Getting There The Long Way

A Lot Changes in a Year

2011-10-02T16:39:00.000-07:00

It's been over a year since I posted anything to this blog. It's been a very rough year.

In October, I ran in a 5k race and blew out my hamstring. It was torn, but thankfully not a total tear, so it was treatable without surgery. Instead, I was off my feet for 2 months, and then not able to run for a year.

In that time, I managed to sack on almost 50 of the 80 pounds I had lost. I'm not proud at all to say that and I have hidden it from most people. I'm tall, so it's easier to lie about my weight since I can carry it well.

This week I went in for a follow up MRI to see how the hamstring has healed. It's now healed and mended completely, albeit it's very tight now. The doctor looked and me and said we needed to talk.

He told me that I obviously had not dealt with my food demons. I lost the weight by running my butt off, but when I could no longer run, I turned once again to food. In less than a year, I put on 50 pounds. That's scary. The doctor wasn't happy at all, and so he suggested I go get some support from a group class that would hold me accountable.

So, on Saturday, I joined Weight Watchers to get the support. My first weigh-in: 209.6.

I'm broken, but now I'm going to deal with it. I'm now supposed to run a minute/walk a minute for 30 minutes 3-4 days a week to start loosening up the hamstring. It was an eye opener how much weight was there because the joy I had in running was not there. It was a struggle. It wasn't fun. But, I did it, and I will do it again tomorrow.

I'm back, and I'm now facing my demons head on. I'm tearing down the walls, and I'm going to journal about what it's like to deal with them once and for all.

Hi, my name is Leah, and I have issues with food.

Here She Comes...Here Comes Speed Racer!

2010-09-19T16:20:00.001-07:00

Yeah, so I may not be the speediest thing on the planet, but today I felt like I was flying!

So today, stacy4uk and I ran the CASA 10k for Kids’ Sake. About 120 runners, so fairly small race, but it was a very nice atmosphere.

I kept up with Stacy for the first mile, but when we hit the first big hill, she got a little ahead of me and stayed there the rest of the race. I tried to catch her on the downhills at the end of the race and almost got her at the end, but alas, I was beaten :oP

I did run with this guy named Nathan for about a mile and a half, and we joked about the Krispy Kreme 5k run that he did a while back. Killed some of the time, but he told me to go on when I was losing him on the downhills.

Mile 5, I was getting tired, but I was determined to pass this one girl between me and Stacy, which I did, but it took the last bit of energy out of me and I had kicked too early. So the girl passed me again before the finish line. Oh well.

But the cool part? New PR! And by a lot! I ran in 59:57, which is almost 24 minutes faster than the last 10k. Plus, I never dreamed I would get under an hour!

And…Stacy, you missed the awards, but I made it back just in time to hear my name called. Yeah, I got 3rd in my age division! Woot!

I'll post a picture of my medal and will post more stats as they get posted on the website. It was a great race and I feel on top of the world right now!

Uh, yeah

2010-09-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, folks, I know I've been gone for a very long time now. So, let me tell you a story...

First, if you look at the Daily Mile widget to the right, you've noticed that I'm still running. I just wasn't blogging. Well, there's a reason for that!

The big reason: I moved back to the USA. Yeah, I went from Korea to Kentucky and am going to school and working for a gym here in town.

Also, I had 3 weeks off from peroneal tendonitis, which thankfully was solved about 3 weeks ago and hasn't bugged me since. Stupid prescription orthotics that were way too old to really be worn while running! :oP

And then, I launched a website for my knitting stuff called Fiber Fiction. So it's been busy at Chez Leah. I should be back to the blog now for anyone who still reads it :oP

Today I ran 9 miles too. So yeah, I'm still running :oP

Race Photos

2010-07-13T23:19:00.000-07:00

I'm still running, but I haven't been blogging about it. To be honest, most of my free time during the day has been sucked up by a sweater I'm knitting and a story I'm writing. I'll be more regular once one of those is finished.

Today, I got a certificate in the mail that had a link to a couple of race photos from the race I ran in June. I'm going to probably buy the set of photos anyways if I can figure out how to use the website (it's in Korean of course). So, here's a couple of bloody race photos:And at the finish line:I think I was trying to just run at all by that last photo :oP

7/8/2010: Thursday Paced Run

2010-07-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

Today was a five mile run with race pace intervals thrown in. So, the first mile, I ran in 10:46. Second mile was race pace and I got about as close as I could get to 10:15 and ran the mile in 10:14. Third mile was 11:46 (can you say hello, Mr. Hill?), fourth mile was 10:08 (it was close to race pace anyways and not insanely faster). Fifth mile, I managed to hit every single traffic light and the start/stops always wreaks havoc with the Garmin, so it was 11:30ish. Once I hit the fifth mile, I decided to walk the last half mile back to the apartment as a cool down.

It was a good workout, and now that I'm alternating faster miles with recovery slower miles, I'm not minding the speedwork so much. I'll be trying to increase the number of speedwork intervals as I progress in the plan until I'm able to run the full 5 miles (and eventually 26.2) at that 10:15 pace without killing myself.

Speaking of, the pace today seemed slow since I ran a 9:40 mile on Wednesday for the speed work. Had to purposefully slow myself down today to hit the 10:15 because the first speedier mile, I shot out at almost a 9:45 pace again. I'll eventually get used to hitting the race pace, which I know is the purpose of this whole plan!

July Running So Far

2010-07-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I slacked off a bit from posting anything for the past few days, so here's what's happened for those of you who don't follow me on DailyMile.

On Saturday, it was a mock 5k race, plus 4 more miles slowly. Brian and I ran slowly out to the track (2 miles), then did our 5k "race" (3.1 miles), and then went slowly back home (2 miles). The biggest news of this run is that I was able to run the 5k race in 31 minutes, a full 2 minutes faster than my race in November. I'm certain now that I'll hit my goal of a sub 30 minute 5k this year now, especially when the weather is cooler and I don't feel like I'm being slow roasted by the sun.

Sunday was cross-training, so I did some yoga, crunches, and Wii Boxing. Let's see, it's Tuesday now, and my arms are still killing me from the damn boxing. This is the sad state my arms are in, so now I know where to focus some cross training stuff.

Monday was a 4.33 mile easy run for 50 minutes. I kept the pace right around 11:30/mile. Was supposed to keep it more like 11:15, but did I mention I was being slow roasted? Still, it was a good, uneventful run.

Today was speedwork day. I went up the the track and ran a mile at 11:30ish pace to warm up, then kicked it up for the next mile to my race pace. Well, I ran too fast. My race pace is not 9:41 per mile. It's 10:15. I'm going to have to work on that so I don't train my body to go out too hard in the marathon. After the 9:41 mile, I ran another mile at 11:15 pace to cool down, then headed home.

That's the catch up. Tomorrow is cross-training, so bring it on you stupid gaming console!

7/1/2010: First Run of July

2010-06-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Welcome to July, everyone! The hottest, humidest, suckiest month of the year to be a runner as far as I'm concerned. Today was no exception, though the heat was tolerable. 95% humidity does make you sweat a ton though, so I was not very happy about that.

Today was a 5.33 mile run. Galloway's plan had me running 40-50 minutes with some marathon pace work somewhere in there. Since I've been struggling with the speed in the first two weeks of this program, I was not looking forward to this workout much. Good news though is that I pushed it hard for the first 2 miles, then slowed down for the hill loop, and headed back home. This gave me an overall pace of 11:21 per mile, which is still faster than I normally average at my 11:30-12:00 pace for a run over 3 miles. First mile was 9:55, second was 10:08, and I didn't care enough to look at the last three miles. I think the third mile was close to 12 minutes because of the big hill, but overall, not too shabby.

I think that I will eventually be able to kick the higher speed for this whole workout, but until then, I'll keep adding a little distance each week to how far I push the pace. 1.5 miles on Tuesday, 2 miles today, and hopefully by next week, I'll get it closer to 3.

And now I'm going to kick back and enjoy my day off tomorrow. My arms were really feeling the yoga and the pushups from yesterday. Good to know that the cross training is doing stuff!

When You Get Discouraged...

2010-06-29T03:02:00.000-07:00

Try something different.

I had a very nice run on Saturday, albeit quite soggy. I was in Japan for the weekend (yeah, I feel so cool to be able to say that!) and wanted to find a place to run. I asked the hotel staff and they pointed me to Ohuri Park.

This place is awesome. It has three lanes. One is for walkers, one for runners, and one for cyclists. The park is a big loop surrounding a lake that has gigantic koi fish and turtles that look very hungry swimming around. The loop is 2km about and is paved, flat, and no big chunks missing out of the concrete. There must have been 100 or more other runners out there that day and I was told this was quiet because the weather sucked.

I also had my ass handed to me by an 80 year old who slowed down to my pace so he could tell me his life story. This was very entertaining I might add, even though I mostly just nodded from being a little short of breath due to the humidity. So, it was a nice 6.26 mile run in Japan.

