Confused!!

It's taken me a couple of days to write this post  I'm just really confused right now and I don't know what my body is doing.  I had a great week last week, my points were good, I didn't go over, I stayed completely on plan.  I was really expecting a pretty good loss.  Instead I got blindsided!

I headed to Weight Watchers on Saturday morning.  I wasn't wearing my regular weigh in clothes as I was going to be running from Weight Watchers to the Air Care Centre where my awesome husband was taking my car so I can renew my insurance.

I thought because of the different clothes, heavier pants and long sleeved shirt, that I may be the same as last week or down just a little bit.  I knew it was not going well when the receptionist looked at me surprised.  Had me step off the scale, she turned it off and then back on.  The result was the same.  She even said to me, that she didn't want to write that number down.  That had me really worried.  I leaned over the counter so I could see what she was writing and I was stunned.

I had a gain....not a little gain...not a "these aren't my usual clothes gain"  I had a major gain.  I gained 3.9 pounds! I gained almost 4 pounds in  a week.  I don't understand how that happened.  You need to burn 3500 calories to lose a pound so in theory I would have had to eat my usual calories plus another 11,000 calories to account for that gain!  I know I didn't do that.  I'm very strict on my accountablility, I account for all of my points before I eat them so there isn't even any "oops, I shouldn't have had that" things happening.

I am so confused.  I really thought that with my running I would be losing weight a little bit quicker, that it would help speed up my metabolism a little bit but it's just not happening.  I am so frustrated!!!

I honestly didn't even feel like doing my run, but my husband's cell phone battery was dead so I had no choice.  I had to run to the Air Care centre 4.5km's from where I was.  I didn't even enjoy my run.  It was a really bad run.  I haven't had many of them but Saturday's run was not good.  I felt sluggish, my legs weighed a tonne and I had a horrible pace going.  It was all I could do to keep going.  I spoke to my friend "J" about my run, and she said that simply sometime you have a bad run. Although she did agree that my sucky weigh in probably affected my mindset from the get go.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/489977067

I now have less than a week to go before the BMO 8K.  It's the race I've been training for and a week ago I was sure I would do so well with it.  Now....I'm just not sure.  I know that I'll do it.  I know that I'll complete it.  I won't let myself get swept off the course.  That's my biggest fear and I just have to keep moving to avoid that from happening.  Two more training runs before the big day.  Hopefully they will be better.

I amazed myself tonight.

I had run clinic tonight as I do every Thursday night. I spent most of the day with a knot in my stomach.  The big ugly monster of self doubt reared it's ugly head this morning as I was getting ready for work.  Tonight in run clinic, for the first time ever, we were running for longer than 5 minutes, we ran 4 minutes last week, and tonight we had 8 minutes on the schedule.

I didn't think I could do it, I really wasn't sure.  I was doubting myself and not for the first time I had thoughts of "who did I think I was kidding?"  "you can't do this"  "you won't be able to do this"

I got more and more nervous as the day went on, and when we were driving home, I told my friend "J" (who is an awesome runner, and a huge influence on me and my running) that I was nervous.  That I wasn't sure if I could do it.  She scoffed at me and told me I'd do fine.  That I had nothing to worry about.   I was still worried though.  I wasn't sure and that big dose of self doubt was weighing heavily on my mind as I got changed and headed out to run clinic.

I was a little early as I wanted to talk to my run leader and ask his opinion on next week's clinic, should I take it easy or go hard with the group seeing as how my big 8K race is next weekend.  We decided that I'll go to clinic and play it by ear.

When it was time to head out for our run, one of the other ladies commented that she was nervous for tonight's run and instantly I felt better.  I told her that we could do it.  Did we think in January we would be doing this?  Off we headed for our run.  We always walk to the top of the road and then start our warm up 1:1's which I always just leave as the warm up on my watch but for some reason tonight I hit the lap button on my watch which started our 8:2 intervals so I stopped my watch and just went with Jason's for the warm up.  Once we started our 8:2's I waited a few seconds and then started my watch back up.

