Boundary Bay 5K

The Boundary Bay 5K was on Sunday.  I was so relieved when the alarm went off at 545am, to silence.  Yes silence.  No rain beating on the roof as it had been when I went to bed on Saturday night.  I had already packed my post run bag with pants, shirt, socks and shoes.  Just in case it was raining I thought I should have dry clothes for the drive home.  Thankfully, I didn't need them.  It was still dark when my awesome husband and I got in the car at 620 to head out to Boundary Bay.

My wonderful husband picked up my run kit for me on Friday when he was on his way home from work, it took an hour to get the run kit but it was worth not having to drive in any earlier!

Run kit ready to go Sunday Morning.

We were aiming to be at the run site for 730, an hour before start time as I needed to exchange the shirt that I received.  Somehow they had me down for a much smaller size than I wear.  I love dealing with Try Events, they are awesome and so easy to deal with.   We were really surprised when we arrived to see how full the parking lot already was with more than 45 minutes to go before the start of the race.  I had to wait about 20 minutes on site to change my shirt as there were a lot of event day registrants and people picking up their kits.  I was so lucky to get the last shirt in the size that I needed.  When looking at it I thought it may actually fit, so I went into the washrooms and put it on.  Low and behold, a tech shirt actually fit me!  Yeah!

A quick trip back to the car to grab my stuff and I was ready to head to the start line.  There were a lot of people there and I have to admit I was a little nervous as I know that I'm slow and having so many true athlete's around me, really intimidated me for a few minutes.  I had a lot of those "what do you think you're doing here" thoughts going through my head but I quickly overcame my self doubt.   It helped to have my husband there for support,  before it was time to get ready to go.

Wearing my Boundary Bay shirt, ready for warm up.

At the start line, a lot of runners at this race!

After warm up it was time to get in line to start the race, the race was full marathon, half marathon, relay marathon, 10K and 5K.  They asked us 5ker's to stay towards the back of the line to let the others get away.   After the start gun it probably took about 2 minutes to get to the actual start line but before long we were off.  It was a gorgeous day and the trail is along the bay, the tide was out but there were still some beautiful views to be seen.

Yep, just me on the trail, with a few people walking behind me.

As I started out at the back of the pack, and I always walk the first five minutes or so it wasn't long before there were just a handful of us on any section of trail at a given time.  There were a couple of ladies in front of me that I managed to pass but I was still at the back of the pack, which is fine with me.  I'm not running the full races yet, although I figure I ran about 1/4 of the way.

Heading back, still the only one on the trail with a couple of people behind me.

It was great to see quite a few people in the community out cheering people on, especially when we reached the end of the trail and were on the road for a little bit.   The energy of the crowd as you got closer to the finish line was great and as some of the 10k runners were passing me towards the finish line there was a lot of energy to carry you through.  I crossed the finish line and saw my wonderful husband standing along the finishers chute cheering me on, it always gives me such a sense of accomplishment to hear my name as I cross the finish line.  My Garmin Finish time was 54:29,  my chip time was 54:16  a new Personal best for me  I'm going to work on getting that time down some more as I really do want to do the BMO 8K in May.

Love my finishers medal for this race!

Next up is the Santa Shuffle on December 7th.  I'm working on getting some friends to join me, so it should be fun for everyone!

I Love Zumba!!!!

When I had my gym membership, I loved going to the Zumba class!  I'm not coordinated at all, not in the least, when everyone goes to the right, I'm the one going to the left! LOL!  I loved going to the Zumba class as it didn't matter if I was doing the right moves or not, I was moving my body and that's what mattered.  Unfortunately the gym changed the Zumba class to an hour earlier and that left me not being able to attend due to my commuting time. 

I forgot how much I loved doing Zumba until today!  I went to the open house at my Weight Watchers centre and they had a Zumba instructor doing half hour Zumba sessions.  It was so much fun!   I loved the music and the movements and the instructor there was really good, showing you low impact and high impact movements.

I would love to do Zumba again, however looking on line for a Zumba class, there really isn't one that I can find without a gym membership.  I found an aqua Zumba, but that really isn't for me.  I just wish I could find one that I could drop in at every once in a while.  Oh well.

This week was a pretty good week, according to my Garmin this week I spent 6 hours, 17 minutes and 32 seconds walking, that doesn't include my Yoga, kickboxing or today's Zumba class.  Not bad at all.  I'm happy with my level of activity.

