Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Cold


Good thing today is an off day from running, because it is cold outside. Hoth-like cold. I'm hoping it gets worse overnight, though. If I wake up in the morning and there is enough snow for them to shut down my office, I would be the happiest person in Oklahoma. I am a little worried about when I am going to be able to run again, but I guess I will just have to up the cross training for awhile.

I'm still in the frustrating phase of weight loss. I've upped the number of meals I am eating each day, while trying to keep my calories the same or less, and I've cut back on carbs a bit. No bread, pasta, etc. Right now, though, my weight is either the same or maybe a little higher. I'm not sure because I haven't weighed in awhile. I probably won't weigh again for another couple of weeks, because I know I'm not close to where I need to be. If the scales say I've lost weight, I will feel like I can ease up a bit, and start to gain weight again. If I haven't lost any weight, I will get frustrated and start to eat too much. Neither of those seem like a good option.

So in the meantime, I am still lifting pretty hard, running as much as possible, and growing this beard that I can't shave until 220. Hopefully, that will happen before Christmas, but who knows?

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Endings.....And new Beginnings

Sometimes, when you are caught up in the moment, it is hard to remember where you started. In March, I started running, with a goal of running the marathon at the Route 66 in Tulsa. I use the term running loosely, because I was mostly walking. I weighed over 250 pounds and it hurt to even walk. I still remember those early attempts at running 2 miles with Aaron and Jerome. At the time, it seemed like I had no chance at becoming a runner. I was getting injured all the time, walking 2 or 3 out of every 5 minutes, and not enjoying it all that much. But I knew that this was something important. Maybe not in comparison with ending Third World hunger, but I knew I needed something. I wasn't sure what, but I was hoping to find it while preparing for 26.2.

Frustratingly, injury ended any chance of running the marathon. Oddly enough, my partner in crime (or just my partner as Aaron likes to tell people at pasta dinners) also had an injury at about the same time. It would have been easy to give up on the dream right then, but once we got healthy, we set our sites a little lower and decided to run the half marathon at the Route 66. I honestly don't remember how we got started in the summer, but starting on August 27th, I started logging all of my runs on Runstoppable.com. It is funny to go back and look at the distances and times from those early days and also to read my blog, but it is also very satisfying to watch how things have progressed. I've lost around 15 pounds and today I finished my first half marathon.

For a long time during training, race day seemed so far away that it might as well have been 100 years from now. So that made it seem even stranger when we completed our last 2 mile training run on Thursday. I remember running 4 miles for the first time this year and being so impressed with myself for completing the distance. Next thing I know, we are talking about going out for an easy 5 miler.

I will try and give race details tomorrow, but for now, I just want to give out some congrats. Congrats to Shell for finishing today and doing such a good job training for the race. I know she put in a lot of time on the road getting ready for today. I know you don't want to cover this same distance again, but hopefully we can all get out for some 5K's soon.

Congrats to Aaron for losing so much weight during the training process and showing me what kind of transformation is possible. I'm still amazed at how thin you look every time I see you, and I appreciate you sacrificing minutes off of your race times to run back in the pack with me. I promise to put in the time and effort so you won't have to make those decisions during races next year. I couldn't have done this without you!

Lastly, thanks to Kary for spending all of those evenings alone so I could be out on the road trying to find what I was looking for. You are one of the reasons I'm working so hard to get healthy and hopefully this will give us more time together in the long run. Congrats also on finishing the half today, even though your knee problem made the last 2 miles torturous! You showed alot of heart finishing as strong as you did. Hopefully, you've caught the race bug and we can spend a lot of Saturday mornings together earning cheap T-shirts and eating bananas and other assorted post-race snacks!!

So while this half marathon was an ending of sorts, it is really only the beginning. The next big racing goal is the OKC Memorial Marathon in April. There will be plenty of smaller races between now and then, but I have to make some changes first. I still have over 30 pounds to lose, and that starts tomorrow. On that note, I shaved yesterday, and I'm not shaving again until I weigh 220. So I may end up with a beard by Christmas if I don't get after it. I also need to add strength before the marathon, specifically in my hamstrings. That is where most of my aches and pains start. I need to run more hills and stairs, and I need to add some speed work. All of these things are short term, though. My long range goal is to become a runner for life, and hopefully the kids will catch the bug and give me more people to run with. In the meantime, though, I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where I end up.