This where it got to be amazing!  I did it!  I ran for 8 full minutes,  non stop, no walking, no stalling, i ran for the full duration.  I didn't want to walk, I didn't want to stop.  I was so happy!  When we finished our first interval of 8 minutes running, I really wasn't all that far behind everyone and when I met up with them it was high 5's all around. 

Then it happened again, I ran for another 8 minutes straight.  No stopping, no pausing, no wanting to stop.  I was a little further behind on the 2nd interval but we still met up fairly quickly, and the group said that they didn't have to back track all that far.

Then I did it again!  I ran for another 8 minutes.  I did have about a 30 second stoppage when a car backed out of his driveway without stopping.  I stopped and waited for him to pull all the way out before I crossed the drive way.  That put me a little further behind but I did manage to catch up to them and they were still in sight by the end of the interval.  We then did 2:1x2 and then walked about a block for a cool down back to the store.

My pace on my watch isn't really accurate for the start or for the middle, but here's my splits for tonight's run.  http://connect.garmin.com/splits/486568103

I am still riding that awesome feeling I get when I'm done running, that tremendous sense of accomplishment.  Tonight though, I did truly amaze myself with what I'm accomplishing, what I'm doing, and how far I've come.

Great week for runs.

Wow, where did the week and the long weekend go!  I can't believe its Easter Monday already and my fabulous 4 day weekend is almost at an end.  It was a great weekend though, filled with some great work outs and runs.

Thursday night was regular Run Clinic night. We had our new leader Jason (Rick our previous leader has a knee injury and had to bow out).  There were only three of us for clinic, I guess because of the start of the long weekend, but we were primed and ready to take on our 4:1's  this week. (an easy pace week as we jump up to 8:1's next week) We asked Jason if we could mix it up a little bit, maybe do a new route or do our regular route the opposite direction.  He decided that we would do our regular route in the opposite direction and for next week he'll map out a new route for us to take.  I don't know if it was because the route was in the opposite direction or not but I seemed to be running faster.  It seemed that the others weren't getting as far ahead of me as they previously were and when I looked at my splits and compared them, they were better than the previous couple of weeks.
One of the ladies two sons joined up with us about half way around the route(they are training for the marathon) and I was actually able to talk to one of them as he dropped into pace beside me and talked with me through out two intervals.  It was great!!!!  I felt really good afterwards as well and didn't have any issues with it. http://connect.garmin.com/splits/481887988

After my weight watchers meeting on Saturday (I was up 1oz, I really do hate these little losses and gains, they drive me nuts!)  My husband and I went over to my parents in the morning to see Maxwell (their dog, see previous post) one last time. Saturday was also Run homework day. I decided that as my 8K race is only two weeks away and I have yet to run a distance longer than 5K I would run home. My homework was 3:1x7, but I doubled that to 3:1x14 so that I would actually be running most of the way home.  I was feeling pretty heavy hearted when I left my parents house and honestly wasn't really in the mood to run, but I had decided that I was doing it, and that's what I had to do.  I'm glad that I did go running.  I was concentrating on what I was doing and counting along with my steps.  I had some great splits and some not great splits, but considering I had some major hills to tackle and a major head wind 90% of the time, I'm quite happy with how I did.
http://connect.garmin.com/splits/482956686

I know that I need to focus on getting consistent with my pace, but I'm not going to worry about it right now.  I was however thrilled to pieces to complete the 6.5K run in 1:08:14, that included the 4 minute walking warm up and cool down.  I felt so good when I got home. I was so energized it was great.

