About That 5K

I used to think there was no way I’d be able to do a 5K. No way! I mean, me run 3.1 miles? Okay… me walk 3.1 miles, even? Yeah, sure – I used to walk all over the place, every day, all the time. That was before I gained all this weight, though. No way could I do it!

In 2011, though, I decided what the hell – I was going to try and walk the 5K at the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, even though I hadn’t been walking regularly for over a year. (I lived in Oklahoma City then.) The first time I ever went to a health & fitness expo was that year to pick up my race packet. I was surprised it wasn’t just full of jocks and people I’d have absolutely nothing in common with. One of the ladies with a runner’s magazine (I can’t remember which) began talking with me, and when she found out I was going to try the 5K, she said “Remember – no matter what, at least you tried. That’s more than many people can say.” Goofy me got all choked up over that!

The morning of the race was filled with lightning and thunder, and I was filled with paranoia and anxiety. What if I can’t find a parking space? What if I have to walk a mile and a half to the starting line and then can’t walk much more? What if I can’t even find the starting line? Do I even belong with these people? I can barely

Nervous!

As embarrassing as this is to admit, I am terribly nervous about the 5k this Friday! What if I can’t walk the whole way? What if it’s too hot and I start feeling dizzy? (That’s happened a couple times this summer.) What if I have to take the sag wagon all the way to the end and admit I now have a Did Not Finish for this year instead of another finisher’s medal? (I know – it’s not like a winner’s medal, but we walkers are damn proud of finish medals, too!) What if something happens to my feet or to one of my knees?

I let awful thoughts like this run rampant in my head. It’s not that I want them to – but that I can’t figure out a way to stop them from taking over. I know I can’t be the only one!

Thursday we go to pick up our race packets. Friday we go for the 5k. I know we’ll be grabbing a few things at the Expo, too, like a holy grail item I discovered last year! This is NOT an advertisement for them at all, but just me passing it along – the stuff is a topical pain reliever called Real Time Pain Relief. I doubted it would be effective at all until I tried it at the Expo last year. I get nerve pain in my right hand and wrist – hell, from the right side of my neck all the way down to my fingertips, and so far the only thing that would work would be a bunch of Advil and a really hot hot heating pad. So I tried this stuff and was totally sold when, within ten minutes, the pain in my hand and wrist was gone. (Oh, and it doesn’t stink at all, either!) Through the year, I’ve used it when I’ve had pain flare-ups and when Hims would have backaches, and have now reached the end of the tube. Definitely buying more this year!

Yeah – hopefully they will be there this year…

Another thing I am looking forward to is the plethora of t-shirts that One More Mile always has. Most of them are geared for runners, but you can always find a few that totally work for walkers, as well.

Maybe if I just keep my mind on swag and silly t-shirts, I won’t worry so much about not finishing the walk? Yeah… even thinking about that has made me start thinking about not finishing the walk. Good grief!

As long as I finish… I’m not even aiming for finishing in under an hour this time. Just finishing!

 

NO!!! Why Did I Gain?

It’s just not fair!

I swam in the pool for two hours on Saturday and an hour and forty-five minutes Tuesday. I walked most of the other days, trying to step up the pace for the upcoming 5k. I was good with food, though I could have eaten more veggies, and really didn’t need that piece of cake a few days ago.

So why oh why was the scale up 1.6 pounds at weigh in last night???

Believe it or not, it was the exercise. As Karen, our intrepid WW leader explained to me, when you exercise a lot like I have the past week, your muscles become inflamed – they retain water and blood to help heal the damage you’ve done to them. And yes, I Googled it and that’s right. She laughed and told me not to worry about it, that I’m doing exactly the right thing. I’d heard that lots of exercise can make the scale go up instead of down, when you’d think it would be the opposite, but hey – I had to be sure I’d heard that right!

So now I am 3.8 pounds away from my next 5 pound mark. I’m not hitting myself over the head, though, like I would have in the past. Hey – I didn’t do anything wrong, and there’s a good reason for the gain! And I am still past the 10 pounds lost mark, which I had set as a goal for myself: 10 pounds lost by my birthday this Monday. My next big goal is finishing the 5k in under an hour – even if it’s 59:59999 on the clock! I’m in the mood to go out and walk a long-for-me distance, but it’s pouring rain out there.

I know that’s not a good excuse, but I’ll wait a bit longer to see if the rain will stop. There’s always the indoor track later on!

Wednesday Weight Watchers Weigh-Ins

Going to the meeting last week, I was considering skipping the weigh-in. (You’re allowed to do that once a month, but they suggest you refrain.) I’d just weighed in on Saturday, and honestly? I was afraid I would come in over the 10 pounds lost mark. Still, I put my purse and glasses on the counter, kicked off my shoes, and did it.

And I’d lost another 1.6 pounds! That’s 0.2 pounds away from my 5% goal, too! (The 5% goal is losing 5% of your starting body weight. There’s a 10% goal, too – which I am now 11.2 pounds away from.)

