move on and forget it

I've been feeling mopey and self-disgusted after falling off the posting wagon during Thanksgiving, and then falling off the exercise wagon too. And by falling off the wagon I mean not even going for a walk for a whole week. While simultaneously eating pie like a professional.  This I don't give a shit philosophy showed itself on the scale Monday morning, let me tell you. Nothing like a 4 pound gain to make you snap out of your wallow and give a shit. 

I just heard this great mantra about willpower today. When faced with a temptation (whether that's something you want to eat, or something you don't want to do, like go for a run) you have two options: you can give in and regret it, or move on and forget it.  The forgetting it is, admittedly, harder at some moments than others, but I'm going to add it to my other mantra: you don't drown my falling in the water, you drown by staying there.

I'm pulling myself up out of the water right now, trying to make good food and exercise choices. Little by little, piece by piece, I'm trying to move on and forget how I sidetracked myself over the holiday.  It's hard work.

seven days is all she wrote

Well, apparently I have about seven days worth of posts in me.  Yeah, I know.  To the bullets!

• Today went better than yesterday in the food department, but it still could have been better. I'm trying to reduce snacking, and I made it to 3:45 before I had one--a string cheese. But it was kind of a gateway to a handful of crackers, a cup of cocoa (it was cold in the office!).  There were a few graham crackers this evening, too.  But today was better. 
• Something in my right foot is hurting, and I'm stiff up and down my right side. Perhaps Mr. Bump's been kicking me in my sleep? Since walking isn't too fun, I didn't run tonight. 
• I made some vegan pumpkin cupcakes tonight for a wedding on Friday. They were not good. If Mr. Bump doesn't finish a baked good, then it isn't good. Back to the drawing board.
• The guy who won the ING New York City Marathon yesterday set a course record by two minutes, finishing in 2:05:05. His marathon time is 15 minutes less than my half marathon PR.  Crazy.
•  I just finished the latest Alan Bradley book in the Flavia de Luce series: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows. I love these books. Start with The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The protagonist is an 11 year old girl who loves chemistry (especially poisons), her bicycle Gladys, and solving murders. Set in 1950s Britain, the one I just finished is the 4th so far. I love them all, but the first one is the best.  Flavia is one of my all time favorite characters, I have to say.  Alan Bradley talks about her as willful and fully formed. If he tries to get her to do something she doesn't want to, she just gives him a look of withering scorn.
• I love my Kindle, really I do, but I often find if I'm reading a really excellent book, I don't realize how close I am to the end until I hit the next page button and there is no next page. Dismay is the word, I guess, that describes it.  This happened to me in New Orleans with Bossypants by Tina Fey. Such a bummer. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows was much the same way.  
• Finally, this Daylight Savings Time is kicking my butt. I'm just fine with that extra hour in the morning, but I start to drag around 9:30. 

On that bullet, I'll say goodnight, sir!  I'll try harder tomorrow for an actual topic.   

the reminder

It's Sunday night. And for me, every week begins on Monday morning. So I'm going to try again tomorrow, to do better, to be healthier, and to lose some weight.

There are many, many times when I need this reminder. And not just about running. About dieting. About taking risks. About life.  Tonight is one of them.

Suck it, negative self-talk.

confession time

I bet you're wondering how Operation Swimsuit is going. You're probably sitting there right now with your coffee in one hand and your leftover Halloween candy in the other, and pondering the vagaries of my most recent weight loss endeavor.

No?

up next down the pike

You probably aren't asking yourself any of these questions this morning, but I have, so I thought I'd share my answers.

Marathon again? I'm still chasing that sub 5 hour marathon. Honestly, I'm so keyed up about it right now I wish I could run one tomorrow to try again. I'm not sure that would be helpful or successful, but that's how I feel. I'm itching to go again.  But the reality is that I absolutely need to lose some weight if I want to get faster. The speedwork and tempo runs I tried to use to get faster injured me. And that's likely because I'm carrying 15-20 pounds more than I should. (Before you object to that number, please re-visit horror show photos  the race.) If 10 pounds can give me nine minutes off my marathon finish time, then I should try very hard to lose 10 pounds.  But next time I think I'll be doing a spring marathon again. Training in the winter has its flaws, but I think I'm better with cold weather running that hot. I just seem to fall apart in the heat. 

Sea level marathon? Most definitely. Of all the things that were a struggle, breathing wasn't among them. It was nice. It didn't give me a huge advantage time-wise, but it makes running feel so much easier. I went for a "shake out" run on Thursday before the marathon, and it was the best run I think I've ever had. Just 3 miles but I felt like I was floating rather than running. It was a beautiful thing.  Having said that, never underestimate the course profile. I knew there was a hill from mile 16-17, but until we drove the course on Saturday I failed to grasp the steepness of that hill.  It was on par with parts of the Leadville Heavy Half. It wasn't steepish. It was STEEP.  And it was the beginning of the end, because that's where I started walking. And once I start walking, it's walk/run from then on.

