Hot Chocolate 15K

Race #5 of 2017!

Writing these race reports this year is more fun than they ever were before. Every race I do this year means more than any race prior to 2013. It is amazing how getting sick changes your perspective of things and allows you to really be grateful for what you have and what you're able to do.

But I digress......

The Hot Chocolate 15K is a race I have been wanting to do since 2012. I couldn't do it in 2012 because the race fell on the same weekend that I host my family for Thanksgiving. There are 2 distances offered for the hot chocolate race; 5K and 15K. Last year I thought about doing the 5K because by November I was running 3 miles (slowly) pretty regularly again. I eventually decided spending the money to travel to Columbus and pay a lot for a 5K just wasn't worth it. I wanted to do the 15K and since I wasn't there yet I'd just have to wait another year.

I'm not even sure when it happened, but at some point this year I decided THIS was the year I would make this happen. I was training for the half marathon in May so I knew that by November I could do 9.3 miles (or at least I had hoped). I eventually asked my mom if she wanted to make a girls weekend of it. I suggested that she and my daughter could run the 5K and I would do the 15K. At some point during our weekly runs this summer she decided that SHE would also do the 15K! Since we were both doing the farther distance we decided not to take my daughter since I wouldn't want her alone on the course and waiting for us after.

We headed down to Columbus on Saturday and went to the expo to pick up our packets. One of the reasons I wanted to do this race is the swag always looks so nice! I was NOT disappointed. The sweatshirt is amazing. It's soft on the inside and that nice tech fabric on the outside. The best part was that you could try on other sizes and switch in case the one you ordered wasn't right. I wasn't sure because I ordered the XL and they are the dreaded women's cut. I decided to try the XXL on and decided that I was right and that one was too big!

My sister and her husband ended up coming to do the 15K as well so we met up with them at the expo and headed to Buca di Beppo for dinner.

We stayed at a hotel within walking distance to the race so it was SO nice not to have to wake up at a horribly early hour to get there. The race corrals didn't open until 7 and the race started at 7:30. We left the hotel around 6:55. I kind of liked the way they did the start,  but kind of didn't. They called it "one wave" and said everyone started at 7:30; but that wasn't really true. The first corral went at 7:30, but then they had a 3 minute wait between each corral. What was cool was that we got to be closer to the start line than I've ever been before. But what I didn't like was that it took that much longer to just get started and it ends up being a lot of just standing there. I much prefer the other races I've done where they blow the horn and you just go. When you're in the back of the pack it still takes a long time (sometimes) to get to the start line, but as least you're moving the entire time.

Anyway, we were eventually off and feeling good. Very rarely do I ever feel bad to start a race. My wrist beeped for our first mile and I was a little worried about our pace. I knew there would be no way I'd keep that pace for 9.3 miles. We finished mile 1 in 12:04. I also noticed again that my watch was alerting me about .1 or .2 before the actual mile marker. No biggie, but towards the end those .2 miles are the devil! I felt good and my mom is always faster than me so I just kept going trying to keep up with her. Mile 2 was in 12:01. I was starting to think maybe I shouldn't worry and just go with it. Mile 3 was a little slower at 12:23 and I thought that was more the pace I was wanting at the start. The pace starts to go downhill from there. Mile 4 was 12:56 - still feeling good that it's under 13 and knowing I had done miles 1 and 2 faster than anticipated I was still feeling good about my pace. I should add that I did NOT go into this race with a goal. It's an instant PR because I've never done a 15K before.

It's not a great pic, but I love it because I
look like I'm actually running fast! 

