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

And how are you spending your Ouchie Thursday? Me? In the fetal position, crying like a little girl of course. What? You don’t know what Ouchie Thursday is? Well, it’s the Thursday following a Wednesday when you apparently think it’s a good idea to do a 3 mile interval run, followed by kettlebells and ab work, topped off by a grueling hot yoga session. Thus, you are left with Ouchie Thursday.

I think I’ll recover with a nice 3 mile fun run.

I decided that I wanted to start a 5K training program. I can run 3 miles with no problem but I’d like to work on my time. I’ve been treadmill running all winter and now that I can occasionally get outside to run, I feel slow and sluggish. So I found a structured program designed to work on speed. Today was day 1. Psyched that the weather was actually nice, albeit a tad cold, I thought I’d run some errands. Literally RUN errands, stopping at the bank and post office along the way.

Well, that was a foolish choice. The roads I had to run on were heavy on the traffic. Now, that isn’t usually a big deal, but there’s so much debris in the roads that you have to run 5-8 feet from the curb.

“Debris? What Debris? What are you in Italy or something?” You see, my town uses salt and sand in the winter to de-slick the roads. Economically and environmentally good. Bad for runners however as there’s grit and sand bars covering the road. SAND BARS. Piles of sand everywhere.

Post-Snow Sand Bars

So not only do you kick up sand and pebbles, passing cars toss them out you. So I hit the sidewalks for safety and enjoyed a nice walk for the middle portion of my run.

Yeah, today is my birthday and I’m celebrating with Bacon Waffles (Yes, bacon baked IN the waffles) and a 3 mile run. I’ve been sick so I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the run so I went easy 1/4 mile walk, 3/4 mile run. Felt good. Here’s to another year!

Back to running 3 miles even on the dreaded treadmill! I guess I got tired near the end huh?

And how do I know I do not run as fast as a trash can? As I was pushing through the last few minutes of my run this morning, a trash can came rolling down the street past me on the kamikaze winds we’re having today. There were moments where I was pumping my arms and pounding my legs and just not moving anywhere. I’m sure little kids were pointing out the car windows shouting “Look Mom! It’s a fat girl mime!”

But I ran. OUTside. And it was good. Even though the roads are gritty and dirty and wet, running outside is a blessing. Makes me remember why I love running. But tomorrow, it will be back to the treadmill and below freezing temps. Le sigh.

I’m going to try posting screen grabs of my Nike+ account, just to bring some color and life to this page!

Running outside is AWESOME

So I got home last night at around 5pm. Weird day, won’t go into it, it was just, well, weird. The day was nice, sunny and warm. Well “warm” when you still have 3 foot piles of snow in your drive. Dinner was at least 40 minutes away. I could look at cute puppies. I could check in with developments in Egypt. I could nap.

What did I do? I ran.

I just through on running clothes, grabbed my iPod and set it for a half hour run. I didn’t fuss about the right socks, or the right shirt. I didn’t make an ordeal about finding gloves and a hat. Yup that’s right, I ran in my opera length hand knit gloves. I just ran. It was above 40degrees. No ice on the roads. Little puddles, and the light was fading fast.

I just ran.

And it was good. I got a half block from home and decided to walk as a cool down. This rolling wave of euphoria started at my feet and rolled up to my head. It was very similar in sensation to a head rush you get from smoking. And it was good.

I hope the weather holds today so I can get out there after work.

Two days ago I decided that I didn’t want a typical Fat Girl Thanksgiving. Usually, I’m in my jammies, cursing at family because they’re getting in my way in the kitchen. Then of course I’m stuffing myself full of food I don’t even particularly enjoy (stuffing is blah but I seem to eat a metric ton of it anyway cause well, its Turkey Day and you can’t have turkey without stuffing). Followed by three slices of pie or cake and chocolate.

This year would be different because I’m different. This year I ran the Massapequa 1st Annual Turkey Trot 5K. I had a few goals 1) don’t finish last 2) pass at least 1 person 3) run the whole thing 4) have fun.

Mission accomplished.

Massapequa Turkey Trot 2010 - Ready to run

Nice Hats

I tried to catch up to the girl in the pink shirt all race, got her with .5K to go!

Now, its time for turkey

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.

So I’ve been very quiet in the digital world lately. No blog posts, no updates to Nike+ or DailyMile and all hush-hush on Twitter. I’ve been sick and even my inner Fat Girl has been quite. Just lots of laying about, trying to sleep.

AND my ipod decided to take a brief vacation under my bed and as we all know, no music means no working out. With the new program at the gym, there’s no excuses to work out, music or no.

And a brief pause for a Fat Girl Rant.

Seriously? You expect me to do hard, physical labor and get all sweaty and gross without music? An hour on the “dreadmill” with no Lady Gaga? Nuts you are! So fine, I drag myself to the gym, at least there’s TV on the treadmills and I can watch the news or something and wouldn’t you know it, all the TVs are down at the gym! This is madness!!!

So I toughed out a run with no music and no TV but I did have a heart rate monitor to keep me entertained. I ran 3miles in 42minutes. More on that later!

So, my runs as of late have been sort of like “pleasure runs”. I’m out touring the neighbood, rocking out on my iPod and just generally enjoying myself. That’s awesome right? Except I’m forgetting that running is exercise and you’re supposed to be exerting yourself.

On my run yesterday, I noticed two things.

1. My butt bruise did not interfear with the mechanics of running, BUT it was painful, like a big hand of God pinching my bottom REALLY hard with each foot strike and THAT was distracting.
2. I was barely out of breath while running and was going way easy on myself.

My 3 mile loop runs have been stuck at between 40 and 43 minutes. I’ve been trying to figure out how to run faster, how to pick up your pace and work harder. When I make a conscious effort to do that, I don’t know what happens, but it doesn’t work. I feel like I can go faster for about as long as I can concentrate and then when another goofy thought pops into my head, all that effort stops.

I don’t think I figured it out, but for what ever reason, my body just moved faster today. I felt a physical change in my form. I felt myself being taller and longer, leaning into my runs ala ChiRunning. I felt my core engage and pull my legs up. How do I know my core was doing the heavy lifting? With about 3/4 mile to go, I felt my abs giving out. I wanted to hunch into myself and slouch. It was a bit of a struggle to keep that form up for the rest of the run.

I ran 2.82 miles (which is actually 3.1 but Nike+ is wacky like that) in 36:56 at a pace of 13’06″ per mile burning 401 calories. That’s what, like 5 minutes faster than my last 3 mile loop? AND I wasn’t exhausted or burnt out or out of gas or anything.