Monday, March 14, 2011

LMJS Couples Relay

Woke up to a cold cold cold day, but at least it wasn't raining.  In fact the sun was out and it was beautiful.  Pre-race was easy, I got our numbers, we got our swag bag and basically just waited for the race to start.  There were quite a few sponsors at the race and they were giving away a lot of free stuff, so that was nice.

We lined up right on time and after a really brief explanation of the race route (that boiled down to "Keep the lake on your right" we were off.

I started as I usually do - in the back.  I know I'm slow and rather then frustrate myself I just start at the back and go at my pace -- and that's what I did, went at my own pace - even though it was frustrating to be passed and watch everyone pull away from me.

Of course, going at my pace has it's advantages because eventually I started catching up to people and passing them.

And so I went

And so I started to get tired.  My lack of training caught up to me and I started to play the, just to the next sign, make it around that corner, just to the next intersection game. I didn't have my watch with me so I didn't know how many miles I had gone, but I could look across the lake and see the finish line and that was giving me hope, keeping me going.

Then I turned a corner and realized that there was a major loop ahead of me, and I wasn't as close to the end of the race as I thought I was -- suddenly, I was crushed, I couldn't run another step.  So I switched to a walk/run, made it around the loop and then ran the last leg and tagged my husband.

The best part of the race was coming down the finish line, and seeing my husband, standing there smiling and waiting for me to tag him.  He gave me a big kiss and he was off to run his race.

I got some water and some food and waited for my husband to come him.  He did (in 31 minutes) and as a team we did a 6K in 1:11:44.49 - we came in 148 out of 152.

We weren't last, and I wasn't the slowest person out there - I'm good with that.

A few things I learned from this race:

1 - I run better with a watch.  It helps me to keep track of how much I have left to go and how much I need to leave in the tank.

2 - Training is important (ok - I knew this already)  I figured out later that the place where I 'died' was at about the 2.5 mile mark, and that was about where I had gotten to in my training.

ah well, live and learn and on to the next race.

As for this one - I did 5 K in 40:21 for a 12:36 Pace (and that was with some walking)  I'm pretty proud of that!
I still don't have my race report done -- sorry.

I've had some other crap going on - trying to get my head on straight - I go through this now and then and I try not to drag too much of it out on my blog because, well people would get tired of it, I'm sure.

But, here's where I'm at right now.

If you didn't know already, I consider myself about 80 lbs overweight.

I've battled weight pretty much my entire adult life, and, at 42 I'm tired of it.  I told myself at the beginning of this year, that it was the last year.  I would make one last push to hit my goal weight and if I couldn't do it in 2011, I would never go on another 'diet' again.

So, I did what any computer geek does, I made a spread sheet - charted what my weight loss would look like to reach that goal and went to it.  Only, I fell behind.  I had some bad days, I hit a plateau and, started to do things to try to 'make up'.  I started being stupid.  I started trying to restrict my eating, going on a 'diet'.  Of course, the more I restricted, the bigger my slips got and soon I was back on horrible roller coaster of success and failure where I felt like crap, even when I was being 'good'.

Instead of this journey being a hike over mountains and through valley's as it should be, I had tried to turn it into a sprint...

There really isn't a 'good' way to sprint through a 80 lb weight loss...

And so, I'm done.  I'm done trying to control what I can't control - the scale.  And I'm back to controlling what I can - the quality of food that goes into my pie hole.  Luckily, I don't have any health issues to worry about (yet) so there's no urgency from that end.  But I do know I need to get my head on right about food.  I need to spend less time worrying about what the scale says and more time worrying about how I feel.  I need to get my head on straight and figure out how to have a healthy relationship with food.

So -- that's where I'm at.

Luckily, I happen to believe that Paleo eating is healthy.  And I know from experience that I feel good (great even) when I'm following a Paleo/Primal lifestyle.  So, it's back to unweighed, unmeasured paleo for me.

And the scale can kiss my *SS!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Went on vacation and totally lost my MoJo - has anyone seen it?

The good news is I actually did do my race a few weeks back.  I'm trying to get motivated to write a report...

Will check in tomorrow with a longer post