(Almost) Rockin' the TC 10K

I'm hurting just a little from Sunday's big race, the TC 10K, one of the biggest runs in the country. this year over 13,000 people registered with over 11,000 finishing.  My ranking?  9,080 - I actually made it into the top 10,000!  I finished in 1:40:34, beating my previous best finish by nearly 17 minutes, but missing my goal time by a mere 34 seconds.  No pee breaks to blame this time - I stuck to one small pre-race coffee, but I think I lost some valuable time manoeuvering my long-sleeved shirt out from under my short-sleeved shirt a la 13-year-old girl, at around the 7 km mark.

And there was the iPod incident.  After spending over an hour on Saturday night creating the perfect 2 hour walk-run playlist, I left the pod on overnight and the battery was dead when I went to turn it on at the starting line.

Disaster - I'd told JTM the night before that I could probably crawl across the finish line with a compound fracture, but that I wouldn't make it without tunes. Anyway, a frantic call home had JTM barrelling back downtown with his own iPod, madly making me an "on the go" playlist at stoplights.  He met me at the corner of Cook and Dallas Road, at the 3 km mark, with a hug and a kiss and the all important music machine.  And that, people is why I am married!

Once I got going again, I made it my mission to not let these two old grannies pass me - one was marching along in full workout gear, complete with fanny pack water bottle holder. And the other one (part of a different group) was wearing an irritating puffy white hat.  And they were NOT going to pass me - (okay more than five or six times) - nor was the woman wearing jeans and cheap sandals, her timing chip flapping in very "Eff you, I'm just out for a stroll" way.  And there was no way anyone with nordic wallking poles was getting past me, or any very old people, or very small children.  Or (and I'm being really honest here) anyone that looked bigger than I used to be.

Now if that were really the case - if I really didn't let those people get by me, I would have placed much higher in the race.  But it turns out I'm a really slow walker.  Really slow.  Because I'm - well- much fitter and healthier than before - but that doesn't mean I'm actually fit and healthy.  Not at all.

Still I'm proud of my accomplishment, even if I have much, much further to travel.  Onward!Where's Mary?

Boot Camp Week 3 Results (or D'oh!)

So I had one of those crazy AHA moments yesterday - I've lost 40 pounds, right?  So it would make some sense that I probably don't need to take in as many calories as I did when I weighed 215, especially since I'm TRYING (with apologies to Yoda) to lose more weight.  But I haven't been eating less - have been chowing down merrily, and rightously beaking off to anyone within earshot about what an extraordinary Weight Watcher I am.

What a crock!  Once again, I'm calling myself out as a fraud.  If I were doing the "point counting" thing, instead of the "Simply Filling" thing, sure as God made little green apples, I'd be taking in a helluva a lot less food each day.  Next week that's the plan.  No more "eating till you're satisfied"...I may NEVER be satisfied - so starting Monday I'm eating just enough, and counting points again.  Mother's day is coming and I'm determined to celebrate in those Size 12 white jeans - with NO camel toe.  Or sausage thighs. Or muffin top. Man I could go for a sausage mcmuffin right now.  Or a Camel!

Anyway, my stats reflect my efforts this week.  One lousy trip to the gym - yeah I've been "tapering" for the big race tomorrow - and enough excess food to keep the dial on the scale pinned firmly in the mid-170s.

Chest  40
Waist 35
Hips 45
Thigh 25
Weight (174-176 fluctuating)

Boot Camp Week 2 Results

I've been workin' it all week long and the results are beginning to show, at least on the scale!  And I tried the pants on.  I could get them all the way on and zipped, but there was a major camel toe situation.  So I'll try again in a week.

Here are my stats today:

Chest: 39"
Waist 36
Hips 45.5
Thigh (left) 25
Weight 173




Just a little over a week till the TC10K - I'm stoked about doing the course again so much lighter and with better shoes!

I AM the Stairmaster!

So I was at the gym last night, treadmilling away in silence (Damn you, iPod!), giving the whale eye to the behemoth StairMaster beside me, as always.  Nobody ever goes on that thing, EVER - it's just too scary!  Once I saw the gym attendant flick a towel at it and then run away and hide behind the rack of kettle bells....that's how intimidating this thing is.

