I have reached my goal weight...

About 4 years ago, I was in amazing shape. I was looking better than I had ever. I was happy with my body and felt really strong.

4 years ago

Then I found out I was pregnant.

Now, some women get pregnant and do great. They have a little tiny ball where the baby is but otherwise nothing changes. But, since this was baby number 3 for me, I already knew my body was going to go insane. My whole body gets pregnant. My butt gets huge. I knew I was in for some weight gain. So, right after I found out I was pregnant I weighed, just to see where I was at my "ideal" weight. It was 134.5.

For 3 years I've been trying to get there. It has been a terrible struggle. During this time, I couldn't blame it all on baby weight. I had eating issues. I took a medication notorious for weight gain. But since December, something "clicked" and I have been losing weight.

I weighed 2 days ago and I am now 132.

I have reached my goal.

It feels really weird.

Now, of course, I'm still super picky about my body. Like, I'd really like to see my legs get more muscular. I still don't feel super confident enough to wear a bikini in front of people. But my arms are muscular again and I'm wearing a size 4 pants.

I went to put on my skinny shorts. They are too big.

So, for now, different goals.

I've decided in December instead of running a half marathon, I'm just going to do the whole thing. I have 23 weeks to train to run 26.2. I can do it.

I'll continue to weight train as much as possible. The last thing I want is to lose my amazing upper body muscles.

So, here we go. New goals. I can do it.

Progress from January to now.

Friends with Running

So, running and I are friends again at the moment. I had a chance to do over Monday's terrible run and I think I did pretty well.

Source

I think my biggest mistake in Monday's run was going too hard too soon. So, I put the incline at only .5 (the very first level after "flat") and slowed from 5.6 to 5.4.

I always divide runs into 5 minute intervals. I just think "I only have to get through 5 minutes". Somehow that makes it easier.

I made it through the first run and then walked for 3 minutes.

The second run was hard, but I did it. I told myself first "I just have to get through 5 minutes", then "I just have to make it halfway", then once I hit 15 minutes, I knew it was too late to stop and I was going to make it.

And let me tell you the feeling of making it was so great.

I was so sweaty my arms were dripping everywhere. So for the first time ever, before I cleaned off the treadmill, I wiped my arms with paper towels. #gross

Do you know why this picture is blurry? Because my phone was covered in sweat.

Here I am after the workout. Somehow I managed to clean myself up and librarian successfully the rest of the day after looking like this.

Friday the scheduled workout is *almost* the same- 2 20 minute runs- except the walking interval is 2 minutes instead of 3.

I took Friday off to finish our taxes, because I love the stress of doing things at the last minute. So after I drop off the kids at school, I'm going to go run at the lake. I'm looking forward to a run outside. I know I'm stuck on the treadmill for the lunchtime runs until October sometime when it cools down again, but the mornings are cool, so I'm going to take advantage of it.

So Tuesday was our weigh in with Weightwatchers. The week before, I weighed in at 151, so I was super excited to hopefully get back into the 140s again this week. Well, I weighed in at 152.2. Because I'm a big baby, I left right away and planned to sob at my desk.

Luckily, I pulled myself together and instead went for a 2 mile walk. I didn't bring any workout clothes or shoes with me, so it was interesting. But I'm glad I did it. I felt better.

I had my Weightwatchers settings set to swap activity points. But I'm earning 9 or 10 activity points a day. I definitely wasn't using them all, but I think I was using some. So I decided to change the settings so it doesn't swap activity points. If I have an extra long run or something I'll just use some of the weekly points. So far so good.

Source

By the way on my home scale this morning I was 149. So take that, Weightwatchers scale.

I'm going to a conference next week so I'll miss the weigh in, so when I next weigh in it will be 2 weeks. Surely I'll see some significant weight loss during that time (if I can manage to behave during the conference...)

Touché, running. Touché.

I was feeling so great about running last week. But I think putting that in writing was a bit of a mistake.

I did go to the gym on Saturday and do my last workout of the 5K Runner program on the treadmill- it was 5 minute warm up and cool down and a 35 minute run. I felt super accomplished and like I could do anything. In fact, here's my post workout shot:

 

 

This is my accomplished face.

Well all day Sunday I got excited about my next run. I decided to go on with the 10K runner program and couldn't wait for the next workout. I walked 5 miles on Sunday for cardio but I considered it a rest from running.

