Starting Over Counting Down

I have not been running. Not at all.

After I got sick, couldn't run, I had bought new shoes, I had problems with my heel, my ankle, my hips & after trying several types of inserts for my new shoes I finally broke down on Monday & went to buy new ones. Running shoes are expensive! The first pair I bought were Saucony shoes. I liked them but figured probably all shoes were about the same & why pay more for Saucony when I can get some Adidas for cheaper & they felt fine to me in the store. I had so many problems that here I am, 4 weeks later, forking out another bundle of money for the high end Saucony shoes I should have just got in the first place.

The shoes would be a good excuse but that's not the reason I haven't ran. Mostly I've just been lazy. I admit it. It's been Christmas Holiday, I've been off of any type of normal schedule with my kids home. It's been really bad air quality outside which does make it harder to breathe but mostly I've just been lazy. The lazier I got the worse I felt. I missed all those happy endorphins & during the most stressful time of year when I probably needed the release the most... I did nothing. Well I shouldn't say nothing. I did eat. I ate a lot. I ate a lot of caramels, cheeseballs, stuffed mushrooms soaked in butter & any other imaginable delectable holiday food I could get my hands on. I ate so much crap I felt like crap. It's taken me a long time to finally feel "normal" again. You would think I would learn from past experiences but I just keep repeating the same cycle all over again.

With the New Year comes resolutions & my number one goal (despite snickers from my friends) is to run that marathon. I ran on Monday, well if you want to call it that. I ran 3/4 of a mile, walked 1/4, ran 1/4, walked 1 3/4, went home & felt like I might die. I can not run for 30 minutes straight. I am literally starting over.

I have 18 weeks left until the Ogden Marathon on May 15th. My training takes me 16 weeks. I need to be able to run 30 minutes in order to start (re-start) the training. I have given myself no time, I can not double up on any of the weeks. This is it. Do or die. I ran again today & it went a little better but I can not run for longer than 1 1/2 miles (15 minutes), I'm walking half of it right now.

I'm going to keep doing it. Tomorrow I run again. I'm not backing down, I will not give up. My body is too important to give up on. I'm turning up the volume on my iPod & pushing my body down the street. From now on it's just one foot in front of the other until I've reached 26.2 miles.

Day 153 of Training: "Turn the hearts of the children to their fathers."

Well... amazingly enough, when I went to Moab to run my first 10K with my friends, I did it!! The weather was freezing, my friends got sick from something they ate but all in all... it was fun!!

The race was actually harder than when I had ran the 6 miles before, I think because I hadn't ran in such a long time. It seemed like it lasted forever! I got to mile 3 and thought. "Wow! Only 3!?!" Around mile 4 I caught up to my friend & asked her if she knew how far we had gone. She excitedly said "We're almost to mile 4!" as if this was SO easy & where had the time gone! I was thinking... "Almost 4!! We're not even to FOUR yet!! I'm gonna freakin' die!!" Every corner we turned I thought... "This has to be the end. Where's the finish line?" It was hard to keep all the negative thoughts away. I don't know how many times I thought "Why am I doing this? I can't breathe right and I hate running! This sucks!" then I would have to stop myself & tell myself that I'm just getting over a cold & that it was easy before... it's just because I had to take that break. Just one foot in front of the other until I was at the finish line." I made it! It took about half way through that day to finally realize... "Hey! I just ran my first 10K and that rocks!!"

I think the 10k was the perfect boost after being sick & down for a couple of weeks. I've been going right back on track. I was supposed to run 7 miles this last Saturday and Zach was swamped all day and I couldn't leave my 4 kids home alone to go run for over an hour. We went to a show that night and when I finally got back at 11:30pm I decided it was now or never! It was a warm 37 degrees outside so I got dressed and started to run! I got to mile 4 and started to slip all over the roads that had turned to ice. I had to call Zach to come & get me. I'll try 7 miles again this weekend.

