The power of motivation (13.1 continued)

Good evening Friends,

I'm feeling super inspired tonight, so I thought I'd write another blog post and share some insight into some of my recent goal setting/conquering and share my gratitude to some awesome friends and family members who've kept me motivated. Literally I would not be able to do what I do without you ladies and gents! Each text, like, post, share, comment, etc. serves as motivation for me to keep pushing and to try even harder to reach my goals.

As y'all may or may not know, I've had a goal to run a half marathon for a little while now. I originally posted about it in November of 2014, and looking back at that post, boy was I naive, ha! What a young moron I was way back then. I also mentioned it in my post this February, although I had no timetable on when I'd actually run one. I was really trying to run the St. Jude half in December, with maybe a 10 miler/other long run this summer as a kind of "barometer" of where I was at physically and mentally (really mentally, running after a certain point is all a mind game anyway).

Little did I know I'd start training and run a half wayyyyy sooner than anything I had planned... I got an email from Start 2 Finish here in Memphis about a half that was in April (4/22 to be exact), and I thought, "hhhhmmm, could this be the one?". Buoyed by some encouragement from friends (in particular my boss who told me about a training program that could limit any injuries) and family , I started training slowly and working my way up in miles and endurance each week. Most training programs are about 10 weeks long, and I only had about 4 to get ready, so I knew trying to cram in extra miles was important, but I also had to keep myself from getting injured severely.

The abbreviated training helped prepare me physically, but I knew the biggest test would be mentally. Waking up on race day (which was yesterday, in a monsoon, with a 7 AM start time, and no end to the rain in sight), I had no expectations of when I would finish, I just wanted to get out there, run out the nerves (I'm always nervous before a race, especially one that was this long) and finish.

The race started as well as could be expected with waterlogged shoes, soaking wet shorts, and a rain jacket with the sleeves rolled up. I was drenched before mile 1, so I just embraced it and pushed on.

Here's the race summary:

• Mile 0-1: well I'm soaked, so this will be fun
• Mile 2: Began questioning my sanity/hit my first mental wall
• Mile 4: Hit the wall again, but kept on pushing ("almost 1/3 of the way there" -my inner monologue for a mile"  
• Mile 6: "Why the hell am I out here? This race isn't even halfway over yet"
• Mile 7: Hit yet another wall, but we were also running past St. Jude, FTK!!!
• Mile 8-9: "Where the hell are we?" 
• Mile 10: "Why are there people out here with signs? Are they protesting the race? More power to them, but I don't even think we're running for a cause?" 
• **I'm going to stop here and explain/express my sincere gratitude to some of the most awesome people I've had the pleasure of knowing. Remember those conditions I talked about earlier? Driving rain, long race, 7 AM start time, no end in sight for said rain? So this group of people with signs were not protesting, not at all. THEY WERE MY COWORKERS WITH HANDMADE SIGNS CHEERING ME ON WHEN I WAS DOUBTING MYSELF THE MOST!!! How freaking awesome is that? Mile 10 is where I was questioning whether I would finish the race, and I come over a hill to see a group of people with signs, yelling at me to keep going. Game on, my friends! Talk about an injection of adrenaline and happy thoughts Literally, it was like a second (actually probably third or fourth) wind. **
• Mile 10.75-11.75: I call this stretch"the lonely island" nobody in front of, or behind me for an entire mile is the most disheartening thing. You never realize how much other racers push you until you have nobody near you to try and run with. 
• Mile 12.2 (ish): Guess who's back, back again? MY COWORKERS!! Another injection of pace and will to see the race out, all thanks to my friends! 
• Mile 12.8 (ish): Guess who, COWORKERS AGAIN AGAIN! Cheering me on as I crossed the 13 mile marker, with just a few more feet to go
• Mile 13.1: Race done, coworkers cheering, me stripping off clothes (it was hot in that rain jacket), and trying to figure out where to get brunch. Post race food is important after all (so are the beverages). 

I literally would not have been able to finish without y'all, and I hope you know that! The encourage both before, during and after the race was absolutely amazing, and I cannot say thank you enough! It's y'all that keep me going, even when times get tough. 

Special shout-out to everyone else who texted, commented, liked, called, talked to me in passing or just takes a genuine interest in my life. Those were motivation too!

21.4

Good evening, Internet! I hope all is well. In keeping with my New Years Resolution to write more, here's a second blog post for 2018, doubling 2017's posts. Boom, never say I didn't keep my promise to write more! In all seriousness, hopefully this blog is a source of inspiration for someone out there. At the end of the day I'm not writing for myself, I'm writing to share my experiences in the hope that they will help someone in some way.

Tonight I wanted to write about something that has always been a little difficult for me. Since I graduated high school my weight has steadily gone up, peaking about 5 years ago around 290 pounds. Unfortunately around that time was when I also began to suffer through some of my deepest and darkest bouts of depression. I'm sure the two are related, but this isn't a post about the dark times. This is a post about the happiness since then, and more recently some changes that have occurred over the last few months.

