Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

I am shocked to say this, but the most awesome sample from a FitBloggin’12 sponsor was the Calcium Gummy Vitamins from Nature Made.

Nature Made Gummy Yummy

Nature Made was crazy generous. They made yoga mats and carriers for us and gave each of us a sample of the new gummy and melt vitamins. And when I say “sample” I mean a life sized jar, as if you went to Walgreens and picked it up off the shelf.

Here’s a secret frustrating thing about me. I hate taking pills. I just can’t seem to manage taking pills every day. And I have tried everything. I’ve done charts to give myself gold stars for taking them, heck I’ve even tried paying myself. Take your vitamins, get a dollar! Weight Watcher’s has a easy-peasy-just-click-here feature too and bupkis, I never click it.

WW makes it easy to click... and I don't

And this is not limited to vitamins. I can’t even take prescriptions the way I’m supposed. Yes, I’m one of those horrible human beings that never finishes out an antibiotic course and will be responsible for the super bug that kills humanity. My bad.

I was kid of dubious of the gummy vitamin concept. It’s medicine, you should not treat it as candy. But since I’ve had this whole jar of calcium gummies, I can’t let it go to waste.

Holy Healthy Batman. I have taken two calcium gummies every day since Fitbloggin. Now, that’s a record for me. Two straight weeks of being a good girl with my vitamins!

Here’s another interesting factoid about me… right after dinner, I need a sweet treat. Maybe it’s just a bad habit, but I’m stuck in dessert mode. There’s something about a little something-something sweet right after dinner that I crave. Now, usually I’m rumbling in the kitchen to find a doughnut or a Weight Watcher’s ice cream bar, but for the past two weeks, my post-dinner treat has been the calcium gummies.

How freakin’ weird is that? That a you can consider a vitamin a desert worthy treat?

The only problem is that it’s hard to stop at two. But I have a tricky solution! I’m headed over to Walgreens to pick up Multi Gummies and B Gummies. I’m so very tricky!

How did you start running: I joined the Army National Guard in 2005, 2 miles was the furthest I had ever ran and only because they made me.  I tore my MCL in 2006 and put off getting it fixed until 2009. This was a BIG mistake, listen to your body people! GO SEE A DOCTOR! My MCL repaired itself incorrectly and was getting caught under my meniscus and causing me a ton of pain. I had surgery in March of 2009 and was cleared to run again in August.  I started Couch to 5K as a way to ease back into it.  Well, who woulda thunk that I’d fall in love with it?

Why fund raising: When I got the idea to run a race, I wanted to do something that meant something to me. I chose a race with the Aurora PD(I want to be a cop when I grow up) that benefitted the Special Olympics in my state.  The race atmosphere was incredible.  After I finished, I watched as the police, fire fighters and other runners went and helped pace a boy with Down’s Syndrome across the finish line. I cried.

Why the ACS/Team DetermiNation: When I decided to do a half marathon, I wanted it to be for a BIG cause.  No offense to other organizations but I didn’t want to make one thing seem more important than another. I started to think about what had affected me personally. Cancer. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by some sort of cancer.  Kidney, breast, colon, skin, bone, etc. I couldn’t chose just one, so I chose the American Cancer Society. They have teams to help you train and fund raise, I chose Team DetermiNation. They just spoke to me.

Why the raffle: I wanted to do something big and exciting! I’ll be honest, I was scared that if I just sent e-mails or put a link on Facebook that I wouldn’t raise very much money.  I have to raise a certain amount just to participate on Team DetermiNation and that’s kind of scary.  So, I thought about giveaways that I had seen on blogs.  But how could I get people to donate, sure some might but how could I really motivate them? A raffle! Duh!

How does the raffle work: For every $5 donated on my donation page, 1 you get one raffle ticket.  I will use random.org to select the winners.

What are the prizes: Oh boy, I have a ton! CEP Compression is giving a pair of compression sleeves, Luna sent a whole box of Lemon Zest bars, a friend of mine who is a designer on Etsy is making custom jewelry, better yet, just check it out for yourself.