But I'm on a mission to get stronger legs now that I've clued into the fact that weak legs are what's holding me back in the running department (Sunday's incredibly painful but mercifully brief bike ride put THAT piece of the puzzle firmly into place - I thought cycling would be a breeze now that I'm nearly 40 pounds lighter and have an awesome new bike.  But no.  An epic struggle.). So I swallowed my fear, mounted that big beast, gave it a good dusting (did I mention nobody goes on it?) and pounded out 20 stories in 6.5 minutes.  Pow!

That's right, I AM the Stairmaster, baby!

Workin' it at Work

Not time for a bootcamp update but Woot! Woot! for me.  I was down another 2.5 lbs at Weight Watchers weigh-in last night.  The meeting was about tracking our progress in various ways and I had a chance to reflect on the changes in me - the person I am becoming.  I've been at this a long while, long enough that I really identify more as someone who makes healthy choices than one who needs to constantly be led.  And that feels pretty freaking good.

I had to lay on some food for some work events this week, and I made sure that above and beyond all the sandwiches and muffins and cookies, etc., there was also fruit and vegetables available - I honestly did it for myself, but really it was good for everyone. 

We're pretty good here at work most of the time anyway; there is always milk in the fridge and apples and bananas for the taking, and a bike room, and showers, and twice-weekly boot camp, and softball, and yoga, and incentives to choose a "green commute" and nobody bats an eyeleash when you show up for a 1:00 pm meeting all sweaty and wearing spandex...it's pretty cool, actually. Perhaps typical of the West Coast, or of 2010,  I don't know.  But as a transplanted prairie girl I dig it - it's so much easier to live the green and healthy lifestyle when you have a workplace that nurtures it.

Vanquished?

Okay maybe, hopefully we're over this rat thing, but my eyes still dart around the room, every room, pretty much constantly, and I'm sitting with my feet up on the couch. Our lovely exterminator trapped an adult rat in the basement last Thursday, which may have been the cause of the young, possibly orphaned, rats running around the living room and tv room all day and night on Easter Sunday, with CAM and JTM in hot pursuit, Wrangler cowering on the loveseat, and me hiding in the bathroom Tweeting updates.  JPM chose to ignore the whole situation.

We thought there was just one, but it was two of the almost cute little fellas (yes, I saw them) who found their way into the cardboard box trap that JTM rigged up, and possibly a third lured into the peanut-butter-and-grocery-bag trap, also cunningly put together by my surprisingly brave, resourceful and creative domestic partner and his valiant young apprentice.  Easter was less than relaxing, what with these short-eared, long-tailed rodent(s) leaving their little brown deposits - we really would have much preferred long-eared rodents bearing chocolate eggs, thank you very much.

Just after the weekend our rat guy found another adult in a basement trap, and today there were none inside but two out in the shed - nice "healthy adults" he said.  Oh thank God they were healthy when they died!  And thank God they were outside in the shed! Shed I can kind of handle.

But there's this funny scratching noise we thought we heard in the wall between the master bedroom and bathroom, so more traps went down in the courtyard where there might be access to the master bathroom plumbing.  EEEW!  Hopefully nothing will gnaw its way through the wall while we sleep.

Bootcamp Week 1 Results

So I'm a week into the April bootcamp in which I plan to lose massive amounts of weight and inches, and the results are less than spectacular.  I'm down a whole pound to 176, and the measurements are just wonky: 41, 37, 46.  Basically everythings half an inch bigger than a week ago.  PFFFT!  I can't expect real results if I don't put in real effort.  I feel like I'm back on track now - three days properly following Weight Watchers, and I'm 3 for 3 in excercise (twice to gym and a big walk yesterday).  Admittedly it was a rough week last week: we weren't sleeping much on account of the rats, and suddenly there was chocolate and hollandaise sauce everywhere due to it being Easter and all.  And the weather SUCKED!  But all that is past me now and I'm moving on.

