I haven't posted in since April so I think my two faithful followers have even grown bored of waiting for new posts LOL
As the title implies, I ran a half marathon on September 22nd.
I did not train even close to enough to accomplish the goal of using the Army Half as my "practice run" for the Disney Half. Yes, I'm registered. I have a scared.
So my running partner Vicky and I did finish. I think our finish times hovered around 4 hours and 5 minutes. We need to complete the Disney Half in LESS THAN 3.5 HOURS. I did not hit caps lock by mistake. I have a scared. I was only in pain for one solid day and sore for the 2nd day. Not bad considering my lack of skillz :P
November 1st the whole 80s training montage complete with Eye of the Tiger will begin playing in the background.
On a happy yet tired note. I did not train enough because since April/May we (read I) worked really hard to prep our townhouse for sale. We put it on the market finally on Sept 1st and it was sold by September 24th.. Yeah, that's right, in the midst of the Army Run pre race nerves and post-race pain.
We also got the keys to our new house (single detached place) a mere 2.5 weeks later. I have since been driving back and forth, cleaning and moving stuff until I'm dreaming of it.
Stay tuned folks... there posts are few and far between these days, but it will get better when my office is set-up again.
I'm also considering starting a home decorating blog... for all the before and after pictures of this old 80's house.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
2 month-a-versary
It's been a long time since I updated my blog! Times were rough and I lost my mojo.
I was bummed that I hadn't consistently lost weight in the 2 years at Weight Watchers. I did really well the first 6 months I was there, got to my 5% goal and then was about 4 pounds away from my 10% goal and then my weight crept back up to it's original spot in the 240's over the next year and a half, seems I like to sit in the 240's for some reason.
I've always felt that my body needed extreme amounts of exercise to create the burn to continue loosing weight consistently. To others that amount of exercise may seem like easy peasy, but to me if felt like I always had to be "on": always moving, always tracking food, always thinking about strategies to get more movement in etc etc and all that seemed overwhelming and exhausting not to mention always feeling various sore muscles and being constantly tired. It's just easier to lay on the couch... right?
Well in my last post in November 2012 I mention buying a weight bench and mapping out a bodybuilding plan and just needing to clean out a spare room to make room for said endeavor. Didn't happen until last week. I put the pro in procrastinate! What prompted me to do this big change seemingly out of the blue? It wasn't exactly out of the blue, but let me give you a bit of background.
In January, after the holiday eat-extravaganza was done and my weight was back up to 246 and 250 was looming on the horizon, I was talking with some friends about needing some mojo. My friend Vicky brought up the Princess Half Marathon in Disney saying that she wants to run it and thought that if we started training in February 2013, we should be ready for the race in February 2014. We decided that the Princess run could be our new lofty goal and that we could indeed train for it within a year. We also decided to start doing video logs every Sunday (or so time permitting) to discuss our progress, our mountains, our molehills etc etc. Those recordings are still being edited and I'll post the link to our joint website sometime in early June (we hope).
So thus began a new round of seemingly lofty ambitions and goals. Apparently I decided to pull up my big girl panties and just get er done. Monday February 18th I decided that I would begin a running program where I would get up at 4am every morning and run before work (Monday to Friday). I slowly built up the distance as the weeks went by. I think I started with 2km per day and added 0.5km per day the following week, then another 0.5km the next week... to the point where by the last week of March I was running 4km each morning. I couldn't believe at that point that I was still doing it. It felt good, I was feeling tired, exhausted and sore, but I also kept thinking about the 10km race in May, how I wanted to do better than last year, but even more so I was thinking about the pacing requirements for the Princess Run: 9.32 min /km!!!
Nose to the grindstone, keep working is the motto. The first Sunday in April (7th) I started adding a longer slower run like most 10km or 1/2 marathon schedules have in their repertoire. I ran 5km on the 7th and I ran 6km last Sunday. This Sunday is 7km. Should make it to 10km by the beginning of May, just in time for the 10km race.
So while all this awesome running is going on, I'm not really loosing much weight, but I figure it'll come off eventually.... right? Well I went up a bit two weeks in a row, got bummed out and was going to eat a skid full of chips and decided it was probably muscle gain. I googled and everything I read said that it was probably water retention because of muscle gain/strain and that at the beginning of any ambitious program it can and will probably happen. I took out my measuring tape and low and behold, several inches smaller than my last measurement session.
Chip skid disaster avoided... let's forge on! Also in my research it was recommended to incorporate body building and core exercises to support the back... yeah my back really hurt, not lower back, but the top of the ribs type of pain. So hence the re-org of the spare room and the assemblage of the bench happened on April 13th.