I've been asked a lot recently why I decided to start running. I think it's kind of a hard answer. I usually say that my friends all did it, so it got me interested. There's other reasons that until now I haven't talked about.

I wanted to lose weight. Not really for vain reasons, I was fine with my body the way it was although it would have been alright with me if I looked slimmer... hotter. I didn't care enough though to really do anything about it. I'd had 4 kids & my hubby still thought I was hot. That's all I really cared about. : ) What I really wanted to change were my family genes.

I'm usually pretty good at watching and learning from what other people do. A few years ago my Grandpa had a quadruple heart bypass. Not exactly fun. My Dad also found out he is border-line Diabetic. (Type 2 Diabetes) I went & had a physical thinking I was in excellent shape. I felt great, didn't think anything was wrong & they told me my "cholesterol was a little elevated for my age". What? "It was still good enough but I would need to watch it." OKAY!! So I LOVE to cook!! Not only do I love to cook but things just taste better with butter & cream!

The first thing I changed was my diet. I guess you could say that over time my whole outlook on food has totally changed. I still have my indulgence food every once in a while as a treat but it's not my everyday eating any more.

Then I started exercising everyday. After a while with my diet & exercise I hit a plateau & didn't lose anymore inches or weight. That's when my running friends cued in... "The fat just melts right off!", "It's exhilarating!", "It totally tones your whole body!".

Now that I've been doing this I feel so much better than I ever have before. It's funny to think that I was just fine with me before. I'm not talking about how I looked but how I felt! I didn't realize how much better I could feel. I thought everything was great! I had no idea!

My Mom has been walking a ton while I've been running. I'm so proud of her. She's trying to be healthier too. Her shoulder hurts constantly & she's in physical therapy for that, her foot hurts & she feels like she's falling apart. She's had to stop walking for now & it's driving her crazy. I can't help but hear my Mom, watch my Dad, see my Grandpa & think... "Well... that's how it will be if I change nothing. Now let's see how it turns out if I change everything." That's why I run.

Day 136 of Training: Sick and Tired.

I'm pretty sure that nobody really reads my blogs except my Mom & Sister. So I don't feel too bad about not writing last week but there was nothing really to write about. I mean it... NOTHING. That's why there was no post last week. On the 17th of November I woke up feeling like my head was going to fall off. It wasn't a running day but I had signed up to be with my trainer on that day so I called her at 5am and canceled.

Through this whole thing I'm so afraid that if I stop running, or miss a training day that I'll just stop altogether. Wednesday I didn't feel much better. My head was spinning and felt about 20lbs heavier than normal. My nose was running, my head hurt and my equilibrium was a little off but I decided to run. I figured I could walk the 4 miles if I needed to and I thought that the cold air and running might actually clear up my head. I ran 3/4 of a mile, sat on a curb and called Zach to come & get me. I couldn't breathe, my lungs were burning and I had zero energy. I was supposed to run 3 miles on Thursday. I didn't go. Saturday I had felt worse than ever and I spent a good portion of the day in bed.

Monday, November 23. My head still kills and I do feel better than I did on the weekend but I know I'm not going to be able to run. Tuesday, canceled with my Trainer. Wednesday I got dressed in my warm running clothes, laced up and went outside. The same thing happened. I got about 3/4 mile, turned around and walked home. At least I wasn't sitting on the curb, gasping for air and waiting for my husband to come pick me up this time.

Thanksgiving there was a race in Farmington I wanted to run. I made rolls and pies instead. Today is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I still can't get all the gunk out of my head. I'm doing things and moving around more now but I'm sitting here writing this and feeling real loser like. I know I can't control if I get sick or not but I'm frustrated that I'm not making progress. I'm worried that I might actually be going backwards and I might have to back track a little. I'm worried because I signed up to run a 10K with some friends this next Saturday in Moab. The most I've ran is 6 miles and I haven't ran in 2 weeks. I hope I feel well enough to go. Hopefully this doesn't linger much longer. If anything I've learned that you can't take good health for granted. I miss... breathing. Breathing was nice

I'm not worried about the marathon in May. I gave myself plenty of time for... just in case something like this happened. I don't HAVE to be training until January to be able to run the marathon.