But, I always want to try to do at least as well as my training runs or do better than the last official race I did. Mile 5 was 13:10 and I was even still OK with that. Mile 6 I'm feeling like it'd be really awesome if this was a 10K. 13:42. Mile 7 I really want to take extra walk breaks, but I don't want to slow down my mom. She seems to be totally rocking it still and I am struggling. 13:36. Up to this point I'm perfectly content with my time. Yes, I'm slowing down, but I knew I would. Mile 8 I think I hit a wall. I added walk breaks. I felt guilty for slowing my mom down and I was arguing with her to go ahead. She didn't want to because I was struggling and feeling a little faint so I was making her nervous. I tried to tell her I didn't feel any worse (or even as bad as) than the 10 miler in June so I'd be fine. Finally when her Garmin showed 8.8 miles she said she was just going to go. I said GOOD! :) I HATE feeling like I'm holding someone back. (I think that's probably another blog post in and of itself). Mile 8 - 15:10. After my mom went ahead I no longer felt guilty for walking. I knew I'd finish and I was really fine with it. I walked a lot in that last mile. Mile 9 - 15:12. But then I was approaching the last corner. I knew that right around that bend was the downhill to the finish line. I started running again and finished the race out at a better pace. My Garmin has my average pace faster than my official pace since it had me going farther than 9.3. But, official results were: 2:09:03. My mom finished 2 minutes faster than me.

When comparing my results to other races this year I was faster than the half marathon in May and the 10 miler in June. My average pace was slower than the 10K or 5 miler, but those are significantly shorter distances so you really can't compare those. All in all I'm happy. I realized after this race that I have really improved this year up to about the 10K distance. That just means that now my goal is to work on getting faster up to the 10K distance and THEN add more distance.

Next up race wise? I haven't signed up for anything yet, but I am pretty certain I am going to do the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. It's a 4 mile race in the town next to mine and I've done it at least 3 times before. I know I won't be beating my best time, but I'm OK with that. I'm actually not even certain I'll do better than my worst time at this race, but that's OK too. It would be race #6 on the year. The MOST races I've ever done in one year was 9 in 2012. To be at 5 or 6 this year is amazing to me. This year started with me wanting to get back to the half marathon distance (which I did) and has resulted in me absolutely making a comeback!

It's unfortunate my eyes are closed
because otherwise I really like this pic.

So even though I haven't lost a single pound since May 1st (and have gained back a few), it's not that I've given up. I am still here. I am still going. I have the exercise part down and just need to focus on the food part. The good news is that 2 days ago I really started focusing on ONE DAY AT A TIME. Each morning I am texting my friend with my goal for that day. So far this week each morning I have texted her to say my goal is to stay between 1800 and 2000 calories. That's it. Just for today. I have managed to string together 2 (and so far today) days of meeting that goal. We'll see how the rest of this day pans out and what my goal will be when I wake up tomorrow.

The Importance Of.......

........NEVER giving up; even when you feel like the biggest failure there is.

I can't stress enough (to myself) how important it is that I truly never give up. I started this blog more than 5 YEARS ago and yet I am still on this journey. It's funny to me because I actually weigh within 2 pounds of where I was in November 2012. Why is that funny? Because I have been struggling for 5 YEARS to get NOWHERE. Or at least that is what it would seem.

In reality I have had a pretty rough go of things in these last 5 years. I am actually quite happy of the fact that I am finally back to where I was in 2012. In 2014 when I hit my highest weight EVER I could have just thrown in the towel completely. I could have said it was clearly pointless since the scale just kept going in the wrong direction (completely because of my behaviors). But I didn't. I saw that number and realized I had to do something about it. The good news? I have NEVER seen that number again.....and plan to never see it ever again.

I could have given up again in 2016 when I re-gained the weight I had lost at the end of 2015, but I didn't. I could have decided it was pointless over the last 6 months because I have no lost a single pound since May 1st. But, because I haven't given up I have been able to maintain my weight within about 5 pounds in these last 6 months. I'm not sure if you realize how absolutely amazing this actually is. What this means to me is that for as many times as I have fallen off the wagon; I have jumped back on for at least a little bit. In the past if I had a span of 6 months where I wasn't losing, I can guarantee you I was actively gaining.