Then fast forward to the boat ride back to Korea. The word for that day was seasick. I have never been so nauseaus in my life. The waves were making me constantly heave, even though after the first couple of times, there was nothing left in my stomach. This continued into Monday as well, so I missed my regular 40-50 minute slow jog due to heaving.

So today I go out and run my 20-30 minute marathon pace run and it kicks my ass yet again. Pushing myself to run 10:15 consistently for over a mile really took the joy out of running for me today. It sucked, I hated every minute of it, and I was very discouraged by the end of the 3 miles. So, I did what every good American does:

I took a shower and headed out to do some shopping. It wasn't fun shopping, but we needed canned goods and it had to be done, so off I went. When I got back home, I decided to do something random.

I was going to run.

Again.

And it was going to be whatever the hell pace I wanted to set. I even left the garmin behind. I threw on some running clothes, used my body glide (thanks mom and dad for sending that!), and headed out to the bus terminal where my bike was located. I had ridden the bike and left it there on my way to the ferry terminal to go to Japan. Since it was raining on Sunday and I felt like shit, it stayed there.

It's about 2 miles to the bus stop, maybe a little less. I ran there in about 23 minutes. Then I hopped on the bike and rode it back home. In that very short run, I rediscovered how much I love this sport. I enjoyed getting out and running, not for a time, but just for me.

Oh, and now I totally want to do a triathlon after riding the bike home.

Yeah, I'm insane, but y'all already knew that, right?

6/23/2010: Cross Training

2010-06-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

So today was a cross training day. I've never really done any kind of cross training before, so I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out. Today I did a 20 minute Yoga for Abs workout video and I'm going to go ride my bike once I get the tire repaired and it can hold air for more than 10 minutes. I guess this will be good enough for cross training.

So what do you all do for cross training? Do you even do anything at all? I'm up for any kind of suggestions at this point!

A Knee Update

2010-06-21T20:41:00.001-07:00

Just a picture update on the healing of the knee. Again, if you don't like looking at scrapes and stuff, you may want to just skip reading this post now.

Anyone still here?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Ok, so those who are still reading actually want to see the knee picture. Here it is after the run this morning:As you can see, it's hugely better. The swelling is gone and the bruising looks a lot better. I lost the big scab on it last night, so a new one is forming on the fairly deep cut that was on the knee cap. Anyways, yeah for healing!

6/22/2010: Tuesday 4 Miler

2010-06-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a 40-50 minute run at 1 minute slower than race pace according to the Galloway training plan, so I ran 4 miles at an 11:15 pace. It was a good run and I am pleased to announce that my knee is feeling a lot better today. I had no pain at all while running and aside from sweat hitting the still scabbed up spot on the knee, the cuts even felt ok. The biggest improvement was in the lung department. I think the air quality in Seoul on Sunday just killed my lungs during that run. I knew the air quality was much worse up there than it is in my smaller city, but I didn't really realize just how much of a difference there is.

Today was very encouraging, so I'm looking forward to a 4-5 mile run on Thursday at race pace of 10:15 a mile. Bring it on!

6/20/2010: Sunday Test Run

2010-06-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a test run in Seoul. Brian and I were here for the weekend and we decided to try a run in the city. First off, the air quality was terrible and I had a hard time breathing. Second, while it's been a week since I last run, my knee is still not in the greatest shape after being all banged up. And lastly, it was humid as hell.

Ran 3.16 miles in 37 minutes, but at least I was able to get out there. The knee is doing better, but it's still nowhere near 100%. I had a little pain under the knee cap, but I think that is just residual bruising at this point. Most of the discomfort came from sweat getting on the scabs that were cracking some from the movement.

But hey, I ran. More than I've done all week.

Marathon training begins tomorrow!

Rest Day 2

2010-06-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

So yesterday, the only thing I managed to do was walk to the pub to have a beer and play some Magic at the Monday night gaming group's event. It took me quite a long time to even be able to walk there, but I made it and I enjoyed my beer (even more so after someone told me it reduces the lactic acid in the legs. I should drink beer more, it's good for my health :oP ).

Today, I managed to get on my bicycle and I rode around town for a little bit and then rode to the store for some things and then back home. The knee is still a little swollen, but not as bad as it was. In fact, here's some pictures for you. Warning, if you don't like the sight of blurry pictures of battered knees and hands, you may not want to look anymore.
Ok, for those of you who are interested, here is the blurry shot of the left knee:Trust me when I say that this is looking so much better than it did even yesterday. I also learned how hard it can be to take a picture of your own damn knee when it doesn't like bending very much.

The right knee barely looks like it's even been scratched after a full day of healing, so I'll just move on to the hand. It's looking a lot better and I think I finally managed to get all the gravel out of it now. Here's how it's looking:So no running today, but I'm going to see if how I'm feeling tomorrow. If the swelling is out of the knee by then, I may do a very short, slow jog to test the waters. We'll see if that happens or not since it all depends on my body's ability to heal quickly.

I'm Back With a Race Report

2010-06-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while since I've blogged about anything. For those of you who don't know, I have been in the process of moving and not having internet for the past couple of weeks. I also had the groin pull that sidelined me from running for a week, but thankfully not any longer than that. I was able to pick back where I left off in my training last week, just in time to get ready for the race.

Yep, I had a 10k race this June 13. It was the Gimhae Forest Path Half Marathon/10k/5k. I ran in the 10k since I was not nearly insane enough to run in the half marathon. So here's the race report:

Slept like crap the night before the race. Brian and I stayed in a love motel and there was this little game between South Korea and Greece in that sport I don't follow much of. Well, being in South Korea, people do like to follow the sport of soccer/football, and seeing how the Fighting Reds won the game 2-0, there was a little partying going on. No banging on the walls from what we heard, but everyone decided to go to the karaoke bars after the game. They sang until about 6 AM, about the same time the hotel decided to turn off the air conditioners. So, my alarm went off at 7 and we maybe had an hour or two of sleep in there.

Coffee was consumed, protein bar was eaten, dinner was exited, and then it was off to the race.

We grabbed a taxi and he figured out where to drop us off. There were quite a few people there, but not many foreigners. I was surprised at the lack of foreigners since there were so many signed up for the race. Maybe they came out and checked out the course before hand and chickened out.

The gun sounded at 8:35 for us 10k runners after the half marathoners took off. First kilometer was fairly even, but then the hills began. First mile was up hill, next half mile was down the hill. The next 2 miles were straight up to the turn around point.

At kilometer 4, on an uphill section of trail, I wiped out. I hit the ground hard after hitting a rock. I stood up and my knees were bleeding pretty good and so was my right hand. I noticed after the race too that my water bottle I had been holding in my left hand was pretty trashed too, but it saved my left hand.I finished running to the turn around point and then stopped at the first aid station where I was bandaged up. The girl who cleaned me up told me to make sure the wounds were really clean after the race since the left knee had a fairly deep cut. So, I began hobbling downhill to finish the race.

I passed people, and I know they must have felt bad being passed by the cripple. I had trained for this damn hill race though, and bleeding or not, I was going to finish it with as much running as I could. I hated how much I had to walk on the third major hill, so I was making up for it now. I flew down the hill and then was smacked with the last hill. It took my breath away, so I crawled up it and then sprinted, or more hobbled, to the finish line.

Done! I finished in 1:22:50. My goal time was 1:20 since I knew the hills were bad and the trail was going to slow me down more. I stopped for 6 minutes at the aid station to get cleaned up, so I would have definitely made the time goal of 1:20 if I hadn't wiped out. I think I did impress some people though by running on in despite the injury. So, first, here I am after the race:And Brian felt I needed a picture of the bleeding knees. These were pretty cleaned up by this time:And finally, in case you didn't believe me that the course was up the side of the mountain, here's the Garmin 405 elevation graph I took during the race:

Well, Crap

2010-05-25T15:58:00.001-07:00

Yep, that was the G-rated version of what I said this morning at the beginning of my 10k hill training run. About 20 feet into the run, I managed to hit a spot of car oil that was blending in quite well with the road. I tried to stabilize myself and did manage to stay on my feet, but I pulled the hell out of my right groin muscle. As I type this, I'm sitting at work with it throbbing and swollen. I'm not a happy camper right now.

So, anyone out there deal with groin injuries before? Am I out for just a few days or a week or more? I'm going to ice today and hope that it's feeling somewhat better in the morning. I'm also canceling the run tomorrow (obviously) and possibly the one on Saturday depending on how the leg is feeling. This was not the injury I wanted with only a couple of weeks before the 10k race that involves running up the side of a mountain.

Oh, and my weight has been up all week. I had a sneaky suspicion the weight drop to 165 was a fluke. I'm back to 167 this week, so we'll see what it does by Tuesday. I would weigh on Friday, but the scale just got packed away this morning since I'm moving to a new apartment this weekend. That'll be fun with a pulled groin muscle...

