Room with a View

Today's Running Goal: 2.5 miles
Accomplished: 2.5 miles in 30:40
Again, I am flabbergasted by the difficulty in running inside versus outside. But the snowy/wintry weather today make it impossible to take my workout outdoors. I made myself maintain the 12:30 minute mile I was running the whole time, and then of course sprinted the last lap. I was literally dripping in sweat, but at least I made it. I think my new gym is boring. I miss the way my old gym looked out at 48th street. Even though I hated that people were able to look in at me working out, I enjoyed looking out at them, and watching the people drive by. And oh how a homeless person walking by would keep me running for at least three minutes. At Goodyear all I see is sweaty people walking past to get a drink. And it's always the same people. And they aren't collecting trash from the grass or anything. What fun is that?

I had to cut my gym time to 45 minutes because I had a busy day planned. I had the day off since I worked the weekend, and Jennifer took the afternoon off to get some things done. So we talked to a few florists about wedding flowers. We donated blood (I got the cute phlebotomist!) and at free cookies. We tried a new coffee shop/sandwich shop. We picked up my new contacts. We test drove a Corolla that I may or may not want to buy. We shopped at Walmart. And we watched the biggest loser. I hope all that burned off enough calories to make up for the 15 minutes I skipped out on at the gym.

Challenge Week #5

Nothing new to report here. My scale has been the same all week and didn't feel like making any changes this morning. Still stuck at seventeen pounds. As if I haven't been stuck at that before (for three or four months). Again I am hoping that this will pass, but now that it has been three weeks around the same weight and I have been working out as much as I possibly can, and not eating all that poorly, I am getting a tad worried. It has to move this week. I am sure of it! Remember when my weight was going down every day? Those were the days!

Miraculous Hannah

Today's Running Goal: 3 miles
Accomplished: 3 miles in 36:41
Excellent! As I mentioned, I had to work today and the gym is closed all hours that I am not at the library. After a long day, of doing several projects and helping most of the people, I headed to my mom's at 8:00 to run with Hannah. When I got there she was pretty worn out; not her usual hyper self. I was pretty worn out too. And I was thinking of any way I could get out of it. But I had promised her, and you just don't break a promise to a dog! So we started out. It was perfect. I didn't have any pain. I was sweating, but the wind was drying it, without being so windy we blew over. She kept up for the whole three miles, and at some points was encouraging me to go faster to keep up with her. I did it in just over 12 minutes per mile, which is fine time. I probably could have kept going. Why is it so much easier with her? It's not just that it's outside, because it's dark and there's not much to see except house after house passing us. But for some reason I spend my time making sure she's okay, and keeping her on the right side of me, ensuring that we don't get hit by cars and the time just flies by, as do the miles. I am going to make sure to do all my Sunday runs with her from now on. Now, if they would just let her into the race as well! Next week my runs will be: 2.5 miles, 2 miles, 3.5 miles.

I got over seven hours of workout time in this week. I do think that if I am going to continue to count Yoga, I may have to aim for eight hours. I do feel it in my shoulder/upper arms today quite a bit, but that is it. And I do notice that I am able to reach a little further than I could the first week, and balance a little better. But it's not giving me the weight loss potential that I need.

Surrounded by Old People

Today's Running Goal: 2 miles (which nobody said should be faster than last week, but I just assume it should be, or why regress to two miles?)
Accomplished: 2 miles in 26 minutes (not at all faster, in fact much slower than last week).
This was so difficult. I had to take three drink breaks; I thought I was going to pass out; I wanted to quit several times, but I persevered. I don't know if it was the fact that it was in the morning before I get my energy levels built up, or if it was because the gym was 100 degrees, or because I was surrounded by old people watching The Price is Right. It doesn't matter, I finished, but very slowly. Truthfully, I was running between a 12 minute- mile and a 12:30 minute-mile, but it was all the breaks that lowered my time to what appears to be a 13 minute mile. Perhaps it was the fact that I was tying to run a 12 minute mile that got me so worn out. I just felt like I was sprinting at a 4.6 level. Better next week.

