Race report: Morton Plant Mease Hospital Prostate Cancer Awareness 10K

Why yes, I am writing up a race report TWO MONTHS after the race occured...what of it? :) Things have been a little hectic, so I'm just now catching up. This race was my first ever 10K (6.2 miles) and was step 2 in my "stepping stone" training plan to train for my half marathon in December. I ran two 10Ks in September and a 15K in October to work towards surviving a half marathon in December. It may not be the soundest training plan, but it's been working for me. Anyway, I was excited to make this my first 10K because my Dad is a 10+ year survivor of prostate cancer and I was proud to wear a shirt saying that I was running in his honor. (It's in the pic above.) The run was in through the ritzier neighborhoods of Clearwater (we ran by Hulk Hogan's old home twice), over the HUGE Clearwater Pass bridge (the same one I ran over for the Iron Girl 5K)and back to the hospital. When I turned around at the halfway point past the bridge I counted the runners behind me, then subtracted or added when I passed someone or was passed. I stayed ahead of an average of 15 runners for the second half of the race- way in the back, but not the caboose of the race. I ran at a steady pace for the first 5 miles, then I took a 5 minute walking break. I was so happy to see the finish line and to know that I had successfully completed my first 10K! Once I finished, I stopped to have my timing chip cut off and had to be held up by a priest who was volunteering at the finish line- my legs didn't want to stop after running 6.2 miles! Here is one more picture, this is when I saw my son and husband just a few feet from the finish line, I was happy to see them!

Race Report: WFYRC Beach Series- Race 4 (Clearwater Beach, Florida)

This past Friday was the final race in the summer beach race series I did. This one was very different from the other two races in the series that I did, thanks to a late June tropical storm that resulted in record levels of beach erosion that really resculpted the look of Clearwater Beach. This time, the race was a bit of an obstacle course- there were easily a half dozen times where the runners had to cross up to ankle deep trenches of water where the surf had encroached on the beach for many, many more feet than it used to. My shoes and socks were soaked by the time I finished! There was also a huge amount of seaweed carpeting the beach, it made for a wet, slippery, uneven running surface. I wore my new "Sweat Pink" tank, check out the link to the right of this blog entry for more information about the Sweat Pink movement to get women active. My son fixed my headphones so they stayed in place this time, but my Nike+ GPS program didn't work at all so the headphones didn't really serve their purpose for this race. I'm afraid my iPhone is almost ready to give up the ghost, lots of things are getting wonky on it. I finished in 36:50, which is a few seconds faster than my time in race #1- but that didn't involve all the water obstacles, so I'm calling this one an even better time. :) My next race is my first official 10K, the Morton Plant Hospital Prostate Cancer Awareness 5K and 10K race. That race is special to me because it was my very first race, two years ago (with a 5K time of 49 minutes, which I've now dropped down to 33 to 35 minutes for road races) and my Dad is a prostate cancer survivor of over 10 years so I enjoy doing a run that supports that cause. The race is just over a month away, I'm excited to conquer a new distance!

Vacation is over and race report: Race for Grace 5K

While I was on vacation I got the chance to do a 5K outside of my home state for the first time, doing the Race for Grace 5K in Logansport, Indiana. I like the picture above because it actually shows me RUNNING with relatively fit people at the finish line, lol. I'm on the far right in the teal "Fight Like a Girl" shirt. The race was to raise funds for a 72 hour prayer and discipleship event that the church where the 5K was held does every year. This was also the first time I've done a 5K with a family member other than my husband. This time, my nephew (who is on the cross country team at his school and finished 6 minutes ahead of me), my sister in law and her father all did the 5K. Before it started, we were warned about "Holy Hill", a very steep hill with several churches on it that starts and ends the race. However, we were reminded that one the way back, once you get over Holy Hill, "the promised land" (the finish line) is just feet away. The coolest part of this 5K was the view from the top of that hill on the way out- from there, I could look down and see the hundreds of people ahead of me in the valley created by the hill, it was really a pretty sight. The two hills really did about do me in, with all of my races being in flat Florida I'm not used to those! I ended up coming in 147th place (almost exactly in the middle of the pack) with a time of 35:48 according to my chip. I somehow paused my Nike+GPS at around 2 1/2 miles, so the time on that was way off. The very best part of the race was the AWESOME post race snacks- grapes, apples, oranges and hundreds of amazing homemade cookies. I tracked every bit of it on WW, but I surely did enjoy using up 1/4 of my points for the day on those wonderful peanut butter/chocolate/oatmeal cookies. Way to go, church ladies! I was very careful on my eating while on vacation (I actually lost 2 pounds over the 3 weeks), but since I hadn't weighed in at WW since the beginning of June I showed a gain of 6 pounds and had a lapse in my lifetime member status. I had to pay for a week of WW and I'll continue to have to pay until I lose another 4 pounds to get to the high end of my goal range. Hopefully that will only take a few weeks, it's very disheartening to have to pay after striving for so many weeks to earn that "free" status. :)

Vacation 2012...staying on track, on the road!