Inspired by some coworkers in December, I decided it was time to make a change in my lifestyle and start actually caring about what I eat and how often I exercise. I'd just finished my first ever 10K, and was suffering from a knee injury and working through PT, so I started out light. Slowly I worked my way into the routine, mixing PT in with gym days and always remembering to rest if my body felt tired or stretched too thin. I'm by no means a "gym rat", I usually just go and do about 30-45 mins of cardio and some light weight training. Nothing spectacular, but it was exercise.

While this was going on, I decided to make some dietary changes (again with the help of some coworkers) and began eating more fresh fruits, veggies and cooking my own meals instead of going out to eat for most of my meals. It was tough at first, not because I dislike cooking but because I had grown used to having food ready for me whenever I needed it. Soon I began to understand why it was so important to try and eat as good as possible. It really helps give your body the things it needs to maintain itself throughout the day, without the need for a coke or endless snacking. *I still drink a few cups of coffee in the morning, but it's black with no sugar or creamer.*

Little by little I could tell that the combined exercise and better eating habits were having a positive impact on my body. I felt more awake during the day, and was able to rest easier (most nights) after a workout. This in turn has lead to a much more balanced lifestyle, and a happier/healthier brain (which has allllways been an issue, see previous blog posts, the older the better). Having a stronger mind has definitely come in handy as I push myself harder while exercising, and when I want something bad for dinner. Sometimes my appetite gets the better of me, and that's ok. Every once in a while the cravings win.

It hasn't been easy, and it didn't happen overnight, but  if you stick with eating well most days, and try to exercise 4-5 times a week (start with less days if you have to, never push yourself too hard), you'll start seeing results. Proof of that is in this photo. We started a biggest loser competition at work in January and I weighed 225.8 lbs. Not bad, and definitely the lightest I'd been in the last year or so. I weighed in today as our next to last official weigh in, and I'm down to 204.4 lbs. That's a difference of 21.4 (ohhh, that's where the title of this article came from!) lbs in 3ish months. All done by eating better and exercising. Some of that exercise has been part of a half marathon training program, but I still think I'd be just about where I'm at without that much running.



I hope you've enjoyed this post! Don't be afraid to change your habits for the better, and don't turn your back on folks that want to see you succeed at your goals!

Mental Strength

Good morning All,

It's been 8 months since the last post on this blog, which is probably about 6 months longer than it should have been. No worries, it's back. I promised myself I'd start writing more at the beginning of the year, and it only took 38 days to actually start writing this year! So here goes nothing...

As you can probably tell by the title of this post, I want to take some time, and a few paragraphs, to write about mental strength, and how that helps me run! Running is really just you against you, so what better way to test your physical endurance and more importantly your mental strength?

If you've read any of the previous posts on this blog, you probably know that mental strength is something that hasn't always been something that I've been known for. I'm much better than when I started this blog. On to the topic at hand!

I set out to run my first 5K in September of 2016. It was a race for the kids at St. Jude, so I figured that was motivation enough. Wrong. Training kind of happened, and so did the race. It was awful, and caused me to have some significant pain in my knee and foot, which put me on the sidelines for a few months.

Fast forward a few months (actually to around the last time this blog was updated) - I'm about two months into a new job, with a work team (hell, I may as well call them a work family) that is always pushing me to be the best person I can be. Because of this, they kicked around the idea of running another 5K around the Fourth of July. No big deal right, but I knew that it would be tougher than I thought.

As I started training this time around I noticed that the running was easier than before. Don't get me wrong, it was still tough, but nowhere near as difficult as the first race. I hadn't done any training to get physically stronger, so I could only attribute this newfound endurance to continued running and this newfound mental strength. Having a strong-ish mind really does help with running. After a certain distance your body wants to stop over and over and over, but you have to keep willing yourself on.

As the distances got easier, more 5Ks were run, and even a couple of 4 milers. Crazy, right? The next logical step was to run a 10K. It just so happened that the first one I ran also benefited the kids at St. Jude. The race wasn't my fastest time, but it felt good to get out there and prove to myself that I could run it. At mile 3, 4 and 5 I wanted to stop. My knee injury was back, and it wasn't making the run easy. My mind kept saying "you trained 7 months for this race, and raised over $500 for these kids, if you stop how will that look?" Thanks, brain! I ran the whole race without stopping.

I'm not a professional runner. I run to help lose weight and stay active. While my mile times are nothing to write home about, even to this day, I'm still able to get out and run longer distances than I ever thought possible. That Fourth of July 5K was my first race of 2017, which I ran in a time of 41 minutes. I just ran a 5K in January and my time was 33 minutes. Still slower than I'd like, but if 8 minutes off your time in 7 months isn't progress, I don't know what is.

This year I'm running  a half marathon. I don't know when I'll try and run one, but that's my goal, and I'm sticking to it!