So Monday I had some things going on. I was distracted. I looked forward to my run because I thought it would surely help me with some of the stress.

The scheduled run was 5 minutes warm up and cool down, and run 20-walk3-run 20.

I set the treadmill to hills to mimic the outdoors and because I was way too overconfident. At about 15 minutes I changed the setting to flat. I made it through the first 20 minutes (barely) and started walking. I knew I could physically run 20 more minutes. But when I started, I just had problems.

During the last 20 minute interval I started running but after a few minutes had to walk. I thought about quitting. I thought about just walking the rest of my scheduled time. But I ended up running 5 minutes, walking 3 and then running a little over 5 minutes to finish it off.

I was disappointed. I think though that this was 100% mental. I let myself feel daunted by the idea of 20 more whole minutes of running. I felt discouraged. I felt worried about my problems. And I just didn't feel good about it.

I ended up going 4.3 miles in 53:05. I had estimated (when I was still going strong) that I would end up at about 4.5 miles so I guess that's not too bad.

I contemplated repeating this run, but the next scheduled run is exactly the same thing (run 20-walk 3-run 20), so that will give me a chance to do it over. And then the third run of the week is the same except the walk break goes from 3 minutes to 2 minutes.


So I'll keep going. I'm already starting to get excited about running again. I'm actually forcing myself to NOT run (or even walk too much) today just because I think my body needs a break. It's going to really freak me out not to hit my 10,000 steps...

Also, on Monday I started 21 Day Fix Extreme in the mornings. I had tried this once before but thought it was too hard. But after many rounds of 21 Day Fix, I figured I was finally ready (and to be honest on Monday I would rather do anything than those effing Surrenders). So far so good- 2 workouts down.

My coworker just reminded me that any run where I don't fall on my face is a good run, so there's that...

Running and me- a surprise result

Something totally crazy and unexpected has happened to me. Running has started to go well.

Throughout the past several months I've been following a program designed to help me work up to running 5K with no breaks. Appropriately enough, it's called 5K Runner. I've had to rewind and repeat several weeks along the way, so it's taken me way more than 8 weeks.

It also tells you the mileage you ran and gives you little encouraging statements..

During the "training" (and I use that term loosely) for the last half marathon, I did these workouts during the week and did a "long run" (again, using that term loosely) on the weekends. Well, after the race, I was able to focus solely on these workouts and my training has really taken off.

Before the race, I was up to running 10 minutes without stopped. After the race I ran 15, then 20. I skipped a few workouts because I felt really confident and yesterday ran for 30 minutes. 30 minutes without walking you guys! The last time I did that was before I was pregnant with my second child (so like, 6 years ago!)

Me the last time I ran over 30 minutes without stopping (2009).

I've been on such a high from the last race that for a while I even considered training for the full marathon in December. I don't have to make a decision until June, but I think I've pretty much decided against it. I think what I really want to do is work on a strong half marathon.

The same company that puts out 5K Runner also has a 10K runner program and a Half marathon (21K) program as well. I've downloaded those and am going to follow them.

I have one more workout and I'm done with 5K runner. It's a 35 minute run (with walking warm up and cool down). The plan is to do it tomorrow morning.

Then I'll run 5Ks for a few weeks and then start 10K runner.

I'm confident that by December 11 (The Dallas Half Marathon), I'll be running a strong half marathon. My time goal is 2:30:00.

Oh and on the subject of things going well, I've joined Weight Watchers at work. Several of my coworkers joined last semester and a new 17 week session started on March 22. Our work pays for half of the entire cost, and then the rest comes out of the paycheck a little bit at a time. So I figured I would try it. And you know what, I really like it.

At Christmas on my home scale, I weighed 165. At the Weight Watchers weigh in on March 22 (on a different scale) I weighed 155.6. Last weigh in on Tuesday I weighed 151.0 (and at home I was 149). (That's the 140s y'all!)

So for now I've found something that works. For cross training I've started another round of 21 Day Fix in the mornings. I'm going to try to work up to doing 21 Day Fix Extreme. It's always seemed too hard for me, but since things are going well at the moment, this is probably the best time to try it.

I'm actually really looking forward to tomorrow's 35 minute run. I can't wait to say I completed it. Stay tuned!

