She's Going the Distance

Some weeks you have what you'd call a week and then there are those weeks you call a week.  Yeah.  I've totally blown every calorie budget and goal I could have possibly created for myself.  Eating mexican food food all weekend will do that for you.  And not keeping up with how much and when you last ate which leaves you starving by the time you do eat that mexican food doesn't help.  But that would seem obvious to many.  I'm not saying it isn't or wasn't obvious to me.  I'm just pointing out how painfully aware I was of the pitfall.  

It really does a number on the self esteem to see how far you've come and to know how far you have to go but seeing yourself constantly take one step forward and two steps back is disheartening.  I get irritated and angry with myself and sometimes wish there was an easy way to get the body I want without all the rules.  You could say there is but I'm not willing to travel down those roads.  I want to earn my goal.  I don't want temporary results.  I wouldn't be satisfied with them or myself if I took the easy way.  

But how do I know all the energy and sweat I've poured into getting this far is paying off?  Subtle results.  Many people I know can't even tell I've lost 10 pounds.  Many don't see the fact that I'm wearing smaller clothes.  Do I wish they noticed?  Heck yeah!  What woman doesn't want someone to say, "Hey!  You've lost weight!" (I'm having a nerd moment right now because I'm unsure if that sentence should end with a question mark because it's technically a question or if the exclamation point suffices.  Arrrgghh!)  Anyway, I have to remind myself that I'm not doing this for them.  This is all about me and my body and my goals.

So what exactly have I accomplished?  For starters, I've run a total of 273 miles since I started running back in October.  I've burn over 38,500 calories with various exercises that mostly consist of running and weight lifting.  I've ran in two races and signed up for two more. (I'll get more into my second race momentarily.)  I've set a goal of running 225 miles before my third race and have so far covered 189 miles to accomplish 84% of that goal.

As for my races, I recapped my 10k from last week in my previous post.  Yesterday I ran my second race here in my hometown.  It was a 5k a local church put together to help support their yearly mission trip to Malawi, Africa.  It was a great way to support a local organization doing great things not only in our community but in other parts of the world.  Besides, it was a race and I've learned how much I love races.  But this race was different.  I didn't have any expectations for my 10k.  It was merely a training run for me and I knew I wasn't running to win anything.  This race? Totally different!  

My alarm went off at 6:15am (because I was too lazy to change it from my normal alarm) but I snoozed another 10 minutes.  I'd have snoozed again but I realized I was nervous.  I.  Was nervous.  And it didn't get any better the closer to start time it got.  (The cup of coffee probably didn't help either.)

I won't get bogged down with details of the run this time but just know it felt like the longest 3.1 miles of my life.  It was an easy course for the most part but it was muggy and warm and I may or may not have had mexican food for dinner the night before.  Not to mention I had enough adrenaline and energy to feed the everyone running the 5k which finally burned off about half way through the race.  

My running buddy and I stuck together for about the first 1.5 miles when she needed to take a break.  I went ahead and kept running knowing I wanted to beat 34 minutes so bad.  I had also watched the runners at the front of the pack and realized there was a huge chance I could place in my age group.  That thought alone led me to push harder.  

I did take a quick 30 second walk break at about mile 2.5 because I had my heart rate up pretty high.  My official time ended up being 31:48.15 which was obviously much faster than my goal.  I was hot, sweaty and tired.  Like I should be after a race right?  I went back and cheered my running buddy across the line with a 33:33 finish for her.  Personal records for both of us!  

We went to check our official times at the table.  I thought mine was somewhere around 32 something but was surprised to see the 31:48 and the odd little number by my time.  What was that?  Three?  What did that mean?  I looked at the column title and saw the acronym for age group.  Did that mean third in my age group?  Yes!  I placed third in my age group!  I won an award!  Granted, if I had been running a much bigger race my time would not have been sufficient to win but it didn't matter.  I had pushed hard through the last half of the race in hopes of possibly placing and I did!  

I've officially experienced the race jitters and now know what to expect.  I'm going to try and make sure I curb that energy so that I don't run out of steam too early in my half on the 13th.  This experience was such a great learning experience regardless of whether or not I had PRed or placed.  Now I just need to work on getting my run buddy an award!  She's improved her speed and stamina so much since we've started training together.  I am so proud of her and can't wait to see her get even better.  

On to the next finish line!