We're about 10 days into our 3 week summer vacation to my hometown in Indiana. We'll be in Indiana with my family for about 2 1/2 weeks, then we'll spend 5 days (two days of that is travel time) hiking at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee before we come home. I need to drop about 3 pounds by the time we get home to keep my Weight Watchers lifetime membership intact, that's rough to do but I've tracked everything I've eaten and I've been able to stay within my points range. I've been walking almost every evening, so I'm getting a little activity in- nothing like my 50 activity points some weeks at home with my gym classes, but it's something. I did find a great snack/lunch idea that I've had almost every day. I take a Flat Out original light bread, and I spread a Laughing Cow lowfat cream cheese on it. Then I mix 2 tbsp of PB2 with 2 tbsp of unsweetened almond milk and spread that on top of the cream cheese. Fold up the sides to hold in the cream cheese and PB2, then roll up. It makes a very peanut buttery treat, only 4 WW points and 16g of protein. Delicious! Today at church the pastor (who is also my brother's father in law) announced that he was doing a 5K next Saturday in the next town and of course my ears perked up at that. I got the information from him, and I just registered for it. It's the Race For Grace 5K, to raise funds for ministry events at a church. I'm very excited, it will be my first 5K in another state (for that matter, the first one outside my home county in Florida). I brought along all of my running gear just in case, so I'm all set. I'll be back with a race report after the race on Saturday.

Race Report: WFYRC Beach Series- Race 2 (Clearwater Beach, Florida)

Source: theweightofperfection.tumblr.com via Fit Approach on Pinterest

I did the second beach race in the WFYRC series on Friday night, I improved my time over the previous race by a bit....not much, but any improvement is good! I started off running with one of my good friends from the gym, then I passed her a little bit and I was feeling really good about my pace. Suddenly I realized that my craptastic headphones that I had carefully threaded through my shirt, out my collar and into the one ear that I use during races had fallen out and were rapidly winding around my legs as a ran. My friend caught up with me, helped me extricate myself from my headphones and off she went. I never did catch up with her, and she ended up finishing about 2 minutes ahead of me as I struggled with my headphone cord and never did get it arranged right. We had a tropical storm off the coast, so while the wind was delightfully at our backs on the way out, it was a struggle coming back with the wind. (In fact, on Sunday the lifeguard shacks we ran past at the races came off their foundations and were adrift in the storm surge!)I was dragging a little on the way back, and for some reason I thought if I encouraged the runners just starting the race on the opposite side of the beach that I would gain a second wind. I saw a group in matching t-shirts that indicated they were in a weight loss challenge, they were clearly struggling. I ran up to one of them, yelled "way to go!" and went in for a high five. I startled him, and he veered into me so my high five was more of an elbow to the ribs. I turned to apologize, and noted that he was doing sign language...so yeah, I totally nailed a deaf runner in the ribs. Go me! :( I don't have any pictures of this race, because my son (the official photog of my running support team) was gone at a yearbook seminar. We're leaving for vacation on Friday, so I'll miss the 3rd race in the series, but we'll be back in time for the final beach race the first week of August.

Race report: WFYRC Beach Series- Race 1 (Clearwater Beach, Pier 60)

I signed up for a summer beach race series, there are 4 races but I'll be on vacation for the July race so I'll do two in June and one in August. They all begin and end at beautiful Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach during the sunset festival that is held there each night. The races are run just inches from the water, at times you have to step quickly to the side if you'd like to avoid soaking your pricey running shoes in saltwater from the tide coming in. A friend who is a marathoner told me that beach races are harder and slower, and it surely was. It was a beautiful location, but not even half way in I got a wicked stitch in my side and nothing that I tried would clear it. So, I just focussed on finishing (and not falling in the sand castle moats that sprinkled the shoreline, THAT'S very important in this race series!) and didn't worry too much about my time. My finish time was 36:57, over 3:45 longer than my personal best. I have the second race in the series this coming Friday, I'm hoping to improve my time a bit and perhaps avoid that darn side stitch this time. The picture above is me after the race, you can see the pier where the start and finish line was under ("under the boardwalk...down by the sea..") right behind me, as well as my husband popping his head into the picture to say "it's raining, can we GO now?" :) I achieved my first "lifetime" monthly weigh in at Weight Watchers on June 2nd- you have to weigh in once a month within 2 pounds (up or down) of your goal weight to remain a lifetime (free) member. The receptionist noted that I don't have to weigh in again until sometime before July 31st, and something clicked in a bad place in my brain. I guess I got a little cocky because I decided I could "take a few days off" of WW to enjoy my anniversary and get through the last week of school. Bad move- when I went to my doctor's appointment 11 days later for a checkup, I was up over 10 pounds! (However, that was weighing in heavier clothes, with shoes on AND after eating lunch...but that surely can't account for ALL 10 of those pounds!) I've been hitting the gym hard since then and eating well and now I'm back to within 5-6 pounds of where I need to be before July 31st so things are looking up. I just have to keep reminding myself that there is NO "free week" allowed in maintaining a 100+ pound weight loss. To paraphrase the quote about the price of liberty, the price of maintaining long term weight loss is eternal (nutritional and exercise) vigilance.