I hit my lowest weight since 2012 on May 1st. I haven't even seen that weight again since then. But I'm here to tell you I have NOT given up. I failed my own 52 day challenge. I haven't used that as an excuse to give up. I am falling off the wagon on a WEEKLY basis; but I am also jumping back on for at least a few days every week. Once again I am jumping ON the wagon and feeling good about it. I don't know how long I'll stay up here before I jump off again. I could be falling off the wagon again tomorrow; but I will get back on. In the last year the wagon has never gotten so far away from me that I couldn't pull myself back up to it. It may take me FOREVER, but if I can at least keep doing that I will eventually get this weight off of me.

So, whatever you're struggling with, DON'T GIVE UP. You've got this. And so do I.

TOWPATH TRILOGY - 10K

Source: towpathtrilogy.com

It's here. The 3rd and final race in the Towpath Trilogy. I've talked about it before, but this is a race series that I have been wanting to do since 2013. Back in 2012 when I was training for the Columbus Marathon I completed 2 of 3 of the Towpath races. I can't remember exactly why I didn't do the first one in April. It may have been because I didn't realize there was a trilogy or because I didn't want to do any of the distances offered. Whatever the reason was, after completing 2 out of 3 I decided I really wanted to tackle the Trilogy.

I won't rehash how things have gone from 2013 to now because you all know about that (and if you don't, you can look back through my old posts). And, as you already know, I started getting really serious about running again in January of this year. Come April I was able to complete the 5 miler in a time that I did not expect. This was an instant PR because I've never done a 5 mile race before. That was a nice way to start the year.

April - 5 miler

Fast forward to June and I decided to do the 10 miler instead of the 10k because 1) I wanted the medal and 2) I figured I could do it because I would have just finished a half marathon in May so I would already be trained for the 10 miler. When it was time for that race I was kind of wishing I signed up for the 10k instead. I finished the 10 miler even though it was way slower than when I did it in 2012.

June - 10 miler

Running plans changed for this year after the half marathon in May. The original plan was to perhaps train for another FULL marathon. My running partner wanted to do her first and I was wanting to do another one. The plans changed for a few reasons. One reason was because I decided I would not be ready to do a full marathon this year and that I wanted to work on getting better at lower distances before tackling a full marathon again. Then, Leslie became sidelined with an injury so things changed for both of us.

I started running with my mom once a week and we were doing 6 miles a lot of our runs. We have been slowly increasing our miles to train for a 15k in November. Anyway, I was starting to feel pretty confident about this 10k yesterday because my running has seemed to FINALLY be getting faster. I looked at my race report from back in 2012 and started thinking perhaps I could work for a PR.

In the end I did NOT PR; but I am not upset about that at all. My finishing time in 2012 was 1:17:51 which meant a 12:33 m/m pace. My finish time yesterday was 1:18:14....literally SECONDS away from getting that PR. My average pace for yesterday was 12:37 m/m. My average pace for the 5 miler in April was 12:44 m/m, which was a shock to me at the time. To increase the distance by 1.2 miles and increase my speed is great!

October - 10k....Trilogy COMPLETE!

What is also SO interesting to me is that back in 2012 I did a few things differently than I did yesterday that would lead me to believe I should have been lots slower yesterday than I was. In 2012 I blogged about how I ran the first 14 minutes without stopping. After that, I continued on with my 4/1 intervals and only walked extra when I went through the water stops. Yesterday I was doing 3/1 intervals which I kept the entire time and only walked extra through the water stops. I did NOT start by running 14 minutes without stopping. So less time running altogether and I still was within seconds of my previous time. I'm pretty happy with that. Also, I blogged about how in 2012 it was a pretty cold day. I feel I run better in the cooler weather (I think that's how I did so well in April). Yesterday was NOT cool. It wasn't terrible, but in the upper 60's and quite humid so that goes in to my feeling really good about my finish time as well.

