New month, new goals, March is in like a lion!

Okay, so February was a wash. Didn't meet a single one of my goals. Moving forward. Sometimes you just gotta keep on tweaking those goals and plans until you find something that works. I still think I can meet the goals I set for the year (except maybe the weight workouts because it's just not that important to me).

February miles - 83
Push ups - 740
Leg raises - 740
Squats - 770
Weights - 1
Diet - 16 days were on track

Goals for March 

Goal #1 - Big focus - me and my binge eating. Huge problems there and when this gets out of control everything else goes with it. When I'm stressed or super tired I eat. So setting a goal for no binge eating for the month. Scheduled cheat days 4 for the month, but I really would like to see none of them turn into binges.

Goal #2 - Push ups, leg raises, and squats - 1000 for the month. Bring it! I am SURE I can make this goal.

Goal #3 - 100 miles or better. Setting this one a little lower. I need to have some successes and damn it March is going to be a good month.

Now, I'm also switching things up and setting weekly goals and giving myself rewards at the end of the week because I keep screwing up the monthly goals and determined to have some successes and positives. Weekly goals seem much more achievable.

For this week from Friday to next Friday
3 sets of 100 push ups, squats, and leg raises (or better)
4 runs with 2 being 7 miles or better
No binge eating

if I meet these goals I'm buying a gift card to Regis salons. I want my hair done and I figure instead of aiming for a monthly goal of getting my hair done I'd put $25 on a gift card each week I'm successful. At least this way I will eventually get my hair done. I'm also buying myself my darn Supernatural t-shift for February because I want to wear it to the gym.

January 2017 wrap up

I didn't post any specific goals for January. I was aiming for 100 miles though. Didn't quite hit the mark, but 95 was pretty close so I'll take it. Fell way off on weight training. That's been my downfall for quite a while. Never enough time for everything. Oh well, It's still better than December so I'm moving in the right direction.

Miles - 95
Push ups - 490
Squats - 490
Leg raises - 490
Weight workouts - only 2

Done screwing around with this: Race report, Ramblings, Goals, and Supernatural stuff

This will be long-winded. Sorry, not sorry, because pretty much anyone that knows me knows I talk to damn much so I can't help myself. I'll try and break this up in sections so it's more tolerable. Plus, I really don't care if anyone reads this. I started my blog back up for my own personal motivation. That's it.

Race Report

Uh, yeah that sucked! I mean it was fun though and I'd totally do it again, just not doing the DFL part again. I'm done with that. I apparently didn't follow the directions or read anything on the website when I registered. Totally missed (didn't realize it until I was home either) that there was a 2 hour time limit on the first race. Oops. I clearly was not the only one that missed that part because there was at least a handful of people way over 2 hours. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to the race directors and other runners for being supportive and nice and not making me feel like a complete idiot and still letting me finish in spite of the piss poor shape I'm in.

Start of race, lining up and I realize every single one of the runners except for maybe 1 or 2 look fast (and those 1 or 2 were men). At this point I realize I'm screwed. I said to the other runners at the start of the race I'm pretty sure I'm going to be last. I've never felt like that and it wasn't negative talk. I'm a good judge of my pace and my competition. I knew I was over my league. Oh well. I was there and I'm not a quitter. Start lap one (1/4 mile track) and get lapped by 2 people before I even get around the first lap. I realize at the end of the first lap I was last. No biggie I'm always slow to warm up. They have a big screen up flashing the place of runners so get to the first lap and confirm I'm last.

Super nice. I got to see that about 37 more times. Nothing more encouraging than seeing last place every.single.time. Thanks for that. It's funny though. I was okay with it. I just thought well I can check that off my list of things to worry about. I've never been DFL before, someone's got to do it. Oh well, keep moving.

About lab 30 though I'll have to be honest first time I ever thought of quitting a race. It was just really discouraging knowing I was not even going to finish in 2:30. I wasn't discouraged about being last. Who cares, but I was discouraged realizing I was running a 12 min pace. I thought I could do better than that.

Anyhow, finished and that's all the thoughts I have on this race. I'm going to run this race again and I think I can PR a half there if I was better trained. Maybe next year.

Ramblings

Trying really hard to put blinders on and stay focused. A 2:30 hour finish means that I am at best looking at a 5 hour marathon with where I am at right now. I have run a 5 hour + marathon before twice. It is not fun. I don't know mentally if I'm up to going over 5 hours again. Therefore the blinders. I'm going to have to block that out of my head in order to get to the starting line. Let me just tell you as an experienced runner now. A 5 hour marathon is harder than a 4 hour one. (Not that I've run a 4 hour one yet, but close enough.) So with that I'm pissed off and going to do my best to get myself in at least better than 5 hour shape because I am just sick of this 12 minute pace crap. I know I can do better.

