60 degrees in December and My Goals

Holy smokes.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm not complaining about this weather. This past weekend was amazing! Sunday, I woke up feeling iffy. Lately, my joints feel tired? Sore? I dunno. My lowest mileage month was October (48 miles, what the heck?!) and in November, my mileage doubled. Oops. Maybe that's why my joints are feeling it. But everything else feels great!

November Recap: With November ending, looking back it was a fantastic running month!
- I got 109 miles done. Woohoo!
- two 10ks (new PR), one 5k (new PR)
- I decided to give myself a break this month from calorie counting, and stayed away from my scale, and to my surprise, I didn't stray away from my "comfortable" weight. Yay! With all the running and eating, it makes sense I didn't gain or lose anything.

Sunday's Surprising Run
Anyways back to Sunday! We didn't have a goal set in mind as we walked out the door (in shorts and a tank!), but after our warm up we decided 10 miles would be nice and he challenged me to try to keep it at 7:50. He was trying to kill me apparently...

Mile 1-5, average pace was 7:51! and I was feeling good. After mile 6, I was starting to feel my legs getting tired. And after mile 7, I def slowed down. The last 2 miles, I was trying to focus on keeping my pace and not slowing down even further, which tends to happen to me. After we were done, I couldn't believe my eyes. We had finished those 10 miles in an hour and 19 minutes at a 7:57 pace. I was exhausted, but I felt GOOD! Dunno if it had to do with the weather..

I am on runners high at the moment.. since yesterday. This gives me hope for the Santa Hustle Half in two weeks. I can come real close to my goal time. I was hoping to run a 1:45 in the spring.. But I think I can do it sooner than that.

So I'm adjusting my goals a bit..

-We have the Rudolph Ramble 8k this weekend... never ran an 8k.. so I'm going to try to run it a close to my 5k pace but faster than my 10k. (I suck at short distance, at the moment I hate 5ks). Goal pace: 7:47

-Plan A: Going to attempt to run the Santa Hustle half at a 1:45:58 (8:05pace)
Plan B: 1:47 (8:10 pace)
Plan C: ...if worst comes to worst... at least PR (sub 1:49, 8:20 pace)  

Why is this going to be hard?  I won't have the bf with me.. pacing me. I run faster with him than alone.

That, and Finals are next week. Am I going to try to squeeze in running? Maybe. Hopefully.


Marathon Training

I HAVE NOT STARTED!
Ahh.. I'm planning to look up some plans this afternoon.. or tomorrow afternoon.. and come up with something to atleast get me started. The bf kind of popped my bubble. I thought I had more time to relax after finals and turns out, we were already suppose to begin. With finals, other goals in my head, turkey trotting, and Christmas around the corner, I completely forgot how time flies. Next thing I know... March will be here and I will be ready.


Luz

Race Recap: Rock N' Roll Half Marathon

Before The Race
The night before the race, I felt my eyes were starting to droop a little around 9ish. I thought 'YAY! I'm going to get some sleep tonight'. Wrong! I went home, started syncing music to my iPhone, next thing I know it's freakin' 1:30am. Shit.
(Rookie Mistake #1: you get too nervous/overwhelmed/excited, you forget to sleep.)

I'm screwed. Things like this always happen to me of course.. so I played it cool. finished putting together my stuff and went to bed. Woke up right before my alarm at 4:55. Put everything in my bag. The only thing that was missing was my race clothes. So I went to check on them (I had left them drying in the dryer the night before). They were still wet. A big WTF. So I reset my dryer and went back to check and double check my stuff to bring to the race.
 (Rookie Mistake #2, have ALL your stuff ready, including your race clothes laid out the NIGHT before the race.)
By the time I was heading out the door, I took a banana. Another WTF. I forgot to eat something small to have some fuel. (RM #3, eat something small hours prior to start time.) I still had an hour to digest this banana. Picked up McSpeedy (the bf) and drove downtown. We got super lucky trying to find parking. We passed only 1 parking lot that was closed and the next one we scored! Woohoo. It was about 6'oclock. Half an hour till race time. We were both nervous. (Nervous was an understatement..of course)

So we got ready in the car, paid for parking, check last min things and we were off.
I looked at the time. It was around 6:22... No lie.
We tried running towards Grant Park. We had no clue were exactly the race started. Haa.. (RM #4, KNOW and carry a map of the course, especially w/ the start line on it) Ha..
We asked one of those traffic people if the knew, thank jebus they had a flyer of where it was located.
We literally ran to start line. On our way there, my water belt was a little uncomfortable. It was the first time I had it on since I purchased it. (RM #5, never use new gear on race day). So I fumbled with it as I was running, and BAM!. Next thing I know, there's water all over my leg and shorts, and none left in my little water container. Great...

