Adjusted Reality

On Running…

An update – my time was actually 27:51 which worked out to be an 8:59/mile pace.  Overall, I am super thrilled about my performance, especially being my first race, in less-than-perfect weather, and only a week after recovering from the feverish funk of doom.  I love numbers, so let’s break it down.

I was 2oth in my age group by gender out of 66 people.

I was 49th in my age group (both genders) out of 115 people.

I was 161st overall out of 385 runners total.

If I had run the race 3 weeks later (as a 30 year old):

I would have been 14th out of 48 people in my gender/age group.

I would have been 46th out of 95 people by just age group.

I think I like the 20th in my age/gender group best so let’s just refer to that as how I did from now on, mmmmkay?  Though I could not be unhappy if I tried about how I did, it’s a bit humbling to look at who beat me.  I would have taken 8th place in the combined 50-59 age group.  That means SEVEN 50+ year olds beat me.  A 63 year old man just edged me out at a 8:56/mile pace.  I won’t even get started about the 8 year olds that came in way before me…they have a lot less to lug around – it’s so unfair!  I have to say though – the 83 year old guy that came in at just under 36 minutes…rock on dude.  I hope to still be able to run a 5k when I’m that age.

I’m targeting end of March/early April to run another one, and my goal right now is just to get a personal best.  And if a certain someone out there who said they are going to run the next one actually does enter – to beat him.  Tee hee!  I am definitely going to be working on my pacing and improving my time over improving my distances this month.

On Training -vs- Losing…

I never thought when I started this over 2 years ago, I might come to a point where losing weight and training myself for a specific athletic endeavour would not be mutually inclusive goals.  When you’re 265 lbs, you either exercise in a way which does not make you want to die, or you sit your ass on the couch.  You either fall off the wagon and consume cheeseburgers and chocolate in mass quantities, or you eat less and work on your goal of shedding some of the fat suit.  Never in your mind enters the thought of – do I want to focus on my fitness or the number on the scale – because they are absolutely one in the same.

Now, not so much.  I really noticed it in the last week or so.  I cut my cardio way down last week to practice running the 5k distance at the right pace and be rested enough by the race day.  I skipped a workout the night before and ate a little more than normal so I’d be fueled up that morning.  I celebrated pretty hard Saturday night – like a lot more calories than normal.  That pizza is definitely a calorie count killer (though worth every greasy, meaty, cheesy calorie every once in a while).  My shins are a little aggrivated after the race, so I’m taking this week easy on them as well instead of just pushing through it.

We’ll see what that does to my weight this month.  I was stoked about a new low of 154 Friday morning, but I gained over 3 lbs overnight and haven’t been able to shake them all since then.  I keep having this dilemma,  and making the decision that I am going to focus on weight loss before fitness goals – simply because it’s a finite thing (20 lbs from now, give or take a few, I’ll be done with that part of my life).  I do that for a while, it makes me unhappy, and I decide I’m going to push myself in the gym.  Then, I get super hungry, I have to eat more, I get into things like yoga and short distance running that are not efficient calorie burners.  Good for me, I know, but 20 minutes of running can burn me almost 300 calories instead of 60 doing yoga – and a 3 mile run is not a full workout, but if I push my pace like I need to do for the runs, I’m spent after it and not ready for another cardio session right away.

It’s a predicament.  It’s a pretty happy one though, compared to the alternative.  I’ll have to continue to balance both pursuits at once because while the scale dropping brings me great joy, I’ve had a taste of competitive sport again and I don’t think I’ll be the same without a goal of that type to work towards.

Other Updates…

It’s almost my birthday (observed 2-28, real date 3-3) and time to look back at my resolutions in no particular order:

1.  Wedding stuff – booked!  The next step, since it’s too early to send out invitiations (thx u delayed date to October) is a trip to Vegas after work settles down in May to make sure the accomodations are suitable.  I’m fully confident it will be awesome though.  It has to be!  And let me tell you, I am so incredibly sad about an excuse to hit up Vegas for a forced vacation.  Consider my arm – twisted.

2.  5k – ran!  Ready for the next!