This past week I've run my 4km each morning with a rest day on Wednesday so I can run the long run on Sunday PLUS I've done body building on Monday/Wednesday and Core work on Tuesday/Thursday. The weight is melting off more in this week than in the last 7 weeks. Is it the body building? Is it the extra attention to diet? Is it just my body finally getting the metabolism ramped up to the right amount? WHO CARES!!! Either way it's great and I hope that the 4am run thing someday becomes an ingrained habit because at this point, it's well past the 21 days of habit mythology and it's still tough, but so very worth it!!
I was bummed that I hadn't consistently lost weight in the 2 years at Weight Watchers. I did really well the first 6 months I was there, got to my 5% goal and then was about 4 pounds away from my 10% goal and then my weight crept back up to it's original spot in the 240's over the next year and a half, seems I like to sit in the 240's for some reason.
I've always felt that my body needed extreme amounts of exercise to create the burn to continue loosing weight consistently. To others that amount of exercise may seem like easy peasy, but to me if felt like I always had to be "on": always moving, always tracking food, always thinking about strategies to get more movement in etc etc and all that seemed overwhelming and exhausting not to mention always feeling various sore muscles and being constantly tired. It's just easier to lay on the couch... right?
Well in my last post in November 2012 I mention buying a weight bench and mapping out a bodybuilding plan and just needing to clean out a spare room to make room for said endeavor. Didn't happen until last week. I put the pro in procrastinate! What prompted me to do this big change seemingly out of the blue? It wasn't exactly out of the blue, but let me give you a bit of background.
In January, after the holiday eat-extravaganza was done and my weight was back up to 246 and 250 was looming on the horizon, I was talking with some friends about needing some mojo. My friend Vicky brought up the Princess Half Marathon in Disney saying that she wants to run it and thought that if we started training in February 2013, we should be ready for the race in February 2014. We decided that the Princess run could be our new lofty goal and that we could indeed train for it within a year. We also decided to start doing video logs every Sunday (or so time permitting) to discuss our progress, our mountains, our molehills etc etc. Those recordings are still being edited and I'll post the link to our joint website sometime in early June (we hope).
So thus began a new round of seemingly lofty ambitions and goals. Apparently I decided to pull up my big girl panties and just get er done. Monday February 18th I decided that I would begin a running program where I would get up at 4am every morning and run before work (Monday to Friday). I slowly built up the distance as the weeks went by. I think I started with 2km per day and added 0.5km per day the following week, then another 0.5km the next week... to the point where by the last week of March I was running 4km each morning. I couldn't believe at that point that I was still doing it. It felt good, I was feeling tired, exhausted and sore, but I also kept thinking about the 10km race in May, how I wanted to do better than last year, but even more so I was thinking about the pacing requirements for the Princess Run: 9.32 min /km!!!
Nose to the grindstone, keep working is the motto. The first Sunday in April (7th) I started adding a longer slower run like most 10km or 1/2 marathon schedules have in their repertoire. I ran 5km on the 7th and I ran 6km last Sunday. This Sunday is 7km. Should make it to 10km by the beginning of May, just in time for the 10km race.
So while all this awesome running is going on, I'm not really loosing much weight, but I figure it'll come off eventually.... right? Well I went up a bit two weeks in a row, got bummed out and was going to eat a skid full of chips and decided it was probably muscle gain. I googled and everything I read said that it was probably water retention because of muscle gain/strain and that at the beginning of any ambitious program it can and will probably happen. I took out my measuring tape and low and behold, several inches smaller than my last measurement session.
Chip skid disaster avoided... let's forge on! Also in my research it was recommended to incorporate body building and core exercises to support the back... yeah my back really hurt, not lower back, but the top of the ribs type of pain. So hence the re-org of the spare room and the assemblage of the bench happened on April 13th.
This past week I've run my 4km each morning with a rest day on Wednesday so I can run the long run on Sunday PLUS I've done body building on Monday/Wednesday and Core work on Tuesday/Thursday. The weight is melting off more in this week than in the last 7 weeks. Is it the body building? Is it the extra attention to diet? Is it just my body finally getting the metabolism ramped up to the right amount? WHO CARES!!! Either way it's great and I hope that the 4am run thing someday becomes an ingrained habit because at this point, it's well past the 21 days of habit mythology and it's still tough, but so very worth it!!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Things I'm doing...
Things are doing!
I have prepped breakfast and lunch foods for the week.
I have tracked my food.
Still working on prepping my weight lifting area.
The weight lifting schedule is waiting for it's area to be prepped.
