How to build a fire... under your ass :P

So I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to reward myself with a week off after running my last 5km race. Not quite sure why I figured I *deserved* a reward because I didn't beat my personal best, but I guess combined with it being that time of the month, and a strong craving for crap food seemed to make me fold like a house a cards... which obviously didn't take that much effort. During my week off I ate badly a few times which caused some weight gain, and I didn't exercise at all which caused some anxiety, mainly because I kept looking forward to this week when the running could start again. I thought my body would be happy with the break, but I seemed to get more and more tired and my legs got more and more stiff, or odd feeling... not the same kind of stiff that you feel the day after you exercise... just weird.

I decided that unless I'm injured, I'm not going to totally cut out the running... I can reduce the kilometers /miles, but not stop cold turkey. It wasn't fun :( It wasn't fun like quitting exercise used to be. Quitting exercise used to feel like "Oh finally I can't stop subjecting myself to that stupid torture and just get back to watching TV, surfing the web or crafting". Now when I stop running, I think about running more, I read more about running online and in the running magazines I get, I make plans to register for more races, it was like I was becoming frantic about it and had to keep telling myself "it's okay, next week you can rack up the kms again" and that would help for a bit until I'd find another running blog or look at the photos from last year's Princess run. Totally strange and alien of me. Welcome to area 51 LOL

But to get to the main subject that I wanted to talk about: How do you build a fire... under your ass? And by that I mean this: at this point in my adult life, I know how to eat, I know how to exercise, I know what to do. The big thing that is hit or miss is the fire, the burning desire to succeed. It seems dumb to continue to *abuse* myself with another chocolate bar or bag of chips because that instant gratification only adds pounds to my ass and is counterproductive. I know this. I've read countless articles and blogs and books about all this stuff and *I KNOW* but why do I keep sabotaging myself? This is a question that is universal, I see so many people struggle with this, especially women. It shouldn't be gender specific, but it seems to be. Scientifically they say women are made to carry more fat, men have more muscle by default, blah blah blah. Yes, we know this, and I'm pretty sure it's true, because I've seen it in my own household.

I guess what I'm trying to do is get to the part of my brain that needs to not only have that fire lit, but to keep it burning and burning really hot. I am very proud that I've continued my running for this long, and amazed that I haven't stopped that like so many other things... so movement is possible, once you find an activity that you love. So how does one find an accelerant for that fire? How do you keep it white hot? I tell you, if I could find the answer to that I'd be frigging rich AND skinny LOL

In the massive amounts of reading I've done, most experts say that you've just got to want it. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure most of us want it really bad... sometimes desperately so for health reasons among many others. But allow me to get a bit whiny here for a moment: How the hell do you keep the momentum of wanting it really bad and working for it so hard when it takes so fricken long? Move the Biggest Loser and stuff like that out of your mind for a moment and try and figure out how us mere mortals with jobs, families, responsibilities can achieve this, how can we compete? How do we win against ourselves?

It's not easy, that's for damn sure. Sometimes I feel like an Amazon warrior, fighting against all odds, and just hacking away at the same opponent for days, months, years. It's kinda exhausting, but you can't give up, because if you do, that opponent will win, you'll gain back the weight plus more, get more health problems and die early. We all know this, but I keep making the same mistakes. Maybe it's because I can't see the enemy as something tangible, or as an actual immediate threat. We all seem to think "oh, I'll do it later, I've got lots of time" It takes a lot to scare us into getting healthy....

I think about when I work on do it yourself reno projects.. I usually tackle those until they are finished and really go at it for hours and hours. Hell I remember this one time I moved into a new apartment and unpacked my whole apartment, got all the boxes out, cleaned the bathroom/kitchen, placed all the furniture, put up drapes and had absolutely everything done by midnight... I went so long and so hard at it, that I got a nose bleed. I know, insane in the membrane.... So how come I can't bring that kind of desire and determination to the weight loss thing for any length of time? Maybe if I thought of myself as a reno project that it would go better LOL

Tight shirts, cute army guys and nipply weather aka Ottawa's 5km Army Run

I can't believe I've run three 5km races this year and soon prepping for a 4th... wow I'm easy to impress hahaha

Sunday morning was sunny and cold!  I was going to take the bus downtown like we did for the May race weekend, but it was a Sunday morning and the buses seem to run when they feel like it, so I quickly drove downtown whilst keeping my fingers crossed on getting a parking spot (I should get a medal just for that amazing feat!)

I lucked out and got a great spot in the World Exchange underground parking.  I wandered over to the "Athletes recovery zone"  hehehe  I'm an athlete :)  *ahem* anyway, after pinning my number on, putting my hoodie in my backpack and stashing it with the lugage check people, I headed over to my coral to wait in the cold for about 40 mins in a tight technical shirt whilst trying not to show too much nipplage around the young cute army guys hahaha.

