Thursday, June 29, 2006

Epiphany

I want all my friends to know I've had an epiphany. One of Oprah's "AHA" moments.

I have figured out that to lose weight, I have to pretty much dedicate my life to it. That means eating right 6 days out of 7, working out like a freak, and constantly thinking about it. I can't let up, not at all, because letting up leads me down a slippery slope.

I'm not kidding. Once I get to my desired weight, I can relax and just let the routine of it all take over, but for now I have to be a diligent, dedicated, crazy person. An example of this is that my husband is at the Kenny Chesney concert right now. Friends of ours had an extra ticket, and even though I am the big country music lover, I let Derek take it. Why? Well, the primary reason was I didn't want to miss a workout. Isn't that anal and crazy? Well it is. But I know that for me, staying dedicated means I can't stop. Stopping once makes it ok to stop the next time, and then before you know it, I'll only be working out once per week.

I am still in training. This time it is a triathlon. The Greenville Tri is on August 20th (my 34th birthday) and it is a 400 m swim, a 15 mile bike ride, and a 5K run.

Here is my weekly training schedule.... assume AM means before work at about 6-7AM. PM means evening, or after work.
Monday AM- 25 minutes of Swimming (typically do about 1150 meters, or 46 laps in a 25 meter pool)
Monday PM- Biking (typically do about 9 miles)
Tuesday AM- Running (3 miles)
Tuesday PM- weight training (starting next week)
Wednesday AM- swimming again same as Monday
Wednesday PM- biking again same as Monday
Thursday AM- Running (3 miles)
Thursday PM- Weight training
Friday- off, rest day
Saturday- AM, LONG BIKE (15-20 miles) and LONG RUN (5 miles +)
Sunday- off, rest day.

Whew. I'm tired now. That's about 6.5 hours of training per week. But I can see all these changes in how my body looks and performs and I love it. I can't wait until I am more muscle than fat! I am going to be one of those women. You know, the ones that make you want to say "Grrrrr"

You know what, I am ok with that....

OK NOW I AM MAD

I have no idea where my pictures are and why they didn't upload. Hmmm. I think I am going to have to start using an image hosting service.

I'll just have to try this again later this weekend. Sorry for the promise of pictures only to fail to show them....

I'm just baiting you for later! I've got 5 or 6 I wanted to load... You'll see them soon enough....


OH!! BY THE WAY, Derek found a new job! YAY! He starts on Monday, so we won't miss a single paycheck. This job is with WABCO (westinghouse air brake company) and he will be a buyer for one of their teams- I think the mass transit pneumatic brake team. He's making more money, but will have about half the vacation he had before. I think he is really disappointed about that because it will impact his fishing tournaments, but he's being a good sport about it.

I hate to say it, but it's almost a good thing we've got this long wait for a referral. Maybe he will qualify for Family medical leave when we go to China. He will qualify for that next July. That way he won't have to use vacation to travel.... good thing too since he won't have that much!

The Marathon


Ok ok ok, I've heard enough crap about not writing about the marathon, so I will. Mom, Judy, and I all had a great time visiting San Diego. It truly is a beautiful city, and I would love to go back sometime and really get the full experience. 4 days including travel and the marathon is just not enough.

Lynn (my running friend) and I were in corral 21. Your corral number was how you got lined up for the start. There were 1000 people per corral and there were 22 corrals. You are assigned your corral based on your expected finish time. As you can see, we were back with the walkers. The indignity of it!! It took us about 15 minutes to cross the starting line. Keep in mind your official "chip time" is based on when YOU cross the start and the finish and all the clocks in the pictures I will post show the gun time. You have to subtract those 15 minutes from the gun time to get my approximate chip time. I say this because I finished in 6 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds. My goal, which I thought I would never meet, was to finish in 6.5 hours. I was THRILLED beyond belief to meet that goal (I'm going to forgive the extra 30 seconds, I had to stop and pee at mile 5, so I think that's reasonable.) What I especially loved was crossing the finish line after passing a dude from corral 15. HA!! GIRLS RULE!!

Did I hit the wall? Yes. Did I hit it at mile 20? No. I actually hit it at mile 23. See, in all of our training runs, we would go 2 miles further than the time before. My longest was 20. I was ok for 20, I was ok for 22. 23, however, about did me in. I stopped and walked from mile 23.5 to mile 25. Once I saw the mile marker for 25, I decided to have a strong finish so I kicked it in gear and actually had a pretty decent last mile. The joy of finishing and the adrenalin helped me to eek out what was probably about a 12 minute mile. As I crossed the finish, I held my Tiger Rag up. ORANGE NATION, baby!!!

Everyone keeps asking me if I will ever do another. Right now, the answer is I don't think so. I do think I will do half marathons- I felt great at mile 13!! I think half marys give you all the satisfaction (ok half the satisfaction) and none of the pain!

I've tried adding pictures, but this is all that took. BAH HUMBUG!!!

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

So much has happened

So much has happened. I've tried to update my blog about 3 times but each time blogger went down. So, this is a quickie- I'll update more thoroughly later.

First let me say thank you to my secret pals. The gifts have been awesome and I feel so guilty that I haven't been able to acknowledge them yet. But I do have a good excuse.

1. First of all, the legal action with my father's brother is now over and done. We settled after almost 4 years of "legal disagreements" and he has bought my mom and I out of the farm. I cannot begin to tell you how we thought we'd never see the day we'd be free of him. But it's finally happened.
2. My grandmother's house sold. I spent the week of memorial day helping my mom and my aunt pack it all up. We were very happy that it sold to a nice family, but sad to leave it. The packing up wasn't a problem but everyone in our small family has established homes, so we have lots of things and no one to use them. Fortunately we left a good bit for the family who bought the house as they didn't have a house before and could use a lot of the things!
3. I had my marathon. Finished in 6 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds. Will post more about that in a bit...
4. Derek found out he's lost his job effective June 30th. Apparently when the textile mills that buy spare parts shut down, that affected his job(textile spare parts business). Go figure. So now we are searching for the "right" position for him.
5. Derek's mom fell on Tuesday after Memorial Day. Scraped up her arms pretty bad. Didn't break anything, thank goodness. But, that evening was spent cleaning her up and getting her wounds addressed. Anytime a diabetic has a wound you really have to be careful. I won't get into the specifics of what happened, but it was in the bathroom and I had to help her, not Derek. I totally feel prepared for motherhood now. I am so glad she's ok. The fall ended up being a good thing in disguise, because now she will let me help her bathe, and I know that will help her feel better on a daily basis.

Whew. Crazy couple of weeks. Will post more on the secret pal presents and on the marathon later. I've got pictures to post, folks, so stay tuned!