Lifetime member at last!

Tonight was my 6th week of WW maintenance after reaching my goal weight, and since I stayed within 2 pounds (up or down) of my goal weight at today's weigh in I became a lifetime member! (Best part of being a lifetime member= no more paying for Weight Watchers!) My final weight after maintenance was just 4/10th of a pound above my goal weight, to be a lifetimer I have to keep it within 2 pounds with a weigh in once a month. My total weight loss was 101 pounds and 7 pants sizes in 2 1/2 years. (From a size 22/24 to a 6/8...not sure how that is counted but I think it's 7 sizes.) When I weighed myself this morning I was still 2/3 of a pound too high to make lifetime so I got in a 4 mile run before the meeting and that did the trick. :) This picture is me with my Weight Watchers leader and the receptionist who has been so encouraging to me for the last year and a half or so. I plan on still attending a WW meeting every week, though I'll only weigh in once a month. :) I also had a dexascan (bone density test) today, I'll be interested to see if the weight loss, strength training and cardio I've been doing will show as improved bone density. I was told that I had osteopenia in my late 30s due to a tumor on my parathyroid that was somehow pulling the calcium out of my bones. My endocrinologist said that I had the bones of a woman in her late 50s- not a good thing to hear in your 30s. I had the parathyroid tumor removed, which improved my calcium and Vitamin D levels. This was the first dexascan after that, so I'll definitely be looking forward to the results of the dexascan in two weeks. It was funny, the lady doing the dexascan had my records from 3 years ago and she was concerned that she had the wrong file due to the big difference in the weights listed- over 100 pounds. Once I explained that it really was my file, she never quit asking me questions the whole time she was doing the dexascan, lol. I joined a local running club yesterday, mainly to get a discount on their series of beach 5K races this summer. They also offer Tuesday morning workouts (at 4:50 AM!) at the track at my old high school, so I may give that a try once I'm out of school for the summer in two weeks. Thanks for the support as I've stumbled through this maintenance phase of Weight Watchers, I hope that I'll continue to have it as I work on the "lifetime" WW part!

Food find: Lipton vanilla caramel truffle black tea

I've been fighting a nasty flu/cold/whatever it is for six days now, so not much blogging has been happening. My weigh in this week showed a 2/10ths of a pound gain, but considering that I've just gotten back to the gym this AM that's understandable. I need to be down 2.4 pounds in the next two weeks to achieve lifetime member status at Weight Watchers, and since my weigh in (two days ago) I've lost half of that so it's looking good, especially once I kick this illness to the curb. Since I've been feeling ill I've been having a lot of tea, and I found a wonderful low WW point treat. It's **almost** Starbucks worthy (at least as far as hot drinks go), for a lot fewer points. (I really doubt that there is a points-friendly replacement for the heavenly frozen caramel fraps I have from Starbucks twice a week- love those things, and I'll continue to totally plan my Thursdays and Saturdays around them, points-wise.) I've been having this Lipton vanilla caramel truffle black tea with 16 ounces of hot water and I add 1 1/2 tablespoons of International Delights Coffee House Inspirations fat free skinny caramel macchiatto coffee creamer to it and stir well (if you don't stir well the creamer settles to the bottom- not a good thing.) The tea is 0 WW points, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the creamer is 1 WW point. It's a great treat for 1 point, give it a try!

Midweek maintenance report.....meh!

The last two days have been my most horridly "off program" days in over a year and a half, and just at the midpoint of my six weeks of maintenance....not the most opportune time to fly off the tracks. Things are getting stressful at work, and my son's freshman high school year is winding down in a hailstorm of project due dates, special events and final exam terror. I've responded to all of this by eating...a lot...of really, really bad things. In the last 48 hours I've had a mountain of chocolate covered expresso beans, banana split granola bars, chocolate chip cookies and homemade Reeses Cups the size of my fist. For reals. I have my weigh in tomorrow and I fully expect to have gained (best case scenario)a pound, most likely more. I was already over the "high end" of my maintenance range from my last weigh in so now I'll just be digging a deeper hole for my looming goal weight deadline at the end of May. I'm blogging this in the hopes that doing so will pull me out of whatever is making me screw up my hard work to lose these 101 pounds. Get back on track, stupid! :)

Restaurant review: Applebee's new Weight Watchers menu items & maintenance week 2 weight in

Last week, I was thrilled to find out that I had won an Applebee's $25 gift card on a giveaway on the blog Weight Watchers Wannabe. The point of the giveaway was to introduce Applebee's 3 new Weight Watchers Points Plus entree choices. So, when my son volunteered to run the lights, sound and video for his school prom tonight it seemed like a perfect time to make use of that gift card and enjoy a date night with my husband while our child was occupied for the evening. I chose the Grilled Jalapeno-Lime Shrimp (Weight Watchers PointsPlus value: 8). The Applebee's website describes it as: "a hearty portion of grilled chipotle lime shrimp and black bean corn salsa tossed with lime juice and chopped cilantro, served on a mix of grilled zucchini, marinated tomatoes, onions & red peppers with steamed white rice."

