10 miles!!!

Over the past few weeks I have attended a few classes at the Y (less than I should, but more than I would wihtout the membership) and jogged every Sunday with W and his dad. I still need to be more deligent for sure, but I am not totally off the path. My friend A recently joined the Y also and talked me into joining her for Thursday night Zumba classes. I love it. Dancing has always been my favorite form of movement and the energy in the room is so positive. I think I will enjoy it more when I get the routines down and can get more into the music instead of concentrating so hard on the steps. She has also gone with me to two Saturday morning Bodypump classes. Of course for one of them, I was late and then had to go sit down because I was dizzy and nauscous. With the jogging things have gone much better than with the classes. Of course that is only because I am trying not to let W down and am trying to impress his dad. I think it is working - somewhat at least. The weekend after our 6.4 mile run, W and I went camping at Brazos Bend State Park. That Sunday his dad came out and we did a 4.2 mile jog around the park. The weather wasn't great (it started raining on us), but it was a neat trail. The alligators were out and the birds were beautiful. The following weekend we went back Memorial Park to do his dad's River Oaks trail. He told us that it would be a little longer than the last trail we had done so I was expecting 7 miles. That is the furthest I have ever gone before, but I felt confident that I could do it. However once we got going it felt like we were never going to stop! I don't know the route so I had no context for where we were on the trail or how much further we had to go. That was frustrating and I resisted the urge several times to ask how much more we had to go. I finally broke down and asked when every joint in my right leg started to hurt. I was told that we were well over half way. That didn't help much, but I kept trucking along as best I could. It was SLOW going, but at least I was going! When we finally got back to the park, W split off to do an extra mile loop around the park while his dad and I finished the last mile stretch. He is easy to run with because he is so calm. He is in great shape and can chat while he jogs. I feel bad because I can't breathe well enough to chat back. But, he did push me to push it the last few yards so that I could finish strong. It wasn't until we finished the trail that he told me that we had just completed a TEN mile run!!!!!!!! WHAT?! I would NEVER have thought that I would be capable of going so far. (It took us 2 hours and 11 minutes.) It was an awesome feeling to know that I accomplished that!!! Of course, the physical feeling was MISERABLE - my hips, knees, ankle, and feet were KILLING me!! I moved like a 100 year old woman for the entire rest of the day. UGH. R and W keep telling me that I should try a half marathon with them. I suppose that if I can go 10 miles that I should be able to go 13 - right? They are doing one at the end of January. I am not sure that I want to attempt that one just yet. Instead I am going to aim for the Bearathon in March. Two of my sorority sisters want me to do it with them. It is the "toughest half in Texas" becuause it is not a flat trail which is going to make it a crazy challenge. So, I may have to try one in late February just to get my feet wet on a flat trail before trying the ups and downs of the Cameron Park area. Either way I finally think that I can do it! :)

New Trail New Triumph!

I didn't realize until just now how long it has ben since I had posted. Despite my poor devotion to the blog, I am happy to report that I haven't totally abandoned my attempts to improve my health. In fact, this week I have worked out 5 times!! That's awesome right?! In October, I joined the YMCA and started trying out some of the classes they offer. I haven't been as consistant as I should be, but I do really like one of them. It is called Boypump and meets every Tuesday at 4:30pm. Basically, i is aerobics with barbells. Man, it kicks my butt! I also kind of like the 4:30pm Curcuit Training class on Wednesday nights. That time works really well for me because it is right on my way home after tutoring. This week, in addition to the two classes, I jogged in the park Monday and did the curcuit machines on my own Friday. But the major achievement of my week was this morning's jog with my boyfriend W and his Dad. His Dad is amazing. At almost 70 years old he has run 20 marathons and does the 5.25 mile trail he took us on for his "recovery" runs after big races. Today he was "slow" because he is recovering from foot surgery. Of course by "slow" he means my 12 or so minutes mile time which I worked very hard to get down to. I am SOO proud of myself! I've jogged a few times in the past few weeks, but I haven't made it past 2 miles. I had no idea that I would still be capable of 5.25. He refused to tell us how long the trail was, which was actually great because it allowed me not to stress or pysch myself out. Instead I just enjoyed the beauty of the trail, which lead through the Houton Polo Club (a place I didn't even know existed). The whole trip took 1 hour 20 minutes for me. I picked up my pace for the last half mile and was able to sprint the last few yards, which is amazing to me after the first 5 miles. :) I feel GREAT!!!

