Another month gone by

I've always heard people say that as you get older time seems to pass more quickly. I can't imagine that it could get any faster! I just took Cutie for her 18-month check-up yesterday (she's happy, healthy and on her way to potty trained!), and Hot Wheels will be six years old in about five weeks. Wow! The boys have also told me that Cutie should be Princess from now on. She is in love with anything Princess, pink, and girly. So, Princess it is.

I remember only a month ago, I looked at the February training program and saw 5, 6 and 7 mile runs on there. I really wondered how on earth I'd get to seven miles before the end of the month. This past Monday morning I hit the treadmill and 82 minutes later I had completed 7.1 miles running and then a cooldown. For March I've got a recovery week followed by another seven miler, I think my longest this month increases to only 8 miles. The training program I'm following (from Runner's World on-line) has only a 10-miler for the longest distance run. It makes me a little nervous to leave an additional 5K un-practiced before the race, but this seems like a common thing. I'll know whether that works for me and I can always change it up before the September half. And by the September race I will have run the whole distance at least once anyway.

Overall, it was a great month. I ran a total of 52 miles, did my first tempo run, speed workout, and I did complete that 7-mile long run on schedule. I missed one run due to child illness and I missed one strength workout due to laziness. There was also one strength workout that was done on the Wii fit- not quite as challenging as it should have been. I have a little less motivation in the strength training department, not sure why. I'm up and motivated for all the running workouts, but I find myself dogging the strength a bit. I may go back to group classes just to keep me on track, we'll see. I'm just not usually interested in the drama of the group classes. On the weight loss front I did manage to lose a little more, Friday's weigh-in was 152.4. A few people have even commented that the weigh loss is noticeable, which I will readily admit is quite flattering and motivating. Overall, on a good note heading into a new month.

Why the starting is easy

I think one of the reasons it's so easy to start new things is that it's so gratifying to accomplish a first. This week I completed my first 10K distance run. It was on the treadmill, and it took me 64:26 to get to 6.2 miles. But then I went on to finish a total of 6.6 miles, so I'm half way to the half marathon distance. This week also marked the most miles I've ever logged in a week, 15.8. Thinking back I can think of quite a few years where I probably didn't run 15.8 miles in an entire year, so I'm pretty proud of that accomplishment, especially coming off a stomach virus last weekend. I could see a point where for me, running the same distance would lose its excitement when it's not something new anymore, but maybe it won't, because I certainly hope to try to maintain a higher level of running than I have in the past.

I've figured out a few things that most people that are seasoned runners/athletes would probably read and say "duh", but it took some figuring for me. I realized that while I've been doing well with my weight loss so far (yesterday's weigh-in was 152.8, so I'm eight pounds down from the beginning of the year), I'm going to have to increase my calories from approximately 1300 the days before I run a longer run, and probably during the day after the run. On Tuesday I made sure I drank plenty of water, something I've been slacking on recently, and I ate closer to 1700 calories for the day. Wednesday morning I had a banana before my run and really, it was the best run I've had so far. During the day Wednesday I kept myself to about 1600 calories, but I felt quite hungry. Since I had burned off over 850 calories according to the treadmill tracker, I probably could have gone a little higher but I didn't want to. I think that for the rest of training I may have to accept that weight loss shouldn't really be a goal I'm focusing on if I want to effectively train for the half. The running and strength training will help with my overall body shape, I'm already able to put on and take off my size 10 jeans without even unbuttoning them. At Christmas they were feeling a little snug. So I know the change there is due to the toning up from exercising as much if not more than due to the calorie reduction. So, I'm going to have to efficiently fuel my body for working out, that might mean more calories but it will get me through tougher workouts feeling stronger.

I'm looking forward to this evening because my husband and I have a date. My parents are hosting "dinner and a movie night" for the kids at their house. We're going to an Italian restaurant for dinner where I'm sure I will far exceed that calories I need for an entire day, but I'm giving myself the night off from worrying about it. We haven't had a dinner to ourselves in many months and it will be nice to spend time enjoying our food without worrying about cutting or cleaning up everyone else's. I heard that the average couple only spends about 12 minutes a day actually talking to each other and that sounds about right in the case of our life recently. Happy weekend to all.

