So… I did it. “Ran” my 1st 5k. Seriously, for what little amount I actually ran, it shouldn’t even count! I bet I ran more on Week 1, Day 1 of C25K than I did yesterday!!!
My thoughts: I’m happy I did it because deciding to do it is what started me on this new path of running. I won’t do another like that. I will do more 5Ks in my future, ones that involve less people and less asthma attack inducing substances. In my pictures from yesterday you can see around my neck a half buff, I pulled it up over my nose and mouth whenever we went through the color areas or if I noticed a bunch of people throwing color near me… I’m sure it helped but I still had breathing issues after and ended up using my inhaler a lot yesterday afternoon and evening and then again first thing this morning.
I am not giving up though!!! My inability to run barely at all outside in the real world has really motivated me to get better at it. So I found a local 5K on March 23rd, 2014 to aim for, nothing fancy, not too huge, and not expensive. New Goal.
I’m going back to the beginning and restarting C25K with my incline set to 2.5 instead of the default 1.5 and I am going to run at 5mph. I had gotten my running segments up to 5 minutes at 4mph at 1.5 incline. I’m going to stick with the schedule I’d recently changed to of my runs being Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays with walking being Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Thursday is almost always an early day for work where I need to be there at 7:30 instead of 9 so that’s a good day for a resting day! Recently I’ve occasionally hit 5mph to see if I could do it and found that, yes, I could sustain it for about 30-45 seconds during a longer run at 4mph so I’m thinking that by going back to W1D1 and knowing I only have to sustain that speed for 60 seconds at a time I will be successful. I, and you, my couple of readers, shall find out!
Next up on today’s ramblings… REI is awesome! I wanted a Buff for yesterday because I thought it would be the easiest way to have something to pull up over my face (and it was.) I had found them online but had never seen one in person. I knew that REI carried them but also saw people that said they’d found them at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
So I stopped at Dick’s this past week on Wednesday on my way home from work. The person had no clue what I was talking about and said they didn’t carry them because he knew every item in the store and tried to direct me to headbands since I’d described that a one of the gazillion ways you could wear them. Thursday I went to pick up my race packet and stopped at the Dick’s near there. Basically a repeat of the day before. The woman listened to my description and said they didn’t carry anything like that. I said I had seen online that Dick’s carried them and she also claimed to know every item in the store and that if they had them they’d be in her department. Scream! I left. According to Buff’s website, the first Dick’s was correct, they do not carry them, however, the second one shows that they do. I know that doesn’t mean absolutely that they do but it makes me doubt Miss “we can’t possibly carry it elsewhere in the store because it isn’t in my department and I don’t know about it.”
Friday, after work, I stopped at REI. I admit I went in with a cranky chip on my shoulder! It has been emotionally rough at work recently and I was pretty sick of stopping at stores and not finding what I wanted. I walked around the first floor, nobody offered to help me and it reinforced my cranky mood. I went to the second floor, walked around getting crankier. Then, a salesperson asked to help. Not really expecting much at this point (yes, I was being a pessimistic bitch inside) I told her what I was looking for. I didn’t even have to expound on what a Buff was… she instantly started to tell me where they were, pointing downstairs. Then she asked if I was familiar with what the packaging and such looked like. When I said no she walked with me downstairs, took me right to the Buffs, then stood and chatted for a bit. During the course of it she talked to me about their membership, gave me a little paper slip to get me signed up if I wanted (but it wasn’t a hard sell since my internal pessimistic bitch would have screamed at that). It was a pleasant sales interaction which I really needed after my earlier experiences of the week. (Yes, I paid the $20 for a membership… had that been a annual fee I likely wouldn’t have but $20 as a lifetime fee? Absolutely.) Oh! And something I found out yesterday when surfing the web. The other REI in Pittsburgh (we have two) has a climbing wall! And as a member I can use it on the weekends for free! I can’t wait to try it sometime.
End result? REI gained a new customer and Dick’s lost one.
These are the buffs I ended up buying, a full one and a half. My hair is happy:
Okay, two more stories related to The Color Run, one of which also is related to my quest for a Buff… I arrived to pick up my packet including my shirt. The man asks “what size?” so I asked whether they were men’s or women’s sizes. He said they were unisex so I said medium. He then proceeded to do that eyes over body scan and said (in what seemed to me in my pessimistic bitch state to be a sneering tone) that they weren’t preshrunk.) So I got a large (which based on how it fit yesterday was the better choice but that wasn’t the point!) I headed out to their store (just in case they had a Buff that would mean I didn’t have to stop at the nearby Dick’s) feeling pretty deflated since I’ve worked really hard to shed weight and get more in shape this year! I mentioned my Buff quest to the people at the store booth and my stop the day before and my planned stop for right after leaving there since they didn’t have any but one man had the suggestion that “you might need to try a couple different Dick’s”. My dirty mind started to laugh and I told him “what a double entendre!” He realized what he said and I left laughing!
I am done shopping for quite some time now I think! I have nothing else super pending on my current “urgent want” list. I have clothes that fit, accessories for exercising, dye and conditioners for my hair, new glasses, and the most recent online order that refilled our households vitamins.
Prior to yesterday I wanted to get a white sports bra but that’s no longer on my list. I hang my sweaty sports bra up to dry as soon as I’m done running and then actually wash it about once a week so one is really all I need at the moment. For walking I can wear my daily bra or even one of those so called sports bras. I said once before that I could do a whole post on sports bras… it’s true! I can’t stress enough how important a good bra is for keeping me going.
During what I refer to as Week 0.5, I followed up my workouts with a whine session on the couch where I held my breasts and whined about how bad they hurt. I am not a small chested woman… Before losing weight I wore a 42D, currently I am a 36DD (really hoping that when my band size again decreases that the cup size goes down to a D or else I won’t be able to buy everyday bras at KMart and Walmart… anyhow, back to the current topic.) As a 36DD those cotton pullover sports bras just don’t cut it… there is no support happening there. So I did some Internet research and found a few options. I went to (where else) Dick’s and tried on various bras, jumping up and down in the fitting room. And I found an awesome bra from Under Armour, the Armour Bra. Expensive but worth it, fits great and no bounce! (The next one won’t be from Dick’s though… they’ve gone on my “the list.”)
“The list” is continually growing and changing in our house. It is an unwritten list of businesses that we are currently not patronizing for some reason. It can be various things that land a business on “the list” such as service, quality of product, pricing, and political views to name a few. It isn’t a permanent placement usually, political views being the exception… eventually I usually give places a second chance.
I should probably shut up now. I am at about 1500 words at the moment. Oh well, I am feeling chatty today so on to the subject of my weight.
I started the year at about 230. By the time my workplace’s biggest loser competition started on January 21st I was down to 225. I did the competition and placed 3rd among the females earning $100 at the end of April. I continued losing but then in August stalled and my weight started creeping back up. So at the beginning of August I hit 180 and this morning was 188. Time to rein in the bad habits again!!!
I am recommitting to focusing on the calories. With a longer term goal of 150 I can’t stop now. I also have a short term goal of 175. Initially I wasn’t going to do my new clothes shopping until 175 and then I just couldn’t wait any longer. I initially typed that I needed a new reward for 175 but honestly, looking at that graph above, having it go back down and touch that line will be its own reward.
Okay, I really am going to shut up now. Time to get off the couch.