5/24/2010: Monday 5 Miler

2010-05-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's still raining on Monday, so I headed out and got wet. At least it wasn't too bad really. I ran the hill loop for 2 miles and then finished up on the river path for the last 3. Mondays are all about comfort for me, so I slow down and just run for fun, watching every little thing along the way. Today I saw some bird dive-bombing a great heron, which was kinda comical, except for the heron. He seemed rather annoyed. It's nice to slow down and just enjoy the run sometimes.

5/22/2010: Saturday Long Run

2010-05-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

The weather has turned crappy in my little part of Korea. On Saturday it began raining and it's been raining ever since. Even today (Monday my time) it's still raining and just generally icky. But, despite the weather, I have been determined to get my runs in, so on Saturday morning, I headed out for a run.

I only had to run 6 miles to get in my 20 miles for the week, but I was feeling pretty good through the whole run. The hills weren't bothering me any and the spitting rain was light enough that it made it quite pleasant to run. I wanted to see how far it was from the apartment to the sports park, so I just ran out there and then did a couple of laps around the walking path before heading back. All in all, it was a 7 mile run and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of it:

5/20/2010: Recovery Run and Weigh-In Day

2010-05-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today was just a nice, slow 3 miles. Nothing special, so I won't go into great depth on how much my legs wanted to revolt and just not move.

I will however post my weigh-in for the week since I am going out of town this weekend and won't weigh tomorrow (or I should say that I will weigh, but after a trip to Outback this evening, I doubt I'll want to record that as my official weight!). So, today's weight was....

165 pounds! Now, I'm happy it's 165, but I'm also realistic. I ran 6 miles yesterday in very humid, hot weather. While I did drink plenty of fluids after that, I'm sure there's some water weight not recovered. But in the meantime, say Woot with me since I'm now down 75 pounds!

Woot!
Also, I thought I would post something fun I found the other day. I had apparently written down my measurements in June 2008 for some random weight loss attempt that failed. This was not even my biggest measurements since I was at my heaviest weight by January 2009. Anyways, here's the comparison to measurements I took on Monday:

Right arm: old 15", new 12" loss of 3 inches.
Left arm: old 14.5", new 11" loss of 3.5 inches.
Right thigh: old 29.25", new 23.5" loss of almost 6 inches
Left thigh: same same
Chest: old 43.5", new 36" loss of 6.5 inches. I am actually a tad sad about that :oP
Waist: old 37", new 30", loss of 7 inches.Hip: old 49", new 39.5", loss of 9.5 inches.
Tummy: old 42", new 31", loss of 11 inches!

Holy crap, 11 inches off my stomach alone?!?! If I can get rid of the leftover skin now, it'd be even more than that!

That's a grand total inches lost of 52.5. That's kind of mind boggling to me. My clothing size change has been:

Pants: old 18, new 10
T-shirt: old XL, new MKorean shirts: old(couldn't even get into them until I was a 110 after dropping 40 pounds),new 95.

Oh, and here's the running graph in case you care :oP

5/19/2010: Wednesday Hill Run

2010-05-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ugh.

That's all I can say. Hills kicked my ass, and kicked it good. In fact, kicked my ass so well that I had to walk the last almost 1/2 mile because my whole body was not happy, especially my digestive system (um, ok, so a slice of pizza before the run was probably not smart either...).

So I'll let the graph do all the talking for me today:

TMI on Menus?

2010-05-16T17:40:00.001-07:00

I was reading this article on MSNBC and was rather intrigued by the whole thing. Now I've been away from the USA for a couple of years now, so I don't know how widespread the calorie information really is, but I'm now curious. When I was obese, I remember that Ruby Tuesday in my hometown always had the nutrition information of each dish on the table. It was a separate flier, and it listed everything from calories to potassium content. My grandmother, a former Weight Watchers leader and current lifetime member, would use the information to figure out her points and would then tell me about them (I used to be on WW. Three times in fact. It works, if you make it a lifestyle change and not just a diet like I did).

Knowing the calorie content of that menu did not sway my choices at all. If I wanted the 2000 calorie mega burger that I usually ordered, then I ordered it. Would I do that now?

Part of me says yes. If I want to eat something, I will. But would I really, now that I'm a healthy BMI and have lost 72 pounds?

Part of me says no. I think it's not worth the calories, especially since I can make something similar at home for much less damage.

But then my political side steps in too. I have the right to make decisions for myself. How dare the government tell me what I should and shouldn't eat, or make restaurants promote certain foods over others.

And then the argument continues again in my head in a vicious circle.

So how do you feel about it? Is there too much info on the menus now. Is it confusing? Is it a good thing? Do you even pay attention to it? I know I won't be paying much attention to it after a marathon, but that's an unusual circumstance.

5/17/2010: Monday 5 Mile Comfortable Run

2010-05-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

This morning was all about comfort. I decided to try to run a new route I discovered on accident while walking yesterday evening, and I think I have the second part of my hill workout mapped out for Wednesday now. I'm including the elevation with the speed graph this time to show you the rolling hills. It's about a mile loop, so I will probably run the big hill first (2 miles) then hit this loop twice (another 2) and then finish up on the flat river run on Wednesday.
Anyways, after last week's ditching of the Garmin, I decided I would run for either an hour this morning, or until I hit 5 miles, whichever came first. Well, the 5 miles came first, so I stopped when I hit the distance. It was a good run. My legs still feel a little sluggish. I'm hoping that a day off tomorrow will make them fighting fit for the Wednesday hills training run.

Also, I'm contemplating my first marathon now. I'm thinking maybe Columbus in October. There will be no time goal for me, so it's going to just be all about the finishing. Anyone have some good training plans they recommend? My Galloway book only goes up to half distance, although I'm sure I could finagle that some to work.

Here's the graph from the workout this morning:

5/15/2010: Saturday 6 Miler with DF

2010-05-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

DF and I decided to go for a 6 mile run in the heat of the day. Well, running in the heat of the day just plain sucks. I love warm weather, don't get me wrong, but I'm not a fan of running in warm weather. I'm more of a fan of lounging and drinking pina coladas than running when the sun is shining down at 2 in the afternoon.

But, off we went anyways. It was slow. It sucked. But, like I always say (after reading it somewhere else and adopting it) you never regret a run you did, only the ones you didn't do. So we got in our 6 miles, then lounged around the rest of the day. Sadly, there were no pina coladas, but there was caramel popcorn, so I can't complain too much.

Here's the graph of the sluggish run:

5/14/2010: Friday Weigh-In and 3 Changes Update

2010-05-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Today is my official weigh in day, so drumroll please......

168! I'm down another pound this week! I'm 3 pounds away from what I weighed when DF and I first started dating almost 7 years ago! I'm 8 pounds away from my goal weight! I am very pleased to see the scale continue to move down towards my goal.

Also, I thought I would take a minute to update you all on how the 3 changes challenge is going for me. As you know, my three goals were:

1. Eat more whole grains, especially for breakfast (and cut out cereal if possible)
2. Take a multivitamin every day
3. Get 8 hours of sleep each night

By far, the hardest part of the challenge was the sleep goal. It's hard to tell people that you have to go to bed at 8:45 because you have a longer run in the morning. I get stares, but let me tell ya, I have felt so much better being this rested. So for those who stare at me strangely when I leave the group at 8 to head home to bed, trust me, it's very very worth it.

The multivitamin has been pretty easy. I just take one with dinner each night. I haven't noticed any huge changes in health because of it, but I feel good knowing that I am getting most of my essential nutrients in that pill to supplement whatever I may not get during the eating of the day.

Finally, the whole grain challenge has been a super success. This is one change that I am keeping forever. I ran out of oatmeal yesterday, so I grabbed the bag of quinoa and had that for the first time today. I loved the texture of the little grains almost popping like caviar in my mouth. I cooked up the small bag (only 1 cup of grains, so made 4 servings for me) and am refrigerating the other 3 servings for quick microwaved breakfast the next couple of days, especially before runs. I have not missed cereal at all. In fact, I even found myself missing my grains when I was on vacation and DF only had cold cereal. I think this is a very good sign.

So how is your three changes challenge coming? See any good results?

And what would a Friday be without at least 1 contest to enter? Here's a chance to win a shirt, itunes card, or bumper sticker!

And one last edit: You can get 2 free cans of tuna from this offer here. Money Saving Mom says it's legit and several bloggers have already received their tuna, so go get 2 free cans!

5/13/2010: Thursday Jelly-Legs Run

2010-05-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

I knew when I woke up that today was going to be a rough run. First, I pooped more than I have all week before going out. Most people would take this as a good sign. For me, pooping like that means that there's more that probably will want to come out while I'm running. Then I got dressed and headed out the door only to find my legs had been replaced with jelly overnight. I still got in 3 miles, held in the rest of the poop until I got home, and then collapsed on the couch. It wasn't a pretty beginning to my day, but I still got in 3 miles and I'm quite happy about that.

5/12/2010: Wednesday Hill Run 10k

2010-05-11T16:11:00.001-07:00

Today was my first day back at the hills. There has been so much construction going on in the area that I had been running only along the river, which is fine, except that it's very flat. I have a race in mid-June that is straight up the side of a mountain and then right back down. It's a fairly steep incline for the second third of the race, so I know I have to train hard on hills if I have any chance of getting a decent time.
So today I decided to run THE hill. There is one particularly large hill in my village, and it happens to be along the way to my school. So, I laced up and headed out intending to do 2 full repeats of that hill.