What made you decide to run in combat boots: I wanted to up the stakes.  I wanted to make this even harder.  The training and race will be nothing of what a cancer patient goes through.  I wanted to show them that I care and I’m trying my best to put myself in their shoes or “Walk a mile in their boots”

I finally got fed up with my cheapo headphones. I was actually going to get another pair of Nike Flights, despite the drawbacks, but Murphy being Murphy, Target was all out of them.

So I picked up this safety orange pair of Philips ActionFit earhook sports headphones. The box says they are sweat and rain proof. Bonus. And they even come with different size ear inserts so you can get the best fit.

The sound quality is great IF AND ONLY IF they fit snugly in your ear, you don’t get them wet AND you stay perfectly still, and you don’t mind not hearing anything else while using them like, oh cars honking and what not.

The little bright orange caps are designed to fit snugly in the opening of your ear. Maybe I just have extraordinarily small ears, but even the smallest ear pad thingie did not fit well. No that’s not true, it did fit well, but blocked out all other sound as if I was wearing my gigantic Bose noise canceling headphones. And the sound was great WHEN they’re shoved in your ear like this. However, once I started vigorous activity like running, I was constantly pushing them back in my ear to hear the bass, or else my music sounded tinny and flat.  I’m really disappointed I wasted $30 bucks on these horrible orange things. I might have to go back to Nike Flight after all.

Le Sigh.

I lost my iPod again. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working out. My crazy inner Fat Girl will gladly tell you, probably for hours, about all the hard work that’s been going on. Without my iPod, I seem to lack the ability or the desire, to keep tabs on what I’m doing.

See, I run Nike+ on my iPod. So here’s now it works – There’s a fat quarter sized disk in my running shoe that communicates to my iPod. I can then up load the statistics from my run to Nike+ website that allows you to see your progress with just a click. Then I can link that to Daily Mile, which is like the facebook of running. Daily Mile and Nike+ will both link to twitter. Without my iPod, I’d have to manually enter all that information and yeah, ok, I’m kind of lazy.

All that data entry just seems daunting. I get that way about tracking what I eat too. I’m a Weight Watcher’s member and the program only works if you keep track of what you eat. I get into lazy moments, just like with tracking my exercise, where I count points in my head and don’t bother to write it down. And we all know who lives in my head. Do you really think Fat Girl is good at math when chocolate is on the line??

There’s kind of a bigger issue here. I’m totally capable of being accountable and writing all this stuff down, but I don’t. Why is that? Laziness? It’s an interesting question

I got into a brief twitter conversation with @FatGirlvsWorld about tracking mileage run for her OctoberGoingTheDistance challenge. I just couldn’t get myself motivated to track the miles I ran for a whole month. I just seem to lack the ability, especially without my easy-fix technology, to keep track of anything for a month. She asked me why? Why do I give up on myself “You have come too far to do that anymore.”

That really stuck with me. I have come really far. I’ve lost 89lbs over the past handful of years. I’m feeling stronger and more fit than I ever have in my life.

Why is tracking food and exercise such a huge issue?

I think what it comes down to is that if I have a written record of exactly what I’m doing and have done, there’s no one to blame for failure but myself.

It’s taken me 10 months to lose 15lbs.

I think the main reason for that is this accountability and tracking issue. If I don’t know exactly what’s going on, I really can’t blame myself right? Well, that changes today.

Oh yeah, by the way, I found my iPod.

My Nike Flight headphones fizzled on my run today! OH NOOOOOOO! I love these headphones. I mean, I *heart* them long time. They go behind the neck with the cord hanging down back so it doesn’t get in your way at all while you’re running.

Wait, let me back up. I LOVE Nike Flight headphones for running. I hate using them any other time. I run with my hair in a pony tail. These headphones don’t work for me if I have my hair down all girly like. This is my third pair of Nike Flight headphones in three years. That’s not a particularly good track record and is the reason for most of bad reviews Nike Flight gets. They fit me great however and since it takes me FOREVER to decide to buy something new, I might just have to stick with them

Unless Dear Readers, you want to recommend more awesome headphones??

ACKKKKK Now my iPod is telling me there are no saved Nike+ workouts!! This is not a good Nike Day!