The week that wasn't

I knew I'd hit a bump the training road some time, I was hoping it wouldn't be quite so early in the training process, but, oh well. Monday morning was supposed to be my treadmill 10K and I was actually quite excited about it. Got on at 5:35am and things started out just fine. I usually cover the display with the towel so I'm not staring at the time that's going (or seemingly NOT going by). Especially when I entered 68 minutes for time it seemed it would never end. About 40 minutes in I was sweating more than I could wipe with my shirt sleeve so I took the towel off the display and wiped my face. Then I put the towel back in the small holder on the side of the treadmill. I didn't realize at the time that the cord for the magnetic stop button got wrapped up in it. So, when I went to wipe my face again at 4.75 miles I pulled out the magnetic stop. The belt stopped, I ran into the display, as I've done before. I was fine but when I tried to get started again I just couldn't get into it. Tuesday was a nice highlight to strength training as my three sets of full push-ups were 8,7 and 7. I was also complimented by another member on my push-up form, so that was nice. Wednesday was a 5K plus a little extra and it felt good. Yesterday's strength training went well, too.

Here's where the life-drama disrupts my plan again. Monday night Cutie was sick over night. We thought it was a reaction to fish sticks. Unfortunately for my wonderful husband, she had thrown up overnight and not even woken up so by the time he got her in the morning it had dried and covered her hair and much of her upper body. It took three days, four baths and finally a mixture of baking soda and baby soap mixed into a paste to get the awful smell out of her hair. Then yesterday morning I called home to find out that Hot Wheels had gotten sick early in the morning, in our bed and then in his room. More laundry for my wonderful husband. Last night Spiderman came into our room just before 2am and I realized, after he laid down in my bed, that he had been sick some time earlier and was also covered in it. So, it was into the tub for him with a thick baking soda/baby wash paste to get the smell out of his hair and off his body. I was up watching him for a while, afraid he was going to get sick again in our bed, since I'd already stripped the sheets off his bed. Needless to say, my planned 5 mile tempo run and Friday morning weigh-in at the gym just didn't happen. I went to work and work only to try and get a little more sleep between 4- 5:30am. I'm the only one in the family that hasn't gotten the bug yet, but I'm not feeling great so it's not looking like a 5-miler on the basement treadmill is in tomorrow's cards either. It's only one run, I'll be okay, but I'm still disappointed. My husband does deserve husband-of-the-year after the week he's had. He washed and changed each of the kids sheets and did our three times. Ugh.

In addition, my car ended up unworking and immovable in a parking lot last Sunday. My little Civic did give me 14 years and almost 150,000 miles so I really can't complain. We donated it and bought a brand new '09 Honda Fit Sport on Tuesday and I feel like I'm living in luxury with power steering, power windows and locks, I even have air conditioning, cruise control and remote entry. We got a decent deal and if it lasts another 15 years it will be well worth it. But I'm still a little queasy when I look at the bank balance now.

Sunday is the Penguin Plunge. The weather is forecasted to be almost 40 degrees with the water temp about the same. Should be a good time and it's for Special Olympics so it's a very worthy cause. Happy weekend to all.

New month, new goals

My run mileage for January was 43 miles. That's the most I've ever run in a month in my life. This week I was feeling a bit drained, and the runs were definitely a little harder. My schedule right now is that my long runs are Monday, Wednesday is hills with a steady pace mile cool-down and Friday is a 5K or so. Tues and Thurs are strength with light cardio like the elliptical trainer. This week starts the tempo and speed work on the schedule from Runner's world. Monday is also going to be my first 10K ever. I'm very excited, although hanging out on the treadmill for 66 minutes sounds incredibly tedious. At least I'll have the iPod and random elevation program. My goal for February is 50 miles, that's an average of 4.1 miles per run, a lofty goal for me but I think I can do it.

The good news this week was that my weigh-in yesterday was 155.6. That's five pounds down since I started and I'm settled back into a more mindful eating routine. I think that's really the key for me, I don't need to write out everything I eat, I just need to be aware, as if I am going to keep track. That, and a 700 calorie workout Monday and 400 Wednesday and Friday certainly help.

Friday morning's run was the toughest, as I had a flashback to only a few month ago when Cutie still wasn't sleeping through the night. Thursday night I went to bed about 10pm, a little later than usual. Then, at 12:30am we were awoken by our dog having a seizure. He's had them before, but we need to sit with him to make sure he doesn't try to get around because he could run into the wall or fall down the stairs. So I was up for a while. Then at 2am, Cutie woke up screaming and I went in to calm her down so I was up a little while then. Finally at 3:15 Hot Wheels came into our room complaining that he'd had a nightmare and since I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep with my dear husband snoring like a chainsaw, I just told him to climb in my bed and I slept in the top bunk until the alarm went off at 4:30. Ugh. I thought about skipping the run entirely and while I'm glad I didn't skip it, I'm lucky that I only tripped once. And I was expecting it might happen so I didn't get hurt. I'm not sure how I survived almost six years without more than maybe a dozen nights of sleep without waking up at least once or twice overnight because someone needed something. But I'm not complaining, I'm just loving my sleep these days!