The shrimp was very good, especially the veggies, beans and corn salsa which was very flavorful. My only disagreement with the description is the phrase "a hearty portion"- I understand that portion control is a vital part of Weight Watchers, but there really wasn't a whole lot of food in this meal. I enjoyed the meal very much, but the fact is that I could have easily eaten two servings before I felt like I'd had a full meal. However, for 8 points it's a good deal in both price and points cost. My husband got the Cabernet Mushroom Sirloin (Weight Watchers PointsPlus value: 12). This is a Applebee’s 7 oz. grilled House Sirloin with sautéed Portobello mushrooms & onions in a Napa Valley Cabernet sauce with steamed herbed potatoes and garlic broccoli.

Same story here- the food itself was excellent, but my husband was still hungry once he'd eaten everything on his plate. As he said, that portion size was not intended for a full grown man such as himself. We ate at a little after 5 and by 6:30 we were both ready to eat again. In summary, the new Applebee's menu choices are very good, but be aware that they are not the most filling meals. I came home and enjoyed a yogurt/banana smoothie and some fresh fruit afterwards and I'm good. (My husband is planning a full additional meal, however- he's still quite hungry! Then again, he's also 6 foot 1 and 280 lbs so he can really consume some food!) :) The update on week 2 of maintenance at WW is that I'm up 1.2 pounds, for a total gain of 2.6 pounds since I started maintenance. However, this particular gain was earned- there were dietary transgressions this past week. Gloriously chocolaty transgressions at that, so I'm ok with the gain. For the week coming up I've lowered my daily points allowance back to my pre-goal range of 26 until I can get back to my goal weight. Then, I'll bump it back up 2 or 3 points to make a more focussed attempt at maintenance. :)

Iron Girl Clearwater 5K race recap

We had a very busy, but very wonderful weekend. We saw Rick Springfield in concert Saturday night at a park in Clearwater. We were worried about the weather, since the forecast called for thunderstorms, hail and flooding but we had a perfect window of calm weather to see Rick, then the rain started again literally moments after got in our car to head home after the show. As usual, Rick ventured out in the audience and shook as many hands as he could while singing. My friend of over 25 years, Dianne, got to (in her words) "assess the muscle tone of Rick's kidney area" when he paused in front of her and my husband got a handshake from Rick. I didn't have any "Rick contact" this time, but I've had it in the past (his obliques! I touched his obliques when he was in the crowd at a previous concert and I've also touched his shoulder with the beautiful Celtic cross tattoo....we Rick fans are a funny lot)so it was ok. Rick closed with my favorite song of his "Christina" so I was hyped! It was funny, there were two of my co-workers there and I think I shocked them a little with my frenzied singing, dancing and yelling at Rick. Heck, they saw me climbing over rows of rickety folding chairs to get to Rick- I bet they didn't expect that of their normally mild mannered school librarian! :) The morning after the Rick show, we got up at 5AM to head back to Clearwater for the Iron Girl 5K. The race started at 7:30, but to get a parking space we had to arrive quite early. It was very nicely organized, even with nearly 4,000 women running (between the 5K and the half marathon)things went quite smoothly. The race that I ran had 2,534 women running in it and it was REALLY packed tight for the first 3/4 of a mile, but then it opened up pretty well. It was so crowded that I couldn't get my pace any better than a 12 minute mile until the crowd stretched out a bit. Once I finished the first mile (at just under 12 minutes)I was able to speed up a bit, but at that point I knew that my goal was just to finish and not worry about a new personal best with the slow start that I had. As it turns out, I finished only 23 seconds short of a PR- if it hadn't been for that slow start I'd have totally made it! I wish I'd looked at my Nike+GPS more often during the race, I'd have picked up the pace if I'd known it was looking like a new PR. Even so, the experience of the race was so much fun that just finishing really was good enough. My time was 33:41, with an average pace of 10:52 per mile. The race featured a huge, steep bridge that was definitely challenging, but I had preview run it with my friend Amy several days earlier so I knew what to expect. I ended up finishing a few seconds before Amy, then she hung out with my husband and I for a while afterwards so that was nice. There were lots of people lining the course with signs, my favorite ones were bright purple and said "Ladies, you kick asphalt!" At the end, we got wonderful finisher medals- mine is already hanging in a place on honor in my home. I got the official results from the race today, here are my stats: Time: 33:41 Pace: 10:52/mile Division place: 77/316 (so, I placed 77th among the 316 women from 40-44 years old in the race) Overall place: 564/2534 (I placed 564th among the 2534 women who completed the 5K- I'm math impaired, but I believe that's in the top 20%- I am *thrilled* with that result.) Now I'm thinking about trying a half marathon in December....I found one that says that it "welcomes walkers", so I'd have the option of doing run/walk intervals if my gas tank runs dry on running. We'll see. Either way, I will be doing the Iron Girl again next year, it was a wonderful experience.

