Greenville News 5K Race Report

Well I suppose since it’s been over a week I should probably do this race report before the memory completely falls out of my head. My last 5K was in May so I really had no idea going into this what kind of pace I could do. All I knew is that I was going to PR or be royally pissed at myself. This is also the first time I’ve ever done a race which I’ve done before. That made it extra exciting because I’d have a direct comparison to see improvement.

Katie told me to go out like I might blow up and see what happens. So I just started running at a strong pace. I didn’t worry about HR. The beginning is the usual fighting the crowds and dodging people. After the first mile I was happy with my time. It hurt but a 5K is supposed to hurt. However, I felt I could handle hurting a bit more so I decided to push a little harder. I’d find someone running at a pace where I felt I could hang but after a few minutes I’d decide I could do better. Those next 2 miles I went significantly faster than the first. And as always I did my usual cross the finish line going as fast as I could manage.

New 5K PR: 24:51
Time off of previous PR: 2:42
Time off of the same race 1 year ago: 3:13

Needless to say I’m thrilled with my time! That’s a huge chunk of time off my previous PR for a 5K. The race hurt but I knew it would. On the other hand it was over so fast. When you finish a race you think about that pain in two different ways. If it was a bad race you’re thinking goes along the lines of “that was horrible, why do I put myself through this!” If it was a good race, you forget the pain because the pain was worth it. That day, it was so worth it. I don’t remember the pain at all anymore. I love racing. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that in the moment or while training but I know it’s the truth. I find so much joy from standing on the line and going out to see what I’ve got.

The improvements I’ve seen in running are awesome. Those improvements have been slow and taken months on top of months to dedication. I know I have so much more improving to do and it will take years to see my full potential. And I’m 100% ok with that. This is a process and I’m learning to not only be ok with it but love it. To be happy with every little second of improvement I see.

Today I finished a hill workout and thought “that was it? I’m done?” and actually wanted to do more hills. Then during my cool down I started singing (mostly in my head) “if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands” (my hands being my feet hitting the pavement). I think that’s a sign that I’ve found some new level of joy in running or perhaps I’ve gone even more crazy. Or both.  It’s so nice to have found a true happy pace while running! Running…. I’m here to stay!

Worth it

Last week I was having a hard time. It was one of those weeks where you feel completely overwhelmed. I’ve been making small changes in my life here and there all for the sake of trying to be better. Better about eating, better about sleeping, better about not watching TV and instead reading. And by no means am I sitting here announcing I am now a better person! Because I’m not. I’m just saying that I’m trying to make positive changes and TRYING really is the key word here.

All these small changes somehow seem to take up more time. You would think not watching as much TV would create more free time but I have no idea where that freed up time went. I am 100% serious when I say last Friday I created a list of how I was going to spend the whole weekend with times against it just to see if I’d have time for everything I needed to do. That’s right! A schedule for my weekend! Please insert eye rolls and head shakes of disbelief because I know I’m freaking crazy with a side of OCD. I did this because I can’t seem to get anything done. And of course I didn’t get everything done on that list.

A typical day goes like this… 4:25 wake up, go to gym for training #1, shower/get ready, go to work, go home for lunch to take care of dog and cook/eat, go back to work, leave work,  do training #2. At this point I have enough time to foam roll, shower again, cook, eat dinner, prep all my stuff for the next day, and maybe an hour to do whatever other crap I need to do (ie laundry, do dishes, clean, acknowledge my husband) before it’s time to get ready for bed and start it all over. The more time I cut out for cooking healthy meals, doing mobility work, getting enough sleep (all important things), the less time I have to get other stuff done or even relax. This might sound like bitching because well it sort of is, but that’s not the point.