Tomorrow I have to work, but I am getting up super-early to make it to Yoga. That is actually the best class I can imagine taking before I go to work. I won't sweat, so it won't matter that I can't shower between gym and work. And it gets over at 9:10, which puts me to work by 9:20, which just means my lunch break will be 15 minutes shorter than normal. But who really needs an hour for lunch if you don't have plans? I'll be at seven hours after yoga is over tomorrow, but I still have a run scheduled for Sunday night. As long as it's not too cold when I get off of work, I will head over to my mom's house to run three miles with Hannah. I'm a little hesitant about how I am going to get that many miles done, but I am excited too, because I haven't done it since the end of January. And it's time to prove to myself again that I can do it!

Marika = Jillian

I have compared my new gym instructor or Jillian, my favorite Biggest Loser trainer several times. But last night takes the cake. And those of you who hate being yelled at and hate Jillian are going to hate Marika even more, but I have grown to love her. I know... you would have guessed it. Imagine you are 40 minutes into a high-intensity Kickboxing workout, and you can barely see because sweat is dripping in your eyes. The last song comes on, and you have no energy even though Marika has ensured you that this is the last song and then we can stretch. You haven't had any water for 20 minutes because she prides herself on not having any breaks. The song begins and you find yourself doing the speedbag routine even though you don't think your arms will stay in the air. When all of a sudden you hear Marika shout: We're all finishing this together, I don't care if you have to DRAG yourself across the finish line! How refreshing! I got my arms up higher, I punched harder and I powered through to the finish line. But I may not have made it without Marika. I need that kick, the push, that scream. Let's face it: I'm lazy on my own!

I'm taking today off from working out. I have tomorrow off from work, so I will get my 2 mile run in then. Today my body and my mind needs to rest. And it needs to see Missouri beat Memphis!

Stupid TV Share-ers

Today's Running Goal: 2.5 miles
Accomplished: 2.5 miles in 31:37
I don't understand why it took longer than it did on Sunday. I made sure that I was running at a 12 minute-mile pace (30 minutes total) for most of the run. Sure I had to slow down for just a couple of songs, but I sprinted (10 minute-mile) the whole last song. Anyway, time doesn't matter, so I am over that! It was definitely harder inside on the treadmill without the dog. I had to stop for two drink breaks. The room was really hot and humid and weird people were watching weird things on TV. I hate sharing televisions. Here's a great example of the stupid people who use my gym: later on I was biking and watching Obama's speech. Then this lady asks me if I am watching (I am, I don't have headphones in and am starring at the TV) but I say No go ahead and change it (I only had three minutes left anyway). So she gets off her treadmill and announces I don't think I could spend a whole hour listening to Obama (I on the other hand would pay money to listen to him) and she changes the channel... to Family Guy. Needless to say, I quit three minutes early, because I was so baffled by the ignorance of this world. I am actually looking forward to the two mile run on Thursday/Friday. Since I have run 2.5 miles two times in a row, two miles will feel like nothing. However, I am not looking forward to the three-miler this weekend. I feel like I gave everything I had today; where am I going to find another half mile?

Challenge Week #4

I gained a pound. I was waiting for the bubble to burst and earlier this week I thought that it would be more than a pound. So I am hopeful that this is the only pound I gain and that now my body can get back to work on losing instead. I am still down to 17 pounds which is a fine place to be. I am trying to have a happy outlook on the gain instead of a negative one. That way I will be encouraged to eat lightly and not emerge myself in cookies to comfort my pain.

This week my runs will be: Tuesday 2.5 miles; Friday 2 miles faster; Sunday 3 miles. I might try to use my mom's dog again on Sunday. I work all day; the gym will be closed before and after workl; it will be dark; and she needs the exercise too. And she loves it. And running with someone who loves it is way more fun than people who hate it.

