Milestone!

Milestone

In my first post, I mentioned that I before I started running, I started taking walks during my lunch hour.  It was right around this time that I started changing my diet.  I won't bore you with the details about how bad my lunch habits were, but trust me... it didn't help that my work just moved into a building with a cafeteria downstairs and Chik-Fil-A within walking distance!  So I was starting to get some exercise and eat better.  On April 9th I also began weighing myself every morning.  Now, I know they (who are "they" anyway?) tell us not to weigh ourselves daily, but weekly instead.  I'm happy with this daily routine.  Strangely enough, I look forward to it most days.  The thing is, I'm not unrealistic enough to expect to see big changes each day.  I'm not unrealistic enough to think that the only change I'm going to see is the number on the screen getting smaller.  The number IS getting smaller, slowly, but it's going down.  As a matter of fact, the number goes up here and there too, but only by a pound or two, and then goes back down.  So yes, I do look forward to getting on the scale right before I get in the shower every morning.  If it goes up, I'm ok.  It's not a trend, it's just normal.  However, if that number goes down, it's party time!  :)  

10 pounds down!!

So again, I started weighing myself on April 9th and then started running on April 15th.  This morning, I weighed in at 10.5 pounds down!!  I'm not going to share the gory details on where I started or where I'm at now, but I'll say this . . . I haven't been this light in FOR-EVER!  I don't remember being this weight ever.  I have another milestone coming up right around the corner.  It's so close I can almost grab it.  It's within reach, but I just have to get there.  It's a personal one so I'll have to think about sharing it.  But we'll see.

Today's Run

We were a little short handed at work today so I had to adjust my lunch schedule a bit.  This put me out on my run a couple of hours earlier than I usually run.  The weather was absolutely perfect for it.  Warm and sunny, but not at all too hot.  What I noticed right away was that there were more people out utilizing the Greenbelt.  In the beginning, this would have bothered me.  I would have been wondering how I must look to all these people and even considering slowing down to a walk until the coast was clear.  I've found though that I don't care anymore.  I think to myself, "Yup.  I'm a big girl, and I'm killin' it out here!"  

I'm very picky about my running music.  It can't be too slow, it can't be too fast, it can't be too wild or too old.  I pick music that pumps me up and keeps me going.  My workout playlist is housed on Spotify.  When I get outside, I scroll to it and hit shuffle.  Today however, it wasn't cooperating so I had to quickly pick another playlist that I had saved to my phone - which isn't many at all!  I ended up running to some of my favorite country music.  I was worried about what this would do to my pace.  I was especially worried about being in the middle of a run and getting hit with a ballad.  That would definitely kill my groove!  Thankfully, that didn't happen.  Overall, the change in music didn't slow me down, but it really didn't give me the boost that "Lose Yourself" or "Fighter" does.

I was able to finish all the running portions without too much difficulty.  One thing though that still gets me are some of the slight inclines along my routes.  Now wait.. before you ask... here's a bit of a backstory...

One of my coworkers - I'll call him J - is a mega-athlete and runs Robie every year.  He was cheering me on in the office telling me that I should go and climb Robie as part of my training.  I just stopped in my tracks, gave him that, are you even serious? look and said,  "J!  I can't climb Robie.  I can barely handle the inclines on the Greenbelt!"  He just looked at me dumbfounded and said, "What inclines?"  "Exactly."  lol

So yeah.. this is hard for me to admit but there are small inclines out there that slow me up.  I haven't gotten the hang of planning for these things in advance so they just seem to creep up on me.  Today, toward the tail end of my run, I get to one of these dreaded "hills" and decide to avoid it (I know, I'm a wuss.) by cutting off the Greenbelt along a little walkway that goes out to one of the main roads.  But oh crud!  There's another hill here - an even steeper one!  Ugh!  I'm pooped and I really want to be done with this, the final stretch of run in today's workout.  But instead of walking it or slowing down, I somehow manage to dig down deep and come up with some extra strength to power myself up that little hill.  After I made it up that, I continued on.  I will admit though, that I spent the last 30 running seconds grunting (and not caring if the guy hocking strawberries on the street corner can hear me or not), and sputtering, and maybe letting a swear word or two escape my lips.  It's not pretty folks, but it's how I manage to keep going!  :)

Looking forward to Friday's run!