32

It has been a very fun, very busy week.  As I sit here on Sunday afternoon after my long run for the week (4 miles), my house is quiet (a rare, treasured moment) as EVERYONE is getting in a much needed nap. 

Here is a quick recap:

Monday - I went for a run in the morning after dropping the kids off.  Tried to get caught up on stuff at home

Tuesday - James and I went out to celebrate my birthday.  We went to The Blue Door Pub, I had a Blucy (best burger ever....I haven't met another that comes anywhere near the caliber of this burger) and a Farm Girl Saison.  Burgers and beer are my preferred birthday meal, I'm low brow, and I'm ok with that.  Then we ventured over to Izzy's for an ice cream cone.  I had a scoop of Oreo with a Mint Izzy.  It was the first time we'd been to Izzy's.  It was ok, but I still prefer Sebastian Joe's (the Pavarotti is my favorite).  We had a nice evening out and got a little bit of a walk in.

Wednesday - My birthday!  I started the day bright and early with a nice run at 6:00am and then headed to work for non-stop meetings.  I headed home to have a quick dinner with the family and then off to Bible Study.

Thursday - I had a busy day at work and Rage had his last day of Occupational Therapy.  My mom came over because I was supposed to have a meeting that night that ended up getting cancelled, which was nice, because I needed a night at home.  I did 3 miles on the treadmill at about 10pm.  It was a "hard" run day but I was pretty exhausted.  I still tried to push myself even though I wasn't feeling that great.  I guess I pushed myself a little bit too hard at the end because I ended up puking as soon as I hopped off the treadmill.  

Friday - I went to the gym for weight training after I dropped the kiddos off and then came home and worked.  We went to a dinner party that evening with family.

Saturday - My mom came up mid morning and helped out with the kids.  I cleaned and organized our bathroom, which was much needed.  My mom folded some clothes and cleaned our kitchen floor.  She is always so much help!  She stayed and watched the kiddos so we could go to James' cousin's wedding.  It was really fun to have a night out with other grown ups and no kiddos.  The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time. 

Today - I volunteered bright and early at church this morning.  I spent about an hour with around 20 toddlers and got to teach them about God providing water for the Israelites by telling Moses to hit a rock.  Our God is a pretty awesome.  James met me at church so we could go to the next service and then we headed home for lunch and nap time.

As I entered a new year of my life this week, I thought about what 31 brought and what I hope to accomplish as a 32 year old.  Here are my big goals for the next year:

• Finish my 2nd half marathon in under 3:00. (Very realistic (I was soooo close last time), very attainable, but enough to keep me pushing through my training runs)
• Make it to "One-derland".  A 1 at the front of the scale would be the bee's knees but will require a lot of hard work since my body seems to be very comfortable where it is at right now.
• Go on a short-term mission trip to Haiti
• Offer more encouragement to my husband an my kids and focus more on the positives and less on the negatives
• Be the one to say "Good Morning" - This one God gave me on my run and I think it means more than saying "good morning", but I'm still figuring it out.  It has to do with me getting outside of my comfort zone in communicating face to face with other people.  I typically wait for someone to say something to me because I don't feel like anyone would want to have a conversation with me, but I'm going to start taking the first step more often.

I'll try to update on each of these frequently, but the house is suddenly not so peaceful anymore and I have a two year old who needs his mommy.

Have a great week!

Trust and Trial

Happy Friday!

I hope all you moms had a great Mother's Day last weekend.  I had a busy, but good day with my family and kiddos.

There was a lot of food and a lot of treats had and I was pretty much exhausted at the end of the day, but I had 4  miles on the schedule.  I headed downstairs around 9:00pm to hit the treadmill and as soon as I turned it on, I got the lube belt notification and it wouldn't work until I did that.  I almost threw in the towel multiple times while trying to get the belt loosened and tightened up again, but I stuck with it and finally got to running around 9:45pm.  Despite all the extra work of getting the treadmill up and running and the exhaustion, I knocked out my fastest mile (10:00...slow for some, fast for me) which was part of my fastest 5K (34:32).  I'm glad I stuck with it.

Monday I met with a Physical Therapist as part of the medical weight loss program I started through a physician.  It was really comforting because she told me I'm doing everything I should be doing and that the only thing she recommended was mixing things up a bit by taking a spin class or something like that.  She was pleased that I started weight training and thinks that if I keep doing that I should reach my goal. 

