure you can imagine the day i'm supposed to run my first 6 mile training run (you guessed it) 6" of fresh powder and not expected to lighten up all day. So i pull out my $5 and off to the community center i go. Because i am determined not to miss this and never ever put a long run off until monday. I did that one time and it was a brutal week. So yes i did it and i did not incline the TM either. I walked 5 min warm up and started out strong and slow walked at 1.5 miles for a minute then again at 4 miles for 3 min then i was off there was no stopping me or so i thought. I guess the machine had a mind of it's own. Yep it stopped at one hour so quickly record mileage in my head 4.25 miles and then remembering i had to run to bathroom after my warmup which was also .25 miles i hate doing math in my head in the middle of my run therefore i lose track anyway somehow in my head i said ok if it's .25 miles to cool down and i've done 4.5 already I need to clock another 1.25 in running so after i figured that out i ran. I finished in 1:25 min which is exactly what it took me to do my 10K earlier this summer so i felt pretty good about this especially cuz i wasn't even in a race just me and TM and it felt good. People always say it's really hard to get past about 3miles on a TM and i can see why. But wow can i sweat out a shirt in a gym.....lol....and not to mention my headband. drip drip drip. Yesterday (my 4miles) I was so excited that enough had melted and the day was sunny and about 47 degrees so off i went down what i thought would be a typical run. I miscalculated somehow thinking this usual path i always went would be enough. so i get to where i think should be half way and check my iphone and ooops i'm .5 mile off course so i turn into a neighborhood trying to keep it flat and start around the corner then another corner only to see a gigantic hill and no other way to go but up.........so i go and think well all this work will pay off when i turn around and get to go down. well i ended up getting close to home and it still wasn't enough so i turn down some other streets before heading home and i sprinted at the end to ensure i finished this time under one hour....59:37......YAY i'm getting faster and it was just like everyone said I finally broke my 15 min mile pace and averaged 14:47 i think which felt so great... looking forward to thursday and i read in my plan that i am supposed to run a 5K this weekend instead of another long run. how exciting altho i'm running a 5K on turkey day so i will run 4 on sunday and my 5K will be thurs (just switching it up a tad) but exciting never the less. My friend that i'm running with did all of her runs last week too so i'm proud of her. Not sure about yesterday as i didn't hear from her yet but she is doing the 5K with me. I really wish i could figure out how i magically found how to post a picture again. lol

Forefoot running

Today is a new day i feel a new sense of energy in the air and i like it almost how you feel when you can smell spring is in the air. Well because i'm from MN i think for me it gets me hyper when i know it's going to snow.......funny but true and that's how i feel today. I have been reading and searching youtube about this forerunning and i have to admit when i ran 20 yrs ago i only ran for a short period of time but i do remember that once i started running on the forefront of my feet i couldn't do it the otherway it just never felt right it felt like so much more effort and low and behold all these years later it turns out it won't cause me any damage. I was so afraid back then that i would later regret running on the front half of my feet and well i guess as i can see it is a much more natural approach. I skipped my xt yesterday so i am about to double up today and you know what i feel like i have the energy for it, so i will do my high impact Jillian DVD and work hard for that 20 min and later this afternoon about 3pm i will run my 4 miles i've already mapped out. NO HILLS today. I'm so tired of having to run by my house because I am surrounded by hills and as much as i understand how important hill running is i'm merely a beginner and really just want to work on endurance for now. Hubby home from TX tonight so that will be nice welcome. I miss him when he's not here. So hard to convey in a short phone conversation how your day was. I'm used to him being around all day as his office is here. Found my 5K route for the Turkey Day so this weekend on my 6mile run i'm going to do the route twice!!! I think that's a great idea don't you? i'll have run it a couple times for confidence before the big day and it doubles as my long run. :) yea....

5K and 5 Mile weekend

Those are two things in the past i would have never thought would come out of my mouth. Yah i ran a 5K on Sat and then training run on Sunday 5 miles. Well there it is. How can i be disappointed in that? My weight remains steady and still a hair above 200 like 209. ugh!! i'm trying not to stress about that too much, i'm having fun training and i know the weight will eventually drop off, i can see a huge difference in my clothes fitting and at this point even though i have not lost any weight in the past few months my weight is moving around. My face and chest and waist have all gotten narrow and my measurements show it. So i'm not going to complain about that either. We have been blessed with some great weather this week. I'm looking at another increase in miles this week which will be my biggest challenge thus far. I am looking at a 4 mile run today and a 4 mile run thursday and a 6 mile run on sunday.