Weight Watchers maintenance: Crazy Train Edition

This was my first week of maintenance on Weight Watchers after reaching my goal weight last week. WW suggests that you raise your points allowance on maintenance by up to 6 daily points and decrease that as needed until you are maintaining- that is, neither gaining or losing. I increased mine by what I thought was a conservative 3 points per day and when I weighed in I had gained 1.4 pounds. Grrrr. The awesome receptionist reminded me that maintenance is a "balancing act" and advised me to drop down to 2 points added to my previous pre-goal points allowance and see what happens this coming week. I say this "balancing act" is more like a wacky see saw with a roulette wheel and the conductor of the crazy train on the other end. While it probably won't help that I've already used 28 of my weekly points, we'll see where this crazy train ends up on next Thursday. I'm WAY tempted to go right the heck back to my pre-goal points allowance and just stay there. I'm stressing a little over maintenance so I'll feel better once I hit lifetime and only have to weigh in once a month. The blurry picture here (thanks, iPhone camera!) is my "inspiration board" featuring things that help keep me on track on WW. The "certificate of accomplishment" is my 100 pounds lost award from WW, thrilled to finally have that! I also have postcards from my WW leader, quotes, Twitter messages, and a nice message that my husband printed out and put on there while I was gone one day, "I'm proud of you!". :) Below the inspiration board is a holder for my race numbers, with my personal best race bib on top. We have a busy weekend planned, this morning I went to the gym and did the BodyVive and BodyAttack classes. This evening we are going to see Rick Springfield (my inner 13 year old girl always squeals a little when I say his name) at an outdoor concert in Clearwater. This is probably the 7th or 8th time I've seen him in concert, he puts on a great show. He often comes into the audience for several songs, and as a result I can say that I have touched Rick Springfield several times as he's roared by. (I think you have to be a woman of a certain age, raised in the 80s, to appreciate the blessing of touching a sweaty Rick Springfield) :) I'm going with Dianne; one of my great friends since high school, and my husband John is going as our personal security. I think he secretly enjoys Ricks music a little too, but he always claims to be going to protect us from the overzealous Rick fans. One concern is that the show is outside and tonight we are expected to have 2-3 inches of rain, hail, thunderstorms and flooding. For Rick, we will risk it! Hopefully the rain will clear up by Sunday AM because I have the Iron Girl 5K run at 7:30 AM. We will run from Coachman Park in Clearwater (the same place where we are seeing the concert tonight) to the pier at Clearwater Beach. I did a practice run over the big scary bridge over to Clearwater Beach with one of my pals from the gym on Tuesday night and it was no problem- I can say to that bridge "you don't scare me bridge!". Now if the thunderstorms and hail will just stay away! I'll be back on Sunday with a race recap, John is coming along and will take pics IF the weather isn't too bad- don't want to lose a camera in the downpour!

GGGOOOOOOAAAAAALLLL! (Read in the booming voice of a Mexican Univision TV soccer announcer, duh!)

