The race...

In a nut shell the race was awesome!  I ran the whole damn thing! Which I wasn't exactly expecting to be able to do. I run every other day for 30-45 minutes. But there is some walking in there too. So I guess I expected to do some walking like I usually do. I don't really have a plan to my *training*, mostly to just keep moving, sweat a fair amount and feel good about myself when I'm done. For the race I decided I would run until I felt like I needed to walk and then run some more. At one point I realized I'd been running for awhile and being familiar with the route I knew it had been more than 1/2 way. I was feeling good and just kept running. And then I got to the 2 mile mark and just kept running. And then I began to think I could probably run the whole thing. At the home stretch I began to tear up because I was about to finish running the WHOLE THING! O and Morgan were at the finish but Morgan's phone had run out of charge so there are no pictures of me running! Just this one of me and O at the end. Owen wanted to know what had taken me so long! And they hadn't even been there the whole time.

 

This is the first race I've run the entire way since before Owen was born. After I got pregnant I stopped running and haven't been able to pick it back up until last fall.  And while 3.1 miles doesn't seem like a long distance to a lot of runners, to me it's an accomplishment. As I mentioned before I have never considered myself an athlete let alone a runner and now I am. And I'm proud of that. My pace is some people's walking pace but I don't care about that either. Given time and some weight loss I'm sure I will get faster but my goal is not to be the winner. I always just want to finish and not be last.

Just some fun facts about the race. It was 3˚ when the race started. For my celsius friends that is -16˚. What I have on in the picture above is what I wore for the race, plus a pair of running gloves. The magenta top is fleecy on the inside. I was comfortable. Not too hot, not too cold. And below is a little alteration I made to the top to accommodate my phone. I used a piece of fabric from my running pants (they needed to be shorted) to stick a pocket onto the running top. My running pants have a very small pocket just large enough for a key and my ipod.

 

Voila! Pocket for my iPhone. It was very handy. Even though Morgan thought it looked ridiculous! My sister will appreciate my ingenuity! Those are not my usual running pants!

 And lastly, my pre-race breakfast. Greek yogurt, blueberries and granola. I like to eat light before I run. Most days I don't eat at all before I run.

My next race, another 5K, is in April. Hopefully it will be warmer than 3˚ by then!

First 5K of the year...

Tomorrow I am running the Valentine's Day 5K. My first 5K of the year. Along with my goal of getting exercise everyday I am also planning to run a 5K every other month plus (maybe) the Twin Cities 10 miler in October. I am a goal oriented person and I like to have deadlines and things to work toward. Last fall I started running again and my goal was a 5K in December. Check, got that done. My friend Jen ever so graciously ran it with me even though we are the most incompatible running partners ever! 

Today I picked up my number and shirt for tomorrow's race. The *taken* is for my back. Since it's a Valentine themed event people can wear a sign on their back (if they want) to indicate if they are available, taken or it's complicated (I think that's the other choice). I guess meeting someone at a race is better than a bar (maybe).

 I also got my shirt and was able to find a cold weather compression top at Target on clearance. I'm not opposed to having something like this in my running wardrobe but I will most likely not wear it often so I was happy about the clearance part. It's a little fleecy on the inside. I may need to sew a pocket on it though as my running pants only have a small key pocket and I like to run with my phone too.

 When I picked up my race number and shirt the running store was offering 20% of purchases for race participants so I picked up some new shoes. It may not be the best idea to run a race in new shoes ( I don't really know) but they are just the newest version of my current shoes. I have been having some foot pain and the guy at the store thought maybe my shoes were wearing out. He said he gets pain in the same spot when his start to go. They also match my outfit better than my old ones :-)

 We've had an unseasonable warm winter here in MN but for today and tomorrow it's going to be much more arctic. Lucky me! Which is the reason for the warmer top! As long as I'm moving I'll be fine.

It probably seems as though I'm making a big deal out a little ol' 5K. BUT I am not a runner. Well, I guess that's not true. I run, so I'm a runner. I don't subscribe to the whole "jogging" thing because if it's not walking, it's running. And I'm not fast. I guess what I mean is I'm not the traditional runner in the sense that I've been doing it since high school or college. I started running in my mid 20s and it was a long process to get to a place where I feel like I enjoy it. Partly why I started was because I am a little competitive but I'm not a team sport person. I was a dancer and I did that competitively for awhile but after college I basically gave it up. Running is just a personal challenge that I enjoy and it's faster than walking. Although lots of taller people can walk as fast as I run! And in junior high and high school part of the Presidential Physical Fitness challenge was running a mile. I could not do that. And it always bothered me. Now, I can run a mile. And I may not run all my miles consecutively (I still take walk breaks) but now I can run. And I'm damn proud of that.

Happy New Year!...Oh wait, it's February...

I have written many blog posts since the last one I posted. They just reside in the madness of my mind. Obviously I feel off the Daily December documentation Train. No surprise. I have however accomplished many things in the last (almost) 2 months.

• We celebrated Christmas. It was lovely. Owen did not receive any clothes from us which I was informed was not a fun gift. He did receive a few clothing items from my mom and sis but they know his particular taste so they were received with a smile. He is already planning for his birthday and keeps asking how many sleeps until then. 
• We celebrated New Years Eve with friends. They boys stayed up until midnight and then watched fireworks out the window of our friends' house. I'm pretty sure neither of them had ever stayed up that long ever. It was declared, "The BEST night ever!" Morgan got sick. Which we thought was because he ate too much (he never does this (wink, wink) but it turns out he had a bug. Which we realized after Owen got it. I avoided all of it. Amazingly. 
• For my 2012 goal (not a resolution) I decided I would get some exercise everyday. I didn't declare a number of minutes or the type of exercise it should be. So far so good. For the most part I either run or ride my bike. Once a week I go to the Y for a weight class and then get on the ellipse machine. My workouts are usually 20-60 minutes. Riding my bike has been a great opportunity to Keep Up with The Kardashians. (Much to the dismay of my sister and my marketing co-worker.) And I am able to keep running thanks to good LOUD music and a goal of the next 5K. (Which just happens to be this Saturday!) Moderation is not something I am good at so to not have rigid guidelines about how much, when, where and for how long is a big accomplishment for me. It has become a habit that is just part of my day and I don't need to think too much about it.
• Morgan and I have begun keeping track of our eating habits and are working on making healthier choices. To help us with this we are using a cool app called Lose It! It's free and works quite well. It's even equipped with a bar code scanner so we can scan foods, the app with then will then find the food and show the nutritional information. I know that keeping a food journal works but I have not been successful at this for a long time because I hated having to look everything up online or in a book. This is super handy since it's on my phone and I can either scan things or search for them. Homemade meals are a little trickier but we've gotten good at figuring them out. It has been very helpful for me that we are both doing it. 
• I've become a morning person. I'm not sure when this happened but it did. And it's been beneficial for getting my workouts in. I'm usually up and at em' early enough to get a workout in before taking O to school and going to work. This has always been my preferred time to workout, I just wasn't usually up early enough to do it! It may have something to do with getting better and more continuous sleep, which has happened as a result of Owen getting older and mostly sleeping through the night now! Although Ludwig still does his share of waking up in the night. 
• For 2012 I realized I need to take more pictures for my own creative self. When it came time to make my 2012 gift calendars I found I had not taken very many pictures that weren't portraits! In the end I pulled it together but this year I need to make a point of shooting more of what I see with my creative eye. 

And that's about it for the last 2 months. At least that I can remember right now! Maybe it won't be so long in between posts this year.