Monday, December 31, 2012

Dec 31, 2012: Ringing in Hope 5k Race Report

Last year, I finished out the year with the Ringing in Hope 10k. This year, I figured the 5k was enough. So, I set out to have a nice, albeit chilly, 5k.

I had the chance to meet a couple of Team Z'ers - which is awesome. I love meeting others on the team who I haven't met before.

When the race started, I felt great. I pulled off a 9:39 mile, a 9:41 mile, and then... a 21:29, the last .1 mile was an 8:17 pace. At first glance, you'd think "what in the world?!" Well, there's a reason.

Sporting the Team Z GREEN!

Ok, so the first two miles were great. I actually FELT great too. I LOVE running in the cold. (I don't love the after effect... which I'll get to later.) I drank a little water at the 2nd water stop just because I knew I needed it. I had just looked at my watch and was thrilled that I was on pace for a sub-30 minute 5k. And then... it happened.

A woman (in her 30s/40s) tripped over a cone. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going and tripped straight over it. She went down hard apparently. I got there just after it happened. There were 2 runners with her and I wasn't going to stop, but I did and asked if anyone had let the cop know about it. They said they hadn't. So, I backtracked the .1 miles to the cop and let him know. We went back to her and I stayed, along with 2 other runners, with her until the paramedics got there... 12 minutes later. Seriously... 12 minutes. I was shocked that it took them that long to get there. So, 13:00 of the 21:29 was to help an injured runner.

While we were there with her, she said she was really light headed, had a ringing in her ears, wanted to lie down, and then went to the side yard of someone's house and puked. Fantastic. Guess who has a concussion?! Needless to say, we wouldn't let her lie down. Not on my watch, no way! We handed her over to the paramedics, gave them the quick version of what was going on and left to finish our races.

I knew I only had about .5 miles left to run, so I torn off like a bat out of hell. When I had last looked at my watch, it gave me a mile time of over 26 minutes for the mile. (I have the Garmin 110 and it does average pace for the mile.) I managed to get it back down to 21:29, so you can imagine the running that was going on... lol.

When I got to the top of the hill (oh, I didn't mention that it was mostly uphill for that last .5 miles, did I?!), I saw my husband and a friend and they were like "WHAT IN THE WORLD?!"

Me giving the quick version of why I was 13 min behind schedule...
It's all good though. I would hope that anyone who saw me do something "stupid" or saw me take a tumble (or whatever) would stop and help me out too. The woman kept apologizing for "ruining our races". HA! I can run the course of that race literally every day if I really want to. She kept trying to get us to go and "not worry about her". I wouldn't have felt right.

I know all of those walkers who I was blowing past were probably like "uh...". :)

After the race, we hung out a bit. I waited for the other Z'ers to come in and let them know about Mike (he was the other runner I was chillin with) since he's a friend of theirs. We were waiting for a friend of ours to come in and finish his first 10k. I was SO PROUD of him. He came in at a clock time of 1:13:xx. VERY respectable for his first 10k race. He said he ran it faster on his Thanksgiving day preview, but it was colder today.

Speaking of the cold... while we were outside, I was perfectly fine. When we got home and I started warming up, I started hacking up a lung. Ugh. This is the only part of cold weather runs I'm not a fan of... warming back up. I sit here 2.5 hrs later (or so) and my legs and hands are still a little chilly. The coughing stopped about 20 minutes after it started, so that's good.

Other news

Now, Disney is 12 days away. AH! My current "best" half marathon time is from the Shamrock Half Marathon in 2009. I ran the 8k the day before (and actually had a decent-ish time). I did so well up to mile 8 of this race and then totally bonked. I was still pretty new to running (2 years in) and wasn't so good with my nutrition plan. My plan for Disney? To beat this time below. I've got that, right?!