As you might gather from the ridiculously overwrought ALL CAPS title of this blog entry, I *finally* reached my goal weight at Weight Watchers last night. I needed to lose 6/10ths of a pound to reach goal, but when I stepped on that scale I had actually lost 1.6 pounds so I was a full pound UNDER my goal weight, with a total loss of 101 pounds! My group of friends who've attended WW with me for most of the 2 1/2 years ( the "No Pudge Posse", made up of myself, my BFF of 35+ years Lisa, our other friend Lisa and my husband John) it took to get there came with me to the scale to celebrate. My original goal weight was 143, but since I weighed in at 142 I set that as my official goal weight to start my 6 weeks of maintenance. I'm still freaking out that 142 is too high, but since I've worn size 8 pants to work every day this week and I can *just* get into size 6 capris, I think that I'm still seeing the "old" me that weighed 101 pounds more when I think about my weight, I might actually BE at a healthy weight. My best friend Lisa took the picture that is on this post, neither my husband or I were organized enough to *bring a camera* so Lisa did the honors with her cell phone camera. I got my 100 pounds lost charm, my goal weight charm and my maintenance book and instructions at the meeting, then the leader called me to the front of the room. I told how much I'd lost, then the leader
sat down and told me to talk. I said "I thought that's what I just did!"...I'm SO not comfortable talking in front of people. So, I talked about my 9 5K runs, how long it took to lose the weight, etc. Then she asked if anyone had questions for me as I frantically tried to retreat back to my seat, lol. A man asked "so what are you going to eat now that you've reached goal?", I answered that on WW I can eat whatever I want as long as I plan for it- I really think he thought I was going to freak out and eat gallons of ice cream now that I'd hit goal, I'm hoping that's not his plan once he gets there! :) Then a woman said "with an over 100 pound loss there has to be some issue with...loose skin, right?" I fear that I overshared, because I vaguely recall telling the 30+ people at WW that my stomach was "not pretty, and just plain gross". Ug. Thank goodness they didn't ask me anything more embarrassing than that, because I was sort of in a haze of anxiety from being in front of all of those folks, who KNOWS what I might have said! :) I have 6 weeks of maintenance, I increased my WW points range by 3 points and I'll weigh in next week and see how that works. If I maintain, I'll stay in that range- if I lose, then the points are increased again, if I gain then the points are reduced. It's all a balancing act to keep the weight stable now. After 6 weeks, if I'm still within 2 pounds up or down from my goal weight of 142 (so, between 140 and 144 pounds)then I will become a free lifetime member two days after my 43rd birthday. That is especially sweet since I remember how upset I was to realize that on my 30th birthday I weighed over 200 pounds and by my 40th birthday I was over 240- I love (hopefully) making WW lifetime member so close to my birthday for that reason!
Tomorrow is my big day at the gym, I usually take 2 or 3 classes in the morning. The great instructor for my favorite class, Body Attack, says that they will be celebrating my weight loss goal at the class with some workouts of his choosing...I'll apologize in advance to the others in the class as I fear he will be inflicting some pain on us, lol. Then a week from this Sunday is the IronGirl 5K, I am very excited about enjoying that event with so many other women- and the awesome race bling at the end isn't bad either! Now that I've rambled on, I'm off to go catch up on everybody's blogs. I love reading your comments here, if you've suffered this long through the blog please drop me a comment. :)

Race Recap: Upgrade 2 Success 5K

Source: polyvore.com via Sherrie on Pinterest

These are the running shoes that a coworker of mine at school helped me pick out, between these and the awesome pink wicking toe socks that my Dad found on Amazon, I can now run without toe pain- what a relief! Today was the Upgrade 2 Success 5K run. It was a fundraiser to get technology for four schools, including the one that my BFF of 30+ years, Lisa, works at. The day started rather rough, when my garage door would only open about 6 inches high for some reason. As you might imagine, my Mustang can't quite squeeze out an opening that small! It had worked just fine a half hour earlier when my husband left to cater a wedding, but I was stuck in the garage. Luckily, my house was on the way for my two friends (both named Lisa, oddly enough) who were also doing this race so fortunately they picked me up. It wasn't hot at all, in fact it was a little chilly- perfect 5K weather! I felt good, and finished the first mile and second miles in just under 10 minutes each. My time for the full 5K was 33:19, an improvement over my previous personal best by a minute and 46 seconds and a new personal record! I also set a new PR for pace at an average of 10:30 per mile and my fastest mile, at 9:46. The course wasn't well marked, usually there are volunteers along the course to tell you where to go, but there were times that I was concerned that I'd gotten off track. My Nike GPS+ says that I actually ran 3.17 miles, so I may in fact have made a wrong turn at some point. If that's the case, the GPS+ says that my time for an actual 5K of 3.10 miles was 32:30- but I'll go with my start line to finish line time of 33:19 because I'm quite happy with that! After I finished, I turned back onto the course to meet up with Lisa and Lisa and finish with them, they were walking the 5K. It was Lisa's first (in her words) "real 5K", I was so proud of her that she stuck with it and finished. She was the last person to finish, she joked with the race organizers that she should get a medal for "finishing without medical assistance" and they actually gave her one of the left over 1st place age group medals, she was thrilled! :) My next race is the Iron Girl 5K in two weeks, unless I add one next Sunday just for fun. The WW week has been going well so far, after missing my goal weight by 6/10ths of a pound on Thursday PM I've been at or under my goal weight at my morning weigh in on both Friday and Saturday mornings, just have to maintain that until NEXT Thursday! :)

Thursday weigh in...same story, copy and paste :)