My second five pounds star, and the Four Week Attendance keychain!

After all that happiness at the meeting – I was lax during

Weigh-In on a Saturday and Walking!

Early Saturday morning, I got up and got ready to go over to Weight Watchers for my weekly weigh-in. It’s usually on Wednesday nights, but a horrific crash stopped traffic on the freeway and Hims didn’t get home until right about when the meeting began.

I did it – I hit my 10 pounds lost mark! Very proud of myself for that. This gives me two more pounds before I hit my 5% mark. I would love to get that this Wednesday, but I won’t dry if it takes another week. (Another two or three weeks won’t make me too happy, though…)

I’ve been really out there, making myself walk nearly every day, too. One month ago, I could barely make it halfway around the block, walking at a slow pace, without stopping and hitting my inhaler. Today I can jog – not run yet, but jog – without my heart feeling like it’s going to pound a hole in my ribs, and rarely needing my inhaler. Granted, I’m mostly walking and then only jogging for 30 – 45 seconds, then walking again, but it’s SO much better than it was just 30 days ago! I kept wanting to quit back then, disgusted that I couldn’t do anything. I kept going because damned if I am going to go to my 4th Air Force Marathon 5k and embarrass myself again by having to stop at the top of The Hill and jumpstart my lungs with albuterol!

My time for one mile today was 27 minutes. Very slow, but I intend on bringing it down to at least 20 minutes so I can hopefully get to the finish line in just under an hour this year. I’m thinking that as I lose more pounds, I’ll be able to pick up the pace a bit more. Hey – I was just hauling around 100 extra pounds. Now I’m hauling around only 90 extra pounds. Even if I lose ten more by mid-September, that will be 80 pounds extra I have to lug around while I walk – and that’s a good thing!

We all just need to keep going – even a little bit counts! Even when we’d rather goof off in front of the computer or watch something on television, just do something first. Little somethings add up into big somethings!

 

Thursday Thankfuls: Walking

Yesterday I walked 1.25 miles outside. I know that’s really not a lot, and I realize it’s kind of slow since I did it in 26 minutes, but I’m still proud. It was just a couple weeks ago that I could only walk about half a block before needing to hit my asthma inhaler and turn around to come home! Part of that was the high pollen count at the time, too, but it doesn’t make me any less proud of how far I’ve come.

Today I managed about 2.1 miles on the beautiful bike path out back. I kept wanting to walk farther, but decided it might be best to not push it too much just yet. How bad would it suck to injure myself again because I was too impatient to work back up to where I was?

So – I am thankful for walking, for the lovely neighborhood (with sidewalks!) and the bike path, and even for all the rainy, cloudy weather because that has kept the temperature down and nicer to walk in. How about you?

Thursday Thankfuls: Noisy Birds and the Bike Path

This may sound just silly, but you know what I’m thankful for this morning? Birds. Seriously! I love waking up to fresh, early morning air filled with the twitter and warble of birds.

Remember a few months ago, when I was bemoaning the frigid temperatures and wishing for spring? Birdsong reminds me as I wake up that I’m not waking to a bleak, gray day where the temperature might get above 40° if I’m lucky. Today will get into the low 70s with abundant sunshine – a perfect day for a long walk.

I know I’ve mentioned the neighborhood bike path before. At this time of year it’s filled with flowers, with bright green canopies of leaves, and all sorts of birds singing to each other and chittering away at squirrels who try to get too close to nests. The sounds and scents of the area tend to encourage me as I walk, making me want to go just a little farther, see if I can find out which bird is making that pretty song, or where that squirrel hid, or just to enjoy the spring day. Nearly all the people I pass on my walks are friendly. They smile, say hello, and sometimes we even have a small conversation. No one is in a big rush to get somewhere else, and only a few people look with a scowl and anyone else around them. (I feel sorry for those individuals, because everything’s so much nicer when people greet each other and smile. Do I sound naive? I’m not, which makes these greetings all the nicer.)

If you have a chance today, stop, close your eyes, and just listen to the birds. It’s worth a few moments of time.

April 15 last year – poor sparrow was NOT happy with the late snow, and neither was I!

I also just found that I can place a degree symbol in my post, so I no longer have to use the asterisk in its stead! See? A bonus thankful thing.

Day Three

It gets a bit easier after the third day, I keep telling myself. This is the third day of being back on Weight Watchers (for the bazillionth time!) for me, and I think it’s getting easier.

I hope it is, anyway.

I’ve been tracking my food and drink in the 3-month book you can purchase at the meeting places, so that’s been good. Now, actually tracking Activity Points? Not so much. The monthly pass, with it’s free online access and the extra $5 a month for the ActiveLink (WW’s answer to the FitBit), was cancelled last month – which means everything goes back to being done manually. Maybe that’s what I needed? We’ll see.