I take full responsibility for how I spend my day. Each thing I do, I CHOOSE to do. I choose to train so many hours. I choose to feed my body healthy foods (most of the time). I choose to crawl into bed before 9 while friends are out. I do all of this because I know what I want at the end of the day and I get there by making these decisions. Weeks like this past one, it was hard to remember the why. All I could think about was how overwhelmed I was feeling like I was trying to stuff way too much into my to-do box and only half assing everything thing I checked off the list.

Then on Saturday I remembered why I did it all. I had an awesome PR on a 5K (separate post coming soon). Yes it was just a 5K and something I didn’t really care about, but it showed how much progress I’ve made in the last year. I got to ride my new tri bike for the first time (another separate post coming soon). I even took it outside because it was awesome winter riding weather. I was bursting at the seam with joy. The type of joy that had me singing while riding and smiling while stuck in traffic and not caring that I had to pee for 1.5 out of 2 hour on the bike and then realizing they removed the porta potties where I parked. That is the type of joy that cannot be taken away, that I created for myself. That is the type of joy that makes it all worth it. Every time I wanted to stay in bed, every time I wanted to curl up in a ball under my desk and cry, every time I wanted to quit during training because I thought “I can’t do this anymore”, it was worth it. It was so worth it.

I’m still struggling with that overwhelming feeling and I’m doing my best to figure it out. It’s good to have those amazing days to look back on and remember why I do it all. And it might seem crazy to deal with so much negative and only have the occasional amazing day but I don’t think so. Most days are not negative, there are plenty of ups and downs. And anyone who has kids can’t judge me because most parents will say 90% of the time kids suck and the 10% is what makes it worth it so on some level you understand. At least I have the choice to walk away. But there’s no way in hell I will because I love it. Love every second, good and bad.

The Bet - Round Two

As I’ve talked about before, this whole journey started out because I did a weight loss bet against my husband and signed up for a sprint tri as a way to help me win the bet. Everything I ate and did physically was for the purpose of losing weight. Fast forward now and boy has that changed. Now I train because I love to and I eat to fuel myself for training. 

The thing is I’m weak. I have no problem admitting it; all humans are weak in some area. That’s right, we ALL have a weakness. One of mine is food. In particular chocolate and peanut butter and any type of dessert and having to clear my whole plate no matter how much food was on it. At least there’s the comfort of knowing it’s a common weakness among humans and any dog who will suddenly become the most well behaved creature if steak or peanut butter is present. Another weakness that feeds into my number one weakness is that I can be easily influenced based on the actions of those around me. Therefore, if I’m with a group of people who are chowing down on chips and salsa, I find it much easier to cave then if I were by myself. Luckily it can work both ways and if I’m around people only eating healthy, I’m more likely to continue to eat healthy. This is the way most humans work, mimic those around us.

The two times I’ve been most successful at losing weight was during the bet against my husband and in college when my roommate and I worked out together and ate many of our meals together. When I’m around (or specifically living with) someone who is trying to lose weight as well, it becomes easier for me to stay the course.

Since the last bet, I’ve been ever so slowly working my way back up to my weight before the bet. Lots of this is muscle though so I’m not that freaked out by it. But nevertheless, I knew it was time to start reversing that trend. Hence, round two. During our long car ride home from the holidays I convinced my husband that we should do it again. I didn’t want it to be a New Year’s resolution type thing so I managed to convince him to start the next day. Plus, when you are serious about this type of thing, you don’t look for excuses like “let’s wait until after this holiday” or “let’s wait until after that wedding”. Why wait? I knew New Year’s Eve was going to be a bad night of eating and I was ok with that. I made the conscious decision to be ok eating poorly that one night knowing it wasn’t going to have a big impact over two months.

I also know that the key to losing weight and then maintaining that weight is doing it slowly with changes you can sustain once you are happy with your body. Crash diets don’t work in the long run and they aren’t good for you. This time around there are less ways I can improve my diet and I can’t cut way back on what I’m eating or my training will suffer. So this round will certainly be a challenge and a learning experience for me. In the end, it’s not just about the way my body looks (but yes I’m female and still care about how I look), but also about how I feel and how I treat my body. I’m looking forward to what this learning experience brings me. And of course, I’d like to win so wish me luck and please stop offering me desserts!