One Week Closer

Today's Running Goal: 2.5 miles
Accomplished: 2.5 miles in 30:36
I had hopes of getting up this morning and doing some running outside, but I was just too tired to do that. Then I spent almost ten hours in Columbus visiting my family. Even though I got home and it was dark and windy and a storm was blowing up, I took my mom's dog and ran around her neighborhood for thirty minutes. Running with Hannah was a great addition to my routine. I averaged a 12:19 mile, which is pretty fast for me. I was more concerned at making sure she wasn't too tired, and that we weren't getting lost or entering an area that was too windy, so I hardly noticed the running. And although I was tired and hot when I finished, I might have been able to go further. I am excited to try the 2.5 miles again on Tuesday and attempting to run a 3 mile next weekend.

I managed to get through another week with seven hours of gym time. I have lost count of how many weeks in a row this is, but I think it's five weeks. I have been counting Yoga as an hour of working out though, and that isn't quite as intense as other workouts. Though I have to admit that I was a little sore from the Yoga workout again. This time it was my triceps and my upper back and a little bit in my calves. My mom was sore all order and Jennifer was apparently hardly able to walk. I do believe that it could be worth it to get up that early.

Ummmm, Yeah

I went back to Yoga this morning. This time I brought my mom and Jennifer, who both claim to be inflexible and unbalanced. They both did fine though and seemed to enjoy themselves enough. If it just wasn't so early on a Saturday morning it would be a lot easier to get to. I doubt they'll be changing times soon though, so we just need to decide if it's worth it or not. Judy, the instructor, asked Erin and I if we felt it last time (we did) right before she stated that you should listen to your body; you should never be sore from yoga. I liked being sore. That's how I knew I worked muscles that I wasn't reaching in BodyPower. Apparently we don't listen to our bodies enough. I wonder if I will be sore again tomorrow. I hope so!

Then I stayed to get my running done for the week.
Running Goal: 2 miles
Accomplished: 2 miles in just under 26 minutes.
I felt that I was running even faster than I was outside, but the treadmill is deceiving. Apparently it took me even longer. I am used to running a 13 minute mile, so it wasn't a surprise that it took that long. No pain this time, just out of breath. I did get off the treadmill to turn up the fan once, and another time to take a drink. That probably cost me a few seconds of running. Maybe I was running the same speed as last time. Tomorrow I am supposed to boost it up to 2.5 miles. I am trying to get around the mental aspect of it. Only six more minutes than today. Only two more songs on my Ipod. That should be do-able. However, I have to go visit my aunt and uncle in Columbus tomorrow. I either need to get up early and do it outside (the gym doesn't open until 10:00am) or do it later tomorrow evening outside in the dark (the gym closes at 6:00). Hmmm...

No More Mediums

It has finally happened. It was a long process, it was difficult and I don't see it getting any easier in the near future. But there is absolutely no going back. I have made it out of the medium weights in BodyPower. I have managed to increase all of my weights to medium and smalls or larger. I managed to do it Monday, but wondered if it was just a fluke. But I managed to pull it off again this evening. And I am not going to allow myself to go back down. This is great for my upper-body because those are the places I have been working on increasing. Shoulders is probably the hardest, at least the last weight I increased. It's not as long as biceps though, which I have been working on for weeks and weeks now and still have to struggle to finish. Now I just need to work on becoming comfortable with these bigger weights. Not just on BodyPower days, but on the several days after when I can barely raise my arms.

Tomorrow should be my second running day, but I have a really busy day planned. It's my annual Teen Art Show, and my stress level is high. I have plans to watch the basketball tournaments after I get off of my eleven hour work day. Friday I am pretty busy too. I might have to sneak in my run on Saturday morning. I plan on going back for Yoga and had considered staying for the "Cardio Blast" class. But running might be more important right now.