This afternoon found me at the track. Only ten laps, which is about 4/5 of a mile, but at least it’s something. A couple days ago I did a mile, and a few days before that I actually did two miles! I’m going to blame my small number this afternoon on two things: I’d just eaten at a new Thai restaurant so was quite full, and that the pollen and such is swirling around today and affecting my asthma.

Okay, so that first one is totally my fault and shouldn’t be accepted as an excuse. Hey – gotta try, right? And I gotta stay silly and have a positive outlook, which includes adding excuses so lame they’re ridiculous.

So there.

The good things, though:

• tracking and measuring food
• getting off my butt and doing some exercise, no matter what
• drinking lots of water – way more than I used to (in my WW sippy thing!)
• smiling and believing!

There are 150 days until the 5k, which I am determined to finish in under one hour. I’m going to do it, dagnabbit!

 

I Told You!

I said I would, and I did – and just in time, since there’s really cold rain with some icy bits falling outside now!

My hikers on the bike path in all the melt this noon… with my feet in them!

Fallen tree bark in the meltiness.

It’s just above freezing outside. The wind began to pick up a little on my way back home, but otherwise the cold really didn’t bother me. My breathing, on the other hand, wasn’t so easy. I already don’t breathe all that well in the cold thanks to some asthma, but adding nearly a whole second person to my frame really makes it tough. On the great news, my lower back didn’t ache! While I could feel it in my leg muscles (which is really embarrassing now that I think about it – how out of shape did I let myself get???), my back felt fine.

There were two men on the trail behind me somewhere, their voices happy and laughing. It was nice hearing that as I snapped some shots of my walk. It was also nice to see grass beneath the snow, and to not have gotten the eight to twelve inches of snow they were predicting last night!

Little hills of grass.

 

Thankfully, it’s not quite this dark out there at noon, but it can sometimes seem that way…

It almost looks black and white, or like a setting for a suspense movie.

I was going to walk back on the sidewalks just for a change, but after taking a couple photos on the little walking bridge, I started down the other side – and realized there was a thin sheet of ice all the way down. Even the treads were a bit slick. back to the path for me!

On the walking bridge, with snow and ice and moss. But I’m here!

And because i will probably forget to post this tomorrow: a groundhog burrow for Groundhog Day! (The one day of the year I never mind clouds.)

Please, please, please, Mr. Groundhog – don’t be scared back into your burrow by the sun tomorrow!

 

(Okay, that might also be a rabbit hole. Both rabbits and groundhogs are all over the place here. But let’s say it’s what I say it is, just because, okay?)

 

 

I’m Afraid

I have been lying awake in bed the past couple hours with thoughts running pell-mell through my mind.

Outside, rain has been plipping and plopping against the windows and on the pavement – rain that was predicted as heavy snowfall. I’m not going to argue about this change of events!

Still, this and the insomnia brought on those Late Night Thoughts. The subject of mine varied a bit tonight, but was mainly about my weight loss and fitness and lack of both these things in the past months. After mulling about binging on stuff I should not have binged on Saturday (with my Logical Brain telling me to just start again this morning, and change my life to how I want it) my thoughts sort of went like this:

• Just eat less of what you’re eating.
• Then you feel lighter and are more active
• But I am stuck in the house for days during this cold!
• Remember a couple years ago when you would bundle up and go for a walk on the path, even though it was cold outside?
• You even bought those cool weather-proof hikers so you wouldn’t fall on the ice.
• Yeah, I remember. That felt good. I want to do that again.
• So why don’t you? If it’s not horribly nasty out there in a few hours, why not bundle up and walk a bit?
• Walk a little today. Then walk a little tomorrow. and walk some more the next day.
• There’s a springtime 5k in March up north, and I know you want to do that.
• I do! I could start walking a bit and then be able to walk that easily by March! Only…
• I’m afraid. 

And that’s a big problem, I am realizing, with being fat. I’m afraid of things. In this case, I’m afraid of falling on the ice and breaking something. Of my weight adding to the momentum or the pressure or whatnot, and really causing a bad injury – one that not only can I not afford at all, but one that will keep me from trying to get back into walking all the time and losing this weight. Which of course means that I stay indoors and do nothing all winter long, while wishing I was small enough to go outside and do things. A really silly Catch-22!

I know – it sounds whiny, doesn’t it? Hey – I’m writing this at four in the morning, and the conversation with myself happened around three. Still, sometimes that’s when we can be the most honest with ourselves, isn’t it?

My Logical Brain huffed a little bit, said it understood – but why not try it after the sun comes up, anyway? Just put on jeans and boots and a sweatshirt and a big ole windbreaker or whatever I can fit into in winter-wear, and just go try it. If I don’t feel safe enough from ice on the walking path, just walk on the sidewalks – they usually keep those snow and ice free.

Just try.

Oh, and eat smaller portions.