We get to the corrals and I see we were wayyyy behind, in like corral 15'ish.
McSpeedy was in corral 1, and I was in 3, how the hell were we going to make it in time.
I hear the announcer start off the race. Shit.

So I jump over the gates and run down the sidewalk until finally eying corral 4. I thought, this is better than nothing. So we both started off there. Had 2 seconds to rest and we were off...

During
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I had no water. I was already worn out. My mind was everywhere. I felt horrible for not preparing properly. But this wasn't going to stop me from running this race. I started up my Nike+ app, and just focused on how the hell I was going to do this.
I honestly can't remember most of this race. I was too caught up in my thoughts. I ran my first mile at 7:53. Woah. Way too fast for what I had in mind. I think my legs were still thinking about reaching the start line. After that I tried keeping a steady pace not slowing down too much, and not going out too fast. I remember eying the 1:45 pacer. My Goal time one day. Sadly, I only stayed with him for about half a mile-ish.. I don't know how long after that, I see a herd of people and there he is, Mr. 1:50.

Alright Luz! You have to stay with him. Too bad it was only about a mile or 2 before I lost sight of his little flag. (Having no contacts on didn't help one bit. RM#6: wear your glasses to be able to see where you are going)

Oh no... The last thing I wanted was for Mr. or Mrs. 2:00 to pass me up.That was my greatest fear throughout the whole time.
I started taking my Shot Bloks at around mile 6, right after I remembered...that I had forgotten to take off my compression shin sleeves. Ha.. Nice one Luz. So I rolled them down to my ankles. These kinda bother me when I wear them for too long, today was not the day for that.
At Mile 8, I took another Shot Blok and I started choking on it. Haha.. I was laughing at myself. I need to chew and stop day dreaming and get on with this race. I had no idea where the mile marks were, maybe because I had no contacts, or maybe because I wasn't really paying any attention to my surroundings, but I had missed almost all of them. Except of course the 5k, 10k and some other ones.
Mile 9 rolled around and it hit me, I only had 4 miles to go. ( I had to lie to myself at this point and rounded it down and told myself only 3.9 miles to go, just to make me feel better)

I kept trying to pace myself with other runners around me and also stopped a couple times for water/Gatorade. No GU for me. I can hardly remember stopping at the water stops...
The wet sponges helped with the stickyness from all the Gatorade I spilled on myself. :)
I believe those were after mile 10ish.. maybe 11.

I remember seeing the 11th mile mark. I had around 20 minutes to finish, if I was going to beat the 2 hour mark. I was starting to freak out. 2 miles to go. ONLY 2 miles to go. Where did the miles go?! (my legs thought differently) I kicked my pace up a little. I was really tired. But I kept thinking 'pain is temporary...pain is temporary...pain is weakness...' I didn't want to have a feeling of regret, like last time. I didn't want to think I didn't push myself hard enough. I crossed mile mark #12, one mile to go, and I looked at the big ol' clock. Shit. I remember it being in the 1:50s already. Damnit, I'm not going to make it. I was dying. I was starting to lose my cool.. I felt like I had failed.. I wanted to break 1:57 so bad. At that point I wanted to cry and give up. But something inside of me just kind of took over. Whatever it was, it helped me focus on finishing. I gave it my all. I would speed up and slow a little down, and speed up again. I knew in my heart, no matter how tired I was at mile 13, I was going to sprint to the end.

I tried keeping a fast-ish pace (or so it felt at the moment). Then I saw the big 13 mile mark. I read in big numbers 1:58. I didn't care. All I knew was that I wanted to finish this strong. I might have not been prepared in the beginning. I might have screwed up. But I had a choice to really dig deep. And with the help of a running dude up ahead of me in a dark blue shirt, I made it my goal to try to beat him. I ran as fast as I could, I felt like my body had gone numb at this point.

never underestimate a girl ;)

I guess it was all the adrenaline? I just wanted to cross that freakin' finish line already. With every last bit of energy I had inside of me, I crossed that line. The one that scares you, yet makes you feel so proud. The one that can either defeat or define you...

I stopped my timer. 1:56. I didn't know whether to trust it or not. So I made a side note to check the results later. I didn't want to celebrate just yet, I had stopped it twice during the race due to bad GPS reception. Don't celebrate just yet Luz..

After
McSpeedy was waiting for me at the finish line and seeing him snapped me back to reality. It was over. So of course my body suddenly got all funky and I had no intentions of eating anything because I knew for a fact my stomach wasn't going to put up with it. I drank water, a little warm gatorade (yuck..).
Got some Jamba Juice (should've taken more;) and my medal and went to sit down with McSpeedy.

mmmm.. Jamba Juice... *drools*
my white flower stayed on!
I couldn't help buy a flower from Fellow Flowers the day of the expo. Such inspiring women.

our recovery snacks. chocolate milk is amazing.

