Christy

I want to start out by thanking my awesome donors this week!

• Lindsay Merritt and Lanie Vickers – These ladies are sisters and our children go to school together. They are some of my best “local” friends, and I feel truly blessed to have them in my life!
• Lisa Lawrence aka Hawaii Lisa. We’ve been reading each other’s blogs for years now! She did a full marathon through TNT back in 2002, and has shared some of her wisdom with me! Thanks Lisa
• Evan Pritchard – my cousin (well technically 2nd cousin, but we’re the same age). Thanks Evan!
• Mrs. Kay – My son BJ’s kindergarten teacher. She has the patience of a saint and a heart of gold. Thank you!
• Marlena Washburn – my closest neighbor and best Leakey friend. I don’t think I could have made it out here without HER!
• My mom and stepdad – There are no words, as their title speaks for itself. Thanks so much for always supporting me!
• Hill Country Telephone Co-op

This was week 6 of training for the San Diego Rock N Roll 1/2 marathon through Team in Training! It was also the week the long run was 6 miles.

It’s late and I’m beat after the 6 miler today, so I’ll keep it short! It was an amazing week. My runs were great, and it was such a relief after the hard runs I had last week.

I started out the week on Tuesday with a 3.44 mile run. It wasn’t my best run, and I had some pain in my knee for most of it, but I realized it was because my shoe wasn’t lace tight enough. GAH! Thank goodness it wasn’t an injury!

Wednesday I hit the gym for some weight training. Per Coach Joe, we were supposed to max out on the weight and do 3-6 reps for 4 sets. I was nervous about not being able to move the next day, but I was pleasantly surprised when I wasn’t sore! I also did 1.5 miles on the treadmill as a warm up/warm down.

Friday I did a 3.5 mile tempo run and it was awesome. Best one yet, and that’s saying a lot since the tempo run is the hardest for me each week! Had a great average pace of 9:24!

Sunday (today) was my 6 mile run. First time I’ve ever run that far, but I was feeling confident. Had my friend Marlena along for part of it, and my mom and cousin walked while I ran. The first mile was hard, but I soon fell into a nice pace and the next 4 miles were great. The last mile was a struggle, but I pushed through it and made it 6.2 miles because I wanted to see what my time for a 10K would be! Did the 10K in 59:55, which felt AWESOME!

Throughout my training, my pace is averaging around 9:40 per minute, and I’m hoping to have a race day pace of 10 minutes per mile!

• Miles run since I started running on 10/03/09: 140
• Miles this week: 14.7
• Miles since I started training on 01/31/10: 71.2
• Miles to go until San Diego: 202

This week was so hard. Physically, mentally, emotionally. So many times I wanted to give up, give in, QUIT.

I didn’t though.

On Monday, I got a little crazy and decided to Shred with the Sisterhood. As in Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. Yeah, um NO. Not a good idea. I had my first 5 mile run the day before, and clearly I shouldn’t have done something so intense the very next day. I pretty much couldn’t walk for 2 days after that.

Tuesday, I rested. Obviously. When I say rested, I mean that I tried not to move at all because when I moved, everything hurt. Even my toes. For me, Shredding and training for a 1/2 marathon do not mix. Then end.

On Wednesday, I hit the gym. I decided to hit the treadmill for my 3.5 mile tempo run in lieu of weight training, because HELLO, my arms still felt like they were going to fall off my body. The tempo run felt good.

Thursday was supposed to be an easy 30 minute run, but the wind had a different plan. It was without a doubt the hardest run ever. I was pushing Mia in the jogging stroller, and there were times when I was sure I was moving backwards instead of forwards. I had to stop and walk so many times because I felt like I couldn’t go on. In the end, I pushed myself and finished 2.91 miles.

Looking at these shots from my run (which I could take because I had to stop and walk so much), you would never know how hard it was. I was constantly lagging behind, and Molly would stop and look back to make sure I was still coming.

Friday I rested in preparation for my 2nd 5 mile run on Saturday. I really enjoyed my rest days this week. So much.

Saturday was my long run day. It was misty and overcast, but thankfully not windy. I decided to take a new route, and run 2.5 miles away from my house and then turn around and come back. This new route was full of big hills. Mean hills. Hard hills. Hills that I’ve been afraid of running, which is why I’ve never gone this route. For some reason, I just felt like pushing through the fear and seeing if I could really do it. I needed to do it, I needed to feel victorious one damn day this week. And I did. It was the most amazing run ever. I took each of those hills on with all the strength I could muster, and you know what? They weren’t nearly as hard as I thought they would be. Those hills didn’t own me, I owned them. I owned that run. All 5 miles. When I got to the end of the run, I truly felt like I could keep going forever, and I really wanted to. I had to make myself stop running!

I’m so glad that this week ended on such a wonderful note. It gives me hope for the weeks to come. Hope that I can do this. That I’ll be able to run all the miles and make it to San Diego with all of my Sisters (and our lone man on the team). Now if I could just finish that fundraising.

• Miles run since I started running on 10/03/09: 121.27
• Miles this week: 11.5
• Miles since I started training on 01/31/10: 56.5
• Miles to go until San Diego: 217.5

Team Shrinking Jeans has made huge strides the past week with our fundraising! We are at $14,649.55, 27% of our $54,700 goal! WOOHOOO!!

Week 4 of training for the San Diego 1/2 Marathon through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training Program is DONE! What an amazing week it was!

First thing first! Thanks to all of my fabulous donors this week!

• My husband, Brian, donated $250. That blew my socks off. Yeah, those knee socks that he loves to hate. Thanks babe, I love you, and happy anniversary tomorrow!
• Steve Lenard donated $100. Steve is my insurance agent, and has been for 15 years. Gotta love that he responded to my email pleas with such a generous donation.
• A & D Lewis donated $75. Thanks so much. MWAH!
• Carolyn Critz donated $50. Carolyn was not only my favorite co-worker, but one of my best friends at work before I became a SAHM. She and I had an amazing connection through difficult circumstances, and she inspired me as she lost over 150 pounds and went on to train and ride in the MS150. Thank you so much, Carolyn.

This week Coach Joe stepped up our training with longer timed and tempo runs. Our long run over the weekend went from 4 miles to 5 miles, and 5 miles is the furthest I’ve ever run.

I started out the week on Monday at the gym doing a 1 miler on the treadmill, weight training for an hour, and then another mile on the treadmill. Going to the gym is getting easier, and I’m finding lots of friendly faces there. It’s not nearly as bad as I feared it would be, and I wasn’t nearly as sore this week.

Tuesday was a rest day, and on Wednesday I took the prescribed 30 minute run which equaled 3 miles. On Thursday I rested again, and on Friday I had a 3.5 mile tempo run. The tempo run is always tough, but this week I was fortunate enough to have someone sit with Mia while I ran, without the added resistance of the jogging stroller made the run feel easier.

Sunday was my long run of 5 miles. The weather was beautiful, but I do think that the Ides of March blew in a day (or week) early. If it was any indication of how March will be, it’s definitely coming in like a lion. Hopefully it will go out like a lamb sooner rather than later!

This week my kids also came to the realization that headbands are really cool. Watching  TV and doing homework is some strenuous stuff, or at least it looks like it in these shots!

As each week passes and I sit down to reflect, I become more and more impressed with my abilities. I honestly never thought I’d be able to run 1 mile, muchless 5 miles, and here I am. As I look forward, it still amazes me that one day very soon I’ll be running 13.1 miles with so many amazing women and one man, as Team Shrinking Jeans. I cannot wait to get to San Diego!

This week’s schedule is identical to last weeks, so I don’t anticipate any problems. We have a conference call scheduled to discuss injuries and how to avoid them, so I’m looking forward to that. And I’ll continue to refresh my email obsessively checking for more donation notification emails!

Donate if you can! I promise to think of you every time my feet pound the pavement, and it will make a difference in the life of someone fighting blood cancer.

• Miles run since I started running on 10/03/09: 109.77
• Miles run since I started training for TNT on 01/31/10: 45
• Miles run this week: 14
• Miles I’ll be running in the next 12 training weeks:  229

It’s weigh in Wednesday, and despite my many infractions over the past week, I’m thrilled to report a loss today! When I stepped on the scale this morning, I was completely shocked to see a brand new low for me! Seriously, I haven’t seen that number in at least 14 years. Wow!

Last week: 138.2
This week:  137.2
Loss: 1 POUND!!!!

When we started the Sisterhood back in November of ‘08, I weighed in at 157, so that puts me at a 20 pound loss since then! I’ll proudly be sporting that 20# button on my sidebar now! Thankyouverymuch.

What worked for me this week? My best guess is that training for the 1/2 marathon has kicked my metabolism up a notch or two, so even though I indulged more than once this week, I still registered a loss. Another thing that’s been brought to my attention several times is that my indulgences are not what they used to be. When I go off my plan and splurge, I still make somewhat healthy choices and I don’t gorge myself (usually). This is a victory for me, because I FINALLY feel like the lifestyle change is sticking! I’m not dieting anymore, I’m living a healthier life, and that’s what this whole journey is all about.

Last Friday we were *ahem* supposed to post our Rethink Your Shrink wrap-ups. I think that’s what I’m doing now!

I am Rethinking My Shrink every single day. I make choices, sometimes bad, but mostly good, and each and every one of those choices impacts me physically and mentally. Since I’m not really into negative impacts, I truly strive to make good choices all the time, but when I don’t, I own it and move on. This is my life. This is not a diet, or a quick fix, or just something I’m doing to get to my goal weight. This is ME. Forever and ever. Amen.

I have week 1 of my Virtual Team in Training under my belt! WOOT!

Miles run: 8.01

We started out with our team conference call on the 30th, where we heard from Coach Joe, Julie (from the LLS), and Shannon (our fundraising mentor). It was an awesome call! I was actually shopping at Walmart with my daughter when I took the call, and there were several times I had to pull my cart over so I could laugh, and I even shed a few tears. I wanted to shout out about how excited I was to be part of something so amazing, but I think people already thought I was a little nuts.

On Sunday (1/31), I began my training with my first official run of 3 miles. Lisa was here visiting, so we took turns watching the kids so we could run alone. That 1st run, without a doubt, was my best run ever. Not just from a physical standpoint, but from a mental standpoint as well. All I could think about was how amazing this journey would be. I thought about Allie, I though about my Paw Paw, who was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia 2 years ago. I thought about everyone diagnosed with blood cancers, and cancer in general, who have to fight and endure chemotherapy, radiation, and the terrible side effects that come with treatment. I thought about Team Shrinking Jeans, all 18 of us, and what we’re doing. It’s HUGE. I thought about all the amazing support we’re receiving from the Sisterhood, and before I knew it, my 3 miles were done, and I wanted to keep running so I could think some more.

Although the weather was bad this past week, with lots of rain, and some flooding, amazingly enough, the sun was shining on the days of my runs. Perfect. The tempo run was the hardest, because you alternate between running at an easy pace, with running all out for 2 minutes at a time. You have to run at a pace you can maintain for the full 2 minutes, and that day I was running with the jogging stroller and Mia, so it was a little tricky, but I did it and felt a huge sense of accomplishment afterwards. I was also very sweaty and gross!

This week I will continue to follow my training schedule, and will even stop by the gym in Kerrville (which is 70 miles away!) to look into buying a pass so I can visit once a week for some weight training. I also plan to finish up my fundraising letter and get it in the mail, because in addition to training, I have to raise $2900 and as a team, we will be raising $51,800 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

New iTunes downloads this week:

• Save the Last Dance – Michael Buble
• Empire State of Mind – Jay Z with Alicia Keys
• Lean on Me – Bill Withers

Songs that gave me what I needed this week:

• Lose Yourself – Eminem <–have you ever listened to the words? It’s a really, really powerful song and the beat keeps my feet moving.

With my travel last week, I didn’t have an opportunity to write my post out for the 1st Monday Project. Well, maybe I did and I was just avoiding it…

What about 2009 (and beyond) did not work? What were my goals? Did I fall short of achieving them? If so, why? What were my biggest obstacles? What were my patterns? What was my “rock bottom” moment? What are my bad habits? Sit down and think about each question and answer them as fully and completely as you can in your mind. Target your patterns and obstacles that have impeded your efforts in the past, the potential hazards for this time around. Is it sweets at work? No support from your family? No motivation to work out because it’s too early or too late? Eating at night? Emotional eating? Negative self-talk? Are you stuck? No time?

Last year was the first full year of the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. I started out the year with a gigantic gain of over 6 pounds due to terrible eating over the holidays. It was a huge slap in the face for me. Throughout the course of 2009, my weight went down, but I had so many weeks with gains. I know that tracking my points using Weight Watchers online worked for me, because the weeks I tracked diligently, I had loses.

In April of 2009, the Sisterhood starting Shredding using Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred DVD. It was the first time I had added consistent exercise into my routine, and it was also the point when my Points tracking went by the wayside. I think I got a little arrogant, and figured that working out was more than enough, and while I still tried to eat healthfully, I wasn’t keeping track. Huge FAIL.

Looking back, it’s so obvious to me now that I needed BOTH. I needed consistent exercise and I needed to track everything that went into my pie hole. Without BOTH, I was basically struggling for very small losses, maintaining, and even gaining small amounts each week. That struggle gave me a poor attitude and kept me from finally reaching my goal.

On a positive note, I did dip into the 130 briefly in 2009, and my overall loss for the year was 18 pounds. Really not shabby, but as I said before, there were lots of weeks when I gained, and if I’d been in the right frame of mind, I probably wouldn’t have had as many of those weeks.

Then, take a look at 2009 and beyond and think about what did work. Because you don’t want to fix what ain’t broke. If something worked for you, if you felt progress somewhere, found successes, (because along the journey there are a million tiny victories, many of them non-scale related!), what were those? All of your victories are a very big deal! Give yourself a high five, out loud, to everyone!

In 2009, I incorporate physical activity into my routine, and that WORKED. I had more energy, felt great, and started to feel muscles in places that were just soft before. I loved the way working out made me feel, and the compliments I received from people only fueled the fire. I had a HUGE ah-ha moment when I realized that losing all the weight was great, but not being toned and fit when I reached that point would leave me short of my goal. So I exercised. I shredded, jumped on the EA SPORTS Active train with Personal Trainer, More Workouts, and the 5K challenge.

Looking back, I also realize I really woke up and started thinking about what I was putting in my body. I realized that processed foods were just bad, and I really cracked down on my intake of fruits and vegetables. I also started focusing on my water intake, and noticed a huge improvement in the way I felt as a fully hydrated person.

The part three of this project is to work out those bugs from 2009. For anything that didn’t work, think about your proposed solutions to the issues.

As far as solutions go, since I know working out worked for me in 2009, I am fully committed to continuing down that path. With the Sisterhood 1/2 marathon training about to kick off, I’m totally psyched about where my body will take me in 2010. I also plan to keep up with my strength training so my body will be in top condition for training and running.

I know where I need the most work, and that’s in the food intake accountability area. I NEED to track my points. I need to know what’s going into my body. I need to make sure I’m staying within my Points allowance if I want to see the scale move down. I also realize I need to tweak what I’m eating in order to fuel my body for the physical activities I’m taking part in.

This year will be the year it all comes together for me. I will reach my goal weight through tracking Points on Weight Watchers online, decide whether my goal weight is the right place for me, will train and run the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll 1/2 marathon as part of Team Shrinking Jeans, and will do it all consistently. No more arrogance. No more slacking. No more excuses.

The end.

p.s. Thank you Christie. Thank you so much for putting together this awesome new feature for the Sisterhood. Thank you for posing the tough questions and making me really, really think about my journey. You rock, and I love you.