Tuesday night was gorgeous and I got in a good run outside and then headed to the gym for a quick lift.  I snapped a quick picture at the gym because I was pretty excited about fitting into an XL outfit off of the clearance rack.

Wednesday I had an appointment with the physician at the weight loss clinic to review my blood work from two week ago.  As she was reviewing my results, she closed out of my chart and went back in.  She said she had to double check and make sure she was in the right place in the right chart because she hasn't seen cholesterol levels that good in a really long time.  

 

 My cholesterol has dropped 46 points since 2007, which was when I was at my heaviest.  She did let me know that I have a Vitamin D deficiency, so I have a prescription supplement that I have to take twice a week.  It is 50,000 units, which is an insane amount, but I will hopefully only have to take it for 8 weeks and we're hoping that once we get those levels under control, I'll feel much better.  I have lost 7 pounds between my two appointments and she was generally excited to see progress because most of their patients don't show any during the first two weeks.  As of this morning, I'm down a total of 110 pounds!  I'm so excited that the scale is moving again! 

I did my long run today since the weekend doesn't really work anymore due to some schedule changes.  I woke up to the sound of raindrops and almost talked myself out of it, but I decided that I better get used to running in the rain in case it rains on the day of the race.  It didn't go quite as well as I wanted it to, but my standards are always really high, so I was still quite pleased at the end. 

I switched things up a bit and rather than listening to music, I decided to listen to some sermons since that always works well when I'm on the treadmill.  I listened to the first three sermons in the "God's Will is Whatever" series from Elevation Church.  If you ever struggle with questioning whether or not the decisions you make are God's will or not, I highly recommend listening to the messages in this series.  The overall message is that as long as you are walking in God's ways, you are in His will.

I stopped to take a picture of the North St. Paul snowman (he was taunting me, I swear ;-) ) and my phone freaked out and rebooted so my tracking is split in two with a little bit of a gap.  I manually put them together and this was the total outcome of my run this morning. 

That is a pretty decent calorie burn

The pace is about a minute slower than I am shooting for on the 2nd, but I feel prepared for my first half marathon.  I'm hoping that with all of the excitement of it being race day and with the pacer teams, I'll be able to finish right around 3:00.  It felt so good to finish knowing that I completed the entire distance that I set out for today.  14 miles was on the schedule, but after my long run last two weeks ago, I decided that I probably shouldn't increase from 11 miles to 14 miles and settled on 13.  I didn't run the entire thing, but I only took short walk breaks here and there after mile five.

I brought Jelly Belly Sport Beans and Gatorade with this time based on some recommendations from a couple of other runner friends and it made things so much better.  I will be sticking with that combo in the future!

As I was on the last mile and so close to home, I started thinking about how crazy it is that I was out on a 13 mile training run that started in the rain.  It was even more crazy that I finished it.  Just the simple fact that I set this goal shows amazing progress for me mentally and emotionally.  I spent so many years of my life being so paralyzed by fear of failure that I never even attempted things unless I was sure I would succeed.  I had no idea if I was going to be able to move this body for 13 miles, but I needed to try.  You will never know what you are capable of and what God is able to do if you don't trust in Him and give it a try.  Even if you fail, God will turn it around and use it for good, it is a win-win! 

I may have cried a few tears of joy as I ran the last tenth of a mile to my front door.  For the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself.

I switched to music during the last three miles and this song was on at the end of my run and it was so perfect

 

So, what is it that you are too afraid to do?  Take the leap of faith and get out there and do it!   

 

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Hello!

I haven't had much to write about lately so I am forcing myself to come up with something tonight.

I've been doing pretty well with my new 1,650 calorie/day plan as prescribed by a dietitian.  I've also been successful at planning my entire day of meals out in advance and bringing everything I need with me to work.  I'm doing ok with eating 1-2 servings of veggies each day, but not as well as I would like to be doing.  I have gotten at least one serving each day, so that is good, but I was hoping to get two. 

With the diligence in tracking and paying more attention to the mixture of foods, I have started to see progress on the scale, WOO HOO!  I am down to 246 lbs after MONTHS of being stuck in the 250-255 range.  That means 6 pounds to lose until I reach my first big goal of 240 pounds, the lowest weight I remember weighing in high school.

Most days sticking within my calorie limit is pretty easy, but some days I just want to gripe about the fact that I even have to pay attention to it.  I just want to be able to self regulate, hopefully some day I will get there.