My legs felt horrible, my body ached everywhere. We took lots and lots of pictures and just walked around, trying to loosen up. Drove back home and after a nice shower, we looked through all the pictures and just laid around the entire day. Had a home-made "taco" salad (which was just lettuce, tomato, onion, hot sauce with some taco meat -from his tacos lol- on top of all the lettuce.. :-P ) in the afternoon and laid around some more. I was really curious about my official time... So we both checked online to see if they were up. And there they were.

Gulp.

Moment of truth.
I wasn't going to beat myself up for not PR-ing this race. The weather was just off. Too hot and humid. My mind was off. I had been day dreaming 90% of the time lol
So I checked my time. Click. and there it was.

1:56:32. ONE FIFTY SIX!!!!!

AHHH!!! I couln't believe it!!! I really couldn't. I didn't hit 1:55 by 32 seconds like I wanted to.. But that 1:56 felt so good. Just thinking if I hadn't really pushed it at the end, I wouldn't have been able to feel the way I feel now.

After a race, you might think back at things you would've changed, 'if I hadn't stopped at that last water station for so long..' blah blah blah.
But at this point, I didn't regret anything. My soreness today says it all. I really dug deep inside of me, and gave it all I could. And that's what matters :-)

Overall the race was fun and not so enjoyable because of the heat. The course was a little hilly, although I don't remembering struggling that much. and it was a nice view coming down lake shore towards McCormick. I hated the stupid tunnel at the end. With my sunglasses on, I felt completely blind. Other than that, the goodies at the end were perfect. Ice pops, Jamba Juice, chocolate milk, bagels.. and so on.

We'll meet again 13.1...
See you in September.

July 22, 2012 Rock N' Roll Chicago Half Marathon (1:56:32) ✓

Running has taught me that I can do anything

 just as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

My "Diet" Secret

So, every since I started losing weight, I've kept a low profile...ish. Mostly because I'm busy with school, work, working out, racing, with the boyfriend, or "cooking" something weird in my kitchen. 9 out 10 times when a family member sees me after months of not visiting, I get the same question over and over. What do I do? What do I eat? What's my secret?

Warning: This is the first time I'm writing this out so it might be confusing, long, and boring.

Here's a quick list of things that have worked for ME. Keep in mind many things. It wasn't easy and of course I fell off the "wagon" many times. Always going back and forth, losing and gaining back the weight but then I found a "rhythm" and things started becoming a habit. I did something that was not too different, not drastic, just something that I know I can stick to. (I will be bolding what I think is more important, you can skip all the shinanigans and just read the bold print if you'd like lol)

1. Logging Your Food

So first thing I did, was start counting calories and logging what I ate on a regular day. I use this amazing app called Lose It! It's available online as well as Android and iPhone. So, I began my journey of logging my food every single day. Trust me, I would only do it occasionally at first, but then it stuck. AND its on your phone. Genius. 

The app has ALOT of tools for you to use. and I mean ALOT!

-When you log you're food, it asks you how much you ate (FOOD PORTIONS are very important so I suggest buying measuring cups and spoons)

-You can see online what food groups you've consumed (eating based off the Food Pyramid was essential for me, my meals were based off this handy dandy poster :)

Basically- Breakfast should contain 1/4 whole grain, 1/4 protein and optional fruit/dairy
Lunch/Dinner should contain 1/4 carb, 1/4 protein, half plate should be veggies

-There's a little bar, which is your calories for the day, and if you go over, it WILL turn red, letting you know you've gone over.

Woops, had a little too much cereal late last night :-(

-The app also lets you list a goal weight, and depending how much and how fast you want to lose it, it will suggest a calorie intake goal for the day. Don't start out too fast wanting to lose 2 pounds a week. and don't beat yourself up if you go over your calories, it takes time to adjust.
-You make friends online, and motivate each other! :) MOTIVATION IS KEY!


2. Watch Your Food- Foods to Eat and NOT to eat
I recommend reading the book Eat This, Not That! I think it gives you an easy head start on foods you should watch out for when you're eating out. It's a book full of easy food swaps that will save you calories. There's different versions out now, Grill This, not That! another genius idea. Keep in mind, fast food is bad no matter what you buy. So I try to keep my foods clean, and make stuff at home that's quick and easy. So they came up with Cook this, Not That! ha. Genius I tell you.

I didn't really eliminate any foods from my diet... because eventually that is what is going to kill you. You are going to WANT it and crave it. So keep it simple. Make food swaps. Instead of a cookie, have a piece of dark chocolate with strawberries. Don't stress over it. 