PlaceAthlete NameCityStateAgeGenderFinish Time 
5094HEATHER ANDERSONASHBURNVA28Female2:42:08

Thursday, December 27, 2012

New Goals for 2013

I recently updated my side menu bar to include my goals for 2013. The ones on there are my "sane" goals.

1) Incorporate yoga & foam rolling into my routine.
2) Track food/calories.
3) Drop back to 130 lbs.
4) Eat healthier for the new medical issues. (Potentially going gluten free, but that's another post.)
5) Take an hour off my 70.3 times (Target time = 6.5 hrs).
6) Get more personal training clients.

Again, all sane things... and things that can be done - within reason. Yes, they'll all take work. They'll all take focus. But, they're "sane".

Now, onto my "doable" but not quite "sane" goals.

1) Run a half marathon in under 2 hrs. I don't care if it's 1:59:59. I just want it under 2 hrs. To date, my "fastest" half marathon was 2:38:xx. Not very fast at all.
2) Run a 5k in under 27 minutes.
3) Complete the bike portion of the 70.3 in under 3:30:00.
4) Completing two 70.3 distance races in one year.

(Can you see where all of my "doable" goals are going?)

And then, there's the "crazy" goals. So far, there's really only one.

1) To swim 100 100s between Christmas 2013 and New Years 2014... in one day... in one swim session. That's a 10k in the pool. Or 6.2 miles. Of swimming. In. A. Pool. Yup, I've lost it.

Maybe there will be other goals. I don't know. I'm hoping to at least do the first 6. The other 5 will be goals to strive for. If they get done, fantastic. If not, I'll keep working on them until they do.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Merry Christmas to me!

Ok, the first part of this has nothing to do with Christmas. A friend was wondering what the new photos look like in our house. I had 2 of our vacation photos put onto canvas for our (recently) painted walls.

So, here they are:

Bar Harbor Lobster Wall (with pretty gray curtains next to it)

Seals on a buoy in Alaska
The second part of the post is that I got my self ordered Christmas present today! I'm ridiculously excited about it!

So pretty! Now... let's go running!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Week 9 Coming Up

Week 8 was pretty easy - eat when you feel full. I think I only went over it once. This next week coming up?

Week 9: No refined sweeteners – No refined or artificial sweeteners including (but not limited to): white sugar, brown sugar, raw sugar, sucanat, splenda, stevia, agave, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, brown rice syrup, and cane juice. Foods and beverages can only be sweetened with a moderate amount of honey or maple syrup.

Uh... yea... I'm going to have a MAJOR problem with this one, especially with it being Christmas. Probably shouldn't have started to make those cookies. :) 

We have 18 days until we head to Disney (probably actually 17). With a few things "hitting" me today, I've decided I have to do SOMETHING to kickstart myself. We got an Apple TV yesterday and since then, my husband has been enjoying doing yoga from my YogAmazing podcasts. He usually fights me tooth and nail about doing yoga, but he's liking the fact that it can be streamed from my computer to the tv, so whatever works! Here's my 17 day plan:

1) Do yoga each night with (or without) Jon.
2) Ride my bike at least 30 minutes every day.
3) Eat between 1200-1500 calories (I'll probably break this on Christmas day though) each day.
4) Aim to eat in more often. We had been doing so well, but we've been on a bad streak recently.

Hopefully, I'll find myself down at least 2 lbs from where I am right now. Where's that? 147.0 as of this morning. ARGH!

On another note, we got a new scale today because Jon's not happy with the one we have now. We'll see what this one says as far as weight, body fat, etc. Should be interesting to say the least.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Mid week

This week, I've been the only person in my TNT class both days. While I don't mind this at all, it definitely makes the workout harder! I'm glad we're approaching cardio week. My goal next week - even with the holiday - is to get in 5 days of cardio. I HAVE to get back to my workouts... my first triathlon of the season is May 4 and I need to be ready to BRING IT!

The "quote" of the week this week is something I'm working on. It's not always easy to do this!


