Struggles in Week 18

Things have been tough lately.  I'm only able to do so much with my Body when my Mind is in the right place.  This week my mind has been off on various days.  I've had my mind focused on the new job, financial goals, relationship goals, etc. and with it I suffered from a severe lack of focus & lost sight of my fitness goals.  I'm thankful that I have some people in my life that remind me why this matters & to not lose sight of my goals. I went through the motions with at least some of my lifting sessions but I somehow managed to push through them so my stats are still strong for the week.

Anyways...

I have big goals for the new year & I'm excited that I'm in the final 45 days before my 30th birthday!  Even if I didn't progress any further between now & then, I'd be proud of the work I've accomplished over the last several months.  That said, I'm in the process of drawing up a pretty detailed & arduous plan so I can more carefully manage what I eat, how much I sleep, fluid intake, & training goals.  After a really crappy & off week, I'm back to thinking of this fitness thing as my Fun & extremely Beneficial Hobby & I'm ready to make progress again.

Week 18:

• 3.4 miles walking 
• 12 miles running
• 2 hours 20 minutes of strength training

Half Marathon!!

I ran the Dallas Half!  Well, unlike last year, I did not jog the whole race.  I probably walked a total of two miles & jogged the rest.  As I learned & reported in my last blog, I can go great distances if I take breaks to walk!!  I ran the half with my sister, again.  I think it was a tough race for both of us since we hadn't been training too intensely but we found ways to stay motivated along the way.  They changed the race trail so the first few miles of the race is now through West Dallas.  There were people & businesses out that we haven't seen in the past.  Several of the businesses had people out waving at us, cheering for us, playing music, etc. which was nice because it kept my mind off of the running!  Also, the weather was perfect race weather.  I figured, if I could do this last year with the wind, rain & cold, then surely I can do it on a beautiful warm day!  I took lots of photos during the race:

Funny shirts!

 Barefoot skirted running guy.

 Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

Sister running Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.

Bebe girl checking out my sister's medal.

Me!


In less-happy news, the cold has now arrived.  I will try to take advantage of nice days and try to squeeze in serious mileage if the temperature is above 50 or so, but I expect most of my cardio for the next month or two to come from cycling or walking indoors.  I much prefer running outside, but I can't let the cold weather be my excuse to be lazy :-P

Week 16:

• 4.3 miles walking
• 13.6 running!!!!! 
• 1 hour 35 minutes of strength training
• NEW: 50 minutes of cycling

Week 17:

• 5.4 miles walking 
• 1 hours 55 minutes of strength training
• 50 minutes of cycling

Weeks 14 and 15

Life has been so busy!  Holidays! Changing jobs! The darn fitness center is shut down until January! Yet, somehow I've managed to keep up with my fitness!  It's a challenge to come up with something effective to do at home with limited equipment but I love the progress I've made so I will not give up now!

No fitness center:
Ryan & I were so disappointed when we made our way to the fitness center and discovered that there is major construction going on throughout the fitness center & that all the doors were locked :-(
When I want something, I want it NOW & I don't want anything to stand in my way.  So, after spending a minute or two pouting, I drove over to Walmart & bought some 15 lb. weights.  They do not make up for access to the fitness center but they at least allow me to get some strength training in for the next month.

Running:
So now that I don't have access to the fitness center treadmill, I put on my running shoes & went OUTSIDE for some exercise.  After taking a full three weeks off from running and easing back in to running in week 13, something came over me & I just wanted to run Run RUN!!  So, I ran.  I hit this mental breakthrough point in Week 15.  You see, I really really really wanted to run the Dallas Half Marathon (more on that next week) but I have not been training at a half marathon level.  I wanted to run the half so badly because 1) it's something I get to do with my sister - I love when we run races together 2) I want to do it annually - as in Every year 3) running feels so good lately and 4) the forecast predicted that the weather would be Perfect on race day.  Considering I ran the half last year in rain, cold, wind with soppy shoes and a face so wet they started handing out Kleenex's, I figured I could handle 13.1 miles if all of those elements were Not in play.  I was a little bit worried that I'd show up at the race & fail half way through so I did a test run with my wonderful sister.  I ran/walked about 8.3 glorious miles with Elisa & decided "I'll go for it!  I'll run the half!"  A very important part of that 8.3 miles is that I took a break about halfway through to walk for a bit.  I've always been of the mentality that there this huge difference between 8 miles and 5 miles plus 3 miles separated by a walk.  I don't know why but I held myself to this completely arbitrary standard that a run should be just that, one long run with no slowing down.  I am so glad that I finally overcame that hurdle & accepted that two relatively long runs separated by a short walk is just as good (if not better) for my body as one continuous run.  There is no way I could have handled 8.3 miles of straight running.  I have not been training at that level & I did not want to push myself so hard that I ended up injured again.  I am so excited to get out there and start logging ridiculously long runs now that I ALLOW myself to slow down when my body asks for it.  I have no idea why it took me so long to make that mental breakthrough but I think it will lead to many additional miles in my weekly check ins!


Week 14:

• 4.9 miles walking
• 4.7 running 
• 1 hour 35 minutes of strength training 

Week 15:

• 3.6 miles walking
• 12. 5 miles running 
•  2 hours 25 minutes of strength training