Weekend Success

Here we go yet again with another Monday morning. I can honestly tell that after 5 plus years at my job I am starting to get truly bored and unfulfilled because when Sunday night hits I am less than excited about the prospect of ANOTHER week of the same old bull shit. I suspect this is how most people feel about their employment so I suppose I’m not really any rarity. It doesn’t make me any more particularly thrilled about my employment to know I am not alone in the misery of job dissatisfaction. But I guess it’s something.

I actually had an amazing weekend. I really was completely enthralled in me stuff and apparently my true selfish bitch tendencies come out and I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. It’s okay for me to call myself a selfish bitch because I know I am spoiled. Wait, I’m not a bitch so I should drop that part. I am a selfish spoiled self-absorbed individual at times. There, that’s better. I know it’s true. I am 34 years old. I have spent the better portion of my life without huge gigantic responsibilities and I don’t mind centering my life around myself. What is wrong with that? It’s not like I’m ignoring the other things or people that are important in my life so I guess partaking in self-indulgent activities when the world will allow for it isn’t too terrible.

With that said let me recap my weekend highlights for you. Friday night I did take off from exercise. My body deserves one day of rest a week I do believe and I love making it Friday night’s. I got my nails done and holy crap they are much nicer and more manageable at a shorter length. Love that. Nothing makes you feel better than good grooming. Afterwards I did end up going out for Mexican Food where I ultimately indulged in way too many chips and beans on the table. The actual dinner wasn’t too great either and then of course when I got home I took it as an opportunity to eat way to many white chocolate lindt truffles. Oh well. I figured this was my cheat meal for the week so go ahead and live a little.

Saturday morning I got up and went to the gym as I normally do. I was actually about 10 minutes late to class because I just stuck behind a stupid train. Oh well, I immediately went in and started Turbokick. I had a great hour long turbokick session and then I walked out to the main gym over to the lockers to check my phone. I was still planning on doing weights when my trainer stopped me. She said, Emily, come over here. So this is what went down… She said, “So what do you think about being next month’s member of the month?” My first reaction was, “Already? It’s so soon.” This was my first gut reaction because it’s only been like not even 3 months yet. Let me explain what this is.

Every month the gym obviously picks a “Member of the Month” to do a little write up, spotlight on. These little write ups get published on their Facebook page and their webpage and then printed out and hung up in the gym above the water fountain so that members can read them. I have read every one of them of course. Here is this month’s Member of the Month…

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=496142333813715&set=a.274999375928013.62654.259788890782395&type=1&theater

I happen to know this girl pretty well actually and the fitness coach/trainer testimonial is NOT my trainer but one of the girls I take lots of classes from and have done a training session from here and there. I love her. She’s adorable.

Here’s August 2013’s member of the month..

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=491163960978219&set=a.274999375928013.62654.259788890782395&type=1&theater

And that IS my trainer, Julie there. As you can see, they do their stats, and I have to write something up and then my trainer writes something up. I guess I was surprised that I was asked to be the member of the month so soon. Don’t get me wrong, I always believed I would eventually be member of the month but I really didn’t think after 3 months that would happen. I’m not at all done with my journey obviously but I have made good progress.

My trainer told me that I look great and I am a perfect example of why people come to the gym, etc. That she wanted me to use a before photo when I was heavy and to say that I lost all the weight on my own but joined the gym to strength train because I had never done that before and of course, then look at me know kind of thing. I knew they’d want one of my “fat” photos. I mean I have made substantial progress since walking into the gym, but I wasn’t fat and that photo wouldn’t be nearly as impactful as the 220 pound version of me. I guess to be the October 2013 member of the month I have to do my write up now and submit my photos this week, etc. So I have to try and somehow become less wordy than I normally am and compress my entire life’s journey into a few paragraphs. That will be hard I suspect. To express my love for what this gym has done for me in a few paragraphs will expressing my life’s battle with weight. Should be interesting.

I have to say, I cannot tell you how good it felt to be asked. Despite being beyond shocked, it felt nice. She told me that I am one of those people who really “live this” That I am here almost every day and I put in the work. I just don’t do my training sessions and leave. All nice things to hear. So she said we were going to be doing my measurements again here this week so we can submit them. I felt ridiculously humbled to be asked. I mean, I just didn’t think it would be so soon, but I’ll take it.

So after that excitement I did spend over an hour lifting weights and feeling amazing. Nothing gives you a good glow like feeling accomplished. When I finally got home I decided to head to Saturday Market to pick up some fresh flowers. You can’t beat $10 for a bundle of flowers plus it was beautiful outside and I wanted to go to the Pita Pit and pick up a fresh wrap. Amazing. Perfect. Then I ran into the grocery store and got a few things. Pretty low key evening. Watched a movie. Crazy Stupid Love. I’ve seen it before, I own it and I LOVE everything about this movie. Always have. Especially Ryan Gosling. I mean, he’s in my top 5 celebrities for sure. Anyway, I pretty much called it an early evening because I had a big mental obstacle to tackle on Sunday.

As you all know I signed up for my first half marathon race on September 22. That is two weeks away. While I have been running for a very long time at times I don’t feel like a runner because all of my running is done on a treadmill. Somehow it’s like because I run on a treadmill it devalues the validity of my runs. It’s not as hard, there are no hills, you are not tackling Mother Nature, etc. I like the treadmill. I really do. But it does make me feel like a phony for some reason. And yes, I have always wondered if I could actually translate the treadmill into real life running, with all of the elements, etc.

To be honest, I have been dreading it. I don’t know why. Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Plain old fear. It’s a real bitch and VERY real. So I have not actually ran outside. Obviously as the half marathon is getting closer my anxiety has increased over my ability to actually run this damned thing outside. I feel like a phony and I knew I had to tackle an outdoor run just so I could mentally feel better.