Larger marathon?  I absolutely loved all of the spectators and support for this race, and even all of the company along the way with other runners. I didn't chat a lot with other runners other than to bitch about the weather a couple of times, but it's nice just being out there with other people at your relative pace. It's a trade off because it was nearly impossible for David to figure out where to meet me, and apparently there was a long of cursing and u-turning the car to get to mile 19. Would I rather see lots of people with great signs yelling my name and ringing cowbells for complete strangers, or would I rather see my husband three or four times along the course?  Of course I would prefer both, but he can't be with me all the time. He goes by in a couple of seconds, whereas in a big race you are never really alone.  

What now? I always get the post-race-no-training-plan blues. This time, however, I'm implementing Operation Swimsuit in preparation for our trip to Belize. (Did I tell you that we're going to Belize in January? We're going to Belize in January.) What that means is that I need to be jiggling that thigh until it jiggles off. I've given myself this week to come down off the marathon, not exercising one single little bit. Then we're back to counting calories, and burning 400-600 calories per day in cardio for the next three months.  I'm also going to be doing a whole lot of lunges and squats, based on those race photos, I'll tell you that. I'm hoping to planning on losing 10 pounds by January 11th. That's 90 days, almost precisely.  Twelve-ish weeks. That's less than a pound a week. I can do this. The other goal of this is obviously to lose weight so that I can speed up, and hurt less.

I've run one race each month for the last 12 months. I was planning on racing once a month this year for a 12 in 12 thing, but I'm not sure if I'll do any more races this year.  Maybe a couple of 5Ks, but honestly I'm not even sure I want to do those. I love racing, but I'm tired of the interruption it adds to my training for a longer race. I've run six half-marathons this year. That's crazy. But also what's crazy is that my times haven't gotten significantly better. Which tells me that racing isn't the same as training, and I need to be working more on the latter.  It's hard, though. I get emails for races and I get the itch to register. It's difficult to resist, especially when a medal is involved.

The other thing I want to do is volunteer for a race or two. I always feel so grateful to the volunteers, but in the last year I've raced 12 different events, and 12 different times complete strangers supported me, cheered for me, congratulated me just because I had entered a race. They don't get paid for it, and the certainly don't get thanked adequately for it. It's a wonderful thing to do and I want to pay that forward. I also hear stories from Mr. Bump or other people who've come out to watch me race about seeing the whole race, rather than just the bit I'm in, and I would love to see that. It's hard to appreciate it as a great feat when you're in it--you're just slogging through. But I think it will be obvious from the sidelines.

I actually emailed the people who run the Winter Distance Series, which I ran last year. If you volunteer, they give you free entry into one of their races, so that's kind of awesome. I'm excited, even if it means standing out in the cold all morning on a Saturday in December, January, or February.

I'm thinking about some yoga classes, and maybe joining a running group. Just to mix things up. I've never been a social runner, or for that matter a exercise class person, but maybe both will help. Neither is like a blood oath, so I think I'll live even if I hate them. I'm kind of awkward in group settings, and my last attempt at a running group resulted in me taking off on my own at about mile 3, so yeah. Not so good at that. But I do like running with a friend, being able to chat and therefore ignore that self-defeating voice in my head and also whatever body part is cranky.

My main focus right now is dropping some weight, which began on Monday and let me tell you, I forgot how much this sucks. The first week is always the worst, and after that your body stops screaming "FEED ME WOMAN!" And the other part is that you sort of get consumed by it. You're constantly calculating when and what you can eat. That gets easier eventually, too after you've been at it a bit and your routine gets settled.  I have chosen the hardest three months of the year to attempt weight loss, but I've done it before, and I know I can do it again.

Blogging
I'm going to start chronicling all this a little closer here, for my benefit if no one else's. Dieting can be such a struggle and a slog, so I'm sure you'll be interested in it's minutiae.  See you soon.

What's the hardest part of the day when you're dieting?  Any tips/tricks?

The hardest part for me is the afternoon at work. I bring my breakfast and lunch most days, so the gremlins don't generally come out until 1:30, and then they start shouting "FEED ME WOMAN! I'm bored! I'm stuck in this chair. Reward, please. Gimme gimme gimme." Also going out to dinner can be a disaster. It's so easy to blow it without knowing it. But I try to look online and figure out what I can eat before we leave the house.

My tricks/tips are peppermint tea, gum, and evening exercise. If I exercise after dinner, I've got to take it easy or I'll vomit. Built in governor.

my story

So I started a "my story" page MONTHS ago, but I finally got around to getting all the pictures up. So if you haven't seen it, check it out here.  It's a fun ride through memory lane, complete with yarn hair ribbons, huge bangs and a whole lotta fat me pictures. 

Find out how I went from this cuteness...

To this happy but also unhealthy...

To this healthy, happy, and cute...

i don't think you're ready for this jelly

Some days (actually LOTS of days) I'm pretty hard on myself. I ran 18 miles today, but I'm still beating myself up about it because it was really hot by 9:30 and I walked way more than I should have. It's very easy to forget how far I've come, I think more so for me than anyone.

