Weight a minute!

I was working diligently towards my goal of running a 5K in under 30 minutes when I suddenly realized that there may be more than one way to 'skin a cat' as it were. I found this little table on Runner's World that shows the relationship between how much faster you can run if you lose a few pounds in weight :)

According to RW author Amby Burfoot, the table is based on research that runners, on average get 2 seconds per mile faster for every pound they lose.

So, basically if my PR is about 30 and a half minutes and I lose just over 5 lbs I could be at goal!

Coincidentally this is almost the exact amount of weight that I've gained over the Holiday season. Not sure if it happened in Charleston where I was so carb'ed up that I actually had Mike take photos of me in front of a dessert bar no matter how much my enthusiasm was scaring the server behind the counter...

Or...it could have been on New Year's when Catherine held me down and forced me to eat these...:)





Regardless, I've signed up for the new PointsPlus Weight Watchers program and so far it's going pretty well. I've found some great blogs to follow also including *Bitchcakes* (Click here) and the Retro WW Experiment (Click here) which is hilarious. On her blog, Mimi goes "Back in Time" and incorporates some of the original 1972 WW program recipes into her current weight-loss plan and writes about it!

Jean Nidetch - founder of WW

Since I was feeling a bit nostalgic I volunteered to try out one of the hideous recipes for myself. Here is my "guest blog" over at Mimi's (Clare's guest blog).

And here is the living proof that Mike and Maddy actually enjoyed it!

Groovy Jean!

Fishhawk Turkey Trot 5K

We picked up Rich's sister Sara, bright and early at 6:30 a.m. to join us for our first Thanksgiving 5K! It was suprisingly hot and the trails at Fishhawk were difficult and cramped in some spots but overall it was a nice route, well organized and with a good turnout of over 1,200 people. We really liked the race shirts too and Mike wore his all day! I pushed myself during the race so it wasn't exactly fun but I did manage to shave 30 seconds off my best time and got a new PR of 30:36 which I was really pleased with. It's always great to run with Emily and Mike really enjoyed having Sara there to run with the whole time. They came in within 8 seconds of each other and Sara came 2nd in her age group! We all were very proud of ourselves afterwards and were able to start out our Thanksgiving having had a really nice time, supporting a great cause (feeding the hungry of Tampa Bay) and having burned off some calories in anticipation of our big Thanskgiving Dinner!

Memorial Day breakthrough!

Headed back to the gym on Wednesday and ended up in floods of tears after not even being able to run a mile. I decided to give in and rest for a few days to try and figure out what to try next...So far I think I have figured out the following:

1. I nearly always have shin splints after running on concrete and need at least 2, more like 3, days of rest afterwards.
2. Stability shoes and/or running barefoot doesn't seem to make any difference.
3. Landing on the fronts of my feet seems to help a little.
4. You can't just ignore shin splints and run anyway - it makes them worse.
5. Rest works wonders but you lose confidence, time and aerobic capabities.
6. I haven't tried ice yet because it sounds like it wouldn't work.

I spent the weekend reading running magazines and found an article that really resonated with me. It said that instead of visualizing a perfect run each time that you should visualize a terrible run, anticipate and prepare for set backs. This way you will have a plan when they happen. So this morning I hit the gym at 7am imagining the worst - terrible pain (I'll switch to the cross trainer), lousy time (that's OK - I'll keep it slow and be happy with being able to do anything at all), negative thoughts (I'll shake them off and celebrate just staying in the gym and sweating for 30 minutes), boredom (I'll listen to comedy on my ipod).

I had a fantastic run in the end - 5K in 33:33 and I felt like a rockstar! I even iced my shins when I got back to Tampa. At this point I'll try anything because when it goes well, running is just the best feeling ever:).

Christmas Day 2009

It's getting so much better now. I am sticking to the treadmill most of the time since I'm afraid of getting bad legs again. I did run the block though which feel like a warm up now:) I can't believe when I started this I couldn't run further than the bottom of the street! I can run a 5K now fairly comfortably without stopping to walk and have been running 4 miles most of the time. I have even run continuously for 5 miles a few times and actually ran for 10K twice without stopping in 1 hr and 5 mins. 5K feels like such a short run so I braved the outdoors again, measured the distance and it was fine. No major shin splints really. On Christmas Day, Mike, Gail and I all ran 5K and had a really healthy lunch. It felt so great - what a perfect end to such an amazing year!