So, even though I'm making progress on the scale, my endurance during runs has completely tanked.  I was supposed to do 12.5 miles on Sunday but I was on call for work (and had a ridiculously busy day) so I instead made a plan for Monday afternoon and had taken half the day off for it.  Well, that all changed when I ended up needing to take the littlest one to the dermatologist to determine the cause of a nasty rash that stumped a resident and two seasoned pediatricians. 

Exhibit A 

Turned out to be eczema and a skin infection which we have no idea how he got.  But he was pretty darn cute in the little gown they gave him to wear (it is backwards, but he put it on himself, I just tied it)

We finally got home around 2:30 or so and I got him down for a nap and tried to finish up some outstanding work issues left over from the weekend.  I headed out on my run around 3:30.  Within the first 5 minutes, my heart rate was way higher than it normally would be and even though I kept trying to slow my pace down, it was still way above my long run range (60-70% of Max).  At about mile 4 everything fell apart.  I had to stop and walk for a bit but was determined to walk for a short amount of time and then pick it back up again.  I did that and then lasted for about three minutes.  I think I only ran about 1 more mile spread out over the rest of the trek which I ended up cutting short to 11.20 miles. 

Here are my really, really, sad splits. 

That all ended up being a 15:15 mile/min pace, which is MUCH slower than my normal long runs....because it is a walking pace.  I know it is silly to get upset about this kind of thing, but it was really frustrating since the last long run I did, I ran for the entire thing.  Yes, it was on the treadmill last time, but I don't usually see THAT big of a difference between running on the treadmill and running outside.  It was quite a bit warmer on Monday than it has been in a very long time and we didn't really get anything in between upper 30's to the upper 70's that we had then, so I'm hoping my body just needs to adjust to the warmer weather.

I'm also thinking that part of the reason my heart rate was so high is because I took the advice of a very helpful employee at Dick's Sporting Goods and bought some GU.  I planned on just getting some to try mid run since I need to refuel because end up running for so long.  He talked me into trying some GU Roctane (caffeinated) pre-run and then some regular GU Energy Gel for every 45 minutes during the run.  I choked down the Roctane about 15 minutes before I left....it was nasty.  I felt like I was going to puke pretty much immediately.  He warned me that different flavors tend to sit better in some people's stomachs than others.  I guess that one didn't sit well in mine.  Around mile 5 I tried to take some of the Tri-Berry GU and I started gagging before I even got it up to my mouth.  I think I got about half it down before I said screw it and decided it wasn't happening today.

Lesson for the day: GU + Tammy = No bueno

I did learn another valuable lesson on Monday: the success of my runs is determined long before I even step foot out the door.  I was so stressed with work, Oskar and James tooth that I kind of didn't even want to run on Monday.  I just wanted to crawl into bed, but I went anyway with the thought that it was probably going to suck....and it did.  Every time I feel like it isn't going to go well, it doesn't.  Running is far more mental than physical for me and some days I just can't get my head in the right place.  I normally pray during most of my long runs and I couldn't even focus on that.  I don't really know where my head was.  I kind of felt a bit vacant and couldn't concentrate on anything other than my tired legs, dry mouth, pounding heart and lack of breath. 

I have one more long run before my first half marathon and I'm really praying that it goes much better so I can go into race day feeling confident.

Last night I did a 30 minute run on the treadmill at the gym and it felt pretty good.  I set the pace at a 12:00 min/mile and was able to run for most of it. 

So that about does it.  Not much else to report other than trying to keep on keeping on.  I'll leave you with a few pictures from the past couple days.

Mother's Day Gift for My Mom - A bathtub faucet that doesn't leak

At the gym last night, I was drenched but it is hard to tell in the picture

Lovely Mother's Day gift from my daughter (I've never tried to cook the entire country of Chile, but I do make a mean batch of chili)

Mr. Ragerpants and me killing some time at the mall before OT today

Stay the Same or Fight

The funk is over….I think

I've been feeling pretty good and making better choices with what goes into my mouth this week so I feel like things are looking up.

Our Easter was nice, I was hoping to get a nice family picture, but that never seems to happen.  I got two pictures of the youngest and the oldest. 

On Monday, I had decided to finally join LA Fitness because it is the most convenient and Fairview offers a corporate discount on membership and waives the enrollment fee.  I clicked the link from our website that is supposed to take you to the LA Fitness Corporate Membership page and kept getting an error.  I e-mailed the contact on the page and she said everything was working for her, so I called my mom, who also works for Fairview and it worked for her, so I decided that it was God's way of telling me he had other plans.