This morning, after laying in bed for an extra hour while watching the Elite Men and Women in the Boston Marathon, it was time to head out for my run.  I had 2:1x10 on the homework schedule today, so decided to run out to an elementary school about 4k's away, and have my awesome husband pick me up.  I headed out and was actually disappointed when my watch would beep a rest period.  I wanted to keep running!  I remember in January and February dreading the run clinics when we would run for 1minute and then 2 minutes and today all I wanted to do was run for longer.  I stuck to the homework though and before I knew it, I was at the school.  I once again underestimated how long it would take me to get there so I had to run around the school and then headed back towards home before it was time for the cool down walk.  When we got home, my awesome husband downloaded the information from my garmin and holy moly there were some great splits in there!
http://connect.garmin.com/splits/484470727

Overall pace is a little higher as I stopped to talk to someone as I was cooling down

 With this weeks runs; the time I did them in, the splits, and how I felt after each one, I'm quite excited and confident in my ability to not only run the Vancouver BMO 8K race on May 4th, but do it well within the allotted time.  I am so excited about this race.  It will be the largest (2500 8K runners) and the longest that I have done so far.

Stress is not fun!

This past week was a little stressful.  Commuting into work wasn't exactly a basketful of fun due to traffic, accidents and delays.  Twice this past week the commute home took upwards of 90 minutes.  Not fun!  We also received some bad news for my parents and brother. 

For the third time in less than a year, they have dealt with a gravely sick dog.  Their new puppy Maxwell, appeared to be having seizures in the past couple of weeks.  While trying to find out the cause of the seizures or fainting spells, it was discovered that he had a congenital kidney disease and was given only days, maybe a week to live.

My family is the sort of family that cares deeply for our animals and never ever wants an animal to suffer.  When the vet told my mom and brother that there wasn't anything they could do, he was too far gone.  The hard decision of having to let him go was made.  We received the bad news on Wednesday and by Saturday he had deteriorated tremendously.

Maxwell was the cutest little dog, with the longest tongue I had ever seen.  He would literally bounce for joy when someone came in the front door and would dance in circles wagging his tail so hard that his whole little body would shake.  He loved to cuddle, to play with his toys, and tug on my hair.

He was only with us a short few months, but he brought so much joy and laughter to everyone he met.  He will be sadly missed.

Underestimating myself!

I have come to the conclusion that I am my own worst critic.  I realize for most of us, we probably are.  We are hardest on ourselves when it comes to our perceived limitations.  How often do we say to ourselves, I can't do this, I could never, I will never.....   I know I catch myself doing it on a  regular basis.

Learning to run was one example.  In  January I "couldn't" run for 2 minutes at a time.  I "would never be able to run a full race".  I can run for more than 5 minutes at a time, I ran a full 5km's on the weekend.   I need to stop underestimating myself and selling myself short.  I can do amazing things.  I've proven that over, and over and over again and yet at least once a week when I set out on a run (Yes, I'm allowing myself to say run, not jog, not wog, but run!)  I almost have myself convinced before I'm out the door that I'm going to fail at it.  I'll never be able to do it.  No way no how.

I've done the same thing when I've been estimating a course for running.  I'm finding time and again and again that I end up having to back track, or loop around an area again to give myself enough time and distance to run before I end up back at the beginning.

I ran from somewhere else tonight after work. I figured that I had 3:1x7 on the schedule and that if I did this one loop that would get me all the way done and back with 5 minutes of walking as a warm up and cool down.  That simply wasn't the case.  I had to adjust my route three times along the way so that I wouldn't get back to the start with more intervals to run.   http://connect.garmin.com/activity/481347583  As it was I didn't have any real time to cool down.  I was back where I started with people waiting on me.

I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago when I ran from the tire shop to my doctor's office, and on Sunday with my run clinic homework. I told my husband it would take me at least an hour to make it to the Starbucks when in reality I made it in 54 minutes and that was stopping for 3 lights that took FOREVER to change.

It's time for me, for all of us really, to stop underestimating ourselves.  I'm going to start overestimating for a change, and see where I end up that way.

Fabulous weekend.

What a fabulous weekend.  The Spring has officially arrived with a bang and it's been a fabulous weekend.