I'm still going to tell everyone.

So, I ran a half marathon this weekend...

Last Sunday was the Rock n Roll Dallas Half Marathon. I wrote previously about how I had initially hoped to do better than I had in the Dallas Half Marathon in December, then I got really burned out on long runs and decided to quit training and just walk it.


Well, as the day got closer, I got more nervous.

I was pretty confident that I could finish the distance, even if I just walked for 13.1 miles. But see my ego kept getting in the way. I knew if I walked at a pace of 15 minutes/mile, I would be walking for 3 and a quarter hours (at least). So I thought, maybe I should run part of it. Maybe I should run the first half (well, run walk intervals) and then walk the rest?

Here I am before the start of the race:

Let's not talk about what I did with my hair here..

But it went way better than I expected.

For one thing, it was cold!

It was in the 30s. This was a pleasant surprise, as we had been in the low 80s for a few weeks. I knew I would do much better in the cold.

I crossed the starting line and jogged. You can't really run very fast at that point anyway because it's so crowded. Knowing myself and my (lack of) speed, I had signed up to be in one of the last corrals. This meant we crossed the starting line about 30 minutes after the race officially started. (We each got our own official start though).

I thought, "Ok, I can run 1 minute then walk 4. Let's do that." But I found myself wanting to run longer, so I increased it to 2 minutes running/ 3 minutes walking.

This was going pretty well. I managed to stay with this pattern for most of the race. I adjusted a little based on water stations (I took water and gatorade every chance I got). I also modified a little bit depending on hills. If I was coming to the end of my running interval but was still going downhill, I kept running. I tried to run up the hills when the coincided with my running intervals but sometimes I shortened them a little bit.

In the middle of the race I turned my phone off because I was worried I would get to the end and my phone would be dead. So I really got to enjoy the environment. It was a beautiful day, there was music, a guy rapping about port-o-potties ("Port-o-potties to your left, y'all..."), even Teletubbies. In fact, I had to turn my phone back on just to take a picture of the Teletubbies. It was worth it.

Around mile 10 I started to realize I might actually surpass my goal. See, my last race time in December was 3:04:02. I was discouraged by this and really hoped to beat it. Then my training didn't happen and I kind of gave up on my time goal and decided to just finish. But with around 3 miles left, I realized I could possibly finish in under 3 hours. I got pretty excited. I got motivated. I may have run the running intervals a little faster.

I turned my phone back on when I got here. I was pretty excited.

Towards the end of the race- thankfully- there was a nice long downhill. I came to the end of my running interval but continued to run. I didn't know exactly how much further the end was but I wanted to try to run to the end. I had enough left in me to pick it up a little. I pushed really hard for those last few minutes.

In the end my official time was 2:53:41. I finished over 10 minutes faster than I did in December!!!

After finishing!

I am not sure why it went so much better than I expected. I know I weighed about 13 pounds less than I did in December. Plus, even though I didn't have as many long runs, I definitely logged more miles this time around. My running intervals were up to 8-10 minutes, so running 2 minutes and then walking 3 seemed almost easy. (Ok, not *easy*, I did start to hurt towards the end).

My plan for the summer is get my 5K under 30 minutes. Then I'll increase the distance to 10K. Then in September or October or whenever it's time to start training, that 10 mile run won't be so out of reach. And I may even do a practice half before the race rather than just working up to 10 miles. But my goal for the December race is to get it down to 2:45:00 and I think that's pretty reasonable.

So, about that big race...

There have been so many obstacles lately keeping me from getting my long runs in. A few weeks ago, I was injured. Then I was sick. Then I didn't have time. I'm doing ok on my runs during the week (where I'm using this program to work up to 5K). I'm repeating workouts to take it slow, but I'm doing them. I'm getting between 2.5 and 2.8 miles per workout, and I'm happy with that. But the long runs just add so much stress to my life.

This week and next, I am playing for two different shows. This means every night this week I have rehearsal until 10 pm, then wake up at 4 the next day to do it all again. Saturday I work all day, then a show. Sunday, my husband has church, and I have rehearsal for the NEXT show starting that afternoon (so no time for the long run). Then Monday I start it all over again with rehearsals every night, shows all weekend and finishing off with a matinee on Sunday, 2/21.