The week was tough on a couple fronts, I broke my self-imposed rule of not crying at work, fortunately it wasn't a complete breakdown in front of anyone. Trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my life is causing me a bit of stress and while I know that I've got to figure these things out for myself, I'm not used to being at such a loss of direction. I'll get through it and things will be fine I'm sure. Sometimes I just lose sight of that and the stress gets to me.

I'll leave you with a kiss from Cutie, it always brightens my day.

I should qualify that....

Reading over my post from yesterday I would imagine it comes across as preachy and judgmental of others. Not really my intention, I include myself among the people that justify things about life. As Lisa pointed out, things like the BMI charts are also not accurate for many people with a large frame size. And, when I mentioned my mother weighing 125 pounds at 5'7", I do not think that people should aspire to waif-like thinness without any fitness. I don't want to be skinny, I want to be healthy. I'm not sure that at 125 pounds I would be able to run 4 miles or do a single push-up, I'd probably be eating only 1000 calories a day and I'd likely be hungry and weak. Or maybe not. Just because society has adjusted what is considered "normal" for size, it doesn't mean that people reap the health benefits they did years ago. I think our daily calorie consumption has increased by something like 20%, and for women more than men, and our lives have become increasingly sedentary. Just random thoughts to try and get myself out of "excuses" mode.

Selective Hearing

I had a frustrating week this week on many fronts. Large number of former-colleagues were laid off and left work, had some major road blocks thrown up for my application to nursing school and it seemed the scale was just not going to move. In the end the weight thing turned out to be a hormonal issue and yesterday's weigh-in came in at 156.8, over a pound lost since last Friday- good week after all on the weight front.
The weight issue has come up with a few people lately for different reasons and it surprised me how often we delude ourselves to think that we are the exception. People rail against BMI charts and call them crazy because people that consider themselves to be non-overweight are classified as such, sometimes even to the point of obese. When I had my initial assessment with the trainer, my BMI according to an on-line chart was just under 24.9 (it only does whole pounds, so it's not exact), then Chris did the measurements with calipers and my body fat percentage was 24.5, pretty close. Now, I think I'm a relatively strong woman and my muscle mass is maybe a little higher than average, at least in the circle of women that I know and speak with. Another woman mentioned to me that according to those BMI charts (said with a look of disdain), she's overweight, but those are clearly wrong because she has a lot of muscle mass so she's not really overweight. I think that some extreme athletes may have enough muscle mass that the BMI charts are inaccurate, but I think for most of us average people, they're a decent measure, even if we don't like the result.
Then this week I was talking with another woman about being a little frustrated that the scale hadn't moved even though my clothes were fitting a bit better. She says- well, you're building up muscles and muscles weigh more than fat. People always spout that gem as well. No, a pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh the same amount. But yes, a pound of muscle will take up less space than a pound of fat. However, I think people really overestimate how easy it is to build up a pound of muscle. Just lifting weights a little more often isn't likely to build up my muscle mass that quickly, at least I don't think so. At this point I would doubt I've put on any actual muscle weight, although I'm glad to be reducing my body fat weight.
My mother talks about the days when she was a size 8, she's about 5'7" and she weighed 125 pounds. These days I'm sure that would be a size 2 at the most. I'm not delusional enough to believe that at almost 157 pounds I'm really a size 8, but that's what the clothing manufacturers want me to believe, and I'll readily admit I'm sucked in. But I don't have the health benefits of being a size 8 from 30 years ago when that was about 30 pounds less. I'll likely never get close to that and I think I can still be happy and healthy, a weight of 140 would get me to a BMI of 21.9, I think that's quite reasonable. I'll admit that sometimes I'm the one that hears just what I want to hear, but I think that as a society we want to think that we're good the way we are, eating what we want, living as we want, and justifying our weights and our lifestyles. I don't know whether that's bad or not, it's just the way we are.

On the training front it was a great week. Three strong runs and two tough strength sessions with some light cardio on weights days. Finished 11 miles total running, including 2 miles of treadmill hill work that had inclines up to 7%. Monday is my first 5-miler of this training season, I'm looking forward to it. I've got new songs on my iPod all ready to go, love my shuffle.