I had run clinic on Thursday evening.  It was our first time doing 5:1's.  I was nervous about it most of the day but kept telling myself I would be fine.  Rick would loop back to check on me and all would be good.  I got to run clinic and found out the Rick has a knee injury and won't be able to continue as our fearless leader.  I got really nervous when I heard about it, until I heard that this week Kobie was going to take us out.  I really like Kobie, she was one of the co-leaders of the first part of this clinic that I started in January.  When we headed out, Kobie kept checking on me and I immediately felt at ease. I'm still the turtle, slower than everyone else but I did it.  I ran for 5 minutes at a time for 7 intervals.  It was fabulous.  I felt so good about the clinic, my progress as a runner and how prepared I'm going to be for the BMO 8K coming up at the beginning of May.  My distance splits were and my pace splits were pretty good for Run Clinic.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/477515343

I didn't go to my weight watchers meeting as I should have on Saturday as I had a dental appointment that I have been waiting for too long, to skip it.  I weighed myself at home and on my at home scale I was showing a slight loss compared to last week.  I'll see for sure when I go to weigh in next Saturday.  I was originally planning to do my Run Clinic homework on Saturday but after spending 2 hours in the dentist chair, I just didn't feel up to it.

I woke up Sunday morning at 630 and ate a banana, lay in bed watching tv for a while and then got ready to go for my run.  I wanted to get a full 5K run in this morning, so although my homework was 4:1'sx6  I bumped it up to 4:1x9 so that I would be running the full 5k.  My 8K race is only a couple of weeks away now and I want to ensure that I can finish in the allotted time of 90 minutes. 

It was about 745am when I headed out.  I walked for the first 5 minutes to warm up.  There was quite a wind and I was so cold by the time I got to the end of our street, that I briefly thought about going back to the house to put on a long sleeve shirt.  I'm glad  I didn't.  I had my windbreaker off by the time I finished my third interval!

Gorgeous Morning for a Run.

Because I was doing 5K, I decided to run from my house to the Starbucks down by Costco, which is just over 5km.  The first time I did this route, I pretty much walked the whole way and it took me an hour and 12 minutes.  I was so looking forward to see the time difference, about a year later.  It was quite the difference.  I knocked more than 18 minutes off of my first time, and that doesn't take into account the waiting for traffic lights I had to do at all three major intersections! http://connect.garmin.com/activity/479230543

 Distance5.35km,  Time 54:27 Average Pace 10:10

I was happy with my time and my average pace.  I know that my pace was faster than 10:10, but I had to stop at 3 different traffic lights, waiting for them to change, and I know that looking at my splits, that's where the extra time came from. My distance splits were pretty consistent, in around the .42 of a KM per interval, my pace splits were pretty close as well.

I'm looking forward to run clinic on Thursday when we tackle 6:1's!  6:1's, and to think in January I was struggling to run for 30 seconds at a time!

A week for Scale and Non Scale Victories!

Saturday was a fabulous day!

I started out my Saturday as I do every week.  I went to weigh in at 8am.  I had a great weigh in last week, and I wasn't sure how it would go this week, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about.  I stepped on the scale and with a loss of 2.9 pounds, I have now lost 82.2 pounds.

I was so flipping happy about it that I sent both my husband and my friend "J" texts letting them know how I did.  I was so happy and proud of that loss this week, it meant so much to me!

After weigh in I had to drop my car off to get the winter tires taken off and my all season's put on.  My appointment for that was at 9am and I had a doctor's appointment at 1015.  Now a year ago I would have had my husband come to the tire place and drive me to the doctors.    So what did I do differently? 