I did 1.
1 was enough for today. I decided Wednesdays are going to be hill work days until the race. I hope that next week I can get in 1.5 repeats of the hill, and then the following week I can get in a full 2 repeats (4 miles worth) of the hill. Here's the graph, along with the elevation change so that you can get an idea of what that hill looks like:

5/10/2010: Monday GPS-free Run (5ish miles)

2010-05-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

Today I decided to run without the Garmin. Mostly I decided to do this because I realized I had left the watch at home when I was already half way to work. I didn't want to back track, so I decided today that I would just run for an hour.

For some reason, that was so liberating. I started running, turned on the tunes on the iPod and jammed. I found myself increasing and decreasing my pace to the music, and I threw in some strides towards the end of the run. It was fun, and at the end of the hour, I almost wanted to keep going. If my stomach wasn't growling and telling me it needed food within the hour, I probably would have kept running.

So what do you all think? Ever leave the techy gadgets behind and just go run for the fun of it? It was so liberating for me that I may make that part of the workout routine.

5/10/2010: Monday Weigh In

2010-05-09T18:26:00.000-07:00

Since I missed Friday's weigh in due to the scale issues (or more issues I have with the scale rather), I weighed in this morning for my official weigh in. 169 pounds! Woot, I'm still down, and I've shed a total of 71 pounds so far.

Also, here's a couple of pictures from Wednesday when we ran/walked the trail:I think I can make it up this damn hill...

I never realized my thumb sticks up that high when I run :oP

Another Contest

2010-05-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

Now that I have a computer that is working well again (thank you DF for having 3, yes 3 computers that run faster than my clunker!), I thought I would post a contest link from Run to the Finish. I'm very, very intrigued by the bracelet. If I don't win won (wouldn't that be awesome though?!) I may very well pick one up since I never did buy myself a reward when I hit the 70 pound mark.

Amanda also has a big link list of contests up on her blog. I entered a few, but then my computer crashed and I never updated the link list from my last contest post. So if you want, go check out the list here.

5/9/2010: Sunday 3 Miler

2010-05-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

I ran 3 miles today just so that I could hit 20 miles for the week. I'm really wanting to run at least 20 miles each week now since I know my body can handle that load without injury now. Today's run was much better than yesterday's. DF is still sick, so he didn't go out and run with me yesterday or today. So I just hit the track across the street for the 3 miles since I'm still leery of running on my own at the lake after the attack several months ago. There were a bunch of men playing soccer by the track and I ended up playing dodgeball while running since they were not that good at soccer :oP Still, was nice to have a distraction while running since I decided to go this one sans iPod since I was alone. I ran the 3 miles in under 33 minutes, which is almost 3 minutes faster than yesterday. It helps running earlier in the day before the sun can really heat things up. Here's the graph:And I thought I would give a 3 changes update on this post as well.

I failed this week! The only one I managed to do right was to get 8 hours of sleep each day. I've been at DF's for the week since we had a string of school holidays this week that meant I got a nice 5 day weekend. I forgot to bring oats with me, and there's no place to buy them around here. So, I've been eating cold cereal again for breakfast. I did make a nice vegetable scramble yesterday at least, but that has been the exception for the past 5 days. I also completely forgot my vitamins at home, so I haven't taken those in the past 5 days either.

But I have learned something. I actually have created enough habit out of these changes that I thought about them as soon as the morning rolled around and I didn't have my oats and vitamins waiting for me for breakfast. I can say for sure that a morning bowl of oatmeal of quinoa is much more filling than the bowl of cold cereal and it has the same calorie content, if not less than the cold cereal. I'm very happy that I have tried these 3 changes and I do hope that they stick around for a good long time!

5/8/2010: Saturday Hot as Hell Run

2010-05-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

I went out for what should have been a nice 6 mile run, but it was much hotter than I expected. Combine that with not enough water being brought along and sore legs from the hill work the night before and I only got in 3 miles. I'm just happy I got in the 3 considering how much I wanted to quit after 1. Here's the graph:

5/7/2010: Friday Hill Run

2010-05-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Did 4 miles on Friday with DF on the hills in the area. I need to add in hill work now that I know I'll be running in the trail race in June. The race is straight uphill for 3 miles and then straight back down for the last 3.2. Anyways, here's the run that I stole from DF's Garmin since mine is still at home:
I don't have a weight update this week since I am away from my apartment and don't have the digital scale here. DF has a dial scale, but it doesn't read very accurately, so I don't record my official weight on it. I'll see what I am on Monday morning and will post that for my weekly weigh in.

5/5/2010: Wednesday Hike and Run

2010-05-07T00:53:00.000-07:00

So on Wednesday, we decided to go see what a course was like for a race that is coming up in June. We went, and we got on the wrong trail. Then we got on the right trail and at the end of the hike, we decided to try to run the race. Here's the terrible garmin graph from that hike. Kept losing signal, so no really good data:When we got back, DF and I decided to run 4 miles to get our tired legs some added work for the day. Here's the 4 miles:My back has been killing me the past 2 days now, so I'm really hoping I can even run some this weekend.

Contests Galore

2010-05-03T16:19:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Amanda from Run to the Finish, I found some great contests out there now. Here's some links to ones I signed up for in case you're interested! I'll be adding more as my computer speeds up...right now it's fighting me...

Endurance Isn't Only Physical: Gym in a Bag System
Barbie Runs: Body Glide for Her (I cannot begin to tell you how much I need this stuff right now!)
I am Boring: Road Runner Sports Gift Card
Somwhere in the Sun: copy of The Runner's Guide to the Meaning of Life
The Health Nut: Spiralizer (I would have so much fun with this kitchen gadget!)

5/3/2010: Monday's 4 Miler

2010-05-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

I decided to see what my body would let me do this afternoon. Turns out, 4 was my max for the day, so that's what I did. Got in 4 miles, then hit the bath house for a soak and sauna session to sweat out the rest of the crap in my system. Judging by this morning, there's still some crap left (third day with a headache), but it's certainly better than it was. I'm taking Tuesday off because Wednesday I am going to attempt to do a test run for a race I may try to run in June. It's up the size of a mountain, so this could be interesting.

5/2/2010: Sunday Crap Run

2010-05-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yep, the title says it all. This was supposed to be an 8 mile run, but it turned out to be a 4 mile walk/run instead because of a darned fever that popped up in the morning. The fever went away by 1, so we went out for a run, but I was really in no condition to try to run today. So, after 4 miles, I said screw it and went home and back into bed. Here's the crummy graph:

4/30/3010: Friday Weigh-In

2010-04-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

After last week's mega loss of 5 pounds, I was pretty sure that I wouldn't lose anything this week. Quite frankly, I was more just hoping I didn't gain any since after a massive loss like that, my body has a tendency to rebound and my weight falls to somewhere in between the big loss and my average weekly loss.

Today, I weighed 170 pounds! No rebound, so now I know that 5 pound drop really was a legit drop for me! Woo-hoo!

Fat Girl in a Skinny Body

2010-04-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article on MSNBC and it kind of struck a note with me. I think it was just last week that I finally recognized my new body as skinny, versus the fat image I still had in my head. Where I differ from the people in this article is that I lost weight because there were so many things I wanted to do and the weight was majorly holding me back.

I lost 40 pounds and was able to climb Mt. Halla, the tallest mountain in South Korea. Took me 11 hours, but I made it to the top by God. I was only able to stay there for 5 minutes before the guards made me turn back and head down the mountain so I could be off the trail before dark (didn't happen, had to use the flash on my camera for the last mile of trail). If I were 40 pounds heavier then, there was no way I could have hauled all that extra weight up to the top.

I lost 30 more pounds after that and now I'm planning my first half marathon and marathon. I always wanted to run a marathon since my dad ran them when I was young. Now, thanks to losing the weight, it looks like I'll be able to do that.

I wanted to lose weight so that I could be healthier. My blood sugar was in the pre-diabetic range when I was 240 pounds. My mom has type 1 diabetes, and while it is a different animal all the way around compared to type 2, I knew I didn't want it. I wanted to lose weight so I could be healthier if Brian and I decide to have a child after we get married. I want any future child of ours to have a healthier start because their mom is finally healthy.

Last, but not least, I wanted to lose weight to have my body reflect my personality on the inside. I'm confident, and I was still confident at 240 pounds. Now my body reflects that a little bit more!

So why did/do you want to lose weight?