A couple hours later I hopped in the van to go pick up the kiddos and I got a call from our LA Fitness representative.  He had heard from the person I e-mailed that I was having trouble so he gave me a call to sign up.  So, I happily gave him my info and got myself all signed up.

Tuesday night I finally got the chance to actually go to the gym.  I went to the location that is closest to our house around 7pm and it was PACKED!  I was crying on the inside but decided to go ahead with it.  I'm still not very confident being around super athletic people and that is who was at the gym that night.  I got the run down on where everything was and then got my workout started.  I had a 30 minute run on the schedule for that evening so I scoured the place for an open treadmill and finally found one between two very thin, very fast, very fit ladies.  I typically start my runs at 5mph on my treadmill at home and do intervals between 5/5.5/6 over the 30 minutes.  I've been working really hard on trying to run consistently at 6mph, but I've still got a long way to go.  So I set the treadmill at the gym on 5 and was expecting to follow the same routine but I was exhausted after the first 5 minutes.  I'm not sure if the treadmill was faster than mine or if it was the heat or if it was self doubt….maybe it was a combination of all three.  I ended up walking quite a bit but made it through the 30 minutes and even got a tap on the shoulder from a familiar/friendly face.  After I got done on the treadmill I did leg weight machines for about half an hour.

I am very much looking forward to weight lifting and building some muscle.  I used to be able to lift so much more in high school and college than I can now, so I am hoping to regain some of that strength.  Thursday morning I went to a different LA Fitness location after I dropped the kiddos off and it was so much nicer and there were far less people, so I think I'm going to try and make that my routine.  I'm glad I have a job that allows me to make my own schedule most days.

Speaking of work, I am on-call from 7a Sunday to 7a Monday, since Sunday is normally my long run day, I needed to figure something else out for this week.  I took a look at the weather and decided my best option was probably running before work today and then making up some time on the weekend.  So I got ready before the kids woke up, dropped them off and then headed to one of the trails that I like to run on.  It was a little chilly but the sun was shining, so that was nice.  I had 9.5 miles on the schedule today and I wanted to focus on keeping a consistent pace, I was hoping to hold steady around 13:00min/mile.  Things started out well and I was staying consistent for the first 4 or 5 miles and then things quickly went downhill.  I forgot that part of the trail I was on is used as a cross-country ski trail during the winter and I hit a whole bunch of snow and ice about 4 miles in.  I tried to run on it for a while but then decided to bail on the trail and run on a gravel road that was close by.  The gravel was soft and it completely changed my stride and I quickly lost focus and started to slow down and eventually started walking.  I walked for almost a mile while I tried to re-gain focus and stop thinking about how tired my legs were.  It was a beautiful little farm neighborhood.  I saw a whole bunch of deer and tried to get a picture of them but they saw me and started running, there was also a nice little lake that I stopped to take a picture of.  

I kept waiting for my phone to tell me I had made it half way so I could turn around and head back and it seemed like it took forever.  The second half was brutal and I don't think I've ever wanted anything to be over so badly.  I definitely need to start bringing with something to re-fuel  mid run.  I was happy to make it back on clean pavement around mile 6.5 and kept waiting for my phone to tell me I had hit mile 7 and after I passed a mile marker that I knew would have put me there, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and realized that RunKeeper had crapped out on me and my run wasn't tracking anymore, I was disappointed, but just kept going.  Those last 2.5 miles were awful, I was so happy to see my van and be done!  My overall pace ended up being 14:00, so much slower than I was hoping for, but I am choosing to focus on the fact that I was deliberate in finding time to run/walk 9.5 miles. 

I had my heart rate monitor (thanks, mom!) with me for the first time, which was nice, because I had been concerned that I wasn't pushing myself hard enough on my long runs, but according to my heart rate, I'm right where I should be.  I was super relieved to have the HRM on because I was able to keep track of the length of my run even though run keeper stopped working and was able to edit the run to have a good idea of my average pace.

As usual, there were a couple of moments where God really seemed to show himself to me.  The first was right after I turned around, I was heading back around the lake mentioned above and the song "You Know Me" by Bethel Music came on.  That song always reminds me that God knows exactly where I am at all times and knows exactly what I'm going through, he knows everything about me.  So even on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, God was with me, giving me the encouragement I needed to continue.

