first run of the new year

Duration: 44:21
Distance: 3.11 mi
Pace: 14'14"
Calories: 544


MILE TIME AVG. PACE
1 13:41 13'41"/mi
2 27:51 14'10"/mi
3 42:34 14'43"/mi

Considering I've not run since November 29th, and still managed to come in right around my normal 5K time, I'm pleased. My back was a bit sore from injuring it on Sunday, but I feel stronger having run through it. We'll see if I still feel stronger in a few hours!

I've set a Nike+ goal to run 200 miles in 2012. I'm not sure how feasible that is if I take up roller derby instead of running. I only ran 145 miles in 2011, and I did four half marathons. So 200 may be completely unrealistic. But hey, it gives me a carrot to chase. Anyway, it breaks down to less than 4 miles per week. There's no reason why I can't get a four mile run in each week.

new year, time to get into gear

I completely slacked off for Christmas and New Years Eve, and since I injured my back on Sunday, putting away Christmas decorations, I've been completely useless all week this week. However, when I weighed myself at Publix on Wednesday night, I weighed in at 233. So I gained two pounds over the holiday. All things considered, that's not terrible.

I'm hoping my back feels better in the morning; it's my free Friday and I'd like to get a short run in the books.

I won't resume lifting weights until Sunday. And that really will depend on how my back ache is doing. It's been bad this week.

In other news, Monday night I went to a recruitment meeting for our local roller derby teams. I'm going to start attending practices. If I like it, if we can find a way to afford it, and if I survive their two month audition-type-thing, perhaps I'll take up roller derby. That would be a heck of a work out. Roughly 4.5-5 hours of skating each week (two practices per week). I'd like to be a roller derby girl!

A final thought: the Livestrong app made some changes. It's much nicer now.

success and failure

Last week, I only lifted my weights and did my crunches three out of five nights. With two nights of jumping rope.

And one night of speed walking a theme park, for good measure. I'm amazed at how much we accomplished in just three hours at Disney.

This week, I won't lie, I have not yet exercised. I won't make excuses. I could find the time if I tried. Though Monday night I gave blood, and they advised no strenuous activity for a few days, and today is the first day I'm feeling better after being completely exhausted from the blood letting.

However... I weighed myself at Publix last night... 231! Down two pounds from last week, and six total since November 5th. Yay!

jumping rope

Just finished my second night in a row of jumping rope. Good gravy that's exhausting! Last night I jumped roughly 220 times. Tonight, I jumped roughly 210 times.

I. Am. Beat.

But I'm trying to force motivation down my throat.

the truth is hideous

Renee has been very honest about her weight over on her blog. I will be honest, too. Even though the truth is frightening and ugly.

I don't own a scale, so when I weigh myself, I have to haul my fat ass onto the very public scale in the lobby of my local Publix. It can be humiliating if people are around, so I don't do it often. But I will try to do so once a month. I take my measurements more regularly, though, so I'll have to start journaling them on here.

On Saturday, November 5th, I weighed in at 237.

That is unbelievable. I don't think I look like what 237 should look like.

Tonight, I weighed myself again. I weighed in at 233.

I'm down 4 pounds in just over 5 weeks. I'll take it. Especially since I haven't really been trying, just ever so slightly increasing my exercising.

I'm trying to get my thinking turned around, and then once the holidays are over, I'm kicking it into top gear.

Hips: 46.25"
Waist: 42.5"
R Thigh: 26.5" (down .5)
L Thigh: 26.5" (down .5)
R Calf: 18.5"
L Calf: 18.5"
R Biceps: 14"
L Biceps: 14"
Bust: 44.5"

there's an app for that

Last night, I downloaded the Livestrong app for my iPad. I set up an account, and entered everything I consumed yesterday. The good news: it was under 2,000 calories for the entire day. The bad news: my exercise routine burns less than 100 calories per day. It's an approximation, as I couldn't figure out how to properly name my exercises to get their calories to turn up. So I called my crunches "stretches" and my dumbells something else.

I'm going to try to be good about tracking my comestibles. But this is a rough, rough time of year to start this! I came to work today and was given a tin of cookies. COOKIES!!!!

Ugh.

I think I'm going to give up hard liquor. I'll still allow myself wine and beer, but in moderation. I've already cut back on those. Giving up a martini, though, will be a challenge, as my husband makes a fabulous martini, and I do so love to drink.

Weeks 4&5: Nov 27 - Dec 7

Week 4 was a partial success. I think I missed one night.

Week 5 was not very successful. I think I missed two nights.

Life has been a bit chaotic, and I didn't make meeting my goal a priority.

