My New Ending

This past Saturday was my first 5K race.

It was a beautiful day to run, with normal winds and not the howling blowing winds that brought in our rain storm on Friday. Whew! I felt much better about jogging once that storm passed.

However, I was still nervous all morning and kept myself busy with Easter dinner preparations. I kept telling myself that I was just going to workout in the afternoon, hoping to trick my nerves out of thinking about the race. That only kind of helped. Then I made some calls to my mom and then one my close friends just before the race to talk off some nervous energy. My husband had to study for an exam, but he met me and the kids at the race site.

Everyone took off and I found out pretty much in the first yards that I was going to be the last one. Step by step people passed me until I was jogging alone This thought was a little sad to me, but then I reminded myself that I was working on my own goals and not competing. (I found out later there were a few people walking it behind me.)

After that I just kept placing one foot in front of the other. I thought about my brother who is not well right now and thanked the Lord I was healthy enough to jog. I thought about how the road had a few hills in it and though I was bummed for the inclines I would just keep going. I did even wonder for a minute why the heck I was doing this? Then I reminded myself that I’ve run the distance before and I knew I could finish. 🙂

There was only one portion that was difficult and it was a slight incline on my way back to the finish line. But I would find things along the way to be little mini goals. “Just to the fence post. Okay, now get to the next cone. ”

Suddenly off in the distance I saw this guy standing there at the last turn back to the finish line. It was my husband! I just grinned at him and passed him heading back towards the finish.

Upon reaching the finish line people were clapping and “Woo Hoo’ing’ and it made me feel so good to know that I had finished it. I grinned real big and after crossing the line (and hearing the ‘beep!’ of my timing chip) I just cried for a few seconds.

My son asked,”Are you happy or sad?” I told him it was a happy cry that I finished. My family was very supportive of me and I felt wonderful knowing I had accomplished this great goal in my weight loss journey.

I finished it jogging the entire time, and my official time was 43:44.

My goal was to try and jog it in 45 minutes, so I came in under my goal by just over a minute. That made me very happy. Though, I’m sure the guy chuckled when at the halfway mark he says, “22 minutes” and I replied in a rasping voice, “Perfect!” .

Of course, there were many that got in faster than me, but a handful them all stopped and walked for portions. So, I was very content that though my time was slow I jogged the entire distance without stopping.

Yes, it was perfect — an afternoon event I won’t soon forget. 🙂

As I was catching up on my blog reading after being off the computer on a busy weekend I came across this post at Endurance Isn’t Only Physical stating I won her KettleWorx giveaway.

Today’s Weight:205.0

My first 5K race is coming up in two days. I am very excited about it with the exception of one thing. We have seen high winds daily here. It’s nice because it’s airing out my house with cool to warm weather, however I know what I feel like jogging against wind – and it’s not fast. 🙂

To commemorate my new challenge I created a badge for it and titled it “Gettin With It”, because I am getting with the program to see myself lose more weight. I got the idea from something I remember reading over at Endurance Isn’t Only Physical.

Basically she said that she started her weight loss journey with 21 days – if she could stick with her program for 21 days then she would allow herself to quit after that. Well, it got her well on her way to losing the 100+ pounds she’s lost this past year or so. (You can read about that here.)

I decided to give this idea a try in my own weight loss journey as I want to have more weight loss shown for this last year than 25 pounds.

I’ve learned a lot about myself this last year, I’ve worked hard on some emotional issues and I am proud of that loss and all the work that came with losing it and maintaining. However, I know it’s time to kick it back into weight loss gear and see that scale move again.

I’ve been thinking on this for about a week now, so when 266 mentioned the three-day challenge we did over the weekend it gave me a good idea of what goals I would put up.

My goals:

• First off … I want to see at least 10 pounds lost. Seeing my weight loss history will tell you that this will be a great accomplishment for me. It will also lead me past my first goal of reaching 199, which is something I desperately want to do.
• Take my mutli-vitamin and calcium daily. I have not been doing this at all and I know I need to get into the habit of it.
• Drink 64 oz. of water daily. Six to eight glasses a day is good, but I want to start the habit of at least 8.
• One sweet treat a day. This will be a treat in weight loss portions – small. It may be 2 Tbsp. of semi-sweet chocolate chips, 20 M&Ms or a small serving of ice cream. And if I don’t feel like I really don’t want it, then I won’t. I won’t eat it just because I’m “allowed”.
• Eat one fruit or veggie with each meal. I will be careful to not always have juice in place of fruit, but it might be that a few times. I’m shooting for having a fruit with breakfast, a fruit and veggie with lunch and a veggie with dinner. That’s 4 a day and a BIG deal for me. 🙂
• No snacking if I’m not truly hungry. Eating only when hungry really signifies to me that I don’t snack if I’m not hungry. I’m getting better at eating decent portions with meals, but I struggle with eating out of boredom.
• Exercise at least 4 days a week. This is a pretty regular habit now, but I thought I’d add it in for good measure. 🙂 I will keep working on my running pace and get faster.

I’m not telling you that Lori at Finding Radiance is doing a giveaway and I’m not telling you that it’s a 1/2 pint of real maple syrup from New York.

Well, what a fun thing to start my day off… this morning I had an email from Diane letting me know that I won her SHAPE magazine giveaway. What fun! I haven’t won anything in a while.

Sundays are a bit more interesting on the food front because we attend a church service both in the morning and evening. But I did pretty good. 🙂

My Goals:

• Drink 6 -8 cups of water daily. YES
• Eat at least one fruit or vegetable with each meal. Minimally. No fruit with my oatmeal in the morning. Carrots with luch. No fruit/veg with my snack/small dinner after church, unless green olives count. 🙂
• Be mindful with eating. Again, pretty good.
• Only one sweet treat a day. YES. And I even resisted the pastries someone brought to church in the evening, because I’d already had my treat for the day. That was a bit hard, but I was proud I resisted temptation. 🙂