Goodbye 2015. Hello 2016.

2015 turned out to be nothing like what I expected at the beginning of the year. It was a bad year. But I’m sick of talking about the bad and this in general is supposed to be a triathlon blog so I’ll focus on that in my recap because that actually was a good year for the most part.

I started 2015 debating where I wanted to focus my training. Did I want to do only running races or do triathlons? After my two sprint triathlons in 2014, I stopped swimming and biking completely. I mean zero biking from August onward. I started swimming again oh maybe December timeframe because I really missed it. When debating between run only or triathlons I remembered how much I loved to swim. It was and still is my favorite leg of the race. Biking I liked but didn’t really miss at the time. Still, I loved the variety of training for triathlons vs only running and the extra challenges of doing triathlons. I decided to go with triathlons (to my husband’s despair). With that decision I planned to continue to train for my half marathon with swimming on the side and transition to tri training after the race.

This year I set lots and lots of PRs! That would be because it was my first time doing pretty much every distance. I did my first 5K in January and was happily surprised by my time. My first half marathon was the Disney Princess. Maybe one day I’ll do a Throw Back Thursday race report but I’ll just sum it up saying it didn’t go as planned and I ended it with a wonderful IT band injury. I still had fun and of course I love Disney so I was happy with my choice of race. I did another 5K in March and learned that trail running makes you slower. Then another 5K in the beginning of May for a new PR (which is still my standing PR because I haven’t done a 5K since).

In March I was back on the triathlon training bandwagon. Come May (after an earlier missed race) it was finally time to test what my body could do compared to last year. I did Lake Murray sprint which was my first time swimming in open water. I went in having no idea how I’d perform and was very surprised with how I did in each leg of the race. I had made some great progress from my first sprints the previous year.

Did an 8K in June which started out awesome until I realized I was running faster than my 5K PR and then crashed and burned the last miles. After this race my life outside of training went from bad to worse and races took a sideline. My training was going well for the most part but it was inconsistent at times. Even so, after much debating I decided I wanted to bump my race distance up to my first 70.3.

I did a 1.2 mile swim race as practice for my triathlon which I wasn’t very happy with. However, my first half distance triathlon was a huge success. I really couldn’t be happier with how I performed. I did far better than I expected which seems to be a general trend for me in triathlons (not so much running races). That race confirmed my love for the sport in so many ways. Whatever addiction I had to triathlons before this race, it tripled after.

I ended the season the way I started it, with a half marathon. I wanted to PR from my half at the beginning of the year but at the same time this wasn’t a super important race to me. I just wanted a fun race to end the season and I got that and a half marathon PR.

Conversations on Facebook made me curious about how many miles I’d gone last year. While it was slightly shocking to look at these numbers the first time I keep thinking that this year will be much more and I’m excited for that.

Swim:310,100m (192ish miles)

Bike: 3,012 miles
Run:1,015 miles
Total training time: 550 hours

So how far have I come in the last year? Compared to where I started the year, I’d say I’ve come pretty damn far. The triathlon bug bit me hard last year. This year I already have all my big races lined up and even some smaller ones. I’m not really one for New Year’s resolutions because a year is a very long time and a lot can happen in a year.  I would know. I don’t like to make sweeping statements that “I’m going to change my life starting today!” because change takes time. Change is good but too much change at once tends to blow up in your face. I like to look at things a month at a time. Sometimes even a day at a time. I don’t want to race through life always looking so far ahead because you never know what life will throw in your face during that time to mess with your “plans”. I don’t want to be so focused on the future that I miss what’s happening today, in the present. This year I want a solid triathlon season. This year I want to find joy in my life. Both in and outside of triathlons. Hello 2016. Happy to be back in an even year. Cheers to a better year than 2015.