3.  Doctor’s appointment…ok, time to get on this.  I just said I would SCHEDULE the appointment by my birthday so I gots just over a week to find a good doc.

4.  Something artsy fartsy creative – I do believe the necklaces I’m working on selling fit the bill.  I’d love to tackle songwriting by the end of the year especially with my small but growing audio expertise expanding, but it’s just not in the cards right now.

Did I miss anything?  Anyone ever face the training vs losing dilemma?  Wanna ridicule me for getting beat by both an 8 and a 63 year old?  Hit me up…

I got up this morning around 8:45, got a shower and got dressed.  It was really weird getting up and getting right into workout clothes in the morning since I always workout after work or at least after a while of hanging out in my PJs and waking up on weekends.  I watched the weather and it figures – we’ve had LOVELY weather for the last week or 2, and this morning it was cold, rainy, and windy.

We drove the 30 minutes (I thought it was ironic that it was going to take longer to drive there than to run the race) to get to the race site, hitting patches of rain, and I chanted the whole way “please clear up, please clear up”.  Luckily by the time we got there we were in a mess of clouds and wind, but the rain was going the other way.  Didn’t make it much warmer though.  Yes, it was THIS cold.

Got there, picked up my number and t-shirt and chip.  I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what to do with the chip until I saw other people putting them on their shoe laces and tucking them in.  Good to know.  Then, we got to watch the kids 1k fun run.  Its humbling watching kids that barely hit your knee height run a mile faster than you ever could, but it was really cool to see them go.  Then, it got close to race time.  We walked down to the track area at the school and I did a warmup lap and a quarter or so.  I was finally able to lose the hood, and soon after the sweatshirt.  I stretched out and by the time everyone started lining up, the sun was starting to peek out and I was able to strip a little more.

For clarification, I was trying to give the “rockstar” horns, not “hookem” horns.  Anyway, I jumped into the line of people ready to start.  I hadn’t planned on using my mp3 player, but I saw a lot of people with them, so at the last minute I grabbed mine.  Next time, I will be prepared and make an awesome race playlist so I don’t have to surf around for good running music, but this time I’m happy I had something auditory!  The next thing I knew, they were saying go.

I don’t remember that much about the race beyond a few flashes.  At first, my pants kept falling down and I was freaking out until I realized the ties had just come undone.  I fixed it and luckily stayed pantsed for the rest of the race.  I came up with a strategy – keep as many people that looked like they knew what they were doing in my sights and not let them get too far ahead, and try to keep the kids and the grey hairs behind me.  It worked well for the most part, but there was one older guy in a bright yellow jacket that gave me a huge run for my money until the end!

The race info said minimal hills.  Someone must have been grinning and laughing when they wrote that, because while I appreciated the down hill stretches (and for some reason seemed to be one of the only people in my pack rocking those fast and passing everyone), the uphill shit killed me.  I never stopped running, but I did slow to a “pretty much walking pace” jog up a few of them.  All I had to judge my time was my watch, and I seemed like I was doing good but I had no idea.

When I rounded the final corner to get back to the school, I saw Zliten waving at me!  I was so close, I started running faster and really tried to push myself.  When I went around the last corner, my legs felt shaky but I was soooo close I just had to keep going faster.

When I saw the time ticking in the 27 minute range I had a little internal celebration and ran as hard as I could to cross the finish line at about 28:00.  I think my chip time will be faster, somewhere in the 27 minute range.    There I am above, walking it out, going *pantpantpant*.

After getting my heart rate down, and figuring out what to do with the chip (apparently I had missed the collection station), we promptly left because the smell of the BBQ stand was giving me a headache.  Seriously, propane RIGHT at the finish line of a race?  Only in Texas, tee hee.  It was fine, because I had my eyes directly on the prize…

Oh yeah.  Quixy like-y.  Savage in my belly.  You cannot comprehend how awesome this pizza is without actually lifting the box.  It is the heaviest pizza I have ever carried.

So all in all, awesome experience!   I will definitely do another one.  I think I’d like to do one more 5k and then a 10k before it gets hot around here.  Running with other people is kind of awesome.  Running for an official time is kind of awesome too.  It definitely gets my competitive mojo going.