4/28/2010: Wednesday 5 Miler

2010-04-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up 15 minutes earlier, which doesn't seem like a whole lot, but damn, 15 minutes makes a huge difference to me. I drug myself out of bed, made my morning oatmeal, and plopped down to eat it. 15 minutes later, Dominique called to cancel on the run, so I just went ahead out the door without her. I got 2 miles into the run and then ran into Dom, who had decided to drag herself out of bed too and she ran 3 of the 5 miles with me. It was a good run, albeit a little slow. Here's the graph:

4/27/2010: Tuesday 4 Miler with Dom

2010-04-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today I ran with Dom and she kicked my arse. I love running with someone else since it gives me someone to chat with, but this morning, Dominique was booking it at a 9 min/mile pace and there was just no way I was going to keep up with that. So, I didn't try to keep up with her and kept at my 10:30-11min/mile pace. She got her stretching in by the time I finished my run.

So what about you all? Do you like running with other people? Feel like you're held back or not keeping up? Even though she kicked my butt today, I still enjoyed having someone to run with, even if that meant that I was watching her back the entire time.

4/26/2010: Monday 3 Miler

2010-04-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Mondays suck.

Just had to get that out. Mondays are the hardest day of the week for me to drag my butt out of bed at 5;30 for a run. I didn't do that this morning. I slept until 6 and almost talked myself into just running in the afternoon until I checked the forecast. It says rain by the afternoon and possibly through tomorrow morning.

So, I got dressed and did 3 miles. It's not much, but it's mileage, and it's done. Hopefully it won't rain in the morning and I can get in a longer run then.

4/24/2010: Saturday 4 Miler

2010-04-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

My lungs are finally starting to heal up nicely now. I'm so happy to be able to go running again and not hack up a lung, or something that resembles an alien baby. Today, Brian and I ran 4 miles around the lake near his home. The flowers were all in bloom, and the people were everywhere. It became a game of dodge-kid, dodge-adult very quickly. It was still a nice run though and I enjoyed every minute of it since I could actually run again. Decided to only do 4 miles because my lungs were starting to feel a little bit tender towards the end of 4 miles and I didn't want to push too hard and have a relapse. Here's the graph:

4/23/2010: Friday Weigh In

2010-04-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

Well, this week only had one run. I didn't have much of an appetite, so I knew I should be down this week, but had no idea just how much I would be down.

-5

I'm at 170...

10 pounds or less away from goal weight...

I have to find a reward for this milestone and have no clue what to get. I do not reward myself with food, so it has to be something I can actually buy or just do (give myself manicure, etc). Hm...time to think...

4/21/2010: 2 Mile Test Run

2010-04-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

Since I have been feeling progressively better, I decided to head out yesterday afternoon and try to jog some. My lungs did ok on the first mile, but that second mile sucked quite frankly. Suck is actually a good way to describe it too since I was sucking in air desperately between coughs so that my body could get enough oxygen to it.

Wasn't the best run, but since I've been off for 8 days now with this lung infection, I'm thrilled to have even run 2 miles.

Has Anyone Seen My Lung?

2010-04-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

I think it's pink-ish, looks lung-ish and is missing somewhere. Not sure where. Instead, I have a big block of gunk that is masquerading as my lung and not allowing me to do much of anything that requires breathing in large quantities, such as running, walking, or my job as a teacher. The students are finding it extremely funny that their teacher sounds like a boy-bear hitting puberty at the moment. I have 6 classes today, so I'm just hoping I can make more noise than just a grunt by the end of this day.

On the bright side, I have had a nice realization today. I put on my clothes, quickly glanced in the mirror to make sure nothing unsightly was happening with the clothing selection of the day, then did a double take. Was that me standing there? Who is that skinny girl? I'm confused.

Yes, today I realized that I am indeed thin again. I know, you may be thinking, um, Leah, you've lost 67 pounds, so of course you're a lot thinner than you were. Yeah, I know the stats too, but somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, I still picture myself as a fat chick. I have a hard time seeing myself for who I am now. Instead, I still usually see that bloated belly, big legs, and double chin. Today, I saw a slim version of me for the first time since I started this weight loss journey.

Damn.

It caught me so off guard that I actually found myself giggling. Well, as much as you can call giggling when it sounds like that teenage boy-bear too since any sound coming through my throat is getting caught in the jaws of the monster. But it was so nice to finally see what others have been seeing.

And an update on my three changes: Still doing multi, haven't had cold cereal in a week now and have instead had oatmeal, which is very filling by the way. Sleep has been a non-issue since my body is still demanding that I sleep more anyways because of the funk.

Ahem...

2010-04-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

Did anyone catch the number on the bus that hit me this week?

Yeah, remember how in my race report I was complaining that I was starting to feel sick. Then I mentioned I thought I had a cold.

Wednesday the cold fought back. By Thursday I wasn't breathing too well, so off to the doctor I go. It's just a nasty upper respiratory infection, but it hit me really hard this time.

Joy.

Well, I guess I don't get to run until the funk is gone from the lungs. I'm taking off until Monday just to be sure that I don't push it too hard. I am doing a little better today.

Weight-wise, I didn't lose an ounce, but I didn't gain one either. I'll take that.

3 Changes update:
Took the multivitamin
Ate oatmeal this morning.
Chose a whole grain mac and cheese for my comfort food.
Slept about 40 hours in the past 48. That counts for the 8 hours a day :oP

3 Changes

2010-04-13T16:12:00.001-07:00

I'm posting this for the challenge on Amanda's Run to the Finish blog. She posed a challenge where you change 3 things for 30 days. So, here are my three changes:

1. Eat more whole grains: I have some quinoa, oats, and other whole grains sitting in the cupboard. Instead of eating boxed cereals, I'm going to try to eat more whole grains for breakfast.

2. Take a multivitamin daily: I have to admit that this came from reading some other challengers' posts. I'm terrible at remembering my multi each day.

3. Get 8 hours of sleep each night: Sleep is what my body desperately needs right now. If that means going to bed at 8:30 before a run in the morning, then I need to get to sleep.

4/13/2010: Tuesday 3 Miler

2010-04-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Got up at the crack of dawn this morning for another run with Dom. I think both of us were not really feeling it this morning, but we went out anyways. Dom quit after 2 miles because her foot was hurting some, so I went ahead and finished up 3 miles. Still a little lingering head cold, but nothing really major at least. I'm hoping that one more day should see the end of it.

4/12/2010: Monday 4 Miler

2010-04-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Went for a run this afternoon with Dominique. I was still very much snotty at the beginning of the run, but by the end of it, my nose had cleared some. Always amazes me how much better I feel after running, even when I have a head cold. This was Dom's first 4 mile run and I was super happy for her when she finished. I don't think she really thought she could run the whole way, but she proved herself wrong by finishing the full 4 miles. Was a good run over all and was what I needed for sure after the day I had.

4/10/2010: Ravelry Really Random Race Run

2010-04-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the first ever Ravelry Really Random Race Run, or RRRRRun for short. Basically everyone chose their own distance and then raced and posted a race report on Ravelry. It was a fun experience, and my own race was rather eventful. I'm just going to copy and paste what I wrote on Ravelry to here and then post the graph for you.

Ok, since Saturday comes earlier for me than the rest of you, I’m up with my race report.

Never in a million years did I think that a 6.2 mile run on a track that remains empty most of the time would be eventful. But, as Brian reminded me, this is Korea after all.

The start went off well. Got up to the 9:30 per mile pace that I needed to run in order to hit my time goal of an hour. Was able to maintain this pace for almost 2 full miles, but at 2.22 miles, both Brian and I went down with a huge wave a nausea. It was bad enough that we both stopped for a moment and then walked a lap. We discussed ending the run right there and trying to come out again on Sunday, but then we thought about this really being a race, so we decided to keep going and just slow the pace down so that our stomachs could handle it.

It was not easy going, and both our stomachs revolted for most of the way. It was relatively uneventful until mile 4. Then, I was catching up to Brian, who was running a little faster than me, when I look up and see a little Korean girl on a bicycle go whizzing past me. I watched in horror as she suddenly darted towards the lane Brian was running in. He was oblivious to this since it was behind him and the girl was riding in stealth as far as noise went. Then, yes, she ran right into him, into his bad leg to add insult to injury, and how he didn’t go down and land on the little girl I still don’t know. I ran up to make sure he and the girl was ok. Girl was fine, Brian had a little soreness in the leg and decided to keep going, but to take a walk break. He walked a lap and then started running again.

On mile 5, a group of teenagers showed up and started doing their own races around the track and they clapped and cheered for me and Brian while asking us a million questions such as, where are you from, how old are you, do you like kimchi? So, the pace slowed a bit, but at this point, we were just trying to finish out the 6.2 miles.

At the end of the run, the last blow to everything was getting divebombed by a magpie. If you don’t have magpies where you live, they are basically really pretty crow-like birds. They are also apparently territorial this time of year. So, had a nice sprint to get away from the bird and teenagers and finished my 10k race in 1:10:30. Sure it was 10 minutes slower than I had planned, which now looking back on it was a very ambitious goal of mine anyways. I’ll try to improve my time in the next 10k race that I can run. So, we felt like crap, one got hit by a bike, one got hit by a bird, and both had 20 questions with teenagers. This was the most entertaining race I could have imagined.

Contest on Shut Up and Run!