My 5k this weekend: good things I ran with my friend, It was a beautiful day, I did run the entire way, bad things that hill at the end. my Time 41:07... seems that i will remain above that 40 min mark another race. Maybe my weight and my time are in direct correlation, maybe if i get under 200 i'll get under 40 min. LOL just a thought. Perhaps i'm afraid.

the 5 miles was a dedication to world run day which i did sign up for and got the t-shirt in the mail and printed my bib online and got my daughter to ride along with me. I thought for the 5 miles i'd go try a new area so i remembered that 5 min north of our house is a trail (paved) so off we went bike on the rack and child ready to ride 5 miles alongside me. We unload and off i go feeling good about just going. I settle into pace around mile 1 and then come some hills uh oh. so i run and i run and i run after that hilly nightmare i find us at the end of one trail leading us to a flat in a neighborhood not yet built, but all the roads in tact. I was like "YES" so i run 2 miles around the flats and finally hit my groove at about 15min/mile pace. Knowing that now i need to head back through the hills to finish. We take a couple pictures along the way and i'm using my new app for my iphone "RUNKEEPER". We made our way back thru all the hills which progressively got easier each time. I allowed myself to run really fast after the downhill parts just on this route back and it felt really fun, i'd never let myself do that, but i decided not to be afraid of tripping or slipping and just run flat out a couple of times you see i had a pacer on my app and i wanted to bring my average down from where it was at the beginning which was at like 16:40 something. (I can't have that be my average hills or not) so i finish and i'm thinking no way could i go further and you know what i think sometimes that is the goal of training. I gave it all i had and it felt great. I was only 1 min slower than the week before when i ran it on a comfortable familiar course. so I felt accomplished about that and it was for a good cause and a dedication to my angel baby of Aug 20 2009. Have i grieved that loss you ask? no not yet I'm not sure when i will but i know its all a part of getting healthy emotionally too. I bought this book that was recommended for women who have miscarried and i started to read the first little story and couldn't breath, well that was a few months ago. I will try to read it again soon i know it's an important part of the loss (grieving that is) On that note i will close and i'm looking forward to posting my results of training this week.

Cross Training

Just a quick one today. Hubby out of town so I'm limited in what i can do, so thank goodness it's a cross training day because i can usually do these days at home. I have an elliptical machine and tons of workout DVD's some of which can be used with hand weights ie Jillian Michaels 30 day shred is a great one. It has 3 levels and all of them are 20 min long, as you get better you move to the next level and boy they kick my ass in 20 min. I love them. I have another one of hers that i have only done once. Trouble zones or something anyway it was so hard alot of pushups etc.. altho i last did it this summer so i've since gotten a bit stronger in my endurance anyway. You should give these a try as an alternative to going to the gym like once a week. I think i tend to stick to things that allow me variety.
Time to touch up hair too. Will do when baby is napping. :) Oh and making my favorite spaghetti tonight for dinner. Until next time....
Of course on a whim (sp) my friend begged me to do a 5K with her this coming Saturday. I said i'm pretty broke she said i'll pay for you just come do it with me. 2 sec. later ok. so i will again attempt to do a 5K and get under 40 min. I just want to prove it to myself that i can do it. I am not sure if i've discussed my weird running problem. I get all geeked up and ready to go and as i'm running i talk myself out of the race like 900 times. total self sabotage!! I have run most of my runs with a friend (not along side me of course because i get intimidated and fall behind somehow talking myself down) anyway as floods of people poor past me i tell myself i don't belong here etc.... anyway i don't want to continue down that same path and my last 5K was my worst. My step daughter -30 ran it with me and she was doing the 10 wk to 5k training to prepare for it. I'd already done 3 5K's a sprint triathlon and a 10K so i figured i'd have her in the dust. WELL wouldn't you know she finished like 3 min ahead of me and i had my worst 5K race to date like 42 min. I remember her at the beginning saying if you need to go ahead of me then just go you don't have to wait........well that was all she needed to say and off i ran faster than i should have started out and i felt myself get to that tingly all over fainting feeling and i had to slow down then and start walking and away she went steady and strong the whole way and i lost her this was a race for the cure so there were thousands of people at every level. I finally got my shit together near the end but it took me the whole race to recover from that errored beginning. ugh!! so let's see how i do saturday. wish me luck. :)

