So Many Victories!

If you've come here to find updates on the girls, it's not happening in this post.  This one's all about me, and there's lots of pictures. It's been a long time in between blog posts, but I've had a whirlwind of victories lately, so I decided it's time for a post!  

First up, I realized that I have lost 100 pounds since I first started trying to lose weight back in 2008! 100 pounds!!  A few months after Kara was born I reached my highest weight ever, I was miserable, and decided it was time for a change.  I lost about 80 pounds, and maintained that until I got pregnant with Macy.  While I was pregnant with Macy I gained 51 pounds, and felt like I was starting the weight loss journey all over again after she was born.  I only lost 18 pounds between the time Macy was born and when she was 6 weeks old - I've since lost all 51 pounds that I had gained with her, along with another 30 pounds!  All together, I'm down over 100 pounds since 2008 - that's pretty incredible if you ask me - more pics of my whole journey at the end of this post!

Next victory, I ran my first half marathon!!!  Yes, I ran a half marathon.  After I had Macy I started running again in March of 2012.  It was a very slow start after taking almost a year off to get back into running!  I ran about 5 5ks in the past year, and was wanting to challenge myself a bit more, thought I'd go for a 10k, but got talked into running a half marathon.  I tried following a half marathon training plan, but I didn't really stick to it too much, I got sick in January and took 3 weeks off from running!  I was trying to run a few times during the week and then do a long run on the weekends, my long runs varied from 5 miles to 9.5 miles, and I was really starting to enjoy them - yes, even with the freeeeeeeeeezing cold temps, ice, freezing rain, snow, puddles, I was really enjoying my running time on the weekend. As the date of the half marathon started to get closer, I started freaking out, I'd get super nauseous  just thinking about running 13.1 miles. I was starting to dread it!  My last few training runs were at an average pace of about 11:30/mile, when I had been down to about 10:30/mile, so I was scared that it was going to take me forever.  I had decided that I wanted to finish under 2 hours and 30 mins, but wasn't sure if that was going to be an attainable goal with my crappy training runs I had been having.

Here I am waiting in line for the port-a-potty before the race :)  It was cold!

I had decided that I was going to run the half solo.  I seemed to do better on my training runs when I was by myself - I could go my own pace, I could get lost in my music and just focus on the running, so that's what I did.  I honestly don't remember most of the details of the half marathon.  I remember seeing all the mile markers, and as I would approach each one I'd think "ok, you've got to at least run to mile X" I'd get past the mile marker, feel good, and keep on going.  The course was out and back, so around 6.6 miles we turned around - at that point I was still running without any walk breaks (other than water stops), my time was about 1 hour and 8 minutes, so I knew I could make my 2 hour and 30 min goal if I kept up my pace.  The course sucked cause it seemed like there were constant hills - I managed them all up until about mile 7, at that point, I'd run up as much of the hills as I could, and then stop to take walk breaks as needed.  Most walk breaks were under a minute, as every time that I stopped I realized that it hurt so much more to walk than it did to run, so I just kept on going.  I think it was around mile 9 or 9.5 that I realized how bad my body hurt - my hips were killing me, my knees were killing me, but I just pushed through it and kept on going, because, really, I had no other choice but to keep on going.  Mile 10-11 was the hardest for me.  I was at a breaking point and I wanted to be done so bad.  Once I got to mile 11 I just kept telling myself "only 2 more miles, only 2 more miles" and I was trying to imagine 2 miles of the route that I run at work all the time and tried to convince myself that 2 more miles was nothing.  Once I hit the 13 mile marker I just about burst into tears - I'm not sure if it was cause I was so proud of myself for being so close to finishing my first half marathon, cause my body hurt so bad, or cause I was on the verge of death.  At the same time I also got this huge burst of energy and hauled ass for the last 10th of a mile - there were 3 people ahead of me and I decided that I had to cross the finish line ahead of them, and I did. 