What I cannot figure out is why it's so damned hard to RUN!  I feel like I've been working away at it for MONTHS and I seem to make no progress - I still cannot get much past the two minute mark without bonking - heartrate in the 170s, gasping for air, legs failing me.  I look around me at other people on the treadmills: old, young, svelte, chubby, whatever, and they seem to just glide along at a 5 or 6 mph, whereas it's an epic struggle for me.  I had the asthma test a few weeks ago, in hopes that we'd discover that a few puffs of the inhaler was all that's been standing between me and my running career all this time.  But no, just some very, very vague hint that there might be some very, very mild something (or nothing at all).  The doc seemed to think we could leave it at that. 

And so it goes, going nowhere two minutes at a time.  On the plus side (cause there just always has to be one), I know that the exercise is helping me lose weight and improving my health and fitness level, even I'm not seeming to much better at running.

Boot Camp: epic fail (so far)

Today is not an official  "April Boot Camp Report," but I just need to put this out there.

Here's my my Boot Camp progress to date:

1. Avoid gym completely
2. Eat a lot of chocolate (oh man, it's EVERYWHERE at this time of year), especially before breakfast and between meals
3. Find various ways to avoid exercise of any kind (the basement decluttering is forging ahead again anyway, and I've been BLOGGING, too!)
4. Take second helpings of anything and everything
5. Make hollandaise sauce "for the kids" and eat it directly from the pan
6. Go for a pedicure
7. Eat a wide variety of foods after 10:00 pm nightly

Yup, I'm really rocking it!

This egg totally makes my ass look fat!

Some Other Rodent in Charge of Easter This Year

Rats have hijacked my Easter!  Not safe to have the annual chocolate hunt, and all the Eastery stuff is in the scary rat closet with the big rat trap and small rat turds (fresh ones in the doorway this morning - so much for our hope that there was just the one.) JTM pointed out today that we share our home with spiders and insects of all varieties (there are PLENTY here!), and that we have all kinds of fish swimming around pretty much at floor level (our house is built around a fully-enclosed courtyard with a pond taking up most of it - you can actually walk out a set of sliding doors in the authentic tatami room and step right into it, or cross a charming little bridge to a small sitting area, shaded by a Japanese maple that threatens to grow right into the house - it's all very Japanese and charming and not at all "us", and we LOVE it!).  At least, he pointed out, rats are mammals unlike the other creatures that hang out in such close proximity.

But koi would not trash my Easter quite the way the bunnies' plague-bearing cousins have.  This year I have to present the children's treats to them in some sort of impervious metal container, like a safe deposit box or something the bomb squad uses when they want to detonate something. Just, you know, to be on the safe side. I dont' know if rodents like chocolate generally, but it HAS to be more appealing than fish food to a fellow mammal, and they've eaten all that already.

a fish would not do this to a rabbit, no way!

Boot Camp Starts Now!

April Freaking Fools! Somehow I managed to convince myself that I was losing weight, when the truth is  I am actually up about five pounds since Christmastime.  How dare I pass myself off as a successful Weight Watcher!

So with the goal of wearing the pair of kick-ass white hiphugger jeans I got last year (size 12, a size I've NEVER been - I went straight from girls' 14 to ladies' 14) to celebrate Mother's Day this year (Oh yes, I've got BIG plans to stain them with barbeque sauce and red wine), today I begin a month-long diet and fitness boot camp. 

Here are my stats today:

• Chest: 40"
• Waist 36.5
• Hips 45.5
• Thigh (left) 25
• Weight 177

By month's end my weight should be in the 160's and I should be an inch and a half smaller in the chest and hips, and three inches smaller in the waist. I'll let the thighs do what they will.

I'll post my progress each week and talk about the things I've been doing (or not doing).  On the 22nd of this month is the TC 10k, which I've walked the last two years.  This year I plan to run at least part of it, a minute at a time, and finish in 1:40, so I'll need to do quite a bit more walk-running over the next few weeks.  10k is actually a bit of a distance and, even though I've done it twice with little or no training, I really took it at a leisurely pace, finishing in 2:13 my first time and 1:57 last year.  This year will be different - I'll be doing more than just challenging myself to get across the finish line, and getting ready for that should be good for a pound or an inch (or two)!