I have been walking at least 10,000 steps per day (except for the traumatizing Tuesday where I left my Fitbit at home *gasp*)
I've made some progress on cleaning and laundry. The house is looking much better and the areas that look a bit chaotic are like that while organizing other stuff :)
During a fun time at a Stitch and Bitch at Alex's place with Vicky, we talked about things that work for us and I brought up how I feel that weekends are my weakest point. I do very well during the week because of the structure and then the whole thing goes to shit when that bell rings and the end of the day on Friday.
So this last weekend I decided to try adding more structure by making a schedule. I wrote down a schedule making sure I included meals, vitamins and approximate times. I set my alarm and I woke up at 8am on Saturday and 9:30 am on Sunday. A little bit of a sleep in, but not too overboard. I made a lot of progress on the cleaning/organizing of the house. By the end of the weekend, my weight had still gone up a bit, but I'd like to think that it's a work in progress.
The most important part of the weekend was that I went back to my Weight Watchers meeting for the first time since August. It was the 9:15 meeting, I used to go to the 12:15 meeting, and I remember the 9:15 was really busy, boy that hasn't changed!
It was traumatizing! It was chaos! People everywhere, all sorts of lines as they tried to set up a new system and worst of all, my file was "retired" to the archives section. Basically I've been gone so long it's like I've never existed to them... even if I still paid for those 3 months I missed. Oh well, starting from scratch is what I need.
This weekend the new plan will be revealed, but I think it's already been revealed online. Looks good. I like the website re-vamp and it seems a bit easier to use.
More changes and progress to come from me, so stay tuned!
I have prepped breakfast and lunch foods for the week.
I have tracked my food.
Still working on prepping my weight lifting area.
The weight lifting schedule is waiting for it's area to be prepped.
I have been walking at least 10,000 steps per day (except for the traumatizing Tuesday where I left my Fitbit at home *gasp*)
I've made some progress on cleaning and laundry. The house is looking much better and the areas that look a bit chaotic are like that while organizing other stuff :)
During a fun time at a Stitch and Bitch at Alex's place with Vicky, we talked about things that work for us and I brought up how I feel that weekends are my weakest point. I do very well during the week because of the structure and then the whole thing goes to shit when that bell rings and the end of the day on Friday.
So this last weekend I decided to try adding more structure by making a schedule. I wrote down a schedule making sure I included meals, vitamins and approximate times. I set my alarm and I woke up at 8am on Saturday and 9:30 am on Sunday. A little bit of a sleep in, but not too overboard. I made a lot of progress on the cleaning/organizing of the house. By the end of the weekend, my weight had still gone up a bit, but I'd like to think that it's a work in progress.
The most important part of the weekend was that I went back to my Weight Watchers meeting for the first time since August. It was the 9:15 meeting, I used to go to the 12:15 meeting, and I remember the 9:15 was really busy, boy that hasn't changed!
It was traumatizing! It was chaos! People everywhere, all sorts of lines as they tried to set up a new system and worst of all, my file was "retired" to the archives section. Basically I've been gone so long it's like I've never existed to them... even if I still paid for those 3 months I missed. Oh well, starting from scratch is what I need.
This weekend the new plan will be revealed, but I think it's already been revealed online. Looks good. I like the website re-vamp and it seems a bit easier to use.
More changes and progress to come from me, so stay tuned!
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Things...
Things haven't been great:
Low iron
Missed WW meetings since August
Week 5 of a bad coughing flu starts tomorrow
Weight gain
House a mess
1000 dollar car repair
Not all things are bad, but they've been better. I've decided to change the things i can control and other stuff should eventually fall back into place.
Things I'm gonna do:
Prep breakfast and lunch foods for the week.
Track my food.
Prep my weight lifting area.
Commit to a weight lifting schedule.
Start walking at least one km per day on the treadmill and increase my distance as time goes by.
Cook more WW recipes to replace my favorite dishes with healthier versions.
Create a cleaning schedule so that I won't get overwhelmed with chores again.
Commit to getting more sleep.
And most of all put more structure into my weekend so that I don't ruin my weeks progress.
So far I've prepped my weeks worth of meals and I've begun to wrangle the house back into order. It's not going to happen overnight but I hope to be implementing my new workout schedule next week.
Low iron
Missed WW meetings since August
Week 5 of a bad coughing flu starts tomorrow
Weight gain
House a mess
1000 dollar car repair
Not all things are bad, but they've been better. I've decided to change the things i can control and other stuff should eventually fall back into place.
Things I'm gonna do:
Prep breakfast and lunch foods for the week.
Track my food.
Prep my weight lifting area.
Commit to a weight lifting schedule.
Start walking at least one km per day on the treadmill and increase my distance as time goes by.