I did it

Well sunday was the first time that i was challenged with my first 5 mile run and i was so excited all week that i already had a plan as to where i was going to run. However, more exciting news is that on Halloween i signed up for my 1/2 mary in FL. It will be on Feb 21, 2010 it's officially called the 26.2 Donna and half marathons so there i was so excited it's a commitment now. My friend that i am running it with has yet to show up to my house to run with me. Do i wonder what her deal is? yeah but i can only worry about me right? so i go no matter what i'm only responsible to myself in finishing she's doing everything she can and so am i. I am capable of planning for myself and if she's there it will be a bonus but as we all know we are in this mostly for to support a great cause and for selfish reasons.

Today i had no motivation whatsoever to go do my 3.5 mile run, however, as soon as i thought that i new i had to just get up and go get dressed and that once i was finished i'd be stronger for it. Of course supportive hubby said what's the matter you don't feel like running?" well then stay here with me. :) so cute and i understand what he means but NO i'm on a training plan. I will only get out of it what i put in. I am really finding it difficult to know what my times are as i'm running with my iphone and imapmyruns application so i only know an average at the end of it all and a gps mileage which has already come in quite handy. But i think I'm going to see the benefits to having a watch that will lay it all out. I think i'm not giving myself enough credit for how I am running. I don't even get splits. Kinda tough to gauge anything this way. By the end of the month though i've got to get one.
I've got to decide in the next few weeks if i really want to stretch out one more week of the current week as i'm ahead of schedule anyway and i feel like i still need alot of work even on my short 3.5 mile runs. Heck today's run was a perfect example. I got half way and walked up a hill and turned around and ran until i got to about mile 2.5 and walked again. So there are days actually everytime i run i do usually allow myself a couple of one minute walks. I wonder to myself if i'm taking it too easy on myself or maybe i'm really not ready to keep adding distance until i get the small runs under control. Gonna have to ponder that for now i guess.
I think i mentioned that i joined online weight watchers and that goes about as well as you might expect, when my husband is traveling i stick to plan pretty damn well when he is home i'm soo bad, i think this is normal for awhile i'm going to allow myself to give into some cravings but then get over it and right back to plan, sounds like my runs. I haven't talked about the 5 miler......i set my route first and new that when i got to the point of about 2.75 miles i'd be at a point where i could turn and head home it was at that point too i allowed myself to walk then there was one other one minute walk at around mile 4. But up until the 4th mile i felt really proud and honestly turned the corner and felt great, felt one hot spot under the ball of my foot and my left calf was a tad tight and even still is so i'm going to seriously use my cross training day tomorrow and do some much needed strength training with my Jillian Michaels DVD's and some yoga....Looking forward to that.