From our spring 2005 trip to New Zealand, recently unearthed from the archives by Mr. Bump

Mt. Bierstadt June 2011

It's important, every once in a while, to look back at the path and see how far you've come. Just as important as looking forward toward how far you have yet to go.

uh-oh

This may not be the end of the world, but it doesn't sound like the most ideal weather for running a half-marathon on mostly dirt roads.  With Janky HipTM.  I've also not run since last Thursday, which is kind of freaking me out.  I geared up for my long run on Sunday, but about a half-mile in, my knee was hurting with every step.  Given the upcoming race, I decided to bail on the long run for the week, and just ice and ibuprofen and hope for the best.  It seems to be better, but I'm afraid that I'll undo all that if I go for a run this week.  I can't decide if I should do one (or two) short easy runs, or just rest completely until Sunday.  Normally I'd cross-train, but cycling almost always makes my knees hurt anyway, so I'm scared to do that.  And I first noticed the pain on Friday on the elliptical, so I'm afraid to do that.  Swimming is it's own complicated thing (time, gear, schlepping to/from pool), and any other cross-training activity I can think of (rowing?) is pretty knee heavy.  I think I might try a slow/easy 3 mile run tomorrow, and hope for the best.  

My knee is only half the equation.  The Janky Hip (I should trademark that) has been really cranky too, but I think that is from inactivity. Double-edged, there, isn't it?  I go see the physical therapist on Friday, but I haven't been in two weeks, and I'm guessing that is also a part of the problem.  

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to hold off on any more races after the Horsetooth Half next month.  At least until after the Leadville Heavy Half.  The training for that monster needs to begin soon, so I really don't think it's wise to tax my poor body with other races in the meantime.  Plus it's expensive.  

But.  If I were to finish a third half marathon in the next 90 days, I could become a Half Fanatic.  Who cares, right?  But it would be cool.  I'm not sure exactly why, but I think that unless I'm feeling overwhelmingly better in the next couple of weeks, it's probably just too much, and not worth the toll on my body.

Speaking of toll on my body, I need to seriously think about losing some weight if I want to get faster.  "They" estimate that for every pound you lose, you can gain two seconds per mile in speed.  While that doesn't seem like a lot, every little bit counts.  Especially when your tendons and joints seem to be cranky.  My eating habits lately haven't been supporting this goal, so I've got to re-evaluate what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it.  I checked Run Less, Run Faster out of the library, and while it's a very structured training, I can see how it works.  The basic premise is 3 runs a week, 2 cross-training sessions.  The runs are track, tempo, and long runs.  The cross-training sessions should be non-impact, like cycling or swimming or rowing.  It looks challenging, but I generally do better with a structured plan, so I'm considering it.  I've never done a track workout before (running alternately fast and slow laps on an actual track), and it sounds deadly boring, but it's supposed to do the trick for getting faster.  Something about VO2 Max? Tempo runs are a faster, but sustainable run of a middle 93-6 mile) length.  This one's supposed to be about your lactate threshold, I think?  And the long run is, well, the long run.  This bad boy is for endurance.  It seems like a real serious training program.  But my main goal for another marathon would be sub 5 hours, and this would get me there.

In non-running related news, April is looking to be the busiest of months.  We're going to DC for a week, and once we get home our friends will be here. In that time span I've also got a half-marathon to run.  They leave and then we take off for New Orleans for Easter weekend.  I've got to decide if I want to enter the lottery for the Nike Women's Marathon (lottery closes on the 22nd), cross my fingers and see if managed to win the lottery for the New York City Marathon (lottery is on the 29th), and if neither pick another fall marathon.  Somewhere in there we've got to do our taxes.  Ruby needs to get her teeth cleaned. Oh yeah, and then there are those 40 hours a week we're busy working.  I love having things to do and places to go, but man. Go go go! 

it's easier not to

There comes a point where it's been so long since you blogged that you begin to wonder if you should even bother anymore. Like you just get out of the habit and after a while, it's a muscle that hurts to use. It takes effort, and energy, and it's easier not to. I can't believe I haven't blogged since December, but then again it's been a rough few months. Busy too. Roughy. Busough.  Whatever.  

So Italy happened. And about 3 wonderful weeks and 4 pounds later, we came home.  Two days later we hosted a party at our house. There may have been way too many wrappers from Halloween candy in the trash. This may or may not have resulted in Mr. Bump hiding the Halloween candy from me. Not because he didn't want me to eat any, but because he didn't want me to eat IT ALL.  Then when we recovered from that (but still not really recovered from having to come home from Italy--see Halloween candy consumption above), it was suddenly Thanksgiving. I ran a Turkey Trot 5K by myself in the freezing frigid Thanksgiving morning after having only run a few times since before Italy. I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, which is just about the suckiest day to have to work, I'd say. So sucky I promised my coworkers I'd make brownies as a salve. I needed some of that salve myself.

The very next weekend Mr. Bump and I flew out to San Diego to see some of our favorite people. It was wonderful and way too short, as always. And there was In-N-Out, as always.

Just as we got home from San Diego, I got sick. There's no better way to cap off a lovely long weekend than with a little mucus!

And before I could get well, my parents were in a car accident.  Yeah, that happened.