Space Coast Half Marathon

It is finished. Four half marathons completed in 2011.

Week 4: Nov 20-24

Week 4 Success! Five nights of weights, crunches, and squats!

Tomorrow morning, I'll be completing my fourth half marathon of 2011. Goal met!

Week 3: Nov 13-17

Week 3 was a success! Five nights of lifting my dumbells.

Sunday, we did something like 6 hours of yard work. As a result, I could hardly move on Monday. It's made lifting my little weights really challenging. I've been so sore and tired all week.

The crunches/push ups were less successful this week. I only managed two out of five nights for those. See also: sore and exhausted. Next week I won't allow myself to make excuses, and I'll begin a five night a week goal for those, too.

I've not run or jumped rope at all this week. Other than the 7 miles I got in last Friday.

I have a half marathon on the 27th. That will be my fourth half this year. Hallelujah, I will meet that stupid goal.

Part of the journey to living a more active life is getting my brain engaged. Obviously I'm having a hard time convincing my brain that I need to be more active. It's a work in progress.

But I feel a little healthier this week, so there's that.

Week 2: Nov 6-10

Week two was slightly less successful than week one, in that I did not meet my goal. I missed Wednesday night's weights and crunches. However, I walked Epcot that night, which proved exhausting.

Tuesday night I jumped rope. So there's that.

Friday morning, I walked 7 miles with a friend who is just not up for running yet.

jumping rope

In 2003, leading up to my wedding, I lost many inches (but very few pounds) by lifting my dumbells, doing crunches, and jumping rope. If memory serves, I jumped rope 500 jumps nearly every night.

Tonight was night one of adding jump rope back into my routine.

Last week I did 5 nights of weights and crunches, as my goal dictates.

I'm at 2 nights so far this week, and will get that done tonight, too. I tend to do that just before bed. I've added push ups to my routine. It's exhausting. But I need to do it.

And I'll be adding rope jumping to the routine.

I only jumped 200 jumps tonight, and it nearly killed me. I'll try to increase my number each week until I hit 500 again.

Week 1: Oct 31 - Nov 3

For the purposes of this new journey, a week shall encompass 5 days, Sunday through Thursday.

My goal: lift weights and do various squats and crunches 5 nights out of 7. I assume I won't do Friday and Saturday nights, as those tend to be too social to end in exercise.

Week 1: success! Five successive nights of weights and squats and crunches. Preceded by a half marathon.

Need to get running and jumping rope back into the mix.

all the runs I haven't posted

Grrrr.... why do they keep messing with their site. Now I can't find how to share my runs.

Saturday, October 10th, Big Bertha
Distance: 5.5 miles
Duration: 1:29'07"
Pace: 16'03"/mile
Calories: 918

Monday, October 12th, St. Cloud -- running in sand
Distance: 2.67 miles
Duration: 42'26"
Pace: 15'59"/mile
Calories: 442

Saturday, October 17th, Kissimmee -- cold weather!
Distance: 6.36 miles
Duration: 1:31'10"
Pace: 14'19"/mile
Calories: 1,053

Monday, October 19th, St. Cloud -- walking in sand, leg issues, discovered iPod was on Pause most of the night
Distance: 1.29 miles
Duration: 20'07"
Pace: 15'30"/mile
Calories: 214

Tuesday, October 20th, home -- working through the leg pain, lots of walking
Distance: 4.26 miles
Duration: 1:04'31"
Pace: 15'08/mile
Calories: 704

I don't know why my legs are disgruntled. I have not the patience for this, especially with Big Bertha on the agenda for this weekend again.

::snicker::

I got yelled at for my Facebook status! HA HA!

I have not had anything nice to say about my training on Saturday, so I won't blog about it except to say it was not what I set out for it to be.

I don't have the patience right now to grab all the usual info from the nike site. Perhaps another time.

I'm pretty sure my coach is trying to kill me

I think my coach is trying to kill me, and I told him so.

Usually on Monday nights, I get to training early, and my coach is already there. He usually gets there around 430 and runs for an hour or so. Training begins at 630. I tend to get there around 6. I always have these grandiose ideas that I'll run a little before training begins, and it never happens. Tonight, coach was not running, which is highly unusual. He told me he wasn't feeling well, head ache, sore throat, general malaise. I told him about the migraine I had all day yesterday, and the residual headache I have had all day today was not great, but endurable.

Coach: That's okay, we'll take it easy today.
Me: ::laughing:: Riight. Your idea of taking it easy and my idea are completely different. You'll be all oh, we'll do an easy six mile run tonight and I'm more of a oh hey, there's the bar, let's go get a drink kind of girl.

Take it easy. Pshaw!