I didn't have a loss this week.  I'm not surprised as I did a volunteer job yesterday that ended up being 12 hours of sitting, so I didn't get that much activity in.  According to my pedometer I only took 8645 steps all day.  I could feel my feet swelling last night, and my shoes were tight on me this morning so I'm just happy I didn't have a gain from my day of inactivity.

On the Road to Success!

After my successful intervals on Friday, I was itching to go out and do intervals again today to see how I would do.  I'm participating in a virtual 5K this week as well, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone?  Do my intervals and get in my virtual 5k?  My awesome husband kept Angus with him, and agreed to pick me up about an hour after I left the house at the Starbucks down by Costco.  It was a little foggy this morning so I wore my bright orange jacket.  It's so bright that I'm sure you could see me coming a mile away.

You can see how foggy it was, usually you can see across the freeway with no trouble.

I got ready and headed out for my walk/run and was immediately feeling good.  So good in fact that I started running before I had planned to.  I didn't use my watch to time my intervals, I just wanted to go as far as I could with each one and go from there.  I am so pleased with how far I ran today (I figure pretty close to 50% running) that for the first time ever, on my Garmin connect account I didn't put my activity as walking, but I left it as running!

I ran down the hill, to the gas station, walked across the cross walk and up to the freeway over pass, ran over the over pass, walked to South Parallel and then started running.  I set goals for myself as I was running, to judge the distance and to ensure that I would make my goal.  I used the roadside reflectors, or the mileage signs, some telephone poles and some power poles, driveways and barns for distances.  I made it Angus Campbell road, in 35minutes!  The first time I chose to walk this route, I thought it would take me an hour to get there, it only took 50 minutes that time but to shave that much time off by running/walking to me was amazing!

Checking my time at Angus Campbell Road 3.22km's in, loved seeing an average pace in the 10's!

It wasn't long before I came to the part of the road where if it weren't foggy I would have been able to see the Starbucks sign on Sumas way, for reference, it's across the street from the barn that you're seeing over to the right.

The barn is the white roof towards the left of the screen, before the trees.

I was thrilled when I got to this point as I was only at about 43 minutes or so.  I was feeling really well, and still running more than I was walking.  I was feeling so good about it...at one point, as I was running up an incline I was talking to myself telling myself to just get to the top, just get to the top, when I realized I was actually coming down the other side of it.   It felt so good to send a text to my husband as I turned onto Sumas way to start my cool down by just walking to note that I was under 50 Minutes and only had a half kilometer or so to go!

Finished watch time 53:53  Garmin Connect moving time 48.09 average pace of 10:47, Average moving pace of 9:22 best pace of 6:05!

I almost missed taking a picture at the 5km mark for proof for the Virtual 5K because I was feeling so good and didn't think I had gone that far!  It was amazing to think that the first time I did this walk, it took me an hour and 12 minutes to do.  In 6 months I've cut 20 minutes off of that time by walking faster and running.  I feel so good about this, that I can't wait for Tuesday to go out and run intervals again.  Hopefully I'll be ready for the Rubber Ducky 5K on October 20th and I'll be able to run most if not all of it!

Moving right along!

Things are moving right along and I'm very happy with how they are moving!   It was a great week for walking this week,  in the last 7 days according to my Garmin (which I only wear when doing a serious walk or walk/run)  I have spent 4 hours, 28 minutes and 4 seconds walking.  I have walked 17.66 km's during 6 activities.  This makes me happy, happy, happy.

It was a very hot week here, very unusual for mid September, fortunately I'm an early riser so we had our walks completed in the early morning, before the heat of the day.  Something that the dog has been grateful for I'm sure.  I have to admit I'm lucky with Angus, he'll usually walk as far as I want to, he's good with doing stairs, he's good with running (occasionally, when he's in the mood).  However with the heat and his winter coat coming in, this is his usual position when I come out of the shower after our walks.

Thanks for the walk, I'm just going to lay here and recover.

I had a great meeting this week, I was down a little over two pounds for a total weight loss now of 68.9 pounds.  I'm so excited to see a steady loss again!  Last week at the meeting my leader Colleen asked three of us if we could be the weight loss success stories for this week.  She gave us a questionnaire to fill out and asked us to bring either a before picture or an article of clothing to show how far we've come.  I decided to bring my trench coat with me.  I bought the coat last year and when I got it, even though it was the largest size they had, I couldn't button it up properly.  The top button would do up, the middle button would strain if I did it up and the bottom button...well there was no way it would do up.  I noticed during February and March that I was able to do up the top two buttons no problem and I never really even tried to do up the bottom button, just because.  I stopped wearing it in April  and May when the weather got warm and haven't had it on really since May or so.  I put it on Thursday night to see, and it is now huge.  I had originally thought I would be able to take it in, but there is no way that is going to happen, it is simply too large to do that with.

My hands are at the two edges of the coat showing where the buttons are, when I couldn't do them up.

My hands are showing where the two edges of the coat are now, a HUGE difference!

When I was originally asked my impulse was to say no, I'm not a success yet, I've got a long way to go....but it was pointed out to me that I am a success.  I've lost a lot of weight, I've changed my lifestyle.  I'm active and outgoing now.  If there's a day that goes by when I haven't gone for a walk, I just don't feel right.  It felt so good to be in my meeting and be able to share my success so far.   I am a success, and I'm moving right along....in the right direction!

I left Angus at home on Friday, I decided I wanted to do long intervals and I know that just won't happen with Angus.   When I headed out to my weight watchers meeting I took my work out clothes with me to change into after the meeting.  I then headed up to Rotary stadium to do the 5K Route that is used for the Run for the Cure.  I put on my ipod and started out and felt great.  I walked the first seven minutes or so and then started doing my intervals.  I didn't go by time or landmarks today, I wanted to see how I would do just going as long as I thought I could.  It was the right decision.  The majority of my intervals were almost a minute or perhaps a little longer than that.  I felt great, and it was such a sense of pride.  When I time my intervals with the watch, I struggle to get 30 seconds in as I'm watching the clock.  Today I didn't do that I just went and hit the lap button on my watch every time I started running and walking.  It was great!  I'm really proud of these times!  http://connect.garmin.com/activity/375042459  I goofed up on the walk and somehow missed a km on the route, I guess I turned too early and didn't get the full park loop in so it was only 4.1km's but I'm happy with how I did!

Hills, Hills and more hills???

I feel as though I have been having an up hill battle kind of week this week.  My husband has been away on a business trip so it's been the dog and I.  When my husband is home, I ensure that we have a good healthy dinner at the table each night.  I really should have done that this week.  I didn't I usually ate on the fly, at the computer.  I didn't even eat dinner at the table tonight, I ate sitting at the desk as I was getting ready for a call with some volunteers.  My eating hasn't been as good as it should have been.  I didn't go wild, I just didn't eat properly.  Unless you count heating up Brusselsprouts in the microwave at 830 at night proper.  (I don't!)  My husband will be home in about 26 hours and everything will click back into place.

It was an uphill battle all week, I didn't eat properly, I didn't do any intervals at all.  (My pledge from last week not to do intervals with the dog ever again still stands).  I did get out for my mid day walks, add in a dog walk in the morning, and one in the evening and I managed to get a lot of activity in.  Which equaled a 1.2pound loss this week at weigh in!  I was very happy, that's three weeks in  row I've had significant weight loss!

My activity this week was a lot of walking, walking the dog in at 530 in the morning was new for me this week, my husband normally takes the dog in the morning, and I do the evenings.  I was really happy with my steps and I'm trying to keep my km's up as I have another 5k Race coming up on Canada Day.  I'll be doing the Rock on the Rock in White Rock to celebrate Canada day.  On the website it said that the route is a 2.5km out and back flat route.

The day before my husband went away we drove out to White Rock to get an idea of the area.  I found a route map from last year on line and we had a rough idea of where the walk starts and ends, and yes that's flat, but unless the route is different this year, than last year, it's not a flat out and back route.  There's a HUGE hill at the 1.5km mark that goes for 3/4 of a km!

That got me worried, so I've worked a lot of hills into my mid day walks this week, which isn't hard in Vancouver, and fortunately here at home I've got a hill to get off our street, and one to get back on it.

I took Angus this morning up the Whatcom Road hill near where we live.  It's a fairly long steep hill, we walked up to the first cross walk, back down, to the flats, and then up the Winfield Park Trail to get home.  All in all it was a 2.75 km walk that took us almost 40 minutes to do.  Considering I had the dog with me who either kept looking over his shoulder expecting to get picked up and driven home or simply sitting down with that "I'm not going another step" look on his face.  I'm not disappointed with our time.

I'm not taking another step I tell ya!  

Those hill's are a killer for a puppy dog, I'm exhausted!

Steps for this week:
Sunday         12,220
Monday       14,789
Tuesday       12,806
Wednesday  15,665
Thursday     11,101
Friday          14,496
Total Steps   81,077