Nice start to the week

This cold is still hanging up but giving up a little of its grip, and I did hit the treadmill this morning and ran 4.2 miles. I was at 10:43 pace and the random incline level was set at 4, so it ranged from 0-3.4%. Felt pretty good, but I'm supposed to do 5 miles next Monday and by the time I hit 4.2 miles I was pretty well done, and soaked. I'll worry about that next Monday. My stomach also started protesting a bit, hoping that doesn't become an issue, but I might start taking a precautionary Immodium pre-run for Monday runs.

One of the trainers, Chris, stopped me on my way out of the gym to tell me that my running form looked really good. He mentioned that he was watching myself and two other runners and of the three I looked the most natural. It makes me chuckle that my running could ever look natural. As I walked out to my car to drive the 0.3 miles to my building, because I was too lazy to walk over in the cold this morning, I was thinking of the other people running. Depending on when he was watching three of us, it could have been when the only other people running were two regular marathon runners, or it could have been towards the end of my run when there were a few beginners on the treadmills. Either way I'll take the compliment, but if I want to delude myself I could think that I look more natural than marathon runners.

Enough is enough already

I woke up this morning congested and coughing for probably the 16th day in a row. I never had a really awful sick day with this cold, you know the one that completely knocks you out and then you start recovering? So I think my body just forgot to start recovering. I ended up cutting short the second run of the week this week because I was afraid of drowning in snot. (Okay, and I accidentally hit the emergency stop button and ran into the display of the treadmill, and then I lost my motivation) Yesterday I used the elliptical rather than strength training and my plan was to use the Wii fit today. Unfortunately, some domestic chores got in the way of that plan, and tomorrow's not looking much better, so I threw in a few sets of push-ups and called it good. Monday is supposed to be my 4-mile run and I'm NOT getting off track this early in training. I weighed in yesterday morning at 158.0 (of course the trainer checked my weight after my workout and I'd gained 0.4 pounds because I drank water) so it looks like I lost nothing this week, but I know I did. Oh well, focusing on the long term goals here, a little blip here and there isn't important. And, my size 8 jeans are more comfortable and less obscene to wear. I still sometimes cringe at these jeans styles with a more fitted hips/thighs area- I'm a mom and I don't see what's wrong with "mom jeans".
We're finally really cleaning up the family eating habits and our plan is to have not a single meal on the credit card this month. For us that means no eating out since we pretty much never carry cash. My mom did buy McDonalds for the kids and I today at lunch (I love the southwest salad), but grandma's house is sort of the no-rules zone. Although they're supposed to be starting the South Beach Diet next week so I'm hoping they'll be giving up junk food as well. I'm even planning to start helping with the cooking more. I made one dinner last week and my husband said it wasn't bad. That's high praise for my cooking which usually borders on the barely edible. I'm not much help around the house. At all. I don't cook, I don't do laundry, I don't mow the lawn, just about all I do is clean the bathrooms and shovel snow. But, my husband puts up with me anyway. And I am going to start cooking, healthy meals that we can hopefully all enjoy. And then we'll play Rock Band.

Two trees and a shrub

The boys both love doing yoga. We call it home made yoga because in addition to very few actual yoga poses we spend most of the time making up our own. Sometimes the boys just try to tie themselves up in knots. Well, Cutie has decided that she can clearly do anything that her big brothers do so she joins in the yoga party fun. Here they are practicing tree pose. She doesn't quite get the feet part and the boys were holding it so long waiting for her to join in that they lost their balance by the time I snapped the picture. We decided that since she can't quite do the whole tree pose, hers is shrub. This is just one of my favorite things about having kids. Here are a few other recent family fun adventures.Rock Band has become one of our favorite family past times. Here's Superman rocking out. He's prefers to sing, especially to The Who, Who Are You. He's also informed me that now that he's four his "code name" should be changed to Spiderman, so I will indulge him.
Both Cutie and Spiderman would live outside if given the chance. With a fresh snowfall the other afternoon we spent time outside sledding and swinging. Since our backyard has no real hill to speak of, sledding is really dad running behind the sled to push the kids across the yard. But they enjoyed it. Things like yoga, playing in the yard, going to for hikes together, those are truly the best times of my entire life and I am always amazed that somehow I did something to deserve all of this.
Training started out a little rough this week as I had a cold that's really just hung on for quite some time. Monday was only a 2.0 mile run before I switched to walking for another mile and a half. Wednesday and Friday, though, were really good runs. I have found that the random incline program on the gym treadmills is the key for me. Running at a constant speed and incline I get much more bored. I did 3.25 miles on Wednesday and 3.65 miles on Friday and felt really good at the end. Strength sessions are going well, I'm doing three sets of regular pushups rather than modified. I'm only doing 3 sets of 6, but it's an improvement over where I was. And my weight after Friday's run was 158.4. Creeping down slowly, but at least it's the right direction.