Long over due!

So, I am a total slacker lately! I really need to get off my butt more regularly or it is going to get MUCH larger than I want it to be. I have gotten a lot of fun new size 4 clothes and have donated most of my larger things, so on top of not being physically as cute - I quite literally cannot afford to get fat again. UGH! As if that's not pressure. So anyways - Now that I am done lecturing myself, I am happy to report that I have gone jogging recently. Tuesday to be exact. Keeping in mind my goal to increase my speed, I started with a half mile walk. After that, I moved as quickly as I could through the mile trail. Though I am not a speed demon yet, I am really proud of the results: 10:09:28 minutes! It is weird that I am so shockingly consistent. My fastest mile ever is 10 minutes flat (well, my fastes mile as an adult at least). Consistent doesn't equal progress, but it is a great start. :) I followed that with a circuit of squats (30 total), sit ups (50 total) and pushups (10 total) and a slow jog mile that took 13:94 minutes. Another weird thing is that if you average the times for today's two miles it would be about 12 minutes per mile, which is my most comfortable pace. Haha! Consistent all the way. Now if I could just get back to the consistent number of jogs per week I had made my habit during my 100 mile challenge. Maybe the speed thing isn't the only goal I need to have..... Maybe I should challenge myself to do the body exercises EVERY day and to jog 4 times a week. Yeah - that sounds reasonable. :) Let's do it!

Halfway to "Lean"!!!

Two years ago when I started this blog, I did so to track my progress towards my ultimate goal of losing a total of 8% body fat. My first bod pod reading was astounding and really opened my eyes to the necessity of exercise not just watching your food when it comes to one’s health. To be really healthy you have to do both! I had thought I was golden because I was at my goal weight of 135 which I had worked hard to get to. Unfortunately, having less fat over all had not in any way increased the amount of muscle I had, so I was 29.7% fat. That is only .3% from being considered excessive fat!!! It was CRAZY! Well, it has been a long road during which I have jogged my first 5k, my first 10k, and completed a 100 mile challenge. All are things that not too long ago, I would not have imagined myself capable of doing. I am VERY happy to say that my efforts have been paying off. Last May my body fat was down to 27.9%. Last night, I got my third scan done. My body fat percentage has decreased another 1.9%!!! Officially at 26% body fat, I am exactly halfway to my original goal and am safely in the middle of the “moderately lean” category which is a good level for healthy living. I am hoping that it doesn’t take another two years to get down to the 22% I would really like to see, but it might. Either way, what I am doing is working. If I increased my strength training – which is my plan with my body exercises and working on my speed – then I just may be able to reach it a little faster. 

The break is over!

After I got back from my vacation to Chicago, I told myself that I deserved a week off from working out as a reward for all that I had accomplished. Well, that week turned into a month! Since coming back on July 2nd I have only worked out three times!! The first time, I actually ventured back into the gym. There I did 50 sit-ups, 30 squats, and attempted 5 real push-ups. Holy geeze I hurt afterwards! It took almost 4 days for my legs to feel normal again. The second time, I did the body strengthening workout at home. This time though, I alternated the moves to create a circuit. 10 sit-ups, 6 squats, and 2 “girl” push-ups – repeated 5 times. That was a pretty good workout I think. It got my heart rate up with the going up and down, but didn’t hurt as bad afterwards because I had spaced things out a bit. My third workout was on Friday, July 27th which I thought was fitting since it is exactly 1 month from my birthday and the end of my 100 mile challenge. I need a new goal – That is clear. Without that I will not have much motivation to keep to me going. So, I decided to go back to a goal that my friend Chrissy had set for us in graduate school when we briefly attempted to become joggers. Being much more athletic than I was/am she threw out the lofty goal of running a mile in 9.5 minutes. The closest I have ever gotten was a 10 minute mile. (Minus the one shining occurrence in 7th grade in which I ran a mile in 8 minutes and 11 seconds.) Since jogging for distance, I have settled relatively comfortably into a 12 minute mile pace. I think I have hit as much distance as I am going to strive for for awhile because that takes much more training time. The idea of pushing myself speed wise though, is interesting and would allow for shorter workouts. My first attempt at this went pretty darn well if I do say so myself. I ran the mile in 10 minutes and 17.93 seconds!! After that, I walked two more miles, did some lunges, and stretched a lot. Stretching is something I also need to be more careful about. Flexibility is my only natural athletic gift, but it badly needs to be nurtured. My new plan going forward is to do the squats, sit-ups, and push-ups combination daily and to run 3 days a week. We will see how that works.  To be totally honest, I haven’t tried it yet. Today is the day though! While watching TV tonight I WILL workout!

