Just. Breathe.

This morning I did a virtual 5K. If you've read many posts, you know that I'm a fan of Katie over at Runs for Cookies.com - she lost about half her body weight, and has kept it off for three years or more. Along the way, she became a runner, and her story reminds me that I can do this.  Anyway, today is her birthday, and the second annual RfC Virtual 5K. Basically, you sign up on her site, say you want to run, print out a bib, and then run at some point. You can report your times, be entered in a drawing, and just have a little fun with it.  This is obviously an "after" picture. I set a 37-minute goal. It's been long enough since I've run the entire 3.1 mile distance that I wasn't sure I'd be able to do that -- my only 5K official time (from TWO years ago!) was 39:40ish. I've run 3.1 miles since then, but only used my Garmin to track time. I've never been below 38 minutes. I picked 37 minutes for this one, and knew I'd be happy if...

I'm not a big fan of resolutions - new year or otherwise - perhaps because of the pressure the word implies. Last January, however, I made one determination -- to get the weight off for the last time. Let's see how that turned out: I lost 35 pounds. That's a little more than half my goal. I've gone from a size 18/20 to a 12/14. I've lost 6" in my hips and 5" in my waist. My triglycerides dropped from 200 to 40, cholesterol from 220 to 194, HDL up from 25 to 60.  Other goals and accomplishments: I can run a 5K without stopping. My pace on a mile has dropped from around 13 minutes to under 12 minutes. My usual two+ mile runs take about 25 minutes. I've completely changed the way I (and the family) eat. I don't count calories or weigh portions, and I'm always satisfied when I finish a meal. I've experimented with countless new recipes, with only a few "let's not do this again" experiences. I've blogged most...

Today my 16-year-old daughter and I participated in the Make-a-Wish Foundation's Race for Wishes 5K in Irving, Texas. If you've been around the blog very long, you know that we did the C25K program last summer but never actually participated in a race. I've done walking 5Ks before, but this was the first year with running as the goal. We've been training pretty hard for the last 3 weeks or so. Earlier this week we ran 3 miles in our neighborhood, so we felt we had a pretty good shot at running the whole thing. Here were my goals: Run the entire thing Do it in under 40 minutes Don't get hurt Don't die This race had chip timers - I'd not had that before because I always signed up to walk. They're cool little straps you put on your shoe lace. That's how  individuals can still get specific times even in large crowds; you have a "gun time" - start of race - and "chip time," which registers when YOU actually cross the startin...

I tried an experiment. I've been stuck for a couple weeks, so I changed a few things last week to try to jump start weight loss again. I've also contended for the last few months that the day I weigh in matters, but I couldn't really prove it. I'm sure that scientifically it all evens out. But when discouragement sets in, the result can't be good. Yesterday (Monday, my usual weigh in day) I dutifully got on the scale in the morning. After being stuck for two weeks, I was down .4 pound. (There's a decimal point in front of that four.) That annoyed me a little. Just the day before, the scale had shown a much greater loss, so I decided to try something. Sundays are challenging -- I'm not home for a good portion of the day, getting my water in is difficult, and it is usually a rest day from working out. I try not to eat poorly, but if there's going to be a restaurant in my week, it's likely to be on Sunday afternoon. So my theory was that the numb...