Beautiful Day, Beautiful Run

I finally got a day off and decided to use the nice weather to enjoy an outdoor workout. I am starting over on my running plan. I have 10 weeks until the Havelock 10k; it's about time to get serious. I have to go from running 2 miles (maybe 3) to running six in 10 weeks. I wonder if that is possible. Megan keeps reminding me that it's not about running all six miles, it's about crossing the finish line. But, I think she's wrong. When I made the goal to run a 10k, I meant precisely that: to RUN the 10k. I'm not saying that I can't take a couple seconds to breathe here and there, but I don't want to have entire song walk-breaks. Anyway, I have adapted some online runner's 8-week 8k workout into a 10-week 10k workout and I am ready to commit to it and make myself run what it says on the schedule. I think it helps that it isn't some arbitrary chart that I made myself, but instead some professional runner's log. In this new plan, Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays are running days and it begins like this:

Week One: 2 miles, 2 miles, 2.5 miles
Week Two: 2.5 miles, 2 miles, 3 miles
Week Three: 2.5 miles, 2 miles, 3.5 miles
Week Four: 2.5 miles, 2 miles, 4 miles
Week Five: 3 miles, 2 miles, 4 miles

Today's Running Goal: Two miles
Accomplished: Two miles in 25 minutes.
Pretty good time, even though I wasn't working on that. I was running outside, which allowed me to concentrate on something other than the numbers on the treadmill. I also think that my IPod isn't calibrated quite right. I might have run 2.25 miles actually. Which makes the time seem super-great. Not to get too optimistic; it was very difficult and I had a pain in my side most of the second mile. But if I was running faster than normal, I suppose that is explains that. I am glad that there is another two mile run this week before I have to bump it up to 2.5.

Challenge Week #3

I can't make the comparison between my scale in the morning and hardly any clothes, versus the gym professional scale in the evening in full gym attire. So comparing weigh-ins is out of the question. So since I am so confident (read: determined) to get to my goal weight by June, and thus flying by my challenge weight goal, I am going to continue to report what my scale says each Monday morning. Today I was down to 16 pounds! I think that is a three pound loss this week. Excellent. I have had a great couple of weeks, and I am getting a little nervous about it. I am becoming scared that it will plateau for the next five weeks or even worse, it will spike back up. I am finally headed in the right direction and I can't let that go.

I might begin a new running plan tomorrow. I found an 8 week to 8k plan online that I really like. However, I have been working on this goal for some time now, so I will be starting the plan on week three. That will leave time for me to get past the 8k and make it up to 10k. I think my race is about 10 weeks away. I just need to start seeing some improvement. I'll let you know more details tomorrow. I have the day off and it's going to be great weather; so trail: Here I come!

Determination Streak

I only slept four hours between Friday and Saturday, and then I worked all day. But I was determined to enjoy the sunshine and the later sunset by getting in some running. I wanted to run and walk down/through the park. It was much harder than I thought. It has been quite a long time since I have had to deal with the pounding of the sidewalk while I was running. Still I managed to run off an on for about an hour. I made it almost 4 miles with the walk from my house to the trial. Now I have one hour left of working out before this week wraps up. And I am determined to get that last hour in, even though I have to work from 11-8 today. But if I manage to log just one more hour today I will have accomplished seven hours of workout time for four weeks in a row. That would be a great stat.

I have eaten so healthy this week. I have been cooking meals at home and when I do eat out it's at places like Subway or Wendy's where I can get a light meal and I know exactly how many calories I am consuming. And the scale has been agreeing with me. It seems to go down a little more each day. These things combined make it a lot easier for me to keep going, even if I never get any better at running.

Lacking Motivation

I have Friday off because I work this weekend. I pretty much have to do two hours of working out today in order to make it to seven hours this week. The gym will be closed any hours that I won't be at work this weekend. As frustrating as it is that I belong to a gym now with horrible weekend hours, I have to keep telling myself that at least they have great classes. Normally, I would be fine getting two hours of gym time in. I would go do some running or another cardio thing for an hour or so. Then I would head up to the women's weight room to do some upper body weight lifting. However, Goodyear doesn't have a women's weight room. They have a women's fitness room where they throw the discards of all other machines; the room I was in last Friday and so depressed that I had to leave after a half an hour. So this would require me to be brave enough to try out the circuit room all by myself. Needless to say, it is almost 5:00 and I haven't made it there yet.