2010-04-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Hey, for those of you who don't know, there's a contest over at the Shut Up and Run Blog. Cool giveaways for both men and women, plus a running outfit contest that I wish I could enter, but sadly have no good photos of any running done in anything comical. Go enter and you may win some free shwag!

4/9/2010: Friday Weigh-In

2010-04-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's that time of the week again. Yesterday's lunch was bibimbap, which I was loathe to eat since I know how my body reacts to the sodium in the namool (mixed veggies) that are added to the rice. But, I was hungry, so I wanted my rice, vegetable, and chili paste dish.

I enjoyed every delicious moment of the bibimbap. It's probably my favorite Korean food and is so versatile in what you can add to it. So this morning, I braced myself for the results of this ricey deliciousness on the scale.

176

Yep, I lost a pound! Woot woot, and yea for yummy bibimbapness!

Contest on Colorado Runner's Blog

2010-04-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

In case you don't read Amanda's Run to the Finish blog and didn't see this, there's a giveaway contest on Colorado Runner's blog for a pair of sunglasses. The glasses look great and I'm willing to bet you'll be just as jealous of her post as I was :oP

RRRRRun

2010-04-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, you read that right folks. This weekend is the Ravelry Really Random Race Run, or RRRRRun for short. I came up with an idea for a virtual race and posted it on Ravelry (like facebook for knitters for those of you not in the know) and on Dailymile, asking if anyone wanted to participate. Basically, here are the rules so far, but they are ever changing as more people sign up to participate:

1. Choose the distance of your run and post it on the thread on Ravelry or on the post I made on Dailymile.

2. Choose either Saturday or Sunday to run your race. You can run it on a track, trail, road, or anywhere you darned well feel like. Just push yourself some since this is a race after all!

3. Post your finishing time and a race report if you desire on the thread on Ravelry, Dailymile, or here if you so choose. Post them by Monday evening your time.

4. I'll set up a poll widget where everyone can vote on the most improvement or the most inspirational/motivational race report. You can be comical, serious, or anything in between with your report. Best race report as voted on by the other runners will win a skein of hand-dyed yarn in a colorway of your choice. Plus, depending on the racer's size, there might be a race t-shirt in there too.

The prize categories changed as per feelings of the other runners on Ravelry. The main prize will be for the race report post with the most votes and the other prizes (Konglish shirts, more yarn, race shirts) will be drawn randomly by RNG after everyone has posted.

That's it for the moment. If you have any other suggestions for prizes, we still have at least one racing shirt that can be given away, and possibly more yarn. This should be fun!

4/8/2010: 2 Mile Recovery Run

2010-04-07T16:11:00.001-07:00

This morning was just a nice, not hard recovery run. I didn't want to push it too hard or fast since I intend to take part in a race this weekend. I'll tell you more about the race in another post to come since it is quite funny. Here's the graph:

4/7/2010: Wednesday 3 Mile Flat Run

2010-04-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

Got in 3 crappy miles this morning. I was going to try to maintain race pace for the whole 3 miles, but my legs are shot right now. I'll run 2 light jog miles in the morning and then be done until the "race" on Sunday. Yeah, I've been told I can't get in to the race. I would actually consider running as a renegade, but seeing as I'm an almost 6 foot tall white red head, I stand out in a crowd of Korean runners :oP So, I'm going to have my own race where I compete against only myself.

4/6/2010: Tuesday Trail Run

2010-04-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

Ran on the trails today with D and S. Was different running with a group, but we all kinda did our own thing for the run. There were parts that required me to walk so that I didn't fall face-first on the ground, so it was interesting the muscles that were being worked compared to normal, flat runs. I'll definitely have to try the trails again, maybe even making it a once a week venture.

4/5/2010: Monday 6 Miler

2010-04-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Decided to go ahead and do 6 miles today. I'm trying to up my weekly average to 20 or more miles now and since Sunday I'm planning on running 10k as a race, since I couldn't get in to the actual race on Sunday, I needed to up the mileage a little bit at the beginning of the week to make sure I hit my 20. It was a good run in the afternoon. The weather is much better here now and I am really enjoying seeing the sun. I even broke a good sweat this time. Ah, Spring, how I love thee!

4/3/2010: Saturday Long Run

2010-04-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

I ran 8 miles today and it felt good. I tried to mix up my breakfast before the run this time and added more protein and fat to see how it felt. I think for my next long run, I'll be eating only protein and fat and just ditching the toast. No burning in the legs this time, and no blood sugar crash like I usually have about half way through a long run. DF was able to run some too and probably covered 4 of the 8 miles with me. Was nice to get to run with him again!Oh, and anyone else notice that Garmin Connect changed their layout. I like the look much better now!

4/2/2010: Friday Weigh-In

2010-04-01T16:34:00.001-07:00

It's that time of the week again where I wake up, slowly crawl over to the scale, and see how I did for the week. This week it was:

177!

Down another pound. 63 gone, 17 to go! Woot!

4/1/2010: Rainy Run

2010-04-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did it! I finally got my butt outside in the pouring rain and ran in it. I went out with Dom, who turns out runs the same pace as me, so that was nice. We both looked like idiots, flailing and splashing down by the river while we got in our 3 miles. I left the Garmin at home because it was pouring so much and I didn't want to risk it getting soaked to the point of fritzing out on me.

So, 3 miles in the pouring rain. Followed by a dinner of poached eggs, toast, stir-fried veg, and 2 wonderful slices of cheese.

And no, this is not an April Fool's joke, I swear :oP

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

2010-03-30T16:47:00.000-07:00

So I scoured the internet and found Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution finally so I could watch the first 2 episodes. Unfortunately the end of episode 2 was cut off, so I don't know all that happens. Hopefully I'll figure out a way to see the end of it before the third episode gets posted.

After watching it, I'm not quite sure what to think about the show. I like Jamie Oliver's show Naked Chef. In fact, it's one of the few English shows on the TV in my rural area of Korea, so I have a tendency to watch it a lot more than a normal person would. I really like the concept of eating clean, whole foods grown locally, and using only fresh ingredients. So basically, Jamie has taken his concept of Naked Chef and is trying to show the town of Huntington, WV how to change.

It's not going well. He's not being received well, changes are not going to be easy, and he certainly doesn't seem to be helping the matter any. I'm not sure how much of this is TV editing, although I'm positive that there's a good chunk we're not seeing that's been recorded. Jamie really needs to take a different approach with these people other than revulsion. It's obviously not working, and he's getting frustrated.

Let's put ourselves in the people's shoes for a moment now. Here you are, not proud that your city is called the worst in the country for health, and then here comes a British guy, which chances are you've never heard about, telling you that you're killing yourselves and your kids with the foods you're eating. Ok, now I'm feeling like total crap. He tells you that he can show you how to change. But wait, you think, who the hell is he to tell me how I should live my life?

And thus the frustration begins. Jamie, you need to be sensitive to the people you're working with. People, you need to be understanding of Jamie and his goals. Maybe by actually working together, you can make changes that will help both you and your families for generations to come.

3/30/2010: Tuesday 2 Mile Run

2010-03-30T16:46:00.001-07:00

Yep, I ran twice today. I'm glad that I did given that the forecast is showing rain for the next couple of days. I'm really getting quite sick of the constant downpours. But anyways, here's the graph for the run:

Binge Eating is Addictive?

2010-03-29T17:04:00.001-07:00

Really? I hadn't noticed that stuffing my face was addicting (insert sarcasm there). As someone who has struggled with binge eating and obesity, this study on MSNBC came as no surprise to me. I'm not sure though how much of the study can be directly applied to humans. The study used rats who had access to certain foods to see which ones they would eat. Yeah, of course the rats that were given unlimited access to high calorie foods would eat the high calorie foods. That has happened in lab studies a million times now. What I want to know is how much the rats in the group that was given access to high calorie foods for a limited time each day were eating. Was there more a binging going on during that short period of time?

I used to really struggle with binge eating. I would hide the amount I ate from people so that I could say that I didn't understand how I was getting so big. They wouldn't see the wrappers, so they had no idea how it was happening either. Here is a typical day's scenario for my binge eating:

Breakfast: Bowl of cereal and milk (at grandparents' house)
Breakfast 2: Bag of M&Ms from vending machine and mountain dew, immediately upon arriving for work.
Lunch: Salad with maybe a roasted vegetable sandwich (eaten with coworkers).
Lunch 2: Walk out to my car and raid the stash of honey roasted peanuts in the glovebox. Go for a walk and raid another vending machine before hitting my desk for the afternoon.
Afternoon binge: More M&Ms and mountain dew.
Dinner: Whatever healthy thing my grandmother had prepared. Had my M&Ms earlier, so I was full and would only eat a little.

Ok, so for comparison, here's the calories of my "good meals"
Breakfast: 300
Lunch: 500
Dinner: 600
Total: 1400 calories. That's less than I eat now on my "diet" (I hate using the term diet since this is a long-term lifestyle change that I have made now).