Now, relaxing my legs and bod before a CD release party tonight downtown.  No rest for the wicked!  Have a great weekend…

1.  Finally figured out what we’re doing for our birthdays.  For mine, a good old fashioned pub crawl around our neighborhood.  We’re going to start about a mile south of the house, crawl up to a mile north of the house, and end the night at the closest bar to our house.  Tomorrow, I’m going to make the schedule so our friends can meet us wherever they want to join up.  It seems like the perfect mix of exercise and debauchery, and a great way to ring in 30.  For Zliten’s two weeks later – we’re having a fancy dress up cocktail partyat the house.  Which dress to wear? Decisions, decisions…

2.  My 5k is Saturday.  I got in 3 good 5k runs this week, two on the treadmill, one today outside, and I’m at about 10 minute miles running the distance with warmup and cooldown, so I’m looking good (hopefully) to finish well within 30 minutes factoring in adrenaline and unfamiliar terrain.  Should be interesting.  Today, it finally hit me it’s coming up and I’m starting to get excited.  I am about as equally excited for the pizza we’re going to get after the race!  Mmmm…Savage….

3.  Somehow, I went to the hobby store to get some supplies to start making earrings, more necklace wire, and a few other things.  I ended up spending 150 bucks on beads and such.  At Zliten’s prodding, I’m going to set up a little shop on Etsy and try to sell some stuff to see if I can at least recoup the money I spent this time.  I don’t have great pictures of the necklaces I’ve made thus far, but I’ve put up some of the best ones I have.  I sorely need to fix that!

4.  Our PS3 died!  It just stopped working and after investigation, we found out that it was a dead fan.  Bah!  No more Eternal Sonata for a while – the disc is even stuck in it with no way to get it out.  It’s going to take 150 bucks and up to 6 weeks to fix it.  So did not need that to happen.  Oh well, currently watching Zliten play and helping make conversation in Mass Effect and making progress in Fable while we can.

5.   I got to go to my first Yelp Elite party Tuesday night.  We were able to check out a new, cool dive bar called the Shangri-La.  The theme was a WIT T-shirt contest (prizes for the wittiest tshirt) and there was some schwag, free beer and vodka, and the music was provided by yelpers who made their own mix CDs that the DJ spun all night.  It was a lot of good fun, but somehow a 2 hour party ended up being a crazy late Tuesday night and painful Wednesday morning.  Ah well, you’re only young once, right?

To bed with myself now.  Being up before 8 (30) am this week has been HARD!

It hit me at the gym yesterday that I did nary a workout from Sunday evening to Friday evening last week due to the fine, fine funk that had infiltrated my bod.  Friday barely even counted, as I burned 300 calories in 30 minutes doing DDR.  I usually burn over 600.  Saturday was the ONE real workout of the week, and Sunday, we walked to lunch and back, which was maybe a mile and a half tops round trip.  This is the least I have worked out since last January (the last time I was sick).   I think it may have been the least working out I’ve done since I started this whole shebang up in August, 2007.

Oddly enough, I did not gain the 110 lbs back I’ve lost.  The universe did not implode upon itself.  I did not decide that working out was a bad idea and decide to stop doing it just because I didn’t for that week.  I didn’t have any thoughts of wanting to give up on the whole healthy-ish living thing.  I did not all of a sudden lose all the muscle tone I’ve been working to build up, and become a skinny-fat ball of putty.  I had a thought of skipping my workout on Monday and starting again Tuesday because of the holiday, and that worried me, but I’m realizing it was my normal lazy monster that I deal with always.  Once I was back in the gym, it felt just like usual, better even!

I’m only doing 5k runs this week so it’s slightly harder to judge than a normal week, but my running didn’t suffer, I think the rest might have actually improved my time.  I am either doing the same or more weight and reps for strength stuff even after my muscles have atrophied into oblivion after a week of no strenuous use (or at least, this was my fear).

I even lost weight last week.  It was that one week where I’m supposed to lose weight (my body seems to be going with the lose huge 1 week, gain a lil back the next week otherwise known as TOM time, lose the gain the third week, then lose a few ounces the fourth, rinse and repeat), so it wasn’t shocking, but I was terrified that my laid-up-ness on the couch all week was going to throw a wrench in my newly found momentum.