The second was just as I was heading from the gravel road back onto the clean trail, it was from a new song that I added to my playlist last night.  The song is called "You Decide" by Fireflight and the part of the song that hit me hard was this

God is calling out to you again
Let Him pull you, let Him take you in
From the fear that swallows up for your life
Will you stay the same or will you fight?

You decide
(Who will you run to)
Wrong or right
(There is no reason)
For you to hide
Only love can change your life

Will you stay the same or will you fight?  I have decided to fight, and I fought for the entire 9.5 miles today.  Some days I don't feel like fighting, but I have not given up. 

Enduring

I've wanted to sit down and write a post many times over the past week but I just haven't had the time or emotional energy.  I had to work 12 hours on the 17th and then I worked a regular 40 hour work week following that.  I put in close to 50 hours last week and I didn't really recover over the weekend so I'm kind of at that really fun point where one little thing might set me over the edge.  Despite that, I'm here to update on a bunch of random thoughts and happenings.

After I worked that lovely 12 hour shift last Sunday, I met a friend for coffee.   We have known each other since I was 13, so almost 18 years.  About half of those years were spent not talking to each other due to  some not-so fun college drama caused by the very immature person I used to be.  There are very few people outside of my family that know the various versions of me that have existed in my 31 years of life, she is one of them.  I cut ties with pretty much everyone I knew in college because I didn't like the person I was then and I felt a lot of shame, guilt and embarrassment for a lot of the decisions made during a three year span of my life. 

However, God isn't done with either of us and wasn't satisfied with how our relationship ended and he has been working big time in both of our lives.  Through the wonders of social networking, we reconnected a few years ago and have started to rebuild our friendship.  It is providence, plain and simple that God has us both in the spot we are in at this point in time so that we can work together to achieve some similar goals in our lives and in our faith.  

It didn't hit me until I was home from our coffee date, in my bed, spending some end of the day time with God that I realized just how different I am now compared to the girl I was in or freshly out of college.  For once in my life, I actually felt like I was a new creation.  Like God's love, patience and mercy wasn't wasted on me, He has transformed me and I am new.  Without her acknowledging that I have changed, I don't know that I would have been able to realize this.  I'm excited to get to start growing our relationship again with Christ at the center of it, which is very different from before. 

Fast forward to last Saturday & Sunday. 

I went to church on Saturday night and the message was fantastic and it started out with a running story.  I had a long run on the schedule for Sunday of 8 miles, farther than I have ever run before, so I was excited to have a little extra motivation to keep me pushing ahead.  You can check out the message here.  

The message was called "Why I Keep Going" and it was the last in our "Am I Really a Christian?" series.  Pastor Jason Anderson outlined three ways to develop endurance:

1) Push through trouble 

2) Let God shape your beliefs, not culture 

3) Draw near to God and stay there

Pretty great stuff.  One of the passages that he focused on has stuck with me and I've read it a few times this week

Therefore, my beloved,  as you have always  obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,  for  it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for  his good pleasure.  Do all things  without grumbling or  questioning,  that you may be blameless and innocent,  children of God  without blemish  in the midst of  a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine  as lights in the world,  holding fast to  the word of life, so that in  the day of Christ  I may be proud that  I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Phil 2:12-16, ESV)

On Sunday, I started to mentally prepare for my run.  My mom came over to watch the kiddos during their nap so that I could head out on my run before James got home from work.  I headed out around 1:30 and ran on a trail that follows the Mississippi River, I was doing a 4 mile out and back trip.  The sky was overcast, it was in the low 30's and light flakes of snow were slowly falling.  In my book, it was a really crappy day for running, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.  I got my play list ready and started run keeper and I was off.  I tried really hard to focus on keeping my pace nice and slow so that I could run as long as possible before taking a walking break.  I decided that the only way I was going to make an 8 mile run was if God was with me, so I decided to take the opportunity to pray.  I prayed for the entire 8 miles, I made it about 6.5 miles before I had to take a quick walking break and walking was actually more difficult because I had formed a really nice rhythm, so I quickly went back to running.  I kept running until about mile 7 and then had to take another quick break and then I finished strong to the end.  My pace got slower with each mile, so I really want to focus on starting even slower to try and keep the pace more steady, but overall, I was happy with how the run went.

Here are the results.  I think I'll always be painfully slow, at least until I'm out of the obese/overweight category.  I run much better when I accept that.