I was starting to get frustrated over the last month because I haven't really lost any weight while I've been doing this. I have a cheat every once in a while but not often enough to totally sabotage my whole plan. I'm eating well, I'm trying to drink my water and I'm working really hard, harder than I ever have in my whole life with trying to get my body in shape. It's been very discouraging to step on the scale and not see one pound of weight loss. I have about 35lbs left that I'd like to get off my body. It was really starting to bug me that I had made no progress with this.

Then in my training for a marathon book I read the next chapter and one of the things it talked about was attaching another goal to my goal of running a marathon. That's what I've done. I need to concentrate on one goal right now. My goal is to run the marathon. That's what I'm training my body to do. I'm not going to worry about losing weight, looking hot in my swimming suit in the Spring or anything else. I'm going to worry about putting one foot ahead of the other until I've ran 26.2.

I noticed that my clothes were getting lose even though I hadn't lost any weight. I finally decided to measure myself and I've lost more than an inch around my ribs, waist and hips. So I HAVE been losing inches! Maybe I've been gaining muscle instead? It doesn't matter though. I'm fully concentrating now on running, feeding my body to run and hydrating my body to run. If I happen to lose weight while I do it than that would be great. If not, who cares anyway! Another goal for another time.

Day 122 of Training.

Yesterday I decided that I should probably go and get me some new running shoes. My knees started hurting a little bit over the last couple of weeks so I thought maybe it was because my shoes were wearing out. While I was at Strider's I decided to get some running clothes to wear in the cold. The long pants and shirts are supposed to be breathable but still keep my heat in somehow.

Today when I woke up and everything was covered in snow I wasn't exactly excited to go out and run in the icey cold but I was curious to see how the clothes would work out. It took me longer to get dressed than usual. The black pants and shirt that I put on were tight to my body and I felt like cat woman after I sucked myself into them... only my body doesn't look anything close to Halle Berry and the sports bra makes it so my chest doesn't look anything like the pointy chested women from the 60's that played the part so well. By the time I got the running shoes, hat and jacket on I felt a lot better about running outside where people could actually see me.

I ran down my street and just like before I could feel my cheeks and nose begin to freeze. I was wondering how people do this! My nose might fall off or get frost bitten with the way I'm feeling right now. Remind me again why I don't live in Hawaii? Cold and I do not agree! After about my first mile I suddenly realized that nothing on my face was cold anymore. I guess when I started to warm up my face did too! Cool!

I took a different route than normal and today was the first day I was running 6 miles. SIX miles sounded like SO MANY MILES today. I was really nervous about it and wasn't sure I could do it. The farthest I've gone so far is 5 and I didn't feel ready to add another mile on but according to the running program I add another mile every week on my long run and supposedly people are able to do this without a problem.

My new route took me past a lot more farms and fields than normal. I discovered that... although I think my scenery is beautiful I get discouraged easily when it's wide spaces like that. You see... when I'm running past houses I can visually tell that I'm going somewhere, I constantly feel how fast (or slow) I'm going and I can SEE the progress I'm making. When I'm running past fields and farms all I can see is how long the road is and there's nothing besides... wheat and hay. There's nothing to visually mark my milestones, nothing to let me know how well I'm doing. The good thing about my route today was that there were a lot more hills that I had to climb, which... although I hated them at the time, it's really great to know that I'm getting a better, more... well-rounded type of run.

About half way I actually started to get hot which meant that the clothes were working. I slipped off the jacket and tied it around my waste to get it out of the way... and also to hide my behind in these skin tight pants.

