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. :)