Goals for February

I have thirty pounds to lose! Eak. Maybe 25 if I'm nice to myself, but that right there is probably number 1 thing holding me back. The scale is not my friend and it keeps messing with my mojo so this is on my goal list for February.

#1 goal - NO stepping on the scale until March 1.
#2 goal - 120 miles for the month
#3 goal - Run 23 days out of the month
#4 goal - Eat healthy 23 days out of the month

The rest of the goals are more fluid. Just keeping up with my exercise spreadsheet and do better on all my goals this month than last month

Supernatural Stuff

As some of you may notice I have a new Supernatural (the TV show) obsession. I am like 7 years behind now. (I've watched 4 seasons already this year. Maybe I started in December.) I will admit to having a mild crush on Jared Padelecki. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know a mom (albeit a Supermom) to 8 has a crush. He's second hottest guy besides my husband. Girls gotta be faithful to have 8 kids. Anywhooo so I made myself a couple Supernatural running deals to give me a bit of motivation. One if I meet ALL of my goals I am buying me this t-shirt

And you'll likely get a selfie. Other Supernatural related goal - My daughter came up with this on my drive to the hotel for the race. She said I could watch my show because I got my run in for the day. So, I think I'll go with that. If I get my run in for the day, then I can watch my show and no watching it until I get my run in for the day. So that's it. My long winded self.

Try try again

Dang I'm tired of that being my mantra. I can't seem to stay on track for as long as I want. I am really struggling with sleep. Working nights, honestly working period, is tough. That and daycare so I can run during the winter months.  Ugh. Enough whining.

I added healthy eating to my spreadsheet and a goal for 300 days out of the year eating healthy. Today is a new day. I'm going to get something done to knock off my goals for the year. Tracking miles has been a great tool for me to be successful so hoping that adding my diet to my spreadsheet will do the same. Sometimes it helps to see the big picture to see how many days you are doing right versus dwell on the wrong days. Not much else to write for today. Just writing something to keep this blog active (for myself, don't care if anyone else reads it... don't care if you do read it either. I don't put anything in writing and post it on the web unless I'm comfortable with my husband, my children, my grandmother, my coworkers, or anyone else that could stumble across it reading it.)

4 years since I last posted! Goals for 2017

Wow! It's been a busy 4 years. New baby. New career. (Although neither are really *new* now, but new since I last posted.) Decided this is going to be my comeback year. Last year was getting me warmed up and moving in the right direction, but this year has promise.

So, here's my goals for the new year. I do achieve a lot of my goals when I set them and if I don't I often come close so here goes.  Below is a spreadsheet tracking my progress. What the hell I'm making it public. I don't really care anyway. I don't have that many people that read my stuff anyway.

2017 Exercise Tracking Spreadsheet

So goals for 2017

1500 miles or better. This is doable
15000 pushups, squats, and leg raises for the year
100 weight workouts or better
and be able to do ONE real pullup by the end of the year.

More specific goals
Get back to goal weight
Complete a full marathon
Get my 5K time back under 30 minutes.

Not setting any PR goals for this year because I'm not sure it's realistic. I'll reevaluate that later. I think these are all very achievable goals right now. So with that let's bring on the new year!

Fat, stressing out, and out of shape

Okay, my husband doesn't like when I call myself fat. (Love him), but I am definitely moving in the wrong direction. I am up 30lbs from a little over a year ago. Right now I don't even care about running fast or anything else. I just want to get back into a groove, stop eating every 5 minutes when I'm stressed out and that's about it. Don't care if anyone reads this (honestly probably prefer if nobody read it), but putting it sort of public just so it makes me *feel* like I'm being accountable to somebody.

Goal for December (starting Dec 4)

24 BINGE FREE days or better (out of the days that are left). That leaves me 3.

Run 100 miles

20 30 Day Shred workouts (will move on to bigger and better things later).

Here's my log for December

BINGE FREE days - 2 down, 23 to go
MILES RUN - 8 down, 91 to go
30 DAY SHRED - 0 down, 20 to go

Charlevoix Half Marathon Race Report (round 4)

Not a ton to write like my usual race reports, but a decent amount of emotion went into this race so I wanted to write something up (even if it's just for my own reflection).  I'll start with the woe is me back story. This has been a really crappy year for me. I've failed 2 nursing simulation exams causing an almost 1 year setback on finishing my degree. I cut my running way back because of this. Stress, anxiety, depression, and lack of running equaled a 25 lb weight gain. Second back story my husband - some people know he has been less than enthusiastic about my running, but one thing about him is he can't stand to see me down. So after my second fail in April I decided that was it I wasn't letting nursing school suck another minute of my life away. I jokingly asked my husband if he'd run Charlevoix Half Marathon with me. To my surprise he said yes. I knew he could run even though he doesn't run. We met in the Navy and back then he was pretty fast. I also know after almost 16 years of marriage that he wasn't going to follow any of my running rules or a training plan. That he could give 2 sh*ts about his time and was only running this because he knew this would make me happy. Good enough for me. So with that came what I've been jokingly calling the 4 runs and a cigarette training plan.