I came up on the last quarter mile and started to sprint. I don't know why but I started to do that the last couple couple of times. I just start running as fast as I can. The first time I did it I think it was because I still felt like I had so much energy but then... I realized that it was something I wasn't able to do just a little while ago and I think that made it more fun. Now it's just... see how fast I can go on that last little part. The cool part is that I don't get really tired or very easily out of breathe while I do it. If you read my very first blog entry, I talk about how my lungs were burning and I could barely make it to the end of the street and I wasn't even running that fast and I felt like I was gonna die. I sprint as fast as I can through that exact same part that I had trouble with on my first run. I know it doesn't make sense but I do it because I CAN run it now and I can run it FAST. If anything... that right there shows how much stronger and healthier my body is. That's why I'm going to keep doing this and why I think that even though SIX miles sounds like a lot right now... when I look back at where I've been... and what I've accomplished... if I've done this much in 4 months than I have no doubt that I can run 26.2 by May.

Day 117 of Training: Emotions of Food and Motion

Many of you know what a bad running week I had last week. Well I am proud to say that this week was so much better.

I'm still amazed that what I eat & put in my body makes such a difference on how I feel while I run. It also makes a difference on how I feel emotionally through the day, it makes a difference on how much energy I have, it directly affects my self worth level & also how I view myself. I find that if I eat pizza, chocolate & soda I immediately feel like I'm fat, lazy & ugly. I know it doesn't make sense but it's true. If I eat vegetables, fruit, whole grains & good protein I feel energetic & beautiful. I feel like I've already taken the time to take care of myself in one way so I usually wear nicer clothes on those days & my hair & makeup will be done too! You can tell I feel better overall.

I also get more done during the day on the days that I eat right & run. I guess it's because I feel like I already had time to myself and now I can work on my family or the house or take care of whatever else needs attention, I already took care of me. Taking care of me is important... not just to me but to my family. They get a lot better quality mom and wife when I'm in a good mood and more energetic.

I remember about a year ago there were days when I felt like locking myself in the bathroom just so I could have a minute to myself. I was so tired all the time and constantly didn't feel good. I was lucky if I got to take a shower, let alone put on makeup, nice clothes or do my hair. I always felt like I needed more sleep, so the idea of waking up early to exercise sounded awful!

I still have those days once in a while but I'm happy to say that they're the exception now rather than the rule. I know that no matter how tired I am in the morning I will feel more tired through the day if I choose to stay in bed rather than go move my body. It's amazing what has happened over the last year when I finally decided to love myself, take care of myself and make ME a priority. I know that might sound... self absorbed? As a Mom of 4 kids though, I was never thinking about myself. I would get everyone ready for church and my kids would walk out looking like beauty queens and my hair was still half wet. I was the last one to sit down at the table, I was exhausted from taking care of everyone and I felt guilty if I took time out for myself for ANY reason.

I was hoping that all of this would change me on the outside and make me a healthier person but I never knew the changes that would come emotionally or the positive changes it would have on my whole family. It doesn't make sense but it's true. I take care of me first and then everyone else gets taken care of, there's suddenly enough of me to go around!

I've read the book "In Defense of Food". It's a little wordy but very enlightening and will change the way you think about food. It basically says to not eat all that processed stuff. Try to choose REAL food. (Butter instead of Margarine, Whole Grains, etc...) It also says to try to choose foods that have 5 or less ingredients and that has ingredients that you can pronounce and that you know what they are. I've also gone organic and no horomones or pesticides in my food. On the front of the book it says... "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Does this sound familiar to anyone? It's what I've been told my whole life in the Word of Wisdom only it never seemed that simple before. So I'm standing in the shower the other day and thinking.... "DUH! When did we decide that our scientists knew more about food and what was healthy for us than Heavenly Father does? When did we become SO clever that we could MAKE food be more nutritious for our bodies and less fattening than the vegetables, fruits, grains & animals that Heavenly Father gave to us. When exactly was it that we became smarter than God?" The answer to me is that we're not smarter so I've put away my Cap'N Crunch and candy and although I do have my treats every once in a while my diet does not consist mainly of 100 calorie snacks, breakfast cereal and fake, "No Fat" yogurt made with fake sugars and chemicals used to preserve it. Wow, what a difference I can feel! Amazing.