I also found that my appetite automatically just sort of shrank without the extra moving around – so I was doing a lot less nom-noming than this guy.  The only weirdness was I had very little appetite except for sugar – like I couldn’t get enough fruit, chocolate, or anything sweet.  Which, actually, worked out to help me keep my calories where they should be even though I wasn’t hungry for regular food.  My body actually asked me to treat it a certain way, I listened, and it didn’t result in mayhem and chaos.

This is both a terrible and wonderful realization.

Wonderful, because I really should give myself more time off.  My workout schedule in and of itself is not a problem – I think 6-7 hours is a perfectly adequate amount of time to dedicate to a hobby or pursuit, ‘specially one that is as beneficial as exercise.  I am just that girl that was a little miffed at myself for missing ONE workout day on my vacation in November (although I totally rocked the other four).  I need to occasionally let lose and skip workouts and rest and not drive myself crazy over it.

Terrible, because the fear always sets in – what if I get used to being lax about workouts on the weeks that I *should* be good.  What if I become the girl who would really *like* to make time to workout but just can’t figure it out anymore?  Can 17 months of habit just change in a week like that?  I’d like to say no, but I’ve seen how easily my sleep schedule shifts LATER – months of work to get myself into an earlier schedule, one week and I slip comfortably back into my 10am start time on the weekdays and pushing noon on the weekends.  Would the same happen with working out?

I hope to never find out.  Hey, at least I know the world won’t end if I take a week off once a year.

If you’re hungry, why don’t you go ahead and skip this post?  Or not, this might actually gross you out.

Anyone else look at this and while feeling disgust, also feel a bit intrigued?  I mean, we’ve all seen the Double Bacon Hamburger Fatty Melt, the Gastronomic Surprise,  the Burgers the Size of Texas, and Donut Burgers….but they just seem surreal.  I mean, the pizza above is making my mouth water, but it’s just because I’ve had an unreasonable craving for pizza I haven’t satisfied yet – all it will take me is a slice or 2 of a Conan’s Savage Pizza and I’ll be good.  The rest of the page is just….eww.

I guess what irks me is… do we really need to encourage such gluttonous behavior?   When you’ve got food like that, somehow that makes burgers like these ok, even when they are more calories than a normal, weight-maintaining human should eat in a day, with fries.  Now, I’m all for indulging a craving.  I am going to have that damn pizza after I finish my 5k on Saturday with 100% no guilt.  However, I know myself, and even though it will be a “splurge”, I will eat probably 2 pieces and a salad (so about a 700ish calorie meal) and then go back to being my normal self until the next craving hits.

In my past life, we would order a large pizza, and for one meal eat half each.  Usually while imbibing some sort of adult beverage.  With this would usually come some sort of cheesy bread or wings.  But, since it’s not corn dog pizza, I figured I was ok.  Normal people order and split a pizza and some wings – it doesn’t seem so gluttonous.  Sure, it wasn’t an every day thing, but it sure happened more than I’d like to admit now.  If each slice of supreme pizza was about 270 calories, and each bread stick was about 150 calories…and we’d douse the whole thing in ranch, so that’s another 200ish calories…you’re looking at close to 2000 calories even BEFORE the booze.

So which is worse?   The gluttous websites that are popping up with ridiculous food like this, or the fact that food we consider “normal” like grabbing a burger at chilis or having pizza night with breadsticks and beer entails consuming more calories than a normal human should in one day?  Is it the outrageous feats of eating and culinary creation like the corndog pizza that are doing us in, or is going out for chinese food and getting a 1300-1500 calorie dish of General Tso’s or Orange Peel Beef (before the rice, soup, and eggrolls)?

I postulate that it’s the later, not the former.  I mean, corndog pizza would have been an event.  Stuffed crust pizza, which is just as reprehensible calorie-wise but a little more socially acceptable, was just dinner.  What do you think?  What’s the worst thing you used to eat before you decided to be healthier?   What’s your richest indulgence now?