A first

In contrast to "resolutions" of years past that have ended in disappointment after the first week, my year is starting off on quite a positive note. While on vacation last week I tried to get in a few treadmill workouts in the basement. My husband routinely heads down there for workouts of 30-90 minutes and life goes on for the rest of us upstairs. Not exactly the case when I headed down myself. After the first workout, during which I practiced selective hearing to ignore Cutie yelling at the door for me, I was met with her wailing and crying and clinging as I tried to get upstairs to shower. Then on day number two, Superman got stuck in the cat door trying to get downstairs to see me on the treadmill. After some hysterics on his part, pushing and pulling on the part of myself and my husband, he was free and I was done. Day number three I got dressed to head downstairs and just bagged it when Hot Wheels was going through a bout of constipation, Cutie was miserable for some unknown reason and Superman was acting like a nut. I decided that I had made a decent effort and there really was a reason I don't usually workout at home other than my own general laziness. It just doesn't work. Not until the kids are older and I can get away and get my mind and body focused. Until then my home "workouts" consist of Wii games, some family yoga and stretching, our hikes and neighborhood walks. And you know what? That's good enough for me.

Returning to work Monday morning was difficult, just because the 4:30am alarm seemed to darn early. But in a way it was good because we all needed to get back to a normal routine. Twelve days of vacation is too long for a kindergartener, preschooler and toddler, and add to that the excitement of Christmas, Superman's fourth birthday, and a mom that wants to fit in "fun stuff" like aquarium trips, children's museum trips and gatherings with friends most days- and it's just a recipe for some fried kids. By Sunday afternoon they had just gone insane.

I hit the gym at 5:40am Monday, only 10 minutes after it opened and the New Years Resolution spectacle was in full force. I ended up on the last treadmill open, the one off in a corner with no TV or radio speaker. I had also forgotten my iPod, so the 3.25 mile run was painfully boring. Tuesday/Thursday were decent strength workouts and additional runs on Wednesday and Friday totaled the "first" of the post title. While some people run 10 miles in a single workout, I think this week was my first ever 10+ mile week. Wednesday my 3.5 miles was on the random setting that changes the treadmill elevation. The level selected only went up to 4.3% incline, so it wasn't too difficult, especially since I had lowered the speed a little bit anticipating that I wouldn't be able to maintain my blazing speed of 6.0mph on elevation. I was pleasantly surprised that the workout was not as hard as I had expected and next week I'll either be increasing the speed or the level. When Cutie naps in a little while I'm going to hit the Wii Fit for a while as the boys watch a movie. It won't be a very taxing workout, but some hula hoops for cardio and some pushups for strength can't hurt. I do enjoy the 6-minute hula hoop challenge.

The half marathon is 16 weeks from tomorrow. I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to do it. I've had a few people try to convince me that distance training with my Nike Free shoes will lead to injury, but I know another woman at work that has run 3+ marathons including an iron distance triathlon event and always used her Frees. I've never had shoes that I felt that good running in. While an overuse injury is possible, or I've been known to break my foot walking off a step so anything can happen, I think this is going to work. Ben is a great trainer and he's going to help me stay on track. I've got weigh-ins on Monday with him and on Friday with another trainer. So the diet portion is really going to get more focus from here on out. I was at 160.8 last month, 159.4 last week, so I'm not dropping pounds like flies, but as long as the general trend is in the right direction, we're good.

I've started studying for my anatomy and physiology prerequisite for the nursing school program. I've forgotten how happy I was to get out of school almost 10 years ago, getting back into studying is kicking my butt. At least I enjoy the subject material, it's just that focusing, by myself, is more difficult than I remembered. But it will pick up as I move through the book and get to some next stuff, I'm sure. As I'm sitting here with Superman hugging me, I'm reminded that I am just so blessed. While all these goals for 2009 are good, I've got far more than I could ever need right here. But I'll still keep working on them, maybe it could be even better.