1150 steps & Dirty Girl 5k

There is no rest for the weary. :) Three days after completing my 100 mile challenge I flew to Chicago for my birthday vacation/to visit my friend Chrissy. Instead of the basic sight seeing stuff you might expect, we spent about 90% of our time outside doing some form of physical activity. When I arrived on Thursday we drove up to Wisconsin to Lake Geneva. It was BEAUTIFUL! And they are experiencing an unusual heat wave, so it was a great way to spent a hot afternoon. The water was clear enough to actualy see the botton of the lake! It was amazing! Treading water for an hour took some work though. Upper body strength is definitely not my forte. Friday was spent at Starved Rock State Park. The park is gorgeous and has about 13 miles of hiking trails. We did not walk all the way, but I would estimate that we made it probably 4 miles or so. Of that, Chrissy counted 1,150 stairs that we climbed. Thankfully, we did most of them going down because Chrissy remembered the path that she did with her mother and we went backwards through it. The best part though was the Dirty Girl 5k Mud Run that we did Saturday morning. It was a 3.1 mile long obstacle course that was scattered with mud pits we had to crawl through. Unfortunately we were not able to actually run most of it becuase of the mud and the water socks I was wearing (I forgot that I had donated the tennis shoes I had planned to wear until the night before my trip.)Plus, the grounds were the run was held was clearly not designed for a run. Our best guess is that it used to be farm land based on the neat little rows covering all of the fields. To keep from rolling an ankle (which I did towards the end of the run) you had to watch your footsteps and make sure they stayed in the valley between two rows. But, it was still a BLAST! All but one of the mud pits were bascially giant baby pools filled with water and mud. The second to last pit though was PURE mud keep icky with a continual flow from a sprinkler. We had to army crawl through all of them. We also climbed a wall, a cargo net, a hill of hay bails, and dodged our way through tires, and climbed a hill with a rope. I was surprised by how easily I accomplished each task. :) It was really fun, but very gross. That night we went to a concert at a football field which required us to stand for several hours anad then trapsed through the city, including Navy Pier, on Sunday. Other than some kind of outdoor activity most of what we did was eat! Chicago has some delicious food!

Challenge Jog 28 - THE FINISH LINE!!!!!!!!

With only three miles to go, I knew that I could finish my challenge today. Since I am a scrapbooker, my mom agreed to go with me to Franky Carter Park to take pictures of me crossing the finish line. :) YAY! Being the last few miles, my body was very very TIRED. My legs, especially my left leg, was tight and my knees are hurting. So, instead of being able to be consistant, I had to stop between miles to stretch. That is not a big deal though. I got it DONE!! And that is what counts!! :) :) :) :) :) 12:09 mins - 1 mile - j 12:51 mins - 1 mile - j 12:15 mins - 1 mile - j There were a few moments in that time that I thought I would have to hobble my way over the finish line, but somehow right at the end I got a small rush and was able to finish decently strong. However, my mom wasn't in a good position to take the picture I needed/wanted so we had to redo the "finish" a few times to get a shot somewhat close to what I was hoping for. The whole thing was oddly anti-climatic. I was picturing this huge rush of pride and joy and possible tears of accomplishment like you see in Olympic runners who win the Gold medal. But, that was not at all the case. Oh - well. I am still VERY proud of myself! I have never made a challenge like this for myself before and would have never imagined that I would. :) I still can't fully believe that I actually did it!!! And - 2 days early!!! :) :) :) YAY ME!!!!!