My official time for my first half marathon was 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 5 seconds - 10 minutes faster than I had hoped to finish, and an average pace of 10:42/mile!!  The fact that I was able to maintain that pace for 13.1 miles totally blows my mind, but the fact that I can say that I'm a half marathoner blows my mind even more!!!!  The girl, who at one point, had well over 100 pounds to lose had finished a half marathon. Totally blows my mind.  I'm SO proud of myself and my friends that ran it too - there were quite a few of us who did this as our first half marathon - way to go, friends! 

Done!

Runkeeper Report:

Here's Kathy and I after the race!

Ya gotta stretch....

My medal and race bib that I will cherish forever!

Other things to note:  I joined a diet bet online - it's basically an online weight loss game to lose weight - you throw in $20 (or whatever the bet is) and you have 4 weeks to lose 4% of your body weight.  I was kind of reluctant to join cause I've basically been on a plateau since November, and I didn't want to lose my $20 bet!  But then I thought that it might be just the motivation that I needed to get back on track, and start shedding the pounds again, and the fact that I could potentially be at my goal weight by the time I turn 30, so I decided to accept the challenge!  I'm just over 3 weeks into the challenge and I have lost about 10#, which is over my 4%, so now I need to make sure to keep it off until the 28th so I can get some of that money that's on the line! 

With the weight that I have lost on the diet bet, I am now at a "normal" weight on the BMI charts, NORMAL? ME? Yes!!! I have never, ever, in my entire life been considered a normal weight!  I really don't care for the BMI charts since they don't take body fat % into account, but one of my goals that I had set for myself was to have a normal BMI, and I honestly never thought I'd get there. I'm going to be 30 in 2 weeks, and I am at the lowest weight I have been at since about 15.

Another non-scale victory - I had to get my driver's license renewed in April of last year.  I did what most (all) women do and put the weight that I had hoped to be at on my license instead of my actual weight - I mean, everyone does that, right?  So, the weight that I put on there was probably about 40# less than I really weighed at that time, but you also have to remember that I had just had a baby, so I was still carrying lots of the baby weight ;) Anyway, I am now 35 pounds LESS than the weight listed on my driver's license - I'm tempted to go get it updated, otherwise I have to wait another 3 years for the next renewal.

I've been sporadically taking measurements over the last year.  I happened to come across  my measurements I had recorded in March of 2012, it was only a hip and waist  measurement, but I compared those two numbers to my current numbers.... I've lost over 10 inches from my hips and over 8 from my waist! Now is one of those moments that I had wished I would have taken all my measurements back in March of 2012.

One of my favorites - I bought a new dress.  The sizing of the dress was not S-M-L, but actual sizes, so I grabbed a 10 and a 12 to try on, tried on the 10 first and it was too big, ended up buying a size 8!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the horrible, blurry pic in my dirty mirror... 

Here's where this post gets very pic heavy - pictures from my whole journey.  This is where I am going to come now when I'm having a bad day, or feel fat.  It's really hard for me to look at some of these pics, and to try to figure out how I ever let myself get so out of control.  All I can say is that I'm happy I finally decided to improve my life and live healthier! I'm still not comfortable with my current weight - I think cause it's still new to me.  I honestly had more self esteem after I lost weight after I had Kara, and the lowest weight I ever got was about 185 - seeing this pics now compared to how I am today, I can really see a difference from then to now - it's never been so apparent to me before!

January 2008 - just a few weeks after I found out I was pregnant with Kara. 

 January 2009 - my highest weight, and my lowest point.

May 2009

About 50# lost after having Kara

October 2009

May 2010 - I felt REALLY good at this point, and this is what I had hoped to get back to after Macy... I've gotten WAY past this now!

June 2010

December 2010

March 2011

August 2011 (pregnant)

October 2011 (pregnant)

December 2011 

April 2012

May 2012

August 2012 

December 2012

March 2013

aaaaaannnnnnndddddd yesterday.... I might have bought a pair of hot pink skinny jeans to celebrate being in the 150's, cause I NEVER EVER thought I'd get there.  My ass looks pretty good in them, huh?

At this point I want to continue running and find a second half marathon to run, but probably not until fall.  I also want to work on toning up a bit for my sister's wedding this summer! 

The Results Are In!

I survived my 8 week strength training program and the final results are in! The fact that I am getting pretty close to my goal weight and the pounds are coming off slower and slower, I am very happy with these results!

Starting Weight: 175.3
Ending Weight: 168.1
Total Loss: 7.2 pounds

Starting Body Fat %: 28.6%
Ending Body Fat %: 25.1%
Total Loss: 3.5%

Starting Fat Mass: 50.1 pounds
Ending Fat Mass: 42.1 pounds
Total Loss: 8 pounds

Starting Fat Free Mass: 125.2 pounds
Ending Fat Free Mass: 125.9 pounds
Total Gain: 0.7 pounds (this one it's good to have a gain)

Strength Results:

Starting Pushups: 25
Ending Pushups: 35

Starting Curlup: 15
Ending Curlup: 25

Starting Chest Press: 117# (one time max)
Ending Chest Press: 124# (one time max)

Starting Leg Press: 350# (one time max)
Ending Leg Press: 404# (I maxed out the weight on the machine, so rather than a 1x max, the trainer had me do as many reps as I could at the max weight - I did 6 reps!)

Starting Flexibility: 27cm
Ending Flexability: 31.5cm

I'm pretty much in the 90th percentile for females of my age for all the strength results - pretty excited about that!  For body fat % I am in the 'moderately lean' category, which is defined as: Fat level is generally acceptable for good health - next goal is to drop another 3.1% body fat and I will be in the 'lean' category!!  Doesn't that sound pretty excellent?

Now to keep moving in the right direction....I'm running the Turkey Day 5k on Thanksgiving and thanks to some pretty amazing/inspiring friends of mine I am going to register for my first half marathon on 3/16/13. AHHH!!!  The furthest I have EVER ran before was 4.3 miles, so I have a long way to go to get to 13.1 miles.  Luckily I have 122 days to prepare myself.  I plan on following the Hal Higdon Novice Half-Marathon training plan.  A typical week on this training plan includes 3-4 days of running, 1-2 days of cross training, 1-2 day of strength and stretching and 1 rest day... so that should keep me pretty busy for the next 12 weeks!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! To all of my crazy friends who have inspired me, motivated me, pressured me, etc... I couldn't keep going without you guys!

Back At It...

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again - I NEED TO START BLOGGING MORE!!

I need to use this as a place to keep you updated on what is going on in Kara and Macy's life.  Ok, I'll be honest - I use it as my scrapbook/baby book/memory log for the girls, so I need to keep it updated so that in 10 years I can remember the first food Macy ate, her first words, when she took her first steps, how Kara's first day of preschool went, when Kara lost her first tooth.  Am I the only parent out there that doesn't have scrapbooks or memory books for my kids? Please say no so that I don't feel like such a horrible parent!! :)

Let's start with the girls - Kara has started going to preschool at Sonshine Preschool at Rose of Sharon Lutheran church.  We are lucky enough that our daycare provider will drive Kara to and from preschool.  If we didn't have that option, Kara wouldn't be going!  I don't know how any working parents can work around preschool and half-day kindergarten schedules, it's ridiculous! Anyway, she is absolutely loving preschool and is learning so much!  Pretty soon she will be smarter than Joe and I combined.  They are starting the year off by learning colors and in the next week or two they will start learning numbers, and then move on to learning letters.  They practice writing their names everyday and Kara can now write her name all by herself, granted the letters aren't in the correct order, but she's getting there! :)

Kara also had a birthday back in August that we haven't talked about yet.  In true Kara fashion, she wanted a Lightning McQueen (the red car from the movie Cars) birthday party, and the only thing she asked for was a Lightning McQueen Power Wheel.  Let's just say that she got what she wanted!

Macy is our happy little chunker!  She started crawling just after 7 months and quickly learned how to pull herself up onto everything.  We have to constantly keep an eye on her to prevent her from eating everything off the floor or hurting herself!  She is quite a handful at times!  She has started waving, blowing kisses, clapping and giving high fives in the last month or so.  I still cannot believe that she will be 1 in just 2 months!!  She says bye-bye, momma, dadda, tries to say clap - I'm still waiting for her first real word, Kara's was pinetree - I'm hoping Macy has a good first word like that!  She has taken a few steps in the last week and I think she will be walking very soon, and then we are really in trouble!  She also has this new obsession with licking things, particularly the floors, but she'll lick pretty much anything.  At her 9 month appt she weighed in at 20 pounds 6 ounces and was 28.5 inches - she's about the same size at 9 months as Kara was at 1 year!  She's got 2 cute lil teeth so far, but with the way she's been acting lately I'm guessing that a few more are working their way through.

Joe and I ran (I'm using the term ran VERY loosely here) Joe's first 5k on July 15th.  We did The Color Run - they throw this powdered color on you at each kilometer and by the end you are covered in color, it was a great time!  The running part was not so great.  It was about 98 degrees out that morning, I felt super dehydrated and just couldn't run.  Every time we reached one of the color stations things came to a complete halt.  Overall I think our time was about 41 minutes, but that's not important, all that matters is that we had fun! 

A shot from afar of one of the color throws that happened every 15 minutes at the finish line.

Do you love the hand print I left on Joe's back?

Most of the crew - Me, Joe, Meghan, Emily and Christina - not pictured Roger, Riana, Megan and Ian

After our first, and hopefully not last, 5k together

Back in June when I last blogged, I was at 38.4 pounds lost - since then I have lost another 17.6 pounds for a total loss of 56 pounds, total of 73 since Macy was born!!  The last 6 weeks or so I have been fluctuating up and down the same 5 pounds.  Which I mostly blame on my beer consumption on the weekends :)  

Here's what 73 pounds lost in less than 10 months looks like - and trust me, if I can do it you can too!

I just finished week 4 of an 8 week group strength training class that is offered through work.  If I go to at least 13 of the 16 classes I get fully reimbursed.  Here is the structure of the class:

First 20-25 minutes is a circuit of 12 exercises.  8 of the exercises are weight machines - chest press, shoulder press, tricep extensions, lat pulldown, leg press, leg curl, bicep curls and calf raises - the other 4 in the circuit are considered 'the line' these are cardio exercises that change up every week, but have included things like burpees, jumping squats, jump onto a bosu, things like that...

The next 15 minutes we do different exercises each week, which include - planks, up and down planks, planks on a bosu, push ups, crunches, squats with shoulder press, supermans, and all sorts of core work, but I don't know what those exercises are called.

Then the last 5 minutes we do stretches and use foam rollers to roll out our tight, sore muscles.

I am really enjoying this class, and I will be so sad when it's over!  Another cool thing about this class is we did a pre-fitness assessment and bod pod assessment and will get to do them again at the end of the 8 weeks to measure our progress.  The fitness assessment includes doing as many push ups and crunches as you can, one time maximum leg press, one time maximum chest press and a flexibility test.  The bod pod uses air displacement to accurately measure muscle mass vs. fat mass - it was pretty cool!  My body fat was measured at 28.6% which is in the 'moderately lean' category - this totally blew me away!!  I for sure thought I would be in the 'excess fat' category!  I'm super excited to do it again at the end of the 8 weeks and see how much progress I have made!

Things I'm happy about with my weight loss:

• I weigh 20 pounds less than I did BEFORE I was pregnant with Macy (and remember that I gained 51 pounds while pregnant and she is not even 10 months old)
• The weight on my driver's license is more than 20 pounds higher than my current weight!!
• I'm 10 pounds less than the lowest weight I ever got after I had Kara (and I was only at that weight for about 1 week!)
• I wear a size smaller pants than I did before I got pregnant with Macy - since February I have gone from a size 20 to a size 11!
• I feel like I am finally making progress with running

Speaking of running - I ran two other 5ks since my last post - the Big Gay Race to support Minnesota United For All Families - VOTE NO!!! - and the MMRF 5k to support Joe's aunt who has Multiple Myleoma.  Both of these 5ks were in the same weekend, and both were PRs for me.  The Big Gay Race I finished in about 35:30 and the MMRF 5k was just over 33 mins!  Wooohoo!!  I track all my running on dailymile and runkeeper - be my friend if you are on either of those sites!

Alright, I must go to bed now.  Thanks for reading, I promise to update more frequently :) 

Week 12: Proud of Myself

• After taking a year off from running while pregnant, I completed my first 5k
• Ran for 25 mins and 2 miles without a walk break - this is huge because on the Couch 2 5k plan I got stuck on the week that I had to run 20 mins straight
• Not once during the race did I think - this sucks, why am I doing this, I hate running - I think this is my biggest accomplishment, cause I ALWAYS think those things while running
• This was my first 5k running solo - and I managed to keep myself motivated
• I finished in 38:22, which is right in line with what I was running 1-2 years ago (goal was to finish in under 40)
• I wanted to be down 25# by race day - I met that goal!
• Since the beginning of February (12.5 weeks) I have lost 25 pounds
• Since I had Macy in December I have lost 42 of the 51 pounds that I gained during pregnancy
• My pre-pregnancy clothes are slowly starting to fit me again, I am guessing that in about 1 more month they will all fit!!

Here's a very unflattering picture of me in January right before I started counting calories and exercising:

And a picture from April 21st - 12 weeks after the previous picture (look how big Macy has gotten!)

I still have a long way to go, but I'm very pleased with how far I have come in 12 weeks!  Hoping to be down a total of 50 pounds in about 13 more weeks!

Week 8

I have started blog posts the last 2 weeks, but never got them completed, so this will have to serve as a recap for the past two weeks.  Today is the start of week 8 and I am down 15 pounds, a total of 33 from my pregnancy weight!  Back in February I had made a goal to be down 20 pounds by my birthday, my birthday is 2 weeks away and I have 5 pounds left to lose... I can do it!!

I had some issues the beginning of March with horrible shin and calf pain, so I took a few days off from running to rest.  On the 7th I went to the Running Room to get fitted for new running shoes and I found out I need stability shoes.  It was amazing how much different walking around the store felt in these shoes compared to my old running shoes.  The following Friday morning I tried out my running shoes and quickly realized they were way too narrow and short for my feet!  My feet felt completely squished and my toes were hitting the front of the shoe as I tried to run, and again my shins and calves were killing me, so this wasn't exactly a successful trip to the gym.  Over the weekend I went back to the running room hoping to exchange for a size up and a wide width.  They had either a wide width in the same size, or a size up but not wide... so I opted to go for the size up.

I read a lot about shin splints and one thing I kept reading over and over was to slower your pace if you are new to running.  With the combination of my new shoes and a slower pace, I am happy to report that my shins have no longer been causing me pain. I slowed my walking pace to a 3.0 and my running pace to 5.0.  With these slower paces I have been able to run all my intervals of the C25K program without wanting to die.  Speaking of C25K, I have completed week 5, day 2.  Every time the running intervals get longer I think that I won't be able to do it, but every time I have completed every single interval without stopping!!  The real test will be tomorrow when I have to run 20 mins straight!  I know it's all in my mind, so if I think I can do it, I will be able to do it!

Joe went back to work last Monday, which means that Macy had her first day of daycare, and both girls are in daycare full-time now.  The reality of how broke we are is going to be setting in pretty quick.  Macy has just started crying, more like screaming bloody murder, when anyone other than Mom or Dad are holding her, so we were a little nervous about how she would do at daycare.  But she did great, didn't have too many crying episodes, and even smiled for them a bit!  Kara also had a great week at daycare last week.  She is normally full of meltdowns - meltdowns over anything and everything.  She had one rough day, other than that she did great - was even pretty great at home! 

Macy wiped out after her first day of daycare:

This week was a big week for Kara too, we went and looked at a preschool for her to start at next fall.  The preschool is through Beth's (our daycare provider) church.  Beth will transport the kids to and from preschool, so it's really our only option as most preschool schedules are not accommodating to working parent's schedules.  Kara was very excited, and loved the room she would be in. We have signed her up for a 4-day a week class that is a kindergarten readiness program.  It's hard to believe that she will be old enough for preschool this fall and kindergarten next fall!!

And a shot of Kara riding her bike, her favorite thing to do:

We have also been working on re-decorating our bedroom.  We have had the same red and grey walls, comforter, everything for about 7 years.  It was time for a change.  I really wanted to brighten up our room, and I think I accomplished it!

Here is a before shot:

Primer on the walls:

And a couple of after shots - the color we chose is called Extra Virgin Olive Oil - it's really hard to capture the color accurately in a photo:

And here is our amazing new bedding in our room:

We also bought a funky little Ikea chair to put in the corner to have a little reading nook.  I don't have any pics of that yet though.

That's all for now, I better post this before it never gets posted!  Hopefully I'll be back soon with an update on how I do with my 20 minute run!

Day 1.

Yesterday was day 1 of my life transformation.  I'm not calling it a diet, because it's not.  I want to make healthy changes to have a healthy life, but obviously the goal of this life transformation is to lose weight, feel better and be healthy.

I am still holding on to about 30 pounds of pregnancy weight.  I have lost this weight before, so it's kind of frustrating having to lose it again, but I know that if I don't make changes that this weight will never go away.  And I know that I have done this before so I can do it again!  It's also hard starting to workout again.  I quit exercising while I was pregnant, so I am pretty much starting all over with that too.  It's frustrating having to start from square one with things that I used to do on a daily basis, they are harder to do now both because I am out of shape and I am 30 pounds heavier than when I was doing them before.  But, I started somewhere before and made it to the level that I was at, so I know that I can do this and get back to where I was.

To make these changes I am back on the calorie counting train.  I lost about 80 pounds counting calories before, so I know this is an effective way to lose weight for me.  I have been messing around with the apps My Fitness Pal and Lose It to track my daily caloric intake.  I think I am leaning towards My Fitness Pal to be the one for me.  With My Fitness Pal it is so much easier to find foods in their library, I can easily find homemade foods, store bought foods and easily add my own creations.  With Lose It I have found it very difficult to find foods - I can't just type in 'peaches and cream oatmeal' and find it, everything is categorized funny.  It is easy to find things by using the barcode scanner, but you don't always have a barcode to scan, and My Fitness Pal also has this feature.   And the deal breaker... My Fitness Pal has beer in their food library, even Surly!  I know I shouldn't be drinking beer while I am trying to lose weight, but you better believe if I have calories left at the end of the day, I will be drinking them!  You can have 'friends' on My Fitness Pal, so if you're using it too, find me kristinlien04.

I also joined the gym again!  They had a deal to join for $14.99/month and if I go 8 times a month I will get reimbursed $20/month by my health insurance, so I'll be making $5/month.  Can't go wrong with that!  Yesterday was my first attempt at running on a treadmill.  It was slow, but it was a start!  When I first tried running 2 years ago I couldn't run for 60 seconds straight.  After nearly a year off of running I am pretty much back to where I started at.  I did manage to have a couple of 2 minute and 2.5 minute stretches, which I consider a success!  I did 3 miles in 45 minutes, extremely slow, I know... but I did it!  The treadmill that I was on was acting kinda funny, so it made it hard to run... every time I increased the speed the belt would slip. I have to make sure not to get that treadmill again!  I am using dailymile.com to log my miles, if you use it, be my friend!  My DailyMile profile

I will be doing my official weigh in every Monday.  But I am a freak and like to weight myself daily.  I know some people say not to do this, but it keeps me in check with where I am at, so I do it!

My first goal is to run the Get in Gear 5k on April 28th, and to be down about 20 pounds by then.  The run is 12 weeks away, so that should be plenty of time to drop 20 pounds and to get myself prepared to run.. wish me luck!

My overall goal is to fit into all of my pre-pregnancy clothes, and for them eventually to be too big for me!!

I know this will be a daily struggle, but I need to remind myself that it's worth it.  I am ready to enjoy clothes again, to feel confident, to enjoy exercising.  Every day is a struggle, but I feel so much better at the end of the day when I know I stuck with my plan!

This about sums it all up for me:

I also have a pinterest board for all these lovely motivational and inspirational quotes to keep me going.. feel free to follow it!  Post Pregnancy Body board

Life Is Full Of Tough Choices.

The last few times that Rural Alberta Advantage have come to Minnesota I have missed seeing them, due to tickets being sold out before I had a chance to buy them.  So back in December when it was announced that they would be playing a show on March 25th, I bought tickets immediately.  Here is where the tough choice comes in.. Later down the road it was also announced that Sims and Volcano Choir were also playing shows the same night.  I could be fine with not seeing Sims, since I just saw him a month ago and he is from MN, so he plays a lot of shows here.  But, I would not be ok with missing Volcano Choir, after all it was their very first US tour date EVER and they only had one other show scheduled.  So we had to decide if we wanted to skip out early of RAA to be able to catch Volcano Choir.  Then I had the thought that we could skip RAA and be able to catch Sims' full set and Volcano Choir, and the Sims and Volcano Choir shows were right down the road from one another, so it would be easier to get from point A to point B (see picture)

I went on craigslist and found an ad that someone was looking to purchase 2 tix to RAA for $70.  Face value of the tix was $12, but I paid quite a bit more than this since I purchased them through TicketMaster.  I sold my RAA tix and bought tix for Sims and Volcano Choir.  So Friday night we were off to the Triple Rock to see Sims... I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that he was playing 3rd that night, not 2nd like we had thought.  We did catch sets by Mally and Astronautalis though, which were both pretty cool.  Sims did do one song with Astronautalis though, which was pretty awesome!  I also got to see almost the entire Doomtree crew hanging out at the Triple Rock!  At about 11:00 we decided to ditch out of the Triple Rock to head over to The Cedar for Volcano Choir.

We had a good view of the stage at The Cedar.  Joe and I both really enjoyed the Volcano Choir set.  I am pretty sure I could watch Justin Vernon sing for hours and hours on end.  The people behind us were pretty hilarious - I think they thought they were there for a Bon Iver concert, which it was not.  They made quite a few comments that I was laughing at.... ah silly kids! A video from the show, not my video, or my view of the stage... just a video I found on youtube!



Anyway, it was awesome to be able to see Volcano Choir's first ever US show - that, we will never be able to do again, but we will be able to catch Sims and Rural Alberta Advantage again.

Next tough choice...... making a decision on whether I want to run a 10k on April 30th... well, the decision has just been made, I just registered for a 10k!!  Someone save me!!!  I hope I can survive.  I think it would be a wise decision to start my training immediately!  Anyone want to go for a run??

When you are two the tough choices you have to face are things such as:

• Deciding if mommy should be the big bad wolf, a monster, a dinosaur, a baby puppy or a ghost. 
• To eat your waffles with blueberries and whipped cream, or just eat the blueberries and whipped cream
• Should I watch Monster, Inc, Yo Gabba Gabba or Meet the Robinsons?

Oh the joys of being two, huh?  I wish life could stay that simple! 

One last note - my new favorite band is The Head and The Heart.  Check out this video of them and fall in love with them!



That's all for now!  Peace out.

Get Lucky 7K

February 10th, 2010 was the day that I registered for my very first 5k, which was due to some extreme pure pressure and lots of wine consumption.  When I registered for this race I had no running experience, and hated the idea of trying to run.  I tried to start out with the C25K program, but I wasn't very good at following it.  I remember going to the gym and trying to run, and I really had to push myself hard to run 60 seconds, like I had to push really, really hard.  I still have never completed the C25K program, but in the last year I have completed four 5ks and now a 7k.  I can now run over a mile straight, sometimes longer if I really push myself, my longest distance of running with no walk breaks is 2.5 miles... pretty good considering a year ago I could barely run for 60 seconds!