The thought of rearranging my life to fit in a weekly long run seems pretty impossible right now. Plus, I'm behind on training. Plus...

My weight loss has stalled. I keep reading articles about how long distance runners end up gaining weight and I know this to be true. I know that what works (and has worked for me in the past) is serious weight lifting, minimal cardio and strict diet.

I used to look like this...

So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop training for the half. I'm going to keep running, just 3 times a week, working up to 5K. I'm not going to run a longer distance than 5K.

And when race day comes around, I'll probably go and walk 13.1 miles just so I can say I earned the shirt.

And maybe I can finally lose those last 20 pounds of baby weight before my baby turns 3 on May 1....

Almost finished with 21 Day Fix, Running, Work, and What Comes Next?

After a pretty lazy holiday break, I feel like I'm back with a vengeance..

Me during the break... (I found this here)

A few days before the New Year, I started a round of 21 Day Fix. I finish on Sunday and I'm pretty proud of myself. I had a few goals:

1. Get used to waking up early and working out again.
2. Run regularly and work up to 5K without walk breaks.
3. Lose some weight too.

I've done great at waking up. In fact, I wake up at 4:15 every day and don't even hit snooze. It's so nice to have a little quiet time in the morning. Some days, the baby (who is 2 and probably should not be referred to as "The Baby" anymore) wakes up, and I give her the Ipad so she can watch Barbie videos on YouTube, and in exchange she lets me workout.

Here is where this came from

The running has been going pretty well, actually. For "long" runs, I've stayed with my run 3/walk 2 plan. I've gotten up to 6 miles doing that, and I'm 60+ days from the race so I think I'm doing pretty well. For my short runs I've been following 5K runner. I'm just addicted to it. It's so encouraging.

I worked up to the Week 6, Day 1 workout, which is a 10 minute run, 5 minute walk, and 10 minute run. I did that successfully in the neighborhood near my house. But then I tried to do the next workout- run 10/walk 3/run 10- in the neighborhood around my work. There is an extreme hill on the path I take. Actually, there is a mild hill starting off and then STEEP downhill, so for the first 10-13 minutes I feel pretty good. Then when it's time to turn around I have to climb this ridiculous hill. I have yet to make it the full second 10 minutes. So, I went back to an earlier workout -run 5/walk 3/run 6/walk 3/run 5- and did that yesterday. Tomorrow I'll change the middle running interval from 6 to 8. Then the last workout of Week 5 is two 8 minute runs with 5 minutes of walking in between. So I'm working back up to that Week 6 workout. I will conquer that hill!

This was here. 

As for weight loss- well, I didn't really follow the eating plan the first week. I went a little off plan on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. But for the last 2 weeks I've been following the 21 Day Fix eating plan with the little containers. So far I've lost about 5 pounds. I think that's pretty reasonable. Not sure what my final numbers will be. I didn't measure or take before pictures (yes, I know I should have), so unfortunately I'm just going by the scale and how my pants fit (good news, they fit better!)

Source

I'm pretty lucky in that I love my job. The only thing I don't love is I don't really get paid enough for us to live on. So, I've been considering getting a second job for a while. That's tricky because with most jobs, you can't just tell them when you want to work. It's been a little scary. But, I've started to get some accompanying gigs which is awesome. Yes, it means late nights and early mornings, but I've got my Thrive to help me get through. I think I'll be ok. Plus I really have missed it.

So, on Monday I'm starting a new program since I'll be done with 21 Day Fix. It's called The Master's Hammer and Chisel. It's got the gal from 21 Day Fix in it (who I love, although I recently heard from several people that they think she's annoying) and the guy from Body Beast (who I also love). This program is a little more hardcore than 21 Day Fix. There are pull ups in most of the workouts. I'm going to have to dig out my pull up bar. But I think this will be good. I do plan to continue training for my race. In fact, this is a 60 day program so the end coincides almost exactly with the race. I may sub some Sunday workouts for long runs, but other than that I'll stick to the schedule and do these workouts in the morning, and run at lunch. It seems to be working for me.

They look pretty serious. I'm actually scared.

I also get to follow the 21 Day Fix eating plan, so that's cool. I have a pretty good handle on it.