Here's the calories for my "secret meals"
Morning: 350
Lunch:450
Afternoon: 350
Total:1150

And that's not counting any other binges, eating out, or anything extra that I may have sneaked throughout the day. Yeah, binge eating is addictive, especially if done in secret...

3/30/2010: Tuesday 4 Mile Run

2010-03-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Got up again this morning and decided to get in 4 miles. I was amazed that I actually saw two other runners out on the river this time. I rarely, if ever, see any other runners. It was even more unusual that the two runners I saw were also women. One of them waved, but I'm not sure if she was waving at me, or if there was someone behind me at that point. I waved back regardless, just to play it safe :oP It was a good run this time, and my pace was a little better thankfully. Ran the 4 miles in 46 minutes even. I don't know if I could have done that if I had been trying to. I'm actually considering a second run this afternoon since the next two days are forecasting rain and I'm sure I'll at least miss a run tomorrow. We'll see how I feel at the end of the day.

3/29/2010: Monday 3.22 Mile Run

2010-03-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning and waited for the sun to begin to rise. I have been so tired of running in the pitch black that I decided this week to get up about 15 minutes later and just wait until around 6 or so to run. Normally I would finish my run close to 6 instead of begin it, but so far this has worked out. I ran, finished around 6:40, cleaned up, and was out the door an hour later to work.

This run did kinda suck though. My legs felt like lead and I could not get a decent pace going to save my life. Should have expected this after having a good run on Saturday :oP Here's the graph, since Garmin Connect didn't eat this one:

3/27/2010: Saturday Long Run

2010-03-27T16:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have no clue where the run for Saturday is on my Garmin Connect. It appears to have been eaten by the computer at this point in time, so if I can ever find the graph for it, I'll post it and let you know.

Today was a 7 mile run. I probably did about 7.25 because I ran the last little bit up the hill with DF while he finished his running stretch. I can't begin to tell you how nice it was to get to run with him some again. He was doing a run/walk today and probably got in about 3 miles worth of running, which is more than he has done in a while now. He's getting back to normal, albeit a little slower this time so that he doesn't put too much stress on his system. I'm sure his heart is thanking him for the exercise since it's been a couple of months now.

I ran the official 7 miles in about 1:20. It was a good run and felt good all the way to the end. And the best part? This time I wasn't sick afterwards :oP

3/26/2010: Friday Weigh In

2010-03-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Today is the official weigh in day of the week. So far this week I have fluctuated anywhere from 177 to 180, and this morning I was nice and in between with 178. The biggest news though is that when I plug 178 into the BMI calculator, I now have a BMI of 24.8. That's right folks, I'm in the healthy weight range. Mind you, I'm barely in it, but by golly, there it is. So I have gone from Obese (about 10 pounds away from being considered morbidly obese as well), Overweight, and now am considered Healthy. Woohoo!

An Hour a Day

2010-03-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

That's how much it takes to help keep a woman from gaining weight as she ages, calorie intake not included. A lot of women have been responding to this article by saying there's just no way. I would like to take this time to say:

1. There is a way.
2. It's up to you.

Yes, there's a way to get in an hour of exercise. You can turn off the TV for an hour and get your workout in. You can go for a walk on your lunch break. You can break it up into even smaller segments to get in the time. Just don't immediately write it off.

It's also up to you. I make a conscious decision to exercise. Yes, I would love to come home and knit all night, but I made the sacrifice of relaxing for 3 hours instead of 4. You can do this, you just need to find out what's really important to you.

3/24/2010: Wednesday 3.05 Miler

2010-03-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

I almost didn't get out the door for this run. I was tired and getting up at 5:15 to run in the dark was just not my cup of tea this time. So I set the alarm for 6:20 instead and got up, ate my cereal, intended to take a shower then head to work. At 6:45, I was out the door for a run because I knew I would be pissy all day if I didn't get out and just do it. I'm very glad I did. Was a nice, quiet run with no ipod or anything to entertain me aside from the sound of my feet hitting the ground and the call of the ducks along the river.

3/23/2010: Tuesday 4 Miler

2010-03-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Muddy run today. It was raining all night and most of the day, so the soccer field was absolutely mush. I wanted to quit at 3 miles, but decided that I should do 4 instead so that my legs will get stronger. Glad I did. It may have been squishy, but it was fun.

Lose Weight Like a Man

2010-03-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

I saw this article on MSNBC's health page today and it intrigued me. I have to admit, I often get frustrated that guys can lose the weight faster than me. Case in point is my father. We started the lifestyle change at the same time and he's already lost 75 pounds, and been at his weight goal for almost 4 months now. Me, I'm still about 20 pounds away from goal weight, but oh well. The article goes into a lot of psychological differences between men and women's approach to losing weight. I agreed with almost everything that was said too, and was pleasantly surprised that I have switched off most of the guilt that I used to associate with dieting. Example: On Friday, Brian and I went to Outback Steakhouse. I ordered the baby back ribs, full rack, with Aussie chips. I didn't even think about the calories since I wanted me some pork ribs that night! Got home and realized my meal was about 2600 calories. Now, in my previous life, I would have been so guilty about that kind of mess up. Instead, I laughed, showed Brian how many calories I had eaten, and then switched the food diary to the next day, since it was a new day and there was nothing I was going to do about the food I ate that evening. I didn't starve myself at all on Saturday because of Friday's splurge. And my reward for not being guilty? I was down to 177 on Monday morning (yes, I was also sick, so that won't stay there, but hey, it's fun to see 177 anyways).

3/21/2010: Sunday 6 Miler

2010-03-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

I got in 6 miles for once! I was so happy to get in something more than 4 miles this morning. Unfortunately, I was sick as a dog about 2 hours after the run. I don't think it was related to the run itself, but it was either some stomach bug, or maybe I inhaled and swallowed enough of the yellow dust to kill my stomach for the day. Anyways, the run itself was darned good and I enjoyed every minute of it!

3/19/2010: Friday Weigh In

2010-03-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the week again. That time where I wake up on Friday, yawn, and then face the demon that is the scale for my "official" weigh in day. Sometimes it's a good day, sometimes it's a bad day. It's always really frustrating too when you've been down all week, only to pop up a pound or two on Friday morning, when you actually record your weight.

Today was a good day. 179! I'm in the 170's again! Woot woot! Completely has made my day.

That is all :oP

3/18/2010: 4 Miler

2010-03-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, you did read that right. I have run 3 days in a row. Why? Because I could since the weather held off and didn't pour down rain. Well, it did rain this morning actually. I had scheduled a 4 mile hill workout, but since it was pouring, the 4 mile run turned into a 4 mile mud run around the school soccer field. The mud runs still work my legs and arse as much as the hills, so I wasn't too upset I missed my hill run this morning.

3/17/2010: Wednesday Two Mile Recovery Run

2010-03-17T16:10:00.000-07:00

Just an easy two mile run around the soccer field at lunch. My legs are sore from the hills, so didn't want to go very far today. Just needed to loosen up the legs some. Had some kids yelling at me to "Be careful!". Guess they learned some new words over the break :oP

Good Foods Gone Bad

2010-03-15T20:57:00.001-07:00

I saw this article linked from MSNBC and thought it was kind of interesting. I had a lunch of some good foods gone bad, so thought I would share.

Tofu: while this is super healthy, and I even like it plain and raw, the lunch ladies deep fried it today. Not so healthy when it soaks up the oils and changes its consistency!

Beef broth: Not too bad on its own, until you add in soy sauce. I don't even want to think of the sodium content that I had at lunch.

Rice: While not a bad food, this one I limit intake of because the lunch ladies apparently believe I should be eating 3 cups of the stuff. I stick to about half a cup.

3/16/2010: Tuesday 3 Mile Hill Repeats

2010-03-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Got in a very slow 3 miles this morning. It was cool, but not so chilly it hurt this time. I got to the corner of my loop and they had torn up the sidewalk so that I would have to go on the main road, which is not an option if I care to live. So, I decided to do hill repeats instead and they kicked my arse. It was good to make myself get up early and run at least too since I have become the queen of the snooze alarm due to the rain the past month. Here's the graph...hm, see if you can find the hills :oP

20 Worst Foods in America

2010-03-14T21:42:00.000-07:00

After reading this article, I was just shaking my head. A year ago, I would have considered ordering quite a few of these things. In fact, I know I've ordered the Ruby Tuesday mushroom burger before. I've ordered the number one worst food: the Outback Chili Cheese Fries with Ranch Dressing. Yep, I've eaten my share of just about everything on that list with the exception of the chicken dishes since I have a poultry allergy.

Boy, how far I have come in the past year or so. It was about this time last year that I started taking my diet very serious. I had been playing with it mostly for the months of January and February, but in March, I really started writing everything down. I'm such a fan of the Calorie King Palm Pilot software, and if you have a Palm handheld or smartphone, you really should pick this up if you're in to writing down what you eat. I don't go anywhere without my TX, so my food diary is also right with me.

