Celebrating National Running Day: Why I Run

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

It is no secret now to anyone who knows me; I am a runner, and I love to run.

I started running because it seemed to be one of the most effective ways to burn calories in order to lose weight. Somewhere along the way, though, it changed from just a way to help me lose weight faster to so much more.

I run now because it connects me to my body in ways that nothing else does. I feel more grounded, more in tune with my physical being when I run. All of the pressures and problems in my life vanish while I am running, if only for a short time. I am more present and truly just 'in the moment' when I run.

Running does even more for me on the inside than the outside. It has helped me gain confidence in myself and my abilities, push through limits, and try things that would have seemed impossible before.

I run because every time I run, I am reminded that I can do more than I ever believed possible; it has helped me break through mental barriers as well as physical ones. Why do YOU run?

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Long weekend milestones

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Well, I reached a couple of significant milestones in my journey over the long weekend. First off, I saw a new low weight on the scale that I have been waiting to see a very long time: 169.2. That is the lowest I have been in at least 14 years or so; finally getting out of the 170s has been a very slow process. That's significant in and of itself, but the real significance is that

I AM NO LONGER OBESE!

Yup, I am now just plain 'overweight' according to the BMI charts.



Never thought I would be happy to say that I am 'overweight,' but there you go--I'm thrilled! After having been morbidly obese for many years, that is a ginormous step on the way down to a healthy weight. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the BMI charts because they don't take into account a whole lot of things (like muscle weighing more than fat). They are a general guideline, though, and it is really nice to leave 'obese' behind finally.

The other major milestone was in my half marathon training. All weekend we have been talking about getting out for a long run; with the half marathon now less than four weeks away, those long runs are, well, LONG; they take a couple of hours at our pace. We finally got out this evening to do one, but it was later than I had hoped. I was not at all sure we would have enough daylight to go as far as we wanted, but we figured we would go and see how things worked out; anything was better than nothing.

We decided to again use a 2:1 run/walk ratio at least on the way out, then play it by ear on the way back. We started out at a fairly quick (for us) clip on the run segments; first couple of miles went by quickly. We got to mile three, and we both were feeling fine; it looked like we were still okay on daylight, so we kept going. Mile four, no problems; maybe we could at least go to where we had gone last week when we did nine miles. I looked at the time and told hubby maybe we should plan to turn around at an hour; we looked ahead and saw the place where he had measured out would be five miles--not that much further . . . ahhhh, go for it! We pushed on to the five mile mark and turned around. Both feeling fine still, we opted to continue the 2:1 run/walk ratio on the way back; the daylight was waning, but we figured the worst that would happen is we'd be running the last little bit when it was really getting dark.

We were definitely slower on the way back, but we were able to stick with that run/walk ratio throughout the return. As it turned out, we had enough daylight to make it all the way back--not a lot to spare, but it was fine.

So today we did TEN MILES in 2 hours 15 minutes, our longest run to date! Our average pace was 13:34, just a hair slower than last week when we did nine miles. Most of the training plans for a half marathon only take you to a ten mile run; they say that if you can run ten miles, the excitement of race day will enable you to go the extra 3.1 miles. I'd like to get in a couple more long runs of ten miles or further just to prove to myself that I can do it, but I have more confidence that we will be fine come race day.

Now we'll see if I can walk tomorrow . . .

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Hubby's birthday is today!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Today is my husband's birthday! If you have a moment, stop by his page www.sparkpeople.com/mypage.asp?id=FI
TFORLONG and wish him a happy birthday. I happen to think he is the most wonderful guy in the world and I'm the luckiest woman in the world to be married to him, but I suppose there is a remote chance I am slightly prejudiced about that.



Edit: He hasn't quite gotten into the whole social side of SP yet--he uses the site to track his food and read articles, but he WILL see your message if you post a comment on his page!

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The long slow run

Monday, May 23, 2011

Today (finally!) we were able to go out for a long, slow run in the evening, one of the cornerstones of training for a half marathon or marathon. It has been a couple of weeks since we went out for anything longer than 4 miles, and our first half marathon is in five short weeks. I was getting a little antsy to extend our distance; the longest we had gone was about 8 miles. That is, before today!

Here's the Garmin report:



In case you can't read it from the picture, here are the stats.

- Total distance: 9 miles
- Total time: 2:00:50
- Average pace: 13:25

That is a snail's pace for some people, but I am thrilled to have been able to done that today. We tried the run/walk method, using a 2:1 run/walk pattern on the first half and a 1:1 pattern for the most part on the second half. That seemed to work really well; we were as fast or faster than when we have run without specific walk breaks. There were a couple of times we had to stop because my husband needed me to help him adjust his heart rate monitor and then put his hat away for him, so without that we might have ended up doing it in just under 2 hours, and that is without pushing it at all, keeping it slow and easy.

Getting a run in that long makes me feel a whole lot better about the half marathon next month; if we can go that far now, we should have no problem extending our runs and being ready for it.

Sometimes I feel like I need to pinch myself to see if it's true that I'm really doing this, training for a half marathon and going out for 2 hour runs. I still have trouble at times wrapping my brain around the changes in my life over the past year and a half. Losing over 80 pounds has meant so much more than wearing a smaller size; it has given me a whole new life and an appreciation for life in ways that I never dreamed of before.

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The jeans dilemma

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

I love jeans; I can't help but look at jeans whenever we are out shopping. I have several pairs in different styles, washes, and colors, and I wear them all the time. If there is one thing you can be sure I have, it is jeans! Comfortable, practical, and cute, that's how I see jeans.

Here is my dilemma, though: I am having a hard time finding jeans that fit completely right. I am just not proportioned quite right, I guess. If jeans fit my hips and thighs right, I usually have a muffin top at the waist; if they fit my waist well, the butt is too loose within a very short time. I guess you could say I have been literally running my butt off, LOL! That seems to be where I have lost the most anyway.

My size 12 jeans that I love are getting baggy on me, but I can't quite wear size 10s in the same style unless I want to live with a muffin top. The only pair that I feel like really fit well at the moment are some size 11 jeans I picked up on sale--yes, I got some jeans in the junior section for the first time in years!

It still takes me a minute or two when I am looking at clothes to realize that I really CAN wear that small a size. I look at smaller sizes and wonder what size I will wear when I'm finally down to my goal weight (whatever that ends up being). Since I am still losing weight, I don't want to invest a lot of time and money in new clothes, but a girl has to have at least a couple of decent pairs of jeans, doesn't she?

That's my dilemma; I may have to just take time and go try on a bunch of different styles and sizes to find some new jeans if I want to avoid the extremes of muffin top or saggy bottom. Any suggestions of styles and stores I should look at?

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