That was my 4th race on the year and I am so excited still to feel like "I'm back". I feel like I have finally gotten back to where I was in 2012. I can't believe it took 5 whole years, but right now my weight is just about the same as it was in October 2012 and my running ability seems to be right on par with where it was in 2012. So now it is time to focus on improving even more.

I have at least one more race on the schedule for this year. We'll see if I add any more between now and December 31st.

Day 3 of 52

Days 1 and 2 were Monday and Tuesday this week and they were both relatively easy days.

These were easy days because I got so many extra calories from exercise that I didn't even really have to restrict my calories. I mean, Monday I ate 2,244 calories and my NET calories were still only 537. Tuesday I also ate over 2200 calories, but that day my net calories were up to 1,080. Remember; the goal is to stay at (or below) 1300 NET calories.

It's only day 3 and I'm already feeling slightly challenged today. My calorie burn is lower today so I have to keep my overall calories lower to get to that 1300. Of course it's all in my head because it's still more calories than I ever ate before when I was trying to lose weight.

I think part of my feeling challenged today has to do with anticipating tomorrow. Tomorrow is game 1 of the ALDS and I am lucky enough to be going to the game! I am SO excited about this I can't even tell you.

Going to the game means getting stadium food. I know it doesn't HAVE to mean that, but it means stadium food for dinner because there's no way I'm eating dinner before and then getting through an entire game with no food. No problem though. I've gone to several games lately and I've gotten pretty good at picking one thing and only having that for the duration of the game. I can plan my day around one big meal out and usually not have a problem. It just means I need to make sure I get up and run tomorrow because that will help with my added calories. The problem with tomorrow is that I have 2 higher calorie meals planned. This still doesn't have to derail my efforts though. I can plan accordingly. I can have a big breakfast and then a big dinner and not eat anything in between.

If I burn enough calories to eat 2200 total calories in a day that still leaves quite a bit of room for 2 big meals. And given how high my heart rate went at an Indians game earlier this year I can only imagine what it'll get to at a playoff game! LOL! Raised heart rate helps burn calories!

GO TRIBE!!!! 

52 Days......

52 Days.......seems easy enough, right?

Not 52 weeks. Not 52  years. 52 DAYS.

I have decided to embark on a new challenge. Back in February I was making new goals/challenges for myself each month. I did pretty well with that for a while and my weight was steadily dropping from February to May. My weight has not moved since May. That's not totally true. My weight has moved up, then down, then up, then back down.....you get the idea. It's been GREAT that I've been basically maintaining my weight; but I'm not at a point yet where maintaining my weight is a good thing.

I've posted a lot about trying to find the right mix to get the scale going back in the right direction. I still haven't found that right mix. I'm trying to do things I know worked in the past, but they aren't working now. Well; I'M not working them now. Tracking during the week and being more lenient on the weekends is fine if 1) I'm actually restricting my calories enough during the week and 2) am not going totally crazy during the weekend. In September when I was trying to do this again I was eating over 2,000 calories most days during the week (because I was still "in the green" in MFP) and then going totally crazy on the weekends.

Sigh.....

It was time for some more soul searching and for a decision to be made. It was then that I decided to challenge myself to 2 things for the next 52 days (from October 2nd to November 22nd):

1. NO WINE

2. Track and stay within MFP calories EVERY DAY. 

That's it. Two things that should be easy enough, right? But, of course, if they were that easy it wouldn't be such a damn struggle all the time. Staying within MFP calories amounts to keeping my calories at 1300 NET each day. This is actually not a hard thing to do MOST days. Most days I earn so many extra calories from activity that I can eat 2300 and still have calories remaining. The days that I don't exercise will be MUCH trickier to stay in my calorie range. 

Again I am not going to put pressure on myself as to where those calories come from. I do believe that if I track and keep my calories in the MFP range EVERY day for 52 days I WILL lose weight. Of course I just re-read my blog post from Feb 1st where I talked about how my calories were within my range most days in January but I still gained weight. So I am once again feeling uncertain about my goals and whether or not I need to just suck it up and restrict myself more. 