The ones that I occasionally eat (by occasional, I mean when there is ABSOLUTELY no alternative or way out) are:

• soda
• mayo
• fruit juices
• white bread
• cheese
• adding sugar to anything
• 2% or whole milk (Skim milk please!)
• sugary cereals 
• fried foods, choose grilled or charbroiled instead

By avoiding empty calories, you WILL see a difference. Ask yourself, "Do I really need to add mayo to my sandwich?" Automatically, it will save you around 150 calories depending also on how much you use (PORTIONS!). Something that helped me was first to lower the amount of food and watch how many times a week I drank soda, minimizing every week until I no longer wanted it.

DRINK WATER! I never drank water like I do now. Running has helped me fall in love water and stay away from fruit juices, because really, you are just drinking sugar (empty calories). NO! :)
Instead, eat an orange rather than drinking the juice.

SALADS: people think that by ordering a salad from Wendy's or McDonalds, they are doing something good, but actually making your own salad at home is loads better. Restaurant salads may contain tons of cheese and salad dressing that may actually do more harm than good.

Cooking at home is better alternative than eating out, keeping in mind you watch what you add to your food and your portions. Of course life gets in the way and there is no time, so what I do is if I'm on the run and need a quick lunch fix, I go to BK or McD's and order a side salad with a grilled chicken wrap on the side. I know I know.. I just said no take out food, but hey, a side salad with no dressing and grilled chicken on it sounds REALLY good compared to something else on those menus.  I add the chicken to my salad and VOILA! mini salad. You can also order a Whopper Jr w/o mayo, without sabotaging your calorie intake for the day.

**Instead of eating out for lunch at work or school, make yourself your own little lunch box, with safe snacks you can munch out throughout the day, instead of running to the vending machine.

3. Exercise!

Yeah, I know. Boo! exercising sometimes isn't what you want to be doing at 5am every morning, instead you want to sleep. I get it. BUT that is where flexibility comes in.
Try fitting in times when you know you're available, and stick to it.
Try waking up 20 earlier and workout for a good 10 minutes, then increasing the workout time as you get better at waking up earlier.

The goal here is to schedule a time, where you know you will not fall back. If you tell yourself off the bat that you're going to wake up at 5am every morning from now on, it might work, it might not, because you are taking a risk of sleeping in your workout days and never get it done.

-Start out slow

-if you get bored, add variety (do an activity that you ENJOY doing)
-join a gym
-ask your friends who have been following a program, what they are doing/if you can tag along

Personally, I started out jogging short distances (maybe 2 blocks at a time) and I have build up from there ever since. Keep in mind, I first attempted "running" in 2009, it is now 2012. I took my time and never gave up. Be consistent with your workouts and log them too. Keep them handy on a wall calendar.

-At the moment, I try running 4-6 days a week and TRYING really hard 2-3x's/week to fit in time for strength training (aka P90x :), try it, and you shall fall in love with it too) 

4. Keep Track

This worked for me really well... and it made me feel like I accomplished something when I looked back on how much I've done. It also helps keep you on track by constantly reminding you of your goals.  Place all your charts somewhere you can see them. I have them on my wall, next to my mirror, where EVERYONE can see them. At first, I would cover them, because I didn't want anyone judging or asking about it. Soon enough, I felt proud of my little charts and always felt like telling everyone who came in my room about them :P
 

-LOG your weight on the same calendar or make a separate charts

-STICK to your regime

-LOG, LOG, LOG

  

Not everyone likes keeping track of every little thing, like I do. But to me, it's helpful when it comes to knowing where I'm at and also when I'm feeling less motivated. I look at these charts and think how much I've done, NOT how much I have left to do. Sometimes I even find an old journal I use to write down my weight and workouts, and I really can't believe how far I've come. It gets a little emotional sometimes haha. (I'm a girl, give me a break)

5. MOTIVATION

If  losing weight was easy, then everyone would be thin.

 
You have to set small goals in order for you to not get discouraged.
By setting yourself small goals, you are more likely to stay on track overall.
I created my weight chart with 1 and 5 pound increments, every time I marked my chart and filled my little bar, I came closer and closer to my goals. 

Began Jan 31 2011 at 176 lbs
Current as of July 18 2012 at 135 lbs

What worked for me:

-A good way to keep yourself motivated is to read about other peoples success.

-Follow other bloggers who are struggling like you are, or those who have accomplished their goals

-Sign up for newsletters, such as Eat this Not That. those friendly reminders will keep you busy :) they also include yummy food suggestions, which is always a good idea if you get bored of your same meals everyday. 

-Read books or magazines

-and even write a blog about yourself ;)

 

And that is my secret, not a big secret huh? :)

*Always keep in mind, every one is different.
And being thin, doesn't define beauty.

Don't think of it as a "diet". Something you start and are bound to fall out of. Think of it as a lifestyle change. Changing your bad habits to good ones. It's all mind over matter.