Unfortunately I have all evening to do it. I have absolutely no plans. The gym is open until 10:00, which allows me to procrastinate. And feel sorry for myself. I have no plans for tomorrow evening either. And I don't do well when I have lots of free time and nothing to fill it with. I just want to curl up in a sun beam and sleep the day away. If only I was able to get up and do things with my life on my own. I need to work on this, I just don't know where to start.

I have told myself that one hour at the gym today might be okay. There is a possibility of 60 degree weather tomorrow, and maybe I could go for a run outside after I get off work tomorrow. That, of course, would require me to be motivated twice. There's always a workout DVD that I could throw in. We'll see...

Good at Goodyear

Things are going well at Goodyear. As always my classes are great, even though yesterday I ended up taking Kickboxing alone. I thought that I had secured enough friends at the gym that that wouldn't happen anymore. It was fine though, I am pretty used to being at the gym alone; most of the time that is how it is. I am really enjoying the fact that Katie has stopped teaching Kickboxing at Goodyear, and now Marika is there all the time. Yesterday's class was really though. I was dripping with sweat as usual, plus the room had about 100% humidity. I had already drank all my water about 3/4 of the way through class. I was so worn out that I had to go light on squats in BodyPower. I felt pretty faint just doing the warm up. After I was able to lie down for chest I was much better and kept weights high on triceps, and biceps. I had briefly thought about raising my shoulder bar weight, but Marika chose the hardest shoulder track of all, and even recommended going down in weight. So making it through the song was good enough for me. Especially since I had just gotten done doing 30 push ups in Kickboxing.

I took today off as a vacation day and had intended to do tons of things. Although I didn't get as many things crossed off of my list as I would have hoped, I did get a good workout in. Today's running goal: run .75 miles, walk .25 miles, repeat 4 times. What I learned today: I have absolutely no will power when it comes to running. I did the first three pretty well, although by the second run I was going a lot slower than I wanted to be going (I had told myself that I only had to go 3/4 of a mile, I should be able to do it faster than 5mph. Then when I got to the fourth run, I was just too exhausted. I told myself I could stop after .5 miles. I couldn't even do that. I quit after a minute. I disgust myself. Set a goal and keep it man!

I lost at least two pounds last week. I found myself at 19 pounds left to lose this morning. I have knocked 3 pounds off of the 13 I have to lose in my Biggest Loser Challenge. That's a good start. Still, I told myself I would lose all of weight by June 1st so that I would start the summer out perfectly at goal weight.

I Had A Plan

Friday night I had a plan to go to the gym after work. It would be my first experience at Goodyear using their cardio equipment. I used the women's cardio room because I am most familiar with that. It was so boring. I was the only one in the room. I could turn the TV to anything I wanted. I used all of the equipment, all of it was old and low-tech. I could not occupy my time, everything dragged on. I had wanted to run for a while, but I never worked up to that. I stayed for 30 minutes and then absolutely had to leave. I was pretty upset because if I can't stay at the gym for more than 30 minutes I am never going to get my seven hours done. My mom says a room where you are alone sounds perfect to her, but for some reason I like to see other people working out to motivate me. And I like to people watch.

This afternoon I went back, and made myself use the real workout room where everyone else workout (still only four people), and the one where you are "allowed" to run on the treadmills (yes there is a room where you can't). It was so much better. There were people walking by constantly. There were windows in the room which made it a much happier place. Sure some lady had on the weather channel, but it didn't matter because I had my IPod to keep me company. Until Vern showed up. He's become our new friend. He takes classes with us on Monday and Wednesday and has always been friendly. Then last week he showed up at the library and was quite surprised that both Erin and I worked there. Now he thinks that we're friends. So when I saw him there today, I waved across the room. When a treadmill opened up next to mine he moved over. However, my plan was to run a mile, walk .25, run a mile, etc... but during my second walk break he began talking to me and I felt rude stopping to run. I can't run and talk at the same time; I have to have music. I still got two miles run and almost 4 miles logged during the hour I was there. And now I have a new friend. Don't get too excited though... he is fifty-ish and married!