Looking at things from January more closely though I see that I had my NET calories set at 1660 instead of 1300 so that should make a difference right there. Regardless; tracking EVERY day and staying in MFP calorie range has got to do something positive. 

So 52 days. Today is day 2 and so far so good. I will weigh in each week to check my progress. I am going to make Thursdays my weigh in day since day 52 is a Wednesday so that means my "final" (for this challenge) weigh in will be on Thanksgiving Day. I have a goal in mind for that weigh in, but I don't think it is a realistic goal and frankly, as long as the scale goes lower than it was on May 1st I'll be content. I will pick a more realistic weight goal range for that weigh in when I weigh in on Thursday morning. 

I am also toying with the idea of blogging every day during this challenge to help keep me accountable and on track. So get ready for more posts! 

Fighting my DEMONS

Things have been interesting lately.

A few days ago I was going to write this wonderfully positive post. And today's post is still going to have a very positive vibe to it, but it's just........different.

Let's back track to a little over a week ago. It was September 9th and my sister in law and I were going to the Indians game because the give away that day was the 1977 jersey. We bought these tickets back in July as birthday gifts to ourselves since we were both born in 1977. Turns out this game also happened to be when the Indians were trying to increase their win streak to 17 games.

So we get to the game and we took some pictures. And something just hit me. I REALLY liked the selfie we took. I try not to take many selfies because I never felt like I could "get them right". I think what it really came down to was that I just didn't like how I looked in them. And, if we're being honest here, I just didn't like how I looked in ANY picture. I always forced myself to still take them periodically with the kids and such because I do want to document things in my life regardless of how I feel about myself.

On this same day I also noticed that I no longer had to stress about things fitting me. Even just last summer I would have worried about the free jersey fitting me (with good reason because it's not "too" big on me now). The weather ended up being colder than I anticipated because it was windy and we were in the shade. I ended up buying a sweatshirt and was so excited when I could get an XL and know that it would fit me big and roomy, just the way I like my sweatshirts to fit. I had gotten to the point that even the 2XL's weren't fitting with as much room as I like in a sweatshirt. This year I probably could have even just gotten a large.
The Indians won that day and it was one of the most amazing atmosphere's I've ever been a part of. The Indians continued to win and on September 13th they had a day game that also happened to be the day they were going for win #21 in a row, which would be an American League record. My sister in law and I decided we were going to go to this game as well. My parents ended up joining us and the Indians ended up WINNING! But even before all that happened I just felt good. I was feeling like my life couldn't get much better. I mean, it was a BEAUTIFUL day and I was able to decide at the last minute to go potentially witness history in the making. SIL and I took yet another picture together and for the first time in as long as I can remember (maybe ever) I looked at myself in that picture and thought how pretty/attractive/cute/(whatever positive word you want to use) I looked. It feels SO weird even typing that out. How many people look at themselves in a picture and think, "Man, I look GOOD". Maybe lots of people do that. I don't. But I did. And it felt amazing!

Ok. So you're probably starting to wonder why on Earth I titled this blog post "Fighting my DEMONS".

Even with how good I have been feeling about myself lately I still struggle every single day with trying to eat right and do what I need to do to move myself in the right direction. One would think that when I start to feel really good about myself I would only want that to continue (by losing more weight, getting faster at running, etc). I do want it to continue and I DO want to eventually reach my goals, but I think I just tend to lose my focus.

I talked in my last post about trying to find the right mix. I thought I had made the decision to do what I knew worked in the past. Well, I DID make that decision. But I sit here on September 18th continuing to doubt myself about whether or not I am doing the "right" thing. I don't think I am. I think I'm taking too many "off" days and not eating low enough calories on my "on" days. I am stressing about it when I said I wasn't going to stress about it. I'm obsessing over data and numbers instead of just TRUSTING THE PROCESS.