A year ago, I would have salivated at seeing some of these dishes. Now, I kinda am repulsed at how many calories are in them. This is when I realize that I really have changed this time. This isn't a diet anymore. It's a total lifestyle change. I took out the crap and brought in whole, healthy foods. Sure, I enjoy hitting Burger King on occasion (like Saturday for example!), but I automatically order the whopper junior set now without cheese instead of the double whopper with cheese and extra mayo BK sized up. And while watching everyone around me eat that evening, I realized that I wasn't feeling deprived. I ate my burger and fries, felt satisfied, and was able to hang out with everyone else. Other diets I have been on have left me virtually friendless because I would deny myself everything in order to lose an ounce. In fact, one of the friends we were with this weekend was denying herself sugar earlier in the day and then ended up ordering a 1000 calorie ice cream at the end of the day (I opted for a dish made with strawberries and bananas that came in at about 250 calories for the same size as hers).

I know this is a very rambling post, but it just amazes me some days how much I have really changed this time for the better. 60 pounds is gone. This is the most weight I have ever lost. I have less than 20 pounds to go until I hit my weight goal. Then the real challenge begins. But I've been watching how my father has handled his transition from diet to lifestyle and he's done quite well. I know I can too when the time comes.

Anyone else out there feel this way?

Well, That Was a While...

2010-03-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

Yeah, just realized it's been over a month since I posted or updated this site at all! My bad! I've been on DailyMile more posting my runs and have been neglecting putting the data up on the site here. Now, I also have to admit that the running almost came to a stop during February against my will.

You see, Mother Nature is a bitch and she was in a major rage here in February. She let it rain nearly every day for a month. I was lucky to get in 1 or 2 runs a week, and there was one week that I was rained out for the entire 7 day period.

Now, I know you're thinking that I should have just run in the rain. Unless you have experienced this kind of rain before, it's hard to understand the concept of monsoon. This rain is almost dangerous. It reduces visibility to zero and hurts your head when the drops hit you. So, no running when it's a downpour around here.

March is off to a much better start for sure. I ran 4 miles on Saturday and 3 on Sunday, plus the 6 I ran earlier in the week, so that's more miles in one week than I did almost the whole month of February!

You know what the worst part is though? I lost conditioning. I was up to 8 mile long runs, and when I ran on Saturday, 4 about killed me. I'm going to have to build back up again, so this Saturday it's a minimum of 5. I'll get it back, I just need the weather to cooperate.

And weight-wise, here's the update. February saw my first plateau. I stuck at 182 pounds for 4 weeks straight. Then on Friday, I discovered I was down 2 to be 180, which means I'm down a full 60 pounds now. 15-20 more and I'm at goal weight. That's kinda mind-boggling to me.

But anyways, that's the update for now. I don't know if I'm going to keep posting the Garmin stats right now. I kinda miss the simplicity of the Nike Plus graphs that I was posting before, but I don't run with that now. We'll see how DailyMile looks after they sync with Garmin and I'll figure out how to post workout data from my runs.

ETA: I did go ahead and add in all the runs from my Garmin Connect data. So they're all up there and you can see how pathetic I've been because of the rain. At least it's something!

3/14/2010: Sunday Speedwork

2010-03-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

Yep, you read that right. I ran on a Sunday. The day of rest even. Why? Because the forecast says that Monday it would rain, which it did, since I'm writing this is after that run :oP So, I did 3 miles of fartlek speed work. It was fun to stretch the legs out a bit and let them run hard:

3/13/2010: 4 Mile "Long" Run

2010-03-13T16:24:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I use long in quotation marks since this is half the distance I was covering for my long runs before the great monsoon of February 2010. Anyways, I got in 4 miles before I twisted my knee while not paying attention to two kids riding tricycles next to me. All in all, it was a good run and was nice to do more than 3 miles at a time. Here's the graph:

3/11/2010: 3 Mile Mud Run

2010-03-11T20:54:00.000-08:00

Ran on the school soccer field again and boy was that muddy from all the melted snow and ice we had. Worked my butt harder than I care to admit, but was nice to feel that kind of a workout after so long! Walked the mile home after running 3:

3/8/2010: Soccer Field Run

2010-03-08T20:53:00.000-08:00

I'm getting runs in however I can right now. Stopped raining half way through the day, so I ran around the damp soccer field. Better than nothing. 3 miles, plus a little walk home:

3/6/2010: Rained Out After 1 Mile

2010-03-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

Ran a mile until the rain turned into monsoon. A mile is better than nothing, but does suck for a Saturday:

3/3/2010: 3 Miler

2010-03-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

Another week of rain. Got in 1 run though:

2/24/2010: 3 Miler

2010-02-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

Just getting in runs whenever the weather lets me!

2/22/2010: 3 Miler

2010-02-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

Just a 3 mile run. Not sure what the hell happened with this graph for the Garmin. Something didn't read right!

2/20/2010: Saturday Runs Interrupted

2010-02-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

Was going to do 8 miles today, but was being harassed by a guy on a bike again. Getting tired of seeing guys on bikes when I run. Thankfully DF returns to the country in 6 days and can walk with me on my longer runs. So, got in 3 miles if you count the two runs...

2/17/2010: 3 miler

2010-02-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

Just a 3 mile run around the neighborhood.

2/15/2010: A Week Off

2010-02-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

Got rained out of every run for a full week. That rather sucked arse. At least got in this 3 mile run:
And then I ran again that day for another 3 miles! So, two runs in one day!

2/6/2010: Saturday Long Run

2010-02-06T20:33:00.000-08:00

First ever 8 mile run. Was a good run overall.

2/4/2010: 3 mile Run

2010-02-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

Ran the soccer field at school after work so I could get in a run.

2/3/2010: Wednesday 3 Miler

2010-02-02T17:35:00.000-08:00

Wow, was it ever cold today. Everything hurt when the air hit it. I used my buff for the first time and it worked well. I don't think my face got frozen nearly as much because of it. It was hard to get used to sucking air through the fabric though and about half way through the run, I took it off for a while to get some deep breaths. It was a slow run today, but geez, 8 degrees is really freaking cold for me! Here's the graph:

2/1/2010: Monday 3 Miler

2010-02-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

This week I decided that I'm only going to run 3 miles at a time during the week. I really want to try to get in an 8 mile run on Saturday since I missed last week's distance. So, I'm keeping the mileage lower during the week this time so that I can hopefully be very refreshed and the shin will be nice and happy for a long run. Ran the hills today and forgot how hard the stupid hills are...Here's the graph:

1/30/2010: Saturday Long Run

2010-02-02T17:29:00.000-08:00

I took it easy the rest of the week and even cut back the mileage on the long run today. I mostly had to cut it back because of an incident with a guy on a bike, but that's a very long story and I'm not going to go into it here. The run was good and the shin wasn't hurting at all during the run. I did feel like the shin felt a little fatigued by the end of the run, but nothing too bad.

Weigh-in for this week was a disaster. Remember how I lost so much the week before? Eating salty Korean food right before your weigh in is not a good plan. Was at 182 on Thursday and on Friday I had shot up to 185. I'm not entering the totals on that weigh-in on the sidebar. I'll count next week's weigh in whatever that may be...

Here's the graph of the run. As always, clicky for bigger:

1/27/2010: Well, Crap...or the Wednesday run

2010-01-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

Got a mile in to this run and had pain in my right shin. I've had that pain before and it signals shin splints. I'm going to take off until Saturday and then will judge how far the long run will be this week. Don't want to develop shin splints now since they do tend to cripple me for over a week or more. We'll see...

1/25/2010: Monday Stomach Cramps

2010-01-27T15:40:00.001-08:00

Tried going out for a 3 mile run today, but ended up only running 1.3 and then walking it in once stomach cramps hit me. I'm feeling off right now, so we'll see how much running I can get in. Hopefully Wednesday will be better.

1/23/2010: Saturday 7.5 mile Long Run

2010-01-27T15:38:00.001-08:00

Today was the 7.5 miler. Next week is the 8 miler which will peak my distance training and will signal my time to work on speed. The run today was great and I was doing well, but that last 1/2 mile kicked my arse. We'll see how next week goes with the 8 miler!

1/22/2010: Friday Weigh-In

2010-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today is the day that I step on the scale and count my official weight for the week. I'm not sure what happened this week. The scale shocked me.

182 pounds...

I lost 3 pounds this week! I haven't had a huge loss like that since I started losing weight last year! Whatever happened, I want it to keep up! I'm only 4 pounds away from being out of the BMI overweight category now!

Woot woot!

1/21/2010: Thursday Run

2010-01-21T15:32:00.001-08:00

It rained me out on Wednesday, so Thursday was the only other run aside from Monday this week. I ran 5 miles and had a very funny experience. About 10 of my students were on the soccer field where I was going to run at lunch. They all decided to start running with me and when they realized I was running more than a couple of laps, they made it a relay game, with groups of 2-3 on each corner. I would get to a corner and a new student would be my running partner until the next corner. They cracked me up and I don't think I've ever laughed that much while running. My side was killing me at mile 3 from all the laughing. Here's the graph from the soccer field run: