Virtual 5K

Happy Friday!

I have the day off to get some work done at home while the kiddos are off at school and daycare, a much needed day. 

I like to read the blog RunsforCookies, if you haven't read it before, I recommend checking it out if you like weight loss success stories.  Anyway, today is Katie's 31st birthday, so she decided to have a Virtual 5K (3.1 miles) to celebrate.  A race with no entry fee that I can run whenever I want to??  I'm in.

I had planned on running on the treadmill since it has been so ridiculously cold here, but when I woke up to 15 degrees, I decided to head outside.  I got bundled up and headed to a trail that I ran a lot on this summer but haven't run on in the winter.  It is a state trail, so I figured it would be groomed well, but I figured incorrectly.  It was quite snowy and icy, I almost turned around and headed back home to the treadmill but instead decided to give it a go.  I had a goal of finishing in under 37 minutes, but more so than that, I had a goal to keep running and not take any walk breaks.  With the icy conditions I didn't meet goal 1 (37:46 was my time), but I did meet goal 2 and ran the whole way.  It has been a really long time since I've actually done a 5K without any walk breaks outside, so I was happy about that. 

I quit on myself so many times when I know I have more in me because I just don't think I'm capable of pushing through it. So my goal today was to just keep going because I know I my body is able, my mind just doesn't always agree. It is such a struggle to overcome self doubt in the area of endurance and physical ability for me. For 31 years I've told myself I can't keep going because I'm too out of shape, too tired, too big....I'm done.

Pardon the extreme closeup and lack of makeup

I've been watching The Biggest Loser lately and I think I start crying at some point during every episode because I can completely relate to the feeling of failure and defeat that so many of the contestants deal with.  It is especially difficult for me to hear the three kids discuss their challenges with weight and bullying because I've so been there.  I can completely relate to Sunny and I want her to succeed so badly. 

I am really glad that they are addressing childhood obesity this season and I hope some kiddos are inspired to make healthy changes in their life, but I'm also a little bit concerned for how easy they made it seem for the kids to hop into normal kid activities and be welcomed with open arms.  It is always going to be a challenge for a chubby kid to fit into a team sport environment.  Despite always being overweight, I played volleyball, basketball and softball, but it wasn't without a whole lot of heartache.  Your confidence takes a huge beating when you are ALWAYS the last one finishing the mile run or killers....not to mention getting cut from the JV volleyball team mid-season because you aren't showing any potential (at least I wasn't alone in that one).  Getting active as an overweight kid is hard and often leads to more self defeat and I wish that they would acknowledge that and offer some ways for kids to overcome that. 

I also realized this week that I think I'm eating significantly fewer calories than I should be.  When I lost four pounds quickly during a week where I wasn't exercising, I started to wonder what in the world was going on.  As soon as I started exercising again, the scale went the wrong way and then stopped.  I looked at a couple of nutrition websites and the recommended rapid weight loss calorie goal for me is about 500 more net calories a day than I've been eating (2,000 vs 1,500).  So I'm going to test it out and see what happens. 

Well, I better get busy and make the most of the day!  Thanks for reading and enjoy the weekend!