I stopped to snap a picture quickly on my way back

The best part of the run was during mile 5 when I was headed back to the car, I was headed up a small hill and I hadn't taken a break yet and I was in complete awe of the endurance that God had given me.  The song Break Every Chain by Jesus Culture was on, the chorus of the song was on and the lyrics are

There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain

I could literally feel my body getting lighter as I powered up the hill and in my mind I just had this visual of throwing off chains and baggage and leaving them on the hill.  It was AMAZING!  It was such a reminder to me that God has helped me to get rid of the chains keeping me enslaved to food and self doubt.  He is giving me the strength to endure long runs and the difficult times in my faith.  God makes THE BEST running partner, hands down. 

Inevitably, after having a wonderful afternoon where I felt extremely connected to God, by the end of the day, I felt completely depleted and defeated.  Spiritual warfare is real friends, I strongly believe that. 

From Sunday evening through last night, I was extremely crabby, my eating was out of control and I started to have major doubts about signing up to run a half marathon.  I saw an article written by an elite athlete talking about how slow runners and people who walk are a disgrace to the sport of running and have no respect and have no place in races.  I was really irritated because they made it sound like people who aren't in the front of the pack don't train hard and don't take things seriously, which is far from true.  Then, yesterday during a quick stress-relief run before my small group, I was heckled by a passer by in a car.  It has been a while since that has happened and it crushed me. 

Last night I started to feel better after small group with my bestest ladies.  We are studying Romans and there are some really great discussion questions in the study we are doing (Romans: A Blackaby Bible Study Series). 

I did end up making an appointment with a doctor who specializes in weight loss because I'm done with being frustrated trying to figure out the right balance of nutrition on my own and there are way too many opinions out there.  I'm meeting with a doctor because I want a medical opinion, I don't want to be sold on any fad diets or products, I just want an honest assessment of where I am and where I am going.  I'm also hoping meeting with this specialist will help me set a reasonable long term goal.

Well, I suppose that about does it for updates.  If I don't get the chance to post again before Sunday, Happy Easter!!!  If you live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and want to go to a church but don't have anyone to go with, please e-mail me!  We'd love to have you join our family and I promise it won't be weird and no one will make you do anything you don't want to do.  I am 100% serious about this.     

Your Doubt vs My Faith

Half marathon training started yesterday with a 30 minute run, which is pretty typical for me, so it was no big deal.  Things don't really start to progress until next week with a 4 mile run.  I don't think I've run more than 3 miles since October and the most I have ever done is 7, so I'll definitely be moving out of my comfort zone with this.

I can tell that people think I'm crazy and doubt that I will be able to do this, but that just makes me more determined to prove them wrong.  I am determined to succeed with this, the only thing that would stop me is some kind of injury, so I'm praying that I stay healthy.

I did my run yesterday on the treadmill and when I am on the treadmill, I like to listen to sermons from other churches.  I especially like to listen to Craig Groeschel from Life Church.tv.

I was listening to the last sermon in their recent series, My Story: Living the story you want to tell and it was the perfect thing to be listening to.  It was all about "going" when it is more comfortable to "stay".  For me, signing up for the half marathon is very much a "go" because it would be so much more comfortable for me to stay running at comfortable distances and staying inside of my comfort zone.  I've never run 13.1 miles before, so I'm going to have to trust God completely to help me get there.  I feel very strongly that this is something that he wants me to do.  He didn't mean for us to be comfortable, he meant for us to be faithful.  Pushing myself out of my comfort zone increases my dependence on him, which is exactly where I should be.   

Craig had a lot of great quotes in the message, but my favorite was this one:

"You don't have faith to finish, you just need to have the faith to start."

I thought that was perfect for embarking on this training program. 

I know that I won't be able to accomplish this without being focused on why I am doing this.  I'm doing this to bring Him glory, so that others can see the transformational power of God.  He will change your life if you let him. 

Colossians 3:17 says, "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

2 Corinthians 5:17 says "Therefor, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

The Tammy I knew a year ago, who could barely run for 90 seconds, never would have attempted to run a half marathon, but God is working me, growing my dependence on Him and giving me a desire to be healthier person, both spiritually and physically.  If you want to do something that is God honoring but don't think you can, just have faith and know that God will get you there....it may not be on your timing, but he will be faithful.

What is God calling you to do?  Where does He want you to go?