The car was totaled, and my dad was ok but Mom got pretty banged up. She broke her wrist, some ribs, and sprained an ankle.  I got the call from my brother as I was getting off the bus from work. I walked in the door, packed a bag, kissed Mr. Bump goodbye and drove to the hospital an hour north of Denver. I spent most of the following week doing my best to manage that situation, which was hard, and lonely, and scary.  Mom's ok, really. But there's something about seeing your parents injured, and frail. It's so world-rocking, earth-shatteringly scary. I'm at my best when there's something I can do, so I just kept moving.  Looking back on it now, I was moving away from dealing with how scary the whole thing was. As if I could dodge that thought by keeping busy. Cooking and freezing meals, cleaning, helping Mom shower and do her hair, making sure she had clothes she could easily pull on and off (broken ribs on one side, broken wrist on the other make it surprisingly hard to pull up your pants), trying to make my father feel a little less helpless.  I remember some chocolate peanut caramels so good that I may have eaten a whole container of them.  As I was inhaling them one after another, I knew I was binging. I knew I needed to step away. But I didn't. They were really good.

So that was December.  December was spent driving back and forth to my parents house an hour away, baking somewhere around 10 dozen cookies for my World Famous Cookie Plates, working a full time job, and oh yeah, that thing called Christmas. That happened too.  There may have been a total lack of even caring about what I was eating, coupled by the extravaganza of "once a year" treats that you have to eat because they won't be back for another 12 months, right?

January? What I remember about January at this point is that the jeans were too tight.  And a lot of panic about that. And that sweet cycle of diligent dieting and failure binging.  Swinging in and out of control like a trapeze artist.

This month I've been better. Less crazy. I'm trying to pull things back to center.  Just slowly, carefully circling the calorie consumption, trying not to startle it.  I see my willpower? self worth? diet-self?? is a quaking mess right now. Any sudden moves and it just goes nuts with the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Hearts (Now 1/2 price!). I don't know if this makes any sense, but it's how I feel.

All this is the consumption side of the equation, which is the real struggle right now. I can run and run. I can cycle and elliptical and yoga. But I can't seem to keep the eating under control. Or even under 2,000 calories. Some days I can't keep it under 3,000!   I'm feeling less panicked about my current weight (although the number hasn't really changed since we got back from Italy, one way or the other). Part of me really wants to be somewhere between 10-20 pounds lighter than I am right now. And part of me just says fuck it.  There are no easy losses at this point. I have to work really hard for every pound. In 2010 I was more focused running than on weight loss, and it's pretty rough to try and train for a marathon (and I trained for 1 and 1/2 trained for another!) and try to lose weight.

But like all weight loss, no matter what your goals or your circumstances are, it's just easier not to do it. Straight up, that's it.  It's easier not to. And the truth is, in 2010 I maintained a weight loss of 50 pounds in the previous year, and 100 pounds since 2004.  In 2010 I ran a marathon.  It would have been easier not to do that either.

I know I'm going to figure it out.  It's always going to be about going back to the formula that works for me, I know this. It's always going to be counting calories, recording exercise, being accountable. It's always just the question of when I'm going to get back on track. It's easier not to do it today.

Hence the cagey circling of my diet-self.  I'm trying to lull it into some sense of security before I jump it and hog tie it.

This post has gotten way too long, and it is barely funny. I'm going to try lighten things up around here.

I solemnly swear that my next post will be funny. Also it'll be All About Running...stay tuned!

let's recap, shall we?

So shall we discuss August?  That lovely month where all my goals went off track, slid down the mountainside, and came to rest in a heap in the river.  As you will recall readers, when we last saw our heroine, she was having some serious motivation problems. My perspective was all jacked up, too. I had a run in Leadville that I didn't finish. This was a first for me. It was only 12.5 miles instead of the 14 I was supposed to, and I cried my heart out over it. Seriously, me?  You ran 12 1/2 miles. At 10,000 feet. Why are you crying! 

Anyway, I don't know if it was heat or motivation, but I kept getting (at least what felt like) slower and slower.  So set the scene: this was my my state of mind at the end of July.

Enter August. Which started out with the removal of two of my wisdom teeth. (By the way, I don't recommend this, if for no other reason than the fact that I kept hearing, "Well, you know you're older, so your recovery is going to be harder. Gee, thanks for the reminder.)  This, I believe, was the Universe's way of deciding what was next for me.  Two weeks of painkillers, semi-soft food (Wendy's frosty, I heart you), and not being able to open my mouth more than the width of a finger. I did a short run about a week later, but what wasn't in the cards for me was running the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half-Marathon, as I had planned. As I had signed up for and paid my money for. This, again, was a first for me. A DNS (did not start). The shame! 

But, when you wake up the day before the race, and you're covered head to toe with a bright red rash, this is again the Universe intervening in your training. This was the day I ran a 4 mile test run anyway, but that was before I realized I was standing at the corner of Rash and Itch streets. And by the way, Universe? You don't have to shout.  I think I can hear you just fine now, thanks. We think it was a penicillin allergy, but that is something my doctor and I will have to make sure about at a later date.