How many times must I say the same things to myself? In April I trusted the process. Well, not really, I doubted it the entire month but just continued with my goals that month anyway. I tracked everything I ate every single day for the entire month. I didn't even necessarily stay within my calorie range every day. Actually, I went out of my calorie range 13 days during that month and still ended up losing 6 pounds. (see what I mean with the data and numbers??)

So I fight the demons in my head. I fight the thoughts that tell me I should try to do this faster. I fight the demons that tell me it doesn't matter how slow I do it as long as it's going in the right direction. I fight the demons that are constantly fighting each other! I will continue to fight these fights and hopefully continue to make progress with how I feel about myself. I still see this going in the right direction. I still fully believe that THIS time I will do this.

Finding the right "mix"

Once again it's been a while since I posted. I definitely meant to post after my jumpstart week but then time just got away from me. The result of that week was a 5.5 lb loss. I was obviously very happy about that. That was more than a month ago now and the bad news is that my weight continues to be about the same as where it was after losing that 5.5 lbs. Not ALL bad, but the fact that in another 5 weeks I basically haven't lost anything is annoying.

Oct 2015

Not annoying because I'm doing everything right and the weight just isn't coming off. No. Annoying because I can't seem to string together more than a few days of being on track. I am trying so hard to find the right mix of healthy eating and indulging to keep my sanity and motivation.

I can't believe 2015 was already 2 years ago because it feels like it was just yesterday. In September 2015 I decided to try yet another way of losing weight and that was by simply tracking what I ate 4-5 days per week and not tracking 2-3 days per week. It was basically be very mindful of calories Mon-Thurs and get to be more lenient Fri-Sun. This post from Oct 1st talked about how my first month doing that worked.  I can still remember it really doing wonders. I never felt deprived because I would just tell myself if I still wanted it over the weekend I could have it. I took all the guilt and stress out of losing weight and in a little over 3 months I was down almost 17 pounds.

Oct 2016

You might be wondering why the heck I didn't just keep doing this after those first 3 months. Yea, me too. It was September when I started so it was December when I fell off the wagon and then struggled to get back on track until well into 2016. I've talked about it several times on this blog, but I seem to have such a hard time from about December to April. I broke that streak this year by getting back on track in February. And, even though I've been "struggling" since hitting my lowest weight on May 1st, I have maintained my weight within 3 pounds of that weight for the past 3 months.

Not only that, but I finally feel like my running is improving. I kept getting frustrated because I wasn't seeing the improvements as quickly as I wanted, but I am definitely starting to see them. I'm finally back to averaging under a 13 minute/mile for the majority of my runs and I am STOKED about that! I was just reading a post from 2016 where I posted about my longest run since 2012. I was SO excited about that 5 miles and didn't even care what the pace was. I don't even remember what intervals I was doing back then, but I think probably 3/2. Fast forward to my 5 mile run with my mom last weekend and we covered the same distance in 13 less minutes doing 3/1 intervals.

So I am back to believing that what I was doing in 2015 really was working. I remember thinking it was the least stressed I had ever been when trying to lose weight. I think I may finally be figuring this all out though. For the first time in a LONG time I can look at my weight from the past 3 years and see that I weighed less in July '15 than July '14; less in July '16 than July '15 and less today than in Aug '16. As much as I would have loved to have been at my goal weight by now, I am moving in the right direction. The key to focus on now is to stop the re-gain that I seem to encounter every year. I have re-gained some this year already, but we're talking 3 pounds. In other years I have gained back either all + more or most of my weight lost.

It's time to get the scale moving in the right direction again so that I can meet my next big goal. And in case you're wondering that next big goal is 199.9 - the elusive ONEderland! I haven't seen onederland since 2011 and even then I only saw it for a few months. My goal is to hit that benchmark before the end of this year.