Today was my yet another weigh in at Weight Watchers where my goal weight was tantalyizingly close but still not achieved. I needed to lose 8/10ths of a pound to reach my goal weight and a 100 pound loss. My actual loss for this week: 2/10ths of a pound. So- the goal remains 6/10ths of a pound away. I'm okay with that, any forward (or is it backward, in weight loss terms?) motion is good progress. Even at tenths of a pound a week, eventually I'll get there. It was especially ok not to make it this week because neither my regular leader or my very favorite receptionist were there, and it would have been anticlimactic to finally reach that goal without any of those familiar faces there. It appears to me that I did everything right last week- I stayed well within my points, only using 18 of my weekly points and earning an a personal high of 71 activity points from last Thursday to yesterday. I don't think I'll reach that much in activity points this week, since last week was spring break I had two days at the gym that I would normally be at work. This week my goal is to stay within my points, track 100%, use less than 25 of my weekly points and to earn at least 35 activity points. No worries, I've *got* this. :)
I'm trying to branch out in my activity, so I signed up for a race that sort of (ok, not sort of, but REALLY) scares the mess out of me. I've signed up for the Iron Girl 5K in Clearwater on April 22nd. It will feature thousands of runners, but the scary part is that it goes over the Clearwater Pass bridge- a very steep, long, high bridge that I've never had the guts to drive a car over, let alone run over. In fact, on the rare occasion that I'm a passenger in a car going over that bridge (usually, I'll convince my husband to take an alternate route to the beach to avoid it) I clamp my eyes shut and keep asking "are we over the bridge yet?" the whole time. But, now I will be running over that bridge.
As my BFF Lisa says, "personal growth is a good thing". I'm going with that, my fervent hope is that I'm surrounded by so many people that I won't freak out about the wicked long scary bridge I'm struggling to haul myself over. Maybe I'll just chant "personal growth! personal growth!" the whole way...that'll surely clear some space around me as runners avoid the crazy person. :)

Pictures from my son's mission trip

My 15 year old son recently returned from a 10 day(it was supposed to be 9 days, but was extended due to a missed plane) mission trip to Billings, Montana with his school. While he was there, he did "Habitat for Humanity" kind of work for a local church there, lots of landscaping and working on a house, etc. This first picture is him high above Billings on a hike.
He helped break up and remove tree stumps at a house in a Billings housing project. See the green hoodie that the girl is wearing in this picture? My son did all the graphic design of the hoodies and t-shirts that the mission team wore, he was really proud of them.
More digging to remove the stump, progress is being made! A moment of triumph, the stump has been vanquished!
Last one, here is a picture of him preparing to lead a dogsled team. This picture is remarkable because the night before this picture was taken he had a 103 degree fever and was generally miserable but he was able to get some good meds and pull it together to get to experience dogsledding. This mission trip was a great experience for him, I'm sure that he'll remember it forever.

Race Recap: St. Cecelia School Crusader Gallop 5K

Today was my 8th 5K race, the St. Cecelia School Crusader Gallop 5K. I wasn't able to make any improvement on my regular 5K time, finishing in 36:33. I usually try to run faster at the beginning to "make up" time for the end when I'm more worn out, but today I tried to keep a steady pace throughout to avoid having a vastly slower last third of the race, but it didn't seem to make much difference. This was an afternoon race that I did after having done two hours of very challenging classes at the gym this morning (BodyVive and BodyAttack), I'm not sure if that had some effect on my time. I have another race next Saturday morning, I'll be doing that one in place of my regular gym classes so perhaps my legs will be fresher. Today's race was in support of a local Catholic school, so there were lots of children and families running. The course was well marked and following the event there was a big picnic with wonderful food- Greek salad, baklava, boneless wings, buffalo wings, chips, cookies, sodas, etc. Everyone was very mellow about the food and actually let my "support team" (my husband and son) join in on the great meal even though they weren't registered runners. They gave out dog tags with the race name on it as finisher's medals, my first real "race swag". I'm not sure where I came in regarding my age bracket, but I think that it was fairly good. I'm in the 40-44 bracket, and the woman that I finished a few seconds ahead of came in 3rd in the very next bracket, 45-49...so to my faulty logic that means that I was close to the top 3 in my bracket too. :) I added one song to my playlist for this race,"Shackled and Drawn" by Bruce Springsteen and it was really motivating. It has a couple lines in it that are perfect for runners: "I always love the feel of sweat on my shirt/stand back son, and let a man work/let a man work, is that so wrong?" (OK, the opening line "another day older and closer to the grave" isn't exactly fitness-affirming, but I even found that one quite motivating today.) Here is a live video from two weeks ago that I found of the song, it's awesome. Shackled and Drawn Staying on WW plan has been going just fine this week so far, I have 40 activity points as of today and I've only used 3 of my weekly points. I have a real challenge tomorrow though- lunch at a Chinese restaurant. :/ We are celebrating my neice earning her GED last week, def worth figuring out HOW to eat Chinese on plan!

Thursday weigh in...less than a pound to goal!