Coach doesn't want me to rely so heavily on the timer on my iPod. So, tonight, I put my iPod into the pocket on my fuel belt and trusted my coach. He said I would be surprised at how far I am actually able to run. I was skeptical; the trail has markers every quarter mile. I was certain my brain would know when I hit 1 mile and tell my legs it was time to walk. But, with my coach at my side the entire time; only one other person made it to training tonight, and he was taking it easy -- his easy is my agony -- so coach was with me the entire time. Five minutes into the run, coach told the other guy to walk for five minutes (he's just starting back after 2 weeks nursing an injury) while I kept running. Let me tell you how much I wanted to walk for five minutes! But coach kept me running. It was lightly raining, but the rain provided zero cooling relief; I was sweating like crazy. We reached the one mile mark and turned around (the trail ends at one mile, as the entire trail is only two miles long, and we started at mid-point). Coach kept me running, you know, because he's trying to kill me. According to the markers on the trail, coach let me walk just after 1.5 miles. It was 16 minutes of running.

Coach gave me five glorious minutes of walking. It felt like five seconds. Then, he decided to mix things up... for fun... because he's trying to kill me. We slow jogged for two minutes and then did fifty steps at a much faster pace. Two minutes slow jog, fifty steps fast. Ugh. The man is trying to kill me. After only two reps, I stopped being able to keep jogging, and started walking for two minutes. Coach was disappointed, I could tell, but I was beat.



At the end of the evening, coach told me he is seeing improvement in me. And I am trying to do better. For him. Because he believes in me, even though I don't. He's trying to get my head in shape, because my brain is holding me back. It is. But I guess I'm just not as concerned about that as he is. It's not as important for me to improve my pace as it is to my coach. So, I'll try to do better for him. Even though he's trying to kill me.

6 miles and an alligator

Today's run was located in the same place our Monday night runs are. It's a path along a rather large lake. The trail is only two miles long, end to end, but there's a half mile extension away from the lake that we added on. So, we parked at one end, began the run, when we got to the extension thing, we turned onto it, half mile out and back, then back onto the lake trail. Turn around, come back, added the extension again, and finish. Six miles.



I slow ran the first mile, as has become the norm, before settling into a run 2 walk 1 ratio. Coach ran with me, and said something to the effect of, "I want to run with you and have you not use that thing (referring to my iPod, which I use to time my ratio)." He said he thinks the iPod is holding me back. Running is a mental sport, and I have trained my brain to think that my body is only capable of running for 2 minutes before it needs to walk. And that's what I do. He said he wants me to run more. He believes in me. I countered with telling him that it's all his fault he can take the credit for the fact that I will now run a full mile before walking. He laughed, and told me he's certain I can do more.

He's probably right.

And so, for my coach, this morning I tried to maintain a run 3 walk 1 ratio. And I did it for about two miles before I started feeling really tired. About that time, it was time for me to get onto the half mile extension. This path has very helpful markers every 1/8 of a mile. And so, for my coach and to challenge myself, I decided to run 1/8, and then walk 1/8 for that mile long extension (up and back equals a mile). But I didn't slow run it, I forced myself to run it at a faster pace than I normally would for the 1/8. I pushed myself, and flat out exhausted myself.

When my coach met back up with me, about .3 away from the finish, he wanted me to run to the end. I tried. I honestly tried. But I just couldn't make it, and ended up walking the final .15 or so. But I told him about the ways I had tried to push myself for the duration of my run, when he was not running with me. Because I did push myself.

I am tired now. Tired like I was after 10 mile runs last year. I need a nap. And it's because I pushed myself harder than I normally do.

He asked me to start emailing him my times for my runs during the week. Um... someone has been totally slacking, so hopefully that will be the kick in the butt I need to get my training in gear. Shame on me for not being good at training this season.

I just noticed my title, so I suppose I should comment about the alligator I saw at the turn around point. It was approximately three feet long, a little gator. Still, I get so excited seeing wild life!

It should be noted, last week's six miles took me 1:31. This week's six miles took me 1:27 (because I'm counting when the 6 miles ended, not when I turned off my iPod). So I improved my time. Hooray for that!

I'd also like to mention the gorgeous sunrise this morning. It's such a pretty area to run.

finally feeling good-ish

This morning's run was in Celebration. It was a beautiful course, but no bathroom, which meant my bladder screamed my entire run. Stupid bladder. The route started at the movie theater and wound around several bodies of water, over several boardwalks, through conservation areas, and past million dollar homes. An absolutely gorgeous run. It would have been even better if it were less hot, but whatcha gonna do in Orlando? Two loops equalled six miles.