So I re-did "Week ONE" of my training schedule and it was a night and day difference. I tried really hard last week to eat well and when I ran the 5 miles on Saturday I felt like I could breathe easy, my body didn't get tired and I felt like I could have kept going. Today I started the "Week TWO" of the 16 week training and I have to run 6 miles on Saturday. I hope I can do it... I've never ran more than 5 before. We'll see how it goes.

Day 109 of Training: You are what you eat.

Last week was my "Week One" of the marathon training. The training is 16 weeks, the Marathon is on Saturday, May 15th. I know I'm starting ahead of schedule but I heard people say that sometimes they felt like they were barely able to get through some of the last weeks. I figure that this way I can repeat any of the weeks I feel like I didn't go well. I have 27 weeks so I could do almost all of the weeks twice.

This week I was supposed to run 3 miles Monday, 4 miles Wednesday, 3 miles Thursday & 5 miles Saturday. I did 3 on Monday. Wednesday came around and I couldn't make it over to the gym and it was storming outside so I stayed at home and decided to do 4 miles on my elliptical. OK, so the elliptical is way harder. I was slower at it. Running usually would have taken me 40 minutes to run but the elliptical took 80 minutes to do 4 miles! It seemed like I was on it forever!! I better have been burning a lot more calories. Although the hour & 20 minutes seems bad I should feel pretty good about this. When I first got the elliptical about a year ago I couldn't be on it for longer than 5 minutes. I remember when I hit 15 minutes and I thought that was awesome!

Thursday came around and I got in warm clothes to go outside and run. I warmed up, headed out the door and started running down the street. My nose and cheeks got so cold they were numb, I couldn't feel them. I ran right back in my house... I hadn't gone quite a mile. I decided to do the rest of it on my elliptical. Although I was trying to be faster than yesterday I really wasn't. I was so bored and frustrated I gave up after 1 mile. Only 2 miles today. Discouraging. I opened the Halloween candy I bought and before I knew what was happening I had eaten 4 of those little yummy snickers bars. I think that's like a whole candy bar... so much for working anything off for the day.

Friday was worse. I was up late with Hailey doing homework on Thursday night so I had canceled the session I had scheduled with my trainer at the gym on Friday morning. I was on the run all day helping with Halloween parties at schools, picking up and dropping off kids. We ate Chick-Fil-A for lunch and I got a kids meal with the greasy goodness of the chicken nuggets and waffle fries. Zach took me on a Halloween date. We ate Mexican food and I chose something that came beautifully wrapped in a flour tortilla that had been excellently fried. I drank around 5 large Cokes, my excuse was that I had to stay up late tonight for all the scary ghost stories. I brought with me a bag of Milky Way candies to share with our friends. Through the night I ate 5 of those "fun size snacks".

Saturday started out great. I was ready to eat better and to treat myself better. My kids had let us sleep in. (I know... miracle.) I left at about 9:00am to go run my 5 miles. It started off really rough. Why am I running again? I was hating every step, I felt like I couldn't breathe. My body couldn't handle it today. I pushed myself to keep going, I slowed down my pace to try and catch my breathe. Why can't I breathe? About half way through I felt like I finally had my rhythm but still couldn't get my breathing to be right. It's like I had half the lungs I had before. At about mile 3 I stopped running and had to walk the rest.

That's what happens when I put garbage in my body. When I feed myself crap my body feels it and acts like crap. The great part about running is that you can eat pretty much anything and be OK... pretty much... what I've learned you can't eat if you still want to perform are large amounts of sugar, any kind of soda pop... not even diet and nothing that's been deep fried. The good part though is that when I have a "bad eating day" I'm usually pretty good at turning it all around the next day and just say to myself... well that was nice, now back to real life. That's what I have to do this next week. Just say... well Halloween was nice, now back to real life. I'm re-doing "week one" starting tomorrow. If I want to ever get to do the marathon though I've really got to stop having so many "bad eating" days.