I was telling myself all day Saturday that Sunday, come hell or high-water, I would run outside. I would do a nice long run outside to prove to myself that I could do it. This was a big mental obstacle for me. There are multiple factors in the out of doors I am not equipped for. Water? Music? Clothing choices? Hills. Heat. You get the point.

I woke up Sunday morning and just lied in bed for a while. I wanted to make sure I was really awake before I attempted a run. I told myself that I was shooting for a 9-11 mile run. Even if its hard I need to at least go 9 miles which seemed like an awful lot, especially given my trepidation about outdoor running. I honestly spent too much time in bed before getting up. I did immediately put on workout gear. Picked a nice comfy pair of pants and my best outdoor running shoes. Of course I needed to eat and drink and throw together a playlist on the I-phone to listen to. Oh and I had to find my arm band for my phone. I don’t run outside a lot and I knew I had one somewhere. Oh, and I downloaded and played with an app for running, Run Keeper. I actually LOVED this app completely.

Anyway, by the time all of this was accomplished it was 10:00 AM. A little late probably to be starting a long run but oh well. I had mentally committed and I had no idea exactly what I was doing. I figured if I really couldn’t manage it, I only had to run for an hour. It was better than nothing. But I started the music, stated the app and just started running. I had no destination or route in mind. I just headed out in the neighborhood and ran. The first 2 miles sucked. Getting my bearings was hard and I was like, what the hell am I doing? I hate this. And then I started to find my comfort zone and things started getting better.

Mainly, unlike the treadmill, I didn’t have a constant screen to monitor my speed and distance and pace. Of course the phone was tracking all of that but it was on my arm. What I did love about that app is that is synced with my music player and it played music and then over the top of the music it gave me updates on my time, speed, distance, pace, etc. That was nice. So I started to learn to expect the updates and just enjoy the run. I think because I was not setting a speed on a treadmill that is dictated I had a hard time adjusting to keeping a pace. Or rather believing that I was running at a decent speed. At times I felt like I was moving so slow. Of course when I got the “updates” I realized I was going pretty decent so then I felt okay.

There are indeed a lot of factors in outdoor running. The ground variation being a big one. Hills, up sections, uneven ground, etc. And then there was the heat. It was actually warm out yesterday. Starting at 10 meant that I was getting into some sun. My slightly reddened body is proof of the sun’s affects. Didn’t expect that. So I ran and just turned down any road I felt like. Eventually I came to a road and started running out towards the country. Once I hit country roads it became more enjoyable. Of course the hills were not. But I ran anyway. When the voice came over and told me I had run for 1 hour a little shy of 6 miles I was like okay. I can do this.

It was hard. It was harder than treadmill running but I could see how with the correct scenery it could also have a lot more benefits as well. Around mile 8 I started to get thirsty and tired and it started to get more hot. It was 11:20 or so at this point and I was like okay, think logically, I was running back into town and I kept running up a street towards a Plaid Pantry. I did have the foresight to bring a few bucks with me so I ran into the store, and bought and chugged a water and then I was off again.

Other factors of running outdoors are stop lights and traffic. I had to stop a few times for minutes at stop lights. That really killed my pace timing. But it was cool. First experience and all of feeling like a real runner. Being one of those people running on the side of the road that I see and often feel envious of.

At about Mile 10 my legs started to get tired. I was not near the house so there was no way I was stopping even if I wanted to, but since I was at Mile 10 I was like, ah, just push on and do the 13.1 miles. Secretly, I had hoped I could do that all along but I didn’t want to put too much pressure on myself in case it didn’t go that way.

At this point I was back in residential housing land and I just kept street running, working towards my house. Around mile 12 I pulled up towards my house and had to pass it over to the school by my house where I entered the middle school track and did a lap or two. When my app voice come over and told me 12.5 miles, I started to head back towards my house. Finish strong, despite the killer legs. So I ran. I took the phone out of the arm holder at the point and had it in my hand so I could see the mileage tick away. 12.85 miles and I was almost home, so I ran an extra loop in the cul-de-sac I live on. And as the mileage ticked to 13.1 I was standing in the road in front of my house and I hit stop on the app. 13.1 miles, 2 hours, 20 minutes, 3 seconds exactly. This included a few stop lights where I had to stop running for a good couple minutes. Extra-long lights. Otherwise I pretty much ran all but a few minutes of that 13.1 miles.

In the end my pace was 10:41. I ran 13.1 miles each at 10:41 seconds. Not too bad. That’s a little high of a pace for me normally but when I am stringing together 13 of them in a row I will take that pace and smile because that was HARD. Especially because by the time I finished around 12:20 or so, it was HOT outside. I really only drank 1 20 ounce thing of water around mile 9. I did not bring any sunglasses so I had to deal with that. And of course this was my first experience with the ground. I was thrilled. I did it. 13.1 miles in 2 hours 20 minutes. Holy shit, I think that is a more than acceptable pace. It’s not super-fast, but it’s my time. I did it. I own it. I accomplished that. And more importantly I felt like a real runner afterwards. Like suddenly I can actually call myself a runner because I ran the whole damned thing outside.

I was exhausted. But it was a great feeling of accomplishment. Now I know I can do it and that is all that matters. That is all I wanted. I can run 13.1 miles outside with all the factors and challenges that it creates. My legs are a little sore today. But tonight I go to the gym anyway for personal training and classes. I really hope it’s not leg day, but given my luck I am sure it’s going to be… ha….

So I had a super important weekend for me. I feel accomplished and so proud of myself. That is a great feeling.