Today was my regular weigh in, I lost 1 pound for a total loss of 99.2 pounds. I am .8 (8/10ths!) of a pound from my Weight Watchers goal weight! This week went pretty well, WW plan-wise. I had one evening of insane stress eating, but it all got written down and accounted for so I say it's all good since I stayed within my points by the end of the week. I'm calling it the Frankenberry incident, but let's just say that my husband had to work Friday night and I was home alone pondering my son being thousands of miles away on his mission trip. Somehow, I ate a good portion of a box of seriously stale novelty marshmallow-rific retro sugary cereal left over from Halloween. Yeah, I was elbow deep in stale Frankenberry cereal. Oy. I also earned 57 WW activity points this week, so things seem to have balanced well.
After a fair amount of drama (high fevers, missed airplanes, extreme turbulance, sleeping overnight in airports, damaged planes...)my son arrived home safely from his mission trip, nearly 24 hours later than scheduled. We spent quite a bit of time tonight looking at some of the nearly 3,000 photos he took, I'll post one or two here once he pulls them off of his digital camera. There is one of him mushing a dog sled team that (to me) was worth every bit of stress that the mission trip generated- he looks happy and triumphant (and cold!) I think this week will go better on WW since I won't have that worry about him in the back of my mind all the time- I worry about him much less when he's HOME! I have another 5K this Saturday, this one is to raise money for a local Catholic school. I'll be back on Saturday or Sunday to report on that race, and on how the first half of the WW week ("The Epic Quest for the FINAL 8/10ths of a Pound") goes. I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's blogs, reading them has really helped me to stay on track (most of the time!) :)

Today was my weigh in, with 1 pound to go to reach my goal weight, I...gained 8/10ths of a pound. While it was disappointing, my daily weigh ins at home over the last few days had clued me in that the scale stopped moving in the right direction early in the week so I was fairly mellow with it. I kept the words of two weight loss bloggers/Tweeters that I follow in mind. When Krystle, who blogs at Skinny Jeans Dreams faced nearly the same situation a few weeks ago, she said "I am already THERE....the rest is just numbers." Very inspirational, and very applicable to my situation. Two weeks ago, when I was 1.2 away from my goal and gained a pound, Whitney, who is very active on Twitter as Whit Gets Fit reminded me that "you are already there. Don't let the number get you down!" Thanks to both of these ladies for their direct and indirect support, keeping their words in mind helped prevent me from freaking out and falling hip deep into a pile of Reeses Cups and raw cookie dough, my drugs of choice. :) I can't explain this gain, I tracked everything I ate this week, stayed well within my weekly points AND earned *55* activity points this week. 55 AP's represents HOURS in the gym, several group fitness classes and miles and miles on the treadmill. I don't get it, but I'm just going to keep on and look for a better result next week. I am going to try to mix up my food a little bit this week, as I tend to eat the same foods over and over, especially for breakfast and lunch. We'll see, it's gonna happen...soon I hope! :)
I signed up for another 5K today, so I have them scheduled for Saturday March 31st and Saturday April 7th. Tomorrow (after payday, natch) I'm going to register for the Iron Girl 5K in late April. It looks awesome- thousands of runners, custom finisher medals, the vanity appeal of the "Iron Girl" name and a beautiful race over the bridge out to Clearwater Beach and right up to the beach.
My son is doing very well on his mission trip, tomorrow he leaves Billings and heads to Big Sky, a Montana ski resort. He's going to dogsled there, he's very excited about that. He's taken (literally) thousands of pictures and lots of video, I can't wait to see some of it. He'll be home very late on Monday, I'm glad he's having a good time but I'm quite anxious to have him home. (And just in time for spring break for himself and me.) :)

One pound to go!

Source: mmorris.webs.com via Sherrie on Pinterest

At my weigh in last Thursday I was down 1.2 pounds, so that puts me at 99 pounds lost and just one pound to go to reach my Weight Watchers goal. So far this week it's been well in sight, with today's AM consult with the scale showing me down 2/3rds of a pound and yesterday's at under my goal weight by a half pound. I know that the AM weigh in isn't exactly what will show when I weigh in Thursday night after working all day, but it's always been a good indicator of the direction that I'm going. This week (and part of next week) are going to be fertile ground for huge stress eating for me, but so far I've been able to keep on track. My 15 year old son left yesterday morning for a 9 day mission trip with his school to Billings, Montana and I'm more than a little stressed out. It's his first time on an airplane, his first time to see snow, and his first time out of state without me. Plus, while he is the very definition of a "strapping young man" at over 6 feet tall and healthy as a horse the last few years, I still see him as the little boy who we handed over to doctors for open heart surgery twice in his first 8 years so I put a massive amount of energy into worry at a time like this. (He has so much stainless steel wire in his sternum from his two surgeries that he has to carry an operative report with him to explain why he sets off every metal detector...he thinks that's really cool.) :) Anyway, he arrived in Billings just fine and so far things seem to be going well. He'll be doing some "Habitat for Humanity" work with the Sioux indians around Billings as well as some service projects for the host church there. Next weekend will be their "fun" time, with time at a ski resort and some dog sledding. He's the photographer and videographer for his team, so he will be doing some cool stuff to document their week. He's also one of the cooks for the team, but he's a lot more excited about the video and photos! He can call us each day around midnight (our time), so we are just waiting anxiously for a call or text and my husband is trying to plan activities for us so that I don't just sit and eat, which is really helpful. I'm getting in a lot of activity, and focussing in on WW power foods to make sure I don't go over on my points. On to Thursday, I keep reminding myself that "I've got this!", even if my goal weight doesn't happen this week it WILL happen soon!