The race day plan was to drop Kara off at my mom's house around 8 and have Emily meet me at my mom's by 8:30.  I was wide awake around 6:45 in the morning, turned my alarm off on my phone and laid back down.... and then I woke up, looked at the clock and realized it was 8!  My mom lives 30 miles away from me, so yeah, I was running a little behind.  I got ready real quick, woke Kara up and we were off.  We ended up getting to my mom's around 8:50, luckily the race wasn't too far from her house.  Emily and I took off, made it to the parking ramp around 9:30 and then had a nice 15 minute walk to the starting line.

There were a ton of people at the race, but we somehow we managed to run into Carly, Kathy, and Kathy's brother and cousin - it always amazes me that we are able to find our friends in the swarms of people at the starting line!

Emily and I pre-race:

Me, Carly and Kathy pre-race:  I look like I just rolled out of bed... 

Emily, Carly and I kept together throughout the race, Kathy bolted off and she was gone (she is crazy fast!).  The air was cold, the temp was somewhere around 25-30.  We really had no expectations for this run, none of us had trained for this distance, and I had previously only run this distance once... which was 2 days prior to the race.  The last few months had been really difficult for me when it came to running, I had horrible shin splints in January, and had some really terrible runs in February - where I couldn't even run a quarter mile.  It's so easy to get discouraged when training for a run, but you are not able to run.

We ran the first 1.3 miles straight and then took a quick walk break.  They had flags posted for each kilometer, which was kind of nice, since a kilometer is less than a mile, so the flags came up quicker than if they had been mile markers.  We alternated running/walking throughout the rest of the race, but overall did more running than walking.  We hit the 5k mark right around 38 minutes, which is pretty average for us - I think it was about this point when we all got really hot, it's amazing how hot you can get when running in 25-30 degree weather.  The course covered some of the same ground that was covered when we ran the Torchlight 5k back in July, we were reminded of the brutal 90 degree, super humid, ridiculously hot day when we ran that race... I would choose to run in the cold winter over the hot summer heat any day!  

I was really worried that I would want to collapse at the 5k mark, I am always dragging my ass over the finish line at 5k's so I was really dreading the extra 1.25 miles we had to run.  Amazingly we just kept on running!  I was tracking our run using Runkeeper on my phone, it's really cool cause it will randomly tell you your distance, time and average pace - so I just listened for my little updates and we were pretty much pacing at 12 mins per mile, which is normal for us, and it was nice to hear that we were keeping on our pace and not falling behind.  At the 4 mile mark we knew we were getting close to the end, I was so ready to take a walk break, but I knew I could push through - so we kept on running.  It seemed like the finish line was nowhere ahead of us, we couldn't see it anywhere!  When it finally came into view Emily and I both booked it to the end!  Our official run time was 53:15, which I am very proud of!!  Here is our race results from Runkeeper.

Here is us with our medals post-race.  We Survived!!

A shot of my race number and medal:

And here is a shot of the hooded sweatshirt we got for running the race:

These are some typical comments we make while running:

• Why are we doing this?
• Whose idea was this?
• Why do people think running is fun?
• How do people really enjoy running?
• I hate people that make running look so effortless.
• Are we done yet!?

These are some typical comments we make after running (I think runner's high is to blame):

• OMG, that was awesome!
• We did so good!
• I am so proud of us!
• We totally kicked ass!
• Let's do another race

I think the next logical step in my future as a runner is to run a 10k (6.2 miles).  Get in Gear has a 10k coming up on April 30th, the Get in Gear 5k was my first ever 5k, how perfect of a running anniversary would that be to go from a 5k to a 10k in a year?  I still haven't signed up for Get in Gear... but I am considering running the 10k.  I think a 10k wouldn't be so intimidating if I could consistently have good runs, but it's hard to have consistently good runs when you only run a few times a month.  I am going to work on running more regularly, and  I will keep you posted on my training and my decision to run the 10k!