Cook more WW recipes to replace my favorite dishes with healthier versions.
Create a cleaning schedule so that I won't get overwhelmed with chores again.
Commit to getting more sleep.
And most of all put more structure into my weekend so that I don't ruin my weeks progress.
So far I've prepped my weeks worth of meals and I've begun to wrangle the house back into order. It's not going to happen overnight but I hope to be implementing my new workout schedule next week.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Iron Acquired! But supplies running out...
I got two refills of inject-able Iron on Wednesday, but the Pharmacist pulled me aside to tell me that they expire on September 1st 2012. So I have to use them up fairly quick-like otherwise they seem to think various body parts will fall off... or something equally horrible. I'm running pretty low (or at least it really feels that way) so I reassured the pharmacist that I would take both dosages a week apart and that should be OK since I haven't had any for over a year. He didn't seem worried... just walked away nodding. How reassuring!
The fact that they sent me soon to be expired medication leads me to believe that this pharmacy will most likely run out of injectable iron as well. FRIG!
*stomps feet*
*holds breath*
*temper tantrum on the floor*
*sigh*
Ok, that didn't resolve anything, but the whining about it helps ME feel better LOL
I'll worry about the lack or iron in another month or so when I try and get more, but I know it's going to be a big pain in the butt :(
I need ideas for my Zombie costume for the upcoming Zombie race... I'm drawing a blank... must need iron... there's iron in brains right? BRAIIIINS! *stumble, stumble, shuffle, shuffle*
The fact that they sent me soon to be expired medication leads me to believe that this pharmacy will most likely run out of injectable iron as well. FRIG!
*stomps feet*
*holds breath*
*temper tantrum on the floor*
*sigh*
Ok, that didn't resolve anything, but the whining about it helps ME feel better LOL
I'll worry about the lack or iron in another month or so when I try and get more, but I know it's going to be a big pain in the butt :(
I need ideas for my Zombie costume for the upcoming Zombie race... I'm drawing a blank... must need iron... there's iron in brains right? BRAIIIINS! *stumble, stumble, shuffle, shuffle*
Friday, August 3, 2012
Ironing out the details...
I saw my family doctor (finally!) for a physical after almost 3 years. Yeah, they are supposed to be yearly, however her office has a weird system wherein you have to phone every morning after 8:30 and see if she has any open spots... regardless of what the issue, or non-issue until you can get an appointment. In my previous job is was difficult to get an appointment, not because my boss would want more notice (she was aware of the difficulties), but because it was difficult for me to remember or have the free time to call at 8:30. I start work at 7:30, therefore by 8:30 my day is in full swing and I'm not thinking of physicals.
Apparently time flies, and while time was flying I did nothing to rectify my lack of follow up for a yearly physical. I'm not on any meds really, and the one prescription I have for inject-able Iron was still valid... or so I thought. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm starting to feel run down and tired all the time... again which is an indication that I should gear up and start taking iron regularly again. So I went to my pharmacy and their one supplier was closed down and the other was out of stock... so I needed a new prescription and a alternative to the first iron prescribed.
For some reason I believed bringing up my iron levels would let me coast for several more years without having issues... DUH!!! I'm not usually that stupid, but this is a mix of stupid, procrastination and time really does fly! I seriously thought it had only been a year and change, possibly close to 2 years... not close to 3 years!!! So super bad me! *SPANK* Part of the procrastination is due to the fact that giving myself these injections always produces a really ugly looking blotch on my leg that looks like a bruise... vanity can lead women to do stupid things... I am living proof!
In the end I did see my family doc, all is well except for the tired part (it's already tough to get out for run in the best of conditions, never mind low iron me) she poked, she prodded and she pronounced me good to go with a new prescription for Iron with the warning that I might have to change pharmacies if my current one's suppliers still couldn't fill it. After work yesterday I went to my pharmacy: no iron available for the foreseeable future. I almost cried, I was stuck in traffic for 40 mins to get there, plus low iron me is extra emotional. I went home, ate some pizza and resolved to call around to every pharmacy if needed to get some iron. So today before calling everyone in the world, I went to the pharmacy in the mall attached to my work building and success! They will have some iron as soon as next week. YAY! and PHEW!
While I wait for iron, I get to enjoy a long weekend of cleaning and hopefully some walks/runs and some crafting thrown in for good measure.
Apparently time flies, and while time was flying I did nothing to rectify my lack of follow up for a yearly physical. I'm not on any meds really, and the one prescription I have for inject-able Iron was still valid... or so I thought. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm starting to feel run down and tired all the time... again which is an indication that I should gear up and start taking iron regularly again. So I went to my pharmacy and their one supplier was closed down and the other was out of stock... so I needed a new prescription and a alternative to the first iron prescribed.
For some reason I believed bringing up my iron levels would let me coast for several more years without having issues... DUH!!! I'm not usually that stupid, but this is a mix of stupid, procrastination and time really does fly! I seriously thought it had only been a year and change, possibly close to 2 years... not close to 3 years!!! So super bad me! *SPANK* Part of the procrastination is due to the fact that giving myself these injections always produces a really ugly looking blotch on my leg that looks like a bruise... vanity can lead women to do stupid things... I am living proof!
In the end I did see my family doc, all is well except for the tired part (it's already tough to get out for run in the best of conditions, never mind low iron me) she poked, she prodded and she pronounced me good to go with a new prescription for Iron with the warning that I might have to change pharmacies if my current one's suppliers still couldn't fill it. After work yesterday I went to my pharmacy: no iron available for the foreseeable future. I almost cried, I was stuck in traffic for 40 mins to get there, plus low iron me is extra emotional. I went home, ate some pizza and resolved to call around to every pharmacy if needed to get some iron. So today before calling everyone in the world, I went to the pharmacy in the mall attached to my work building and success! They will have some iron as soon as next week. YAY! and PHEW!
While I wait for iron, I get to enjoy a long weekend of cleaning and hopefully some walks/runs and some crafting thrown in for good measure.
Monday, July 23, 2012
My poor neglected blog!
I haven't posted here in forever! *If* anyone is still reading this... I apologize for the absence. I guess I just didn't have anything to say or didn't feel like saying it here.
Let's see... since my last post at the beginning of May what's new?
- In mid-May I changed jobs @ work. Still work in the same branch, just a different division and a more technical type job. Going from reporting on IT outages to working in a group that does mainframe support. It's a steep learning curve, but I'm really enjoying all this new stuff to learn :)
- I ran the 10km on May 26th right at the end of being off for a week with bronchitis. Finish time 1:46:06, which considering I was only able to actually run the first 5km and hobble, speedwalk and cough my way across the finish after the last 5km, I'm not gonna complain. Just kept telling myself that all I wanted was to finish under 2 hours before they closed the race... and I did it. Next year I should be able to beat that time no problemo!!
- On June 23rd I ran 8km Perth Kilt Run. I felt much better than when I did the 10km in May, but I still hadn't pumped up my mileage enough to be my usual Speedy Gonzales (HA!) so I finished with a decent time of 1:25.
- In July I don't have any races and there are none in August either so I'm taking advantage of this time to try and switch up my diet to remove as many carbs as possible without making myself insane (white carbs mostly like sugar, flour, rice & pasta) It's been a week and so far I haven't assaulted anyone... stay tuned :D
Upcoming races:
- 5km on Saturday September 22nd - Zombie run in Orillia Ontario
- 5km on Sunday September 23rd - Army Run in Ottawa Ontario
- 5km on Sunday September 30th - Run for the Cure (Breast Cancer Awareness)
- 5km or 10km (undecided) on Sunday October 21st - Rattle me Bones Halloween Run
Let's see... since my last post at the beginning of May what's new?
- In mid-May I changed jobs @ work. Still work in the same branch, just a different division and a more technical type job. Going from reporting on IT outages to working in a group that does mainframe support. It's a steep learning curve, but I'm really enjoying all this new stuff to learn :)
- I ran the 10km on May 26th right at the end of being off for a week with bronchitis. Finish time 1:46:06, which considering I was only able to actually run the first 5km and hobble, speedwalk and cough my way across the finish after the last 5km, I'm not gonna complain. Just kept telling myself that all I wanted was to finish under 2 hours before they closed the race... and I did it. Next year I should be able to beat that time no problemo!!
- On June 23rd I ran 8km Perth Kilt Run. I felt much better than when I did the 10km in May, but I still hadn't pumped up my mileage enough to be my usual Speedy Gonzales (HA!) so I finished with a decent time of 1:25.
- In July I don't have any races and there are none in August either so I'm taking advantage of this time to try and switch up my diet to remove as many carbs as possible without making myself insane (white carbs mostly like sugar, flour, rice & pasta) It's been a week and so far I haven't assaulted anyone... stay tuned :D
Upcoming races:
- 5km on Saturday September 22nd - Zombie run in Orillia Ontario
- 5km on Sunday September 23rd - Army Run in Ottawa Ontario
- 5km on Sunday September 30th - Run for the Cure (Breast Cancer Awareness)
- 5km or 10km (undecided) on Sunday October 21st - Rattle me Bones Halloween Run
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