So no half-marathon for me, which was probably a Life Lesson or something.  There will be other races. After all, they hold this race every year! Yada yada yada.  Somewhere after the half marathon no-go, I decided that maybe it was time to let go of the idea of another marathon this year. And rather than being tearful and mopey about it, it felt like a huge relief. Marathon training takes a lot of energy and time, and maybe two training cycles back to back was a mistake for me. Other people can do it with no problem, but not me. So sayeth the Universe, so sayeth I.

I started instead to watch what I ate, record it, calorie count--all that stuff, and also to do some cross-training.  I've gotten back on the bike (hurrah!) and the elliptical, and the treadmill.  I'm doing some pilates. Some strength training.  And wouldn't you know it?  My weight has started to drop again, somewhere to the tune of 5 pounds, although some of that is probably water. I've got about 4 pounds left to go before I'm officially (and forever, damnit!) a healthy weight, according to my BMI.  With a month to go before our trip to Italy, that is my new goal. A healthy weight before I go to the country that loves carbs almost as much as I do. But given the amount of walking I think we'll be doing, I'm not too worried.

I'm also I'm trying to fall back in love with running. We're flirting with each other, but I'm going to take it slow. This is a relationship I'd like to last.

And although September has begun with what is either a late summer or an early fall cold which made my Labor Day weekend an indoor-on-the-couch-with-a-book kind of holiday, I'm going to go ahead and give September the benefit of the doubt.  The weather has shifted, and the summer heat seems to have gone out of sun. Up at Bumpalot the leaves are starting to turn.

Fall is my time of year, and I'm back, baby!  Take that, Universe!

no day is a good day

that starts with a pile of dog vomit in your bed.  Blergh. Mr. Bump didn't love his dinner last night, so he set the remaining mushrooms and sauce on the floor for Ruby to finish off.  Apparently it didn't agree with her either, and she didn't want to bother us, so she just threw up in the bed between us.  On the comforter, and the sheets, which bled through to the mattress pad but thankfully not the mattress.  I'm not sure when she did it, but it was an unpleasant wake-up call.

But!  There have been good things happening, too.

Like this:

And by that I mean the diamond earring you can see in my left ear.  Yes!  I finally, FINALLY, got myself those earrings.  This isn't the best picture of them, but I do love them so.  They aren't huge, but they're big enough for me, and they're wearable, which I have been doing without a break since I got them.  It will probably mean that I'll have to clean them more often, but I don't care.  The point of them is to remind me of what I've accomplished and what that means to me.  And how important it is to keep working on it, every single day.

And with that in mind, I must admit that since the marathon, I've gained a couple of pounds.  Quite honestly three to four.  So the earrings also are a reminder to get back to basics, and so that's where I am.  With my food log, and my exercise, and all that hard work.  Mostly I think they are the result of eating like I'm running 25-30 miles a week, while actually not running any.  Whoopsie.

So I'm back to hitting the pavement, too.  I took three or so weeks off, and then one half-hearted week where I ran once.  But I'm back, baby!  And trying to figure out some new training goals, which is tough.  I feel really at sea without a goal, and without a goal I have been re-introduced to those three to four pounds.

I thought about a triathalon for a bit, but the lack of someplace to train and the amount of gear required were offputting to me.  I love to swim, I like to ride my bicycle (Queen reference!), and running is my bag. But trying to find a place to swim that isn't the teeny tiny rec center pool has been a challenge.  So for right now, I think that I'll let that go, although I am going to try and do more cross-training this summer.  We're on the cusp of the purchase of a new bike for me (so exciting!), and it's between this one and this one.  So I hope to use that a bit, too. 

I cringe to put this out there, but without accountability, I'm a backslider.  I think I'm going to try another marathon.  In the fall.  *Cringe*  I'm thinking about the Mountain Air Marathon, which is at some elevation, but is again downhill, and isn't a big marathon.  So there you go.  I said it.  So much for keeping it under my hat, Mr. Bump!  I'm competitive enough to really want to try and run it under 5 hours.  Anyway, what this means is I'm back on a training schedule.  Which is good for me--I do well with structure.  What I don't do so well with is heat, which we've been enjoying in our neck of the woods lately.  I ran last night at 8:30, then got up this morning and left the house to run in to work at 5:45.  Both runs were very sweaty, and it has been very hard to get control of my heart rate.  I only took a few weeks off, so I can't imagine that the difference is in my fitness.  The heat is killer.  I don't remember how I did it last year when I was training for the half.  I predict a lot of early mornings in my future.  Hopefully ones free of dog vomit.

i am a badass

Yes, yes I am!  Last night I ran five miles in the snow and wind.  Uphill.  All the way (almost).  Srsly, I am kick-ass.  And it wasn't just a little snow.  I had to wipe it off my eyes so I could see where I was going, and brush it off my jacket.  Like, multiple times.

We are expecting another 2-4 inches tomorrow, just in time for my scheduled 12 mile run.  I'm going to be running with a group.  I don't know how that'll go.We'll see.  If nothing else I can put my headphones on and just pretend I'm by myself.  The good thing is that the course is marked (at least, it will be under the snow) and they provide water and candy (!) along the way. 