I ran the first mile without walking, which was approximately fourteen minutes. Then, my running buddy Laura kept running while I walked with her. Yes, like my cousin, she is good at the slow and steady run that I suck at. Laura is awesome and did her four required miles without walking. She rawks! It took us 47 minutes to do the first three miles. You know I always shoot for the elusive 38 minute 5K, so I was a little disappointed in my time and decided I needed to step it up for the second loop. This meant ye olde standby run/walk ratio.

I started my second loop with a run 2 walk 1 ratio but was only able to keep that ratio for maybe a mile before I settled into a 1:1 ratio. My second three took me about 43 minutes, so I did shave four minutes off, and gave me a negative split, which is awesome! But I wish I had been a bit quicker.

Let's talk about my coach. I love my coach. I love my coaches from last year, too, but I get way more one-on-one time with this coach. He only has a total of nine people to coach whereas my other coaches have something like thirty people to coach, so it makes sense that he would have more time to devote to each of us individually. It's nice to have him running beside me, encouraging me, and offering me advice on breathing and posture and pace. It makes having to drive so much farther to train worth it because I am getting so much more out of my training this year than I did last year.

I've been pretty pain-free during my runs, which is fantastic. But in the car on the drive home this morning, my left foot seized up something fierce. I stopped at a store, and cried out in pain when I tried to stand on my left foot. I walked the pain off. I think it has to do with my shoe laces. I need to get new shoes sooner rather than later; I'm pretty sure that will help solve some of my foot pain. Tonight, twelve hours after my run, my left foot hurts again. I have it elevated and have been massaging it. It'll get better.

I'm pretty pleased with the run from this morning.

Oh! In my last mile or so, as I ran across a boardwalk, a giant owl flew across the boardwalk not two feet directly in front of my face. It was awesome! I called out to two bicyclists who were standing a few feet ahead to see the owl. They then pointed out a young two-point buck standing down in the conservation area staring up at us. And me without my camera! It was so awesome! I couldn't stop for long, though, as I was racing my clock and didn't want to break stride.

Best part of my run this morning, aside from the wildlife sightings, was at the start of my second loop. I was on a boardwalk, and it was during my two minutes of run time. There were two older ladies walking a dog on the right side, and three bicyclists approaching from the other direction on the left side. The bicyclists very kindly yielded to me, and I thanked them as I ran past the two ladies, and past the bicyclists. One of the older ladies said, "oh, there's a runner coming through."

A runner.

She called me a runner!

Because that's what I am. Funny how something so trivial can ameliorate my mood!

monday night, ankle be damned

Monday nights always start out with crazy ab exercises.



My ankles are both still hurting from Saturday's hill run. And I didn't sleep last night. So tonight's run was a bit rough for me. In fact, I just didn't have enough get up and go inside me to do as well as I would have liked to.

We kept up a pretty decent run/walk ratio of like run 8 walk 1.5 or something like that. But I just didn't have it in me tonight.

Tackling "Big Bertha"

This morning the Orange/Seminole and Osceola teams met up out in Lake county to tackle a hill we call Big Bertha. Now, last year, I always skipped the Bertha runs because I was unemployed, gas was nearing $4 a gallon, and I couldn't afford to drive that far. So this was a, um, treat? for me.

The run starts in the parking lot for the Target in Clermont. I've been to the plaza many times, and should know how to get there since we have family that lives in Clermont. But, apparently in the dark, I get lost even more easily. I somehow completely missed the Clermont exit off the Turnpike, and didn't realize it until I exited at the next exit (way far away) and found myself on Route 27 outside the Lakeridge Winery. Leave it to me to find wine when I needed to find the run! When I finally found the meeting place, I had missed group stretching, and the team was just beginning their run.




Laura and I jogged out of the parking lot and immediately encountered an enormous hill. Surely that must be Bertha. Alas, a mile later, we encountered the real Bertha, and Bertha was intimidating. How the heck did that mountain sneak into flat central Florida?!

This might be on my third trip up Bertha:


I had to do three trips up and down Bertha. I walked up. The second time up, we were instructed to walk up it backward. Let me tell you how farookin difficult that was! Holy Toledo! I had no idea something could be so daunting! Remember that bridge I ran in Panama City? Yeah, that's like a speed bump compared to Bertha.

Here's four of the six Team Osceola members who climbed Bertha this morning walking backwards up the mountain:


The guy in purple is my Coach. The girl is "Laura". I'm back there, and the other guy had the misfortune of calling me this morning because he was lost, only to discover I was lost!

Anyway, Bertha was conquered and we only have to do her one more time this season. Brutal, beastly Bertha.