Thursday Challenges

First off. wow haven't had this much snow in one 24 hour period since 1977 i heard. crazy....So a couple of things on my mind today. Why have i held onto this weight for all these years. Why am i self sabotaging my efforts by ensuring i stay about 200lbs? I think i may have made a break thru. Not really sure that i was ready to get rid of the excess because it would hold me responsible to maintain it. That is one thing. In the past i have lost it and then of course gained it and then some. So perhaps that is part of it. The other is emotional feelings of inadequacy in myself and from my parents. My mother carries an extra 100lbs and for my life i've heard my Dad complain about it, and when i was in high school some of those hurtful comments starting coming my way (of course i was about as average as you could get but perhaps he started to see a little more than i did.) Then i remember that i just dove head first into swimming and i really slimmed down quick.....i was lean and mean and tried anything to get his "good" attention. Well i didn't succeed and it brought feelings of self doubt into my future relationships. i would get their attention by losing the weight and then find out it didn't change anything so i'd gain it back, not sure what i was looking for exactly but i did it in my previous two marriages. My second marriage is the one that sticks out tho. I lost all my weight and then some while he was gone to saudi arabia and i was home caring for our newborn. He was gone only 60 days but it was in those 60 days that i felt so free to be me... weird.. i lost all the weight rather quickly no gimmicks just cut out all the fast food and extras and stood all day at work w/in 4 months i'd lost 50 lbs and was wearing size 6's and 8's i remember how great that felt but again the attention was weird. My husband at the time felt as though he was cheating b/c my body had changed soo much. So it wasn't long after that and i gained it all back. It's funny tho b/c i know how to get to RIGHT above 200 and maintain it. Well this morning i decided that i wasn't going to let it stop me this time. This time i want it for my attention!! I know my husband will accept me no matter what. And that he is the only one who was patient enough to sit down with me and let me get to the bottom of all of these feelings. The only one who has acknowledged that my childhood was NOT normal by any means. I love that about him. I also realized that I would go so far in a relationship pretending to be who they wanted me to be that i was afraid that once i gave in and became vulnerable they'd not like what they saw, and i don't even know where that came from but it's there like an 800lb gorilla in the room. Well i'm committing to kick that gorilla's ass out of my room. I'm looking forward and things look great!!!

Now off to call the gym and see if they are open, because i'm worth it!! I love my running!!

Snowed in

I'm sooo glad i decided to push myself into running yesterday afternoon. I ran my 3.5 as per tuesday training on my 12 week Hal program. I never had a chance to run my 4 on sunday so i had to push it to monday and then they increased the mileage during the week so i found myself doing 4 miles monday and 3.5 on tuesday. But i honestly felt really good. I remember looking down at my iphone ( as i do not have a new watch yet) and i was at a comfortable pace and it said between 11-12.5 as my pace. I think i got motivated by that a little because if any of you know me, i just started running in march and i'm carrying 50 extra pounds at least so this has not been an easy journey. I still sometimes while i'm running and telling myself i'm a runner (over and over again) I look around and think wow i just ran all of this way without even stopping and it feels sooo good. I was falling asleep last night thinking of another time when i was 22 and running and i would MAYBE run 1.5 and think that was far enough. Funny isn't it when it gets put into perspective. Needless to say when i was 22 and running i did have good luck dropping the extra weight i'd gained from high school, i remember that i was also going to school full time, working full time and went to the gym at 10:30 everynite after school. No wonder that marriage lasted at all. ha ha i was never there. anyway at somepoint after i graduated and got my associates i stopped everything and then realized i wasn't happy AT ALL. That is the last time i remember being at goal weight for me was about 145. I remember feeling a great sense of self pride from losing 40 lbs that i had gained after a year of college...but being happy on the outside isn't everything........so i've been working on the inside ever since and now for the first time since i was that 22 yr old girl i can finally say I'm back.!! (which ironically was the theme of the biggest loser last night) (love Abby)........now back to the snow... I'm attaching a picture of this morning. I have already started to shovel which is todays cross training. I think i may have to make about 5 trips out to shovel and that's actually about an hour or hour in half total. so I think i'm good on my training for today.

Training week 3

so I'm in week 3 of the Hal training and so far i love it. I found that after i finished my c25K this spring and then after that i started a 10 week newbie triathlon training that i'm definately more motivated and driven to succeed with a written or online plan. So after picking a half marathon next feb. 2010 i counted the weeks to train and found a plan appropriate for it. Well this one is a 12 week plan which will allow me to get thru the holidays and any other life events. I found a friend who is at about the same level as me and we are going to do the marathon together and do our best to run our long runs together. I will not try and bore you with all of my background but i would like to tell you that i have successfully made it thru every mile suggested in the first two weeks of this program. My husband (DH i will refer to him as dear husband pictured) travels quite a bit and i'm a stay at home mom so we have an 18 yr old in high school living here it's his daughter and my 9 yr old and our 1 yr old. I have been off work since she was born. It has been an amazing experience although i new i needed more so it has been a blessing on all sides for me to have found my running spot. I hope you enjoy and share in my journey as i take you to my first half marathon and beyond 40. Yes, there i said it I will be 40 in January. :)