I started taking Thrive in May, and saw some results. I was pretty excited about it. But around October, I felt like it had quit working. My energy was low. I was relying on coffee again. And my appetite was ridiculous. I ate everything. And I didn't just eat one cookie- I had to eat ALL THE COOKIES! Turns out this medication is notorious for weight gain. I know it was affecting me. So, I asked to be switched to a different medication and the difference is amazing. I think the Thrive is finally working the way it's supposed to. I wake up early even if I didn't get my 8 hours. I'm motivated. I just feel capable. That's the word- capable. Like I can handle things.

Overall, things are going great. I'm excited that I made it through the 21 days, and I'm excited about starting another new program. I'm just excited about everything at the moment!

Source

No, really, I have a plan...

If you remember, I finished my first* half marathon on December 13 (*first half marathon since having 3 kids and first since 2011). I finished it a lot slower than the ones I ran in 2011, but I finished:

I signed up for another one on March 20, hoping I can improve my time a little. It shouldn't be too hard since my time was 3:04.

So, my new goal is to finish the race in the time it takes to listen to the Hamltion OCR (It's about 2:45).

Source

I have enough time to complete another round of training using the Hal Higdon method. I'm going to use the Novice 1 training program again because I just want to be stronger in my long runs. I knew last time I was really barely ready. I also think that finishing 30 minutes slower than my last half could be due to the fact that I'm about 20 pounds heavier than I was in 2011. So we're going to work on that as well.

Source

So, what I started doing this week was the 5K Runner Pro program designed to go from nothing to 5K.The first few days have been easy-ish so I've been doing them back to back. Yesterday I did Week 2 Days 2 and 3 for my workout to make it more of a "long" run. So my goal is to get my 5K back to constant running, but for the long runs, I'll still run 3/walk 2 (just hopefully my run intervals will be a little faster).

Source

I'm having some issues with my diet, but I'll talk about that later. I'm working on it. I'm optimistic.

I ran a half marathon (well, "ran" is maybe an exaggeration)

This past Sunday was the Dallas (Half)Marathon. I signed up for this over 6 months ago. But, my training didn't always go great. I hobbled through a 10 mile run a week before and really wondered if I had it in me to complete 13.1 miles.

When I woke up Sunday morning, it was pouring down rain. I would be lying if I didn't admit I considered just staying home. But no, I made a commitment, so I got up and got out the door.

I was optimistic at the start. I peed 3 times before the race even started. Look at this poor girl- she has no idea what the next 3 hours will do to her:

It was raining so much right then.

At the starting line, I started to take a selfie as I crossed, and these guys photobombed me:

They were super cool. They were from Gambia. They were just so happy and excited it rubbed off on everyone.

I knew I had to pee at around mile 2. Not fair. The lines at the port-a-potties were so long and I just didn't want to give up that much time. So I kept going.

I listened to Hamilton as I ran, but occasionally there was live music on the course.

At around mile 6 I hit the wall. I started to think I couldn't do it. I stopped, stretched, and considered sitting down on the curb and crying. But I didn't. Here I am at mile 7:

I started updating Facebook at every mile. That helped a little bit. Plus, my husband was following my route on the app, and was posting where I was and how I was doing.

At one point, just after I considered stopping, there were people handing out beer and powdered sugar donuts. I totally took them up on that. That cheered me up quite a bit.

I finished Hamilton with a couple miles left. My new half marathon goal is to finish before the musical ends.

At around mile 10 I ran into the guys from Gambia. One of them was singing "No woman no cry"... They were so cool and cheered me up.

Eventually, I did finish. And it was a great moment. I might even say it was worth all the crying, all the pain, the feeling that I was going to collapse and die right there in downtown Dallas... And thankfully I got a picture of the moment:

My time was 3:04:02.

I wasn't real thrilled with that time, but I kind of expected it. 4 years ago when I ran 3 half marathons in one season, my best time was 2:30. So, I have a ways to go to get that back. But I have 3 months until the next half marathon and I think I can improve on that.

Here's some more pictures:

"Look, I'm in shock. I've got a blanket."

Oh and I finally got to pee. Wow that was a long 3 hours. And I ended up walking about 2 miles to find my car. Ouch.

I don't think I'll ever be a person who can run 26.2 miles in a race. I'm perfectly happy to keep doing half marathons though and see how much I can improve my time. And maybe soon I'll lose a little weight too- that will surely make running easier...