Month of April I had 41 miles total mileage (and my yearly total at that point wasn't looking much better.) My main goal was getting my mileage up as quickly add possible without getting injured. I did no speed work whatsoever.  I got my first 10 mile run in June 1 and ran 10 again June 2. Ran 10 again June 9 and 12 last Friday and that was about it for training. I lost 8 of the 25 pounds. My husband ran even less than me - once a week, maybe twice and some weeks not at all due his work schedule. He ran one 10 miler with me, but I knew if he was keeping my pace he'd be fine.

Show up at the race. So we get parked and my husband goes to smoke a cigarette before the race which I knew he was going to do since he's a smoker, but I'm about ready to kill him because he's outside the car stretching for the race with a cigarette in his mouth. The cigarette battle I'll save for another day. He did make a good attempt at quitting in December, but the whole time I was thinking could you at least have smoked the cigarette in the car and been done by the time we parked it. We get to the start line a few minutes late because I had to go to the bathroom and I knew from last year it was a chip timed race. (I wound up starting late last year too so I wasn't sweating the late start.) We get started and mile 1 husband is ahead of me, not out of site, but ahead of me, but I thought we had planned to run this together. I didn't actually care if he ran ahead of me. He waits for me at the first water stop 1 1/2. First mile pace 10:09. I think okay, maybe I'm not going to suck as bad as I thought. (My PR for the course is 2:03:38.) Second mile was a little faster at 9:46, but having run this before there is a nice downhill on that mile and it's always been my fastest mile. At this point set a goal for a 10:15 pace. I figured I'd try to hold 10:15 or better and I wasn't stepping up faster than 9:45 until I was at least to mile 9. Somewhere around mile 2 I lost my husband. I didn't care at this point and wasn't going to even try to keep his pace. I'm plugging along and my anxiety is disappearing and I do that thing I do where I tune into a pace now and I love this distance (although I'm going to work on being able to dial it up a bit too.) Anyway, I'm real good with halfs and fulls once I find that sweet spot on my pacing I feel like I can dial in to my little computer in my head and then once I find that pace I have no problem holding it. I have a big problem convincing my legs to move any faster than that though. So with that most of my miles were dead on with pacing. Real tickled with how much better my pacing is. I'm not all over the place like I used to be. - Mile 3 - 10:14, mile 4 - 10:11, mile 5 - 10:16, mile 6 10:11. 

As we are about 1/2 mile from the turn around I start chatting with this lady and tell her I've lost my husband on the course and I'm beginning to wonder if he just left and went home. About then I finally see my husband I tell him to go run fast now instead of holding back for me and see what you can do. He of course does not listen to me which was okay too, and turns around where he's at and runs with me back through the turn around and asks what took me so long. He also knows from running with me that I will not keep his pacing, but he's one of the few guys I know that if I ask him to dial it down to my pacing sort of does it. At this point I tell him that I am not picking up the pacing until we are at mile 9 and that't there is a nice uphill through mile 8 and just not to lose me there if he wants to run with me because I was going to be slow. Mile 8 was my slowest mile at 10:55. We get to 9 and I'm trying to pick it up a little at this point. Nope, back to my rhythm pace 10:14, mile 10 -10:10, mile 11 9:52, mile 12 - another hill - 10:24. That sucked a lot out of me and I was struggling to finish the last mile strong. I had told my husband that I was going to try and push hard on the last mile and only then could he do his run hard and fast crap, but was really struggling with gas. I didn't pick it up really until 12 1/2 miles, but finished mile 13 at 9:39. About 12.75 on my Garmin I take my husband's hand and tell him I'm ready to bring this in. (This has what has constituted the only speed work I've done. He's done this sh*t a few times to me on our runs together where he grabs my hand for the last 1/4 mile or so and pushes me to his  pace/well probably not his, but closer to his.) So I tell him none of his 7 min mile pacing crap, not 8 min mile crap either, 9 min/mile and that's where I wanted it. We're coming around the corner to the finish line hand and hand (yes, we're silly like that oh well 16 years of marriage and 7 kids will do that for you) and the crowds cheering and I'm really struggling to keep up with his turnover. I tell him he's gotta back off his pace a little my legs can't keep up. He slows it down a tad, but I'm pushing as hard as my little engine will go and with that we cross the finish together - SWEET! (The last .13 miles 7:12 pacing! Hot diggety I never run that fast!) So finish time for this one in 2:13:38 official. No where close to a PR, but very happy nonetheless. It's good to be racing again!