There were less people than the May race, so after the cannon went off and scared the beejezus out of all of us, it took me less than 4 mins to get across the Start.  So i'm freaking out... cause I have no reason to not run up the hill... so I ran up the hill.... DUH!  I should have power walked it.... Anyway, the race went really well otherwise... I tried to catch up to the 40 min pace bunny, but she was gone so fast, I never saw her again.....  then once I got to the point where I could see the finish line and the recovery tents... the 45 min pace bunny passed me!  WTF????  But again stupid me had skipped my last walk break because I didn't want to get too far behind the 45 min bunny.... so instead of giving er hell for the last 500 metres, I kept the same pace and finished with a cannon time of just over 50 mins.

I tried to stick around to find out my chip time, but the results were only printed up to 37 mins and I had people waiting for me at a local restaurant.  Then began the excruciating wait to find out my race results.... I saw the results last night just before bedtime... finally!  I finished with 45:09.  

It's not the 42 mins I was waiting for, but I'm still quite pleased.  It just proves to me that I still love running, I still want to do more and that I desperately need to get me a Garmin watch... cause then I could have pushed it a bit more by keeping an eye on my pace.

As promised... here is a comparison between me of June 2009 and me of September 2010... guess which one is which :P

Slow, slow, slow but with a chance of high hopes

Down 0.4 at weigh in this week, it's not much, but I appreciate it.  I don't mind slow weight loss, as long as it stays off, but my history seems to indicate lot's of ping ponging within the same "decade" of weight.  I bounced around the 240s, now I'm bouncing around the 230s.

It indicates to me pretty clearly that now that I've got the eating thing mostly under control, I need to add more activity, and more intensity.  So I've decided to sign up for another Running Room class, but I'm going to opt for the 10km class.  I predict lot's of whining and moaning and sore legs, but I also don't expect to run the actually 10km race that the class is geared for :P

#1 - Because the race is the Resolution Run (COLD WINTER!)
#2 - I will be away visiting my family for Christmas and possibly New Years
#3 - I don't expect to easily be able to accomplish 10km distance.

I intend to repeat the 10km class a few times, so if I don't do so great the first class, no biggie, especially since I won't run *that* race... maybe I can run the 2nd race :)

I also want to add more weight training, core training and possibly some skipping... yeah you read that right... skipping....  Loved skipping as a kid, and it's a great workout... I just don't have a lot of room to do it... I'll probably have to skip in the laundry room... at least the ceiling is high hahahaha :P  Oh crap, guess I should do laundry while I'm in there right?  :P

So in conclusion, I'm still a slow runner (best 5km time to date was 44mins 44 seconds) and I'm a slow weight loss loser (20 pounds recently and 85.2 total since the true battle began) but I'm happy with what I've accomplished and I'm gonna keep on truckin' as they said in the 70s.  I've got high hopes to hit the 220's before Xmas... that would be a great gift to myself!

I'm a Superstar!

This morning's weigh in was great!  - 3 pounds... wooohooo!  Me likee a lot :)  Now to just continue in the downward trend!

I'm still waiting on the other parts of the Vegas pics :(  Boooohisssss.  I think I may contact my friends directly.. might get the ball rolling... besides, I want to print some of the pics in large size and hang them up!

I got the bf to take a picture of me on my treadmill last night and tonight i'm going to splice it next to that old grey t-shirt picture of me and post it up... at least that's something to nibble on while you wait for my Vegas picture extravaganza.

I'm slowly getting back into the groove of being home, but we still seem extremely busy socially, so this past weekend (long labour day weekend) I took my time and cleaned the house on and off between periods of resting and reading.  I got lot's done, but there is lot's more to be done.  I managed to get 4.2 km done last Thursday and 4km done last night... would have done more, but the need for the washroom became urgent.

I don't know about you guys, but it seems everytime I start running I feel the urge to go.... someone once explained that it's because as we run we clench our stomach muscles to stabilize our balance and by working our core like that it seems to help the digestive system speed things up.  As long as it's not too fast, I'm OK with it... just let me finish my damn run!  :P

I should have bet money ....

As expected, my weigh in determined that I went up 2 pounds over vacation in Vegas.  I should have bet money on it, I knew that I'd go up a bit, but I also knew that I hadn't gone up a lot because my clothes still felt the same.

Vegas pictures are still in progress, I need to get copies of pictures from our friends as they took a ton of pictures and some of the pictures I want to post up are only on their camera... go figure :P

Tonight is first night back at Running Room after 2 weeks off.  Hopefully all the walking I did in Vegas will have helped me maintain at least the muscle and a bit of the stamina/endurance.  It's still pretty hot around here, so hopefully the wind will continue to cool us off for our evening run.

I've pretty much decided that after this clinic is done I'm going to switch to the Running Room that is closer to my house.  It's a quick drive from my work, but if I want to run the practice runs, it's a long drive from my house.  I'm kinda sad because I really like the people at my current Running Room and I don't know anyone at all at the Orleans location, but I just can't afford the gas that is required to drive almost all the way across town.  Want to save more money and put it towards vacations :P