Including that Yoga class I have accomplished seven hours of gym time this week. This makes three weeks in a row. Yay! The scale hasn't been on my side though. I hope now that I am involved in a challenge, and have been watching what I eat, the scale will start to work with me as well.

Yoga

I tried Yoga this morning. Not to brag but I felt like I was pretty good at it. Sure there were poses that were hard to get into and sure there were things I couldn't do for as long as people around me, but I was able to do most things pretty well, which is good for a first timer. All day though I was thinking how it was a little bit of a waste of time. If I am not burning 500 calories during a workout session then it just isn't worth my time. I have heard that Yoga lengthens your muscles and improves your balance and flexibility, but in my goals of weight loss and muscle building, I don't think this really fits into my plan. However, as the evening progresses I have found myself to be fairly sore in a few locations: my abs, my shoulders and my triceps. If I am working those muscles more or differently than I am working them in BodyPower, then maybe it is something that should be added to my routine. Now the only downside is the time and days of classes; eight o'clock is a little early to be up and at the gym on a Saturday. And it's very difficult to relax that early without falling asleep.

Subs

Marika had something work related to do in Omaha tonight so she had to have subs teach her classes. First, Katie taught the kickboxing class, which was a disappointment, since I thought that I would never have to do her Turbo Kick program again. However, I didn't mind it so much. The last few weeks have seen easy during kickboxing, and I didn't feel like I had sweat as much as I used to. So taking Katie's totally spastic, jumping in chaotic fashion class, really got my heart rate up again and the sweat dripping off of me. What's even better though, Mary subbed for BodyPower. It has been so long since I had Mary as a teacher. And I loved every minute of it. My two challenge members, who both skipped the gym this evening, really missed out! She told her quirky little stories, she made her staining little faces, she had as tough of time doing lunges as I did. She even came up and hugged me as we were putting away our bars and weights. I miss Mary so much; I really hope she gets put in charge of the Saturday morning class that they are starting for me. It would be even better if she brought he friend Ryan along!

I had a good day of eating, two hours of working out and now I am going to get eight hours of sleep. Things are looking up!

Not So Much

I had plans tonight, so no going to the gym. And social plans tend to lead to bad eating. As I am determined to turn my life around I promised myself that I would make good choices. Did I? Ummm... not so much. I went to the Lady Huskers basketball game and all day had planned on getting a hot dog and a diet coke and perhaps some popcorn. Then on the way there, Ryan announced that he wanted to eat dinner somewhere after the game, which meant we all had to go along too (we were in the same car). So I decided to skip having dinner at the game and save some calories for afterward. We went to La Mexicana, one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, which was having Margarita specials. So I let myself get one of those (400+ calories), I wouldn't have been able to watch others drink without me. I did manage to eat only a serving of chips and salsa (200 calories) and only 3/4 of my quesadilla, but it was still covered in cheese (600 calories?). It was definitely over my calorie limit for the day, but I didn't let myself get carried away. I mean I could have had two drinks and three servings of chips and the entire meal. So am I getting better?

The Challenge is On

What got me started on my weight loss journey? A weight-loss challenge. So what is going to get me to the end of it? Another weight-loss challenge. This round it will include me, Jennifer and Erin. We weighed in this evening at the gym. The challenge requires that we each lose 7% of our weight in the next three months. But I really want to lose more and make sure I am starting summer (June 1st) at my best weight ever. If we don't make it to our goal, we owe $30 and anyone who does make it to their goal gets to split it. If we all make it, then yay us! So I am taking this eating healthy thing really serious. I need to get back on track and get my 7% off in the next month or two, so the last month can be spent getting another 7% off! The game is on!

Tonight I tried to join Goodyear. They seem to think that my online bank won't work with their old-fashion methods of extracting funds. They let me join temporarily until they can try to get money from me. It's frustrating, but at least they are letting me in for free until they make it all work. Two good classes tonight. For some reason I thought that kickboxing was pretty easy. I hardly sweated at all, which might be because I didn't work hard enough or because the room wasn't as full as it has been. I have been keeping my weights high in class and I really feel good about it. Nothing is getting easier, but at least I am at a point where I don't need to go back down.