Everything else with the running seems to be going ok.  I bought this thing called a foam roller, which basically looks like a 4 foot tall blue tampon (mine's 2 feet long and orange, but still an odd thing).  Here's a picture, courtesy of Dick's Sporting Goods' website:

Basically you but your body on it and apply the pressure of your body weight.  Then you roll back and forth on the floor.  I use it on my calves, my butt, my hamstrings, my IT band on my hip.  Usually after my run I do an exploratory roll to see what hurting, then spend some time concentrating on that area.  It's a hurt so good kind of thing.  I can feel myself tightening up if I don't use it.  It really makes a difference.  Highly recommend.

So I've got one more week (after this weekend) in the first phase of my training.  After that, I'll be headed into the land of Runs Longer than Ever Before.  Fourteen miles, twelve, sixteen, fourteen, eighteen, ten (so easy!), twenty.  This will be the hardest part of the training, I think.  Part of what makes it so hard is the increase in miles during the week as well.  Increasing from 6 miles to 8 on Tuesdays, and 6 or 7 miles on Thursday.  It's just a lot to get in after work. 

I have found my eating to be out of control lately.  I just can't stop myself from eating crap--mostly straight up sugar.  Maybe it's my body's way of trying to recoup it's glycogen, or my minds way of saying "Hey, you're doing all this exercise!  We need some reward!"  But whatever it is, my weight seems to be holding steady despite inhaling anything sweet I find that isn't fuzzed over with lint or gone stale.  But while I haven't gained weight, I do feel a little squidgier around the middle bit.  So I'm going to have to work on pulling back the reins.  It would also be nice to weigh a bit less by race time.  According to this article, you gain a 1% improvement for every 1% of weight you lose.  It makes sense, but given my inability to stop my fingers from finding the M&M bowl, it's a lofty goal at this point.

I promised myself I wasn't going to try and lose any weight while I was training for the marathon, but I would love to speed up a bit, and I've been reading all this stuff about fructose, how it converts to fat, and where that fat hangs out (guess where--squidgy middle!).  I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I'm trying to figure it out.  Any tips or thoughts are greatly appreciated.

I almost forgot one other thing.  I had a dream the other night that I was at the starting line, and I was loose, excited, ready to go.  The only thing that was stressing me out was worrying that I would run out of music during the marathon.  I'm planning/hoping to run it in about 5 hours 30 minutes.  That's a long playlist to put together.  So here's my call to all y'all.  What's your favorite up beat go-to workout/running music?  I'll post my playlist of 100 or so songs soon, and we can compare notes!

GOOOOOOOAAAAALLL!

***I started this post on Thursday, but one thing and another...

In a moment of ridiculous symmetry, I took down the calendar I use to record my weight every morning and flipped back to 12/31/08. One year ago today I weighed exactly 50 pounds more than I did this morning. It was a nice little coda on the year to have the numbers work out like that.

So that leads us to the oh-so-obvious question of what next?  The 2010 resolutions have been scattered all over my Google Reader, in between all of the 2009 year-end roundups.  I'm not sure I want to do either one, and generally I find it best to keep those kinds of goals under the radar.  Just best to keep your head down and work on them.  So for the moment, that's what I'm going to do.  But I'm just as likely to change my mind and blab about them tomorrow, so keep checking back. :)

the wheels on the horse go round and round

Sometimes it's hard to know what comes first.  It's that chicken vs. egg thing (which is just silly, really, because the answer is, of course, it depends).  But for me the question is did the poor eating cause me to have diminished energy, which made me feel like I didn't have enough energy to run or exercise in any way? Or does the lack of exercise reduce my energy, mess with my brain chemicals enough to make me feel crappy, which makes me want to eat?

At the end of the day it only really matters inasmuch as if I know what faltered first, maybe I can figure out how to get the wheels back on this horse.  And by wheels I mean exercise.  And by horse I mean my fat ass.  Look, I know that I've not really gained any weight, which is a good thing.  But I feel pretty squishy in the midsection, and I feel like I could see a backslide (slide, not side) from where I'm at right now.  I keep trying to recommit! and get back on track! and Do! Everything! Right!

Or maybe just one thing.  The problem is that I've just not been able to get any of those decisions off the ground.  And it's a vicious cycle (back to chicken vs. egg).  I don't exercise. I feel bad. I eat because I feel bad about myself and hopeless about my commitment. I feel bad. I don't have the energy to exercise because I feel bad and I've eaten poorly.  You can see how this isn't exactly productive.

I could easily blame all this on the trip to Africa.  If only I hadn't stopped exercising for three weeks, this never would have happened.  But I know that I was toast before I left.  I got so burned out on running while training for the half-marathon that I just wanted to finish. So badly.  I really got in the mindset that eventually I would be "done."  And so somewhere in my mind I think the moment I crossed the finish line my motivation stood up, shut the lights off, and locked the door.  And even before that, for months (maybe since March), my eating habits had been pretty much what I wanted, whenever I wanted it.  I was burning it all off with loads of exercise, so my consumption was justified, wasn't it?  And it did work.  I lost about 15-20 pounds from March until August.

But now that I find myself here, at a place that is emotionally and mentally similar to where I was a year ago, and I'm wondering what the hell kind of progress have I made in a year?  What has been the point of all this?  I truly believe in that last 15 pounds I have to lose.  They're real, I can point to them on my person, and I'm not having body dysmorphia about them.  But I also know that there is something really scary about losing all the weight, and being "done."  If I'm done, then what?  How do I deal with it?  How do I maintain "done"?  So maybe some of my self-sabotage stems from that.  Then again it may stem from just being worn out by weight loss.  Maybe I just need a maintenance break.

Which is all fine and good, but none of that means that I get to just stop running or working out.  And if I don't get to stop doing that, then I might as well just keep at it.  That's the bulk of the work anyway, isn't it?

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, which is very hard on me.  I need a goal, a purpose, something that I'm working toward.  I don't have that right now, and a physical goal is apparently very important to my successful weight loss.  So I can't sign up for the Nike Women's Marathon yet (they start the lottery in February, I think).  I need something closer to now to work toward.  It can be anything, I'm open to suggestion.  Just as long as it isn't the 30 Day Shred.  That crap starts to hurt my knees at about Day 13.

Help me!  I'd appreciate a plan, a suggestion, some advice.  I'm all at sea over this.  And the sea is filled with m&m sharks.  And they're circling.  Anyone?  Please?

no. 201

Hey how 'bout that?  Last night's poor me post was my 200th!  How appropriate that I would miss the opportunity to reflect on my last 200 blog entries because I was navel gazing at my own pity party.  But enough of that.

I went with a co-worker tonight to see Anthony Bourdain speak and do a Q&A at the Buell Theater. He was hilarious and had some nice comparisons to make between Sandra Lee and the Undead, but I'll leave you with the tidbit that's swimming around in my brain. Toward the end of the Q&A (and why do those things always have to have a creepy awkward stalkerish tone to them?) someone asked him for advice for their fifteen year-old.  He laughed and started to move on to the next question then turned around and said something like, "You want some advice?  If you say you're going to be somewhere at 8, show up at 5 minutes to 8.  You can either be the kind of person who says he's going to do something and does it, or you can be everyone else."

So I'm lying in bed, it's a half hour past my bedtime already, and I remember I haven't blogged yet today.  Eh, fuck it, I think.  It ain't going to happen.  But then comes that little gravely voice of Anthony Bourdain cursing like a sailor in my head and asking me what kind of person I am.  I said I was going to do NaBloPoMo, and I'm doing it.  So that's my bit of wisdom for today.  I'm trying to parlay that into some sort of sage dieting/weight loss wisdom, without actually having to go into detail or flesh any of that out this evening.  How am I doing?

Stick your bookmark right here. We'll come back to this tomorrow.

it's a new day, a new week, a new closet

The subject of this photo, both in the garbage bag and the pile, represents a much-needed purge of the coat closet.  I'm going to donate all of this to Coats for Colorado, and I've been meaning to get to this project for a while, but I finally got to it this afternoon.  In my defense, I will say that not a single one of these coats fit me now, and almost all of them did a year ago.  And most of them were fairly inexpensive models from the likes of Target.  But I have purchased a Very Expensive, Very Nice coat, which is winging its way from England. With my North Face coat system that made the cut from the above culling, I think my coat needs are satisfied.  It feels good to know I can buy a Very Nice coat and that it will fit me a year from now and beyond.  Y'all know I'm hoping planning on losing some more weight, but I plan for that junk to come out of my trunk, not through my shoulders.  I trust that the Very Nice coat will fit me, come hell or high water.

I also bagged up a bag full of clothes that no longer fit, and I probably have another bag or two to go.  It's hard to let go of things, for some reason.  Partly because it feels like a waste, that I haven't worn them enough (or in some cases at all).  Partly because it's a sort of security blanket.  I don't plan on ever having to wear that stuff again.  In fact, I plan on never having to wear it again.  But I still struggle with getting rid of things.  I've probably purged a good 12-15 big black garbage bags full of clothes.  Now I know that that's way too many clothes, and I should just have a small wardrobe of really nice pieces, and all that crap.  But I loathe laundry.  So having to wash my 8-10 items of clothing every week ain't gonna happen.  Plus, I have a varied closet personality.  Sometimes I'm neutrals, sometimes I'm hot pink.

I've been working on a system where I put the clean clothes in the front of the closet, and as things seem to stagnate at the back, I just purge them out every month or two.  But there are sometimes when it would be nice to have a line judge sitting in the corner of my bedroom.  When I pull out that favorite cardigan that just happens to be too big for me now, s/he could yell "Fault!"  An impartial observer of my closet would be a good thing.  Let me know if you know anyone looking for that kind of work.  Someone I wouldn't be creeped out by if they just sat in the corner of my bedroom every morning and armchair quarterbacked my daily morning ritual of pulling things out, trying them on, and tossing them on the reject pile on my bed.  Also if s/he could go ahead and hang all those rejects back up after I head to work, that would be great too.  The pay might be lousy, but the baked good benefits are outstanding.  Also, we have a surfeit of warm cuddly dog which would be available for use.

ANYway, I'm proud of myself for finally amassing Coat Mountain.  Now I just need to figure out some way to get all the coats to a Dependable Cleaners.  Hrm.  Mr. Bump suggested if I start with the smallest one first and work outward, maybe I could wear them in to work, and then peel them off at the cleaners across the street.  His genius knows now bounds.