I ran to the doctor's office.  I RAN to the doctor's office.  I did 3:1's with a walking warm up and cool down. It was a great run, no issues, no problems, no struggling.   I did so well that I actually ended up having to do some turns instead of going straight from point a to point b.  The map shows all the twists and turns I did and even with them, I ended up being almost a half hour early for my doctor's appointment.  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/473982049

When I went into the doctor's office, he asked me what i was up to and I told him about my morning, about my weigh in, being at a weight lower now than I have been for probably 20 years.  I told him about running to his office, about my 8k race in May.   He's very happy with what I'm doing.  I never would have thought a year ago that I would be doing what I'm doing so I'm happy too.  We talked about my medication that I've been taking for Diabetes.  I've been on Metformin for a few years and in the past year I have gone from a whole pill, to half a pill, and on Saturday my doctor told me I didn't need to take it anymore!  I still need to monitor my blood sugars and I need to go get blood work done every 3 months as a precaution.  However, for all intents and purposes, according to my doctor, "I've healed myself"    He told me he was proud of me.  A year ago I was on 5 different medications and I'm off all of them!

I was so happy to be told I didn't need to take the pills anymore that when I left his office, and stepped outside I was beaming.  My awesome husband was there to pick me up, and he knew from the smile on my face that it had been a good doctor's appointment.

I still have a ways to go, but seeing how far I've come, and what I'm doing now that I couldn't / wouldn't have done a year ago makes me very happy.

I'm looking forward to Run Clinic on Thursday, we have 5:1's on the schedule.  I'm ready to take it on!

Today is a GREAT day

Do you ever wake up some morning and think to yourself "Today is a great day"?   I had one of those mornings this morning.  I was up and out the door early as it's Run Clinic day, which means I'm at work for 7:30am so I can leave at 3:30pm so I can get home in time for Run Clinic.

When I got to work this morning, there was no one else there and as I walked past our "Cool Board" (a white board we write messages on)  I stopped and wrote "Today is a great day".  I don't know why, but I had a great feeling about the day.

It was a great day!  Work went well, I felt like I moved mountains and I'm making progress on my list of things to accomplish.  When I packed up for the day to head home, I was in such high spirits.  Nervous but excited about Run Clinic tonight.  Nervous because we had 4:1's on the schedule for the first time.  Running for 4 full minutes, walking for a minute and repeating 6 times.  I also knew that we have a few hills in there as well, just to keep things challenging:)

Traffic today almost got the best of me on my way home.  It was raining, and at times very hard.  Traffic crawled along every route I took.  The normal 20 minute drive to the freeway took me almost 45 minutes.  When I finally got on the freeway, we were lucky if we hit 40 most of the way home.  I packed my running gear with me, just in case I had to stop at my parents to get changed.   I don't know why I felt I needed to do that last night, but I'm so glad that I did.

I finally pulled off the freeway almost 2 full hours after I got on it.  Whipped into my parents house for a quick change of clothes, say hi, talk for a minute and then I was out the door to run clinic.   Not everyone in our clinic was able to make it tonight, a couple of people had to work.  At 6pm, our fearless leader Rick set off with us in tow for our run.

I know I wrote about how supportive everyone in the clinic is, but they really and truly are.  They are a great group of people to run with and they really don't seem to mind the back tracking they do after every run cycle to let me(aka "The Caboose") catch up to them.  I was nervous when we first started out, a little apprehensive about running for 4 minutes at a time, the longest non stop running I've done so far, but it was good.  I felt good, I wasn't tired, I didn't get any shin cramps.  I did fall behind as I knew I would, but I was still able to hear Rick call out when it was time to walk and as usual the whole group turned around and walked back to me to close in the gap.   It was raining,  quite a bit, we were all soaked, but we all ended feeling pretty good I think.  Here's the route we did tonight. http://connect.garmin.com/dashboard?cid=18243802

A couple of people asked me last week to put up a picture of the running group, so tonight, although we were all cold and wet, we took a picture when we arrived back at the store so I can share with you the great group of people I run with on Thursday nights.

"The Running 101's are upright and smiling"

Rick always tells us at the end of our clinics each week, what a good job we have done, we finished upright and smiling and that's what it's all about.  We were upright, and we were smiling, and I would say that I had fun!  It was hard word, but it was fun.    Today is a GREAT DAY!