BTW... If I eat fruit, vegetables, whole grains & lean meat I can definitely tell a difference in the way I perform. Hhmmm... maybe because that's what my body really needs! Try it for 30 days and you'll for sure notice the difference when you have a "bad eating" day. Crazy to think I ate all that crap all the time before.

Day 98 of Training: Treadmills & the Gym

It's October. It's pitch dark when I leave to go run at 6:00am, not to mention bitterly cold. Each rushing breathe of frosty air stings my lungs. I decided it was time for a change. I thought maybe it was time to invest in a treadmill. We looked all over the internet, researched like crazy and for the ones that you could run on... not just walk or jog... the price tag was unbearable. Way more than I wanted to spend on a piece of equipment that I would only use 3-4 months of the year. Even with my pool I get a good 6-7 months out of!

I decided to go with a gym membership. After searching around I found a gym that I could go to for only $10/mo. Not bad... I have to have a 1 year contract but I can freeze my account for a few months too.

I show up the first day to the gym. There's ONE treadmill available, I stand there and realize there's way too many buttons. I decide rather than standing there pushing buttons and looking like a fool I'll go and grab someone that works there and ask them to help me... and look like a fool. I run to find someone and when I come back the treadmill is taken... I had left my drink and a towel on it but... I politely grab it, let it go and I see someone else getting off. They get off the treadmill and leave... WITHOUT WIPING IT DOWN! Gross! I clean off the machine and get ready to start. The guy comes over and shows me the important buttons and I start. I'll admit that my first day was the worst day. None of those things happened again.

The more I go, the more I hate it! I'm not... like... going anywhere! OK, so I know that's what happens but I didn't think I'd miss it that much. I love being outside, feeling the sun on my skin, breathing in gulps of fresh air having the variations in the way my feet step on the ground. Each step is different and unique. I'm going to the beat of my music, I have time to reflect on my upcoming day and my life, I create goals and best of all... if I get tired for a minute I can't just stop and say... good enough. I have to get home.

In the gym there are stupid LOUD boys trying to get the attention of everyone around them while they're lifting weights. I feel like I'm breathing in everyone's sweat. The air is thick, it smells, and worst of all I feel like I have an audience. There's also the difference of my running performance. When I run outside I feel like I'm propelling myself forward, if anything I have to keep reminding myself to slow down and take it easy. I have the natural hills and the different types of surfaces that make it so I run a little differently through parts of my run. The treadmill is always the same, I can create artificial hills but it's not nearly the same feeling. I also feel like I'm just going at this machine like pace. It doesn't feel natural at all.

So, I have a problem. How do I get outside to run in my day when it's not black as night and 30 below zero? I have 4 kids, 2 of which aren't in school yet. I've tried to run with them in a stroller and it's just awful. I hate it that I can't swing my arms and even through my ear phones I can hear the constant bickering and whining. I've decided that I do this for me and that I NEED the alone time in the morning. It's the only time of the day that it's me, alone, with my own thoughts, without someone needing me or calling "Mom!", it's the only time I'm taking care of myself and not someone else. It's my way of telling myself that I'm important and that I need to love my body. I can't do this while pushing my kids in a stroller in front of me whining that they want to get out, or they want a drink, or that "Dylan touched my arm!".

Well, I'm still working on the answer. My husband and I are trying to work it out so that I can run outside during daylight hours. It's progressing. What I can tell you is that the treadmill is not for me. I'm glad that I didn't buy one. It's so much better outside!

OH! I also started running 5 miles this week! I'm pretty excited about that. Monday I'm officially starting the marathon training program. I'm nervous, excited and scared kind of all at once. More excited than anything though... here we go! Wish me luck!