Sunday, December 16, 2012

Week 8 coming up

Last week was to do 100% whole grains. I'll be the first to admit I didn't worry too much about this one. I know I should be better about it, but we're also trying to clear out our pantry a bit, so I wasn't as good about this one as I should've been.

Here's this week's challenge. I'm pretty good about this usually, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Week 8: Stop eating when you feel full – Listen to your internal cues and stop eating when you feel full.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

How I feel today

Today, I'm feeling good about my post on Monday. It's helping with the stress levels of things that are going on. Beyond that, I'm exhausted!

It was "weigh in day" at TNT today. I'm up to 144 (according to his scale) and 18.1% body fat.

Here's my inspiration for today/this week.



Monday, December 10, 2012

Another Monday

The weather's really crappy here today (foggy & rainy... mid-range temperature), so that probably explains why I was the only one in my lifting class. Ah well, I got it done!

I've decided a couple of things.
1) I'm not going to set a target of how many workouts I'm going to get in this week. Whatever happens is going to have to be enough... and I need to stop beating myself up about it. It's not helping, so I'm going to stop doing it.

2) I'm going to continue to weigh myself every day. This works for me, so I need to do it. I have 15 lbs to lose by May. Totally doable, if I get my eating down. I lost 0.8 lbs last week... so I'm ON TRACK! (At least with one thing!)

3) I'm continuing with this mini-pledge challenge. I may not be perfect with it, but I'm going to continue. We have started buying our bread from Great Harvest Bread Company. We don't eat a lot of bread and it's so much better than other breads, so why not? I'm going to try to make my own bread soon. We'll see how it goes!

All of that being said... week 6 of the mini challenges wasn't *too* great. It was to not eat anything "light" or "non-fat". I had a couple of salads with light salad dressings and pieces of toast with light butter. I resolved to not BUY anything that was light or non-fat... and I did manage that (other than the milk). I can't stand the idea of wasting perfectly good food though, so I'll continue on with what's in the house and go from there.

This week's is going to be a bit more difficult, I think. We really prefer white rice over brown. The pasta I currently have isn't whole grain. But, like I said above... I don't want to waste food, so I'll do what I can for the meals I can and I'll go from there.

Week 7: 100% Whole grain – All grains consumed must be 100% whole-grain.


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Midweek Reminder


This week, I registered my business. Mouse Fitness is now a reality. When I quit my job in May, I had no idea I'd be a small business owner by the end of the year. I thought I'd take my personal trainer exam, maybe pass it, and then work for a gym for a while. After my interview with a national chain, I decided that being in a gym, working for someone else, selling products I want nothing to do with. I was also presented with an opportunity to work with another start-up in the fitness industry with helping them grow their business. It's been interesting so far!

I have no clue where any of this will take me in the months and years to come, but I'm all in for the journey!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

New week :)

So, last week was trying 2 new whole foods. I got in the pear and never got around to the parsnips. I might try to figure out something to do with them for lunch tomorrow.

This week, the challenge will be interesting:

Week 6: No low-fat, lite or nonfat food products – Do not eat any food products that are labeled as “low-fat,” “lite,” “light,” “reduced fat,” or “nonfat.”

Hopefully I'll be able to do this. I know that in order to make a product any of these things, there's a ton of processing that goes into it. The only item that might not be do-able is milk. I don't really drink milk, but even if I did, all we get is skim milk (or almond milk). I am planning on making my own almond milk soon. We'll see how that goes!

Also, we're both starting to track our food this week. I've been tracking it for a while, but Jon hasn't, so we haven't been doing as well as we should with keeping things in line. I've also come to realize that I just need to get back on schedule. I've been in "recovery" mode for FAR too long and am going to take a good beating at my next 70.3 in June if I don't get myself in gear NOW. I also won't fit into my wetsuit if I don't lose this weight. So, the focus is back (I feel like I write this post every few weeks...). Today, my plan is to get on my bike after Jon does whatever cable changes he's doing to the entertainment center.