I'll let you know when Very Expensive Very Nice coat arrives.  Until then I'm really glad the snow has stopped and it's supposed to be warm and clear this week.  Onward!  No looking back!  Goodbye Coat Mountain!

one step forward...

Obviously there are a couple of ways I can go here, given the fact that I've missed ANOTHER day of NaBloPoMo. I could just say screw it and give up on posting every day. I could not say anything about it, throw up another post or two today, and just pretend like it didn't happen.

This all feels very familiar, somehow. Me, making a commitment. Me, failing to actually meet that commitment. Re-committing. Failing to meet that re-commitment. Failing. Failing. Failing.

Sounds a little bit like trying to lose weight/get fit/get healthy/fill in the blank, doesn't it? Every day starts out well, full of promise and promises. I eat my breakfast (excellent start). I eat my lunch (still ok). The afternoon is where things can go wrong. A snack at work. A snack once I get home. Then maybe I'll go for a run, but just as likely I'll say I'm too tired. Then I'll have dinner, and eat more of it than I should. Then I'll STILL be hungry (really?) and maybe popcorn, or m&ms, or a cupcake. Because at that point the day is already shot to hell, so why not? At the end of the day I go to bed not only with Mr. Bump and Ruby the Wonder Poodle, but also with my failure.

Sleep is restorative, and (almost) every day I pull myself out of bed, get on the scale, and start over. Try to make sure I get a work out in the next day, eat a little better. It's up, and down, and over and over again. There have been weeks, and months even, where all the the days lined up with Right Eating and Right Exercise. What I don't understand is what is the difference? How did I want it more? How did I create--and maintain--that momentum?

I have no idea. But I know it comes and goes for me. I've just got to figure out a way to get my head back in it. Or find a way to just leave it alone, be ok with being 15 pounds overweight. (That's a whole other blog post, by the way. What do you when you're done with weight loss?)

Until I actually lose the weight or become ok with not losing any more weight, I'll be here, getting up every morning. Recommitting to being healthy and losing weight. And blogging about it. I don't know what else to do. What do you when you get stuck?

well well well

I just saw this article on the Well blog for at New York Times website. The Colorado Weigh program I mentioned the other day is run out of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, and I'm willing to bet they had some hand in this research.

And as you may remember, I was just talking about energy balance. The results of this study are in some ways really depressing. I'd heard that bit about revving up your metabolism after exercise, and I counted on that to counteract my post-run snack. Bummer.

Here is what I'm taking away from this article. To lose weight, you must reduce your calorie intake (this messes with my formula for eating x and exercising it off) and exercise, ideally at a moderate intensity. This means I've got to dust off that food log. And that while I'm going to need to keep up some runs to stay in good running form until I start training for my marathon, I'm going to try to work in some lower intensity exercise for longer periods of time. This goes well with the dark and the cold that seems to be all the rage outside.

Oh, have I not told you that I'm going to run a marathon? I'm totally doing one. But next year. Next October. Maybe. Probably. I think. Who knows?

Although really all this means is that I can't lose weight by eating whatever I want and exercising, but I can maintain my weight loss by exercising, while also enjoying whatever I want to eat (within reason, at least). This has held out in my personal experience. When I was training for the half marathon, I ate a lot. But I also was exercising at a high intensity for a long period of time, rather than a low intensity. This may explain why I didn't lose as much weight as I thought I should be. (The m&ms might have something to do with that too, but let's just move on, shall we?)

Calorie restriction + moderate intensity = fat burning and weight loss. Seems simple enough. But. But. Initially when I lost 40 in 4 months I was doing an hour of exercise at 85% of max heart rate. And adhering to a fairly strict calorie reduction. So I think the calorie reduction part might be the more significant part of that equation based on my personal experience. I think it would be interesting to experiment with it, but frankly I just want to do whatever will get this last 15 pounds off. I'm going to try do what has worked before. 1500 calories in! 500 calories out!
Chop chop!

Still, I just want to be able to eat what I want and then go for a long run. Science sucks. Sigh.

nablopomo, take 2

Ok, so I've wiped the slate and today is a new day, new month, new post. I'll admit that recent maudlin post smacked a bit of Poor Poor Pitiful Me Syndrome (or PPPMS), but I'm feeling much better now. I'm going back to the beginning, starting today. I've got a new battery in my pedometer, a food log filled out for today, and I've reset my goals. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, it might seem like a good idea to maintain for the next couple of months, but I'm not going to delay reaching goals based on what the calendar says. Thanksgiving is one day. Christmas is one day. It's easier not to spiral out of control for the whole season if you just do what you've got to do and damn the season. Damn the weather! Damn the darkness! Damn the torpedoes! Er, strike that last one.

I tend to go off in all directions when it comes to goals: this number on the scale, this BMI, this level of exercise, this frequency of exercise, this calorie consumption, elimination of this sweet treat, this processed food, this restaurant. But I'm going to erase most of that from my mental chalkboard (oh, you don't have a tabla rossa? I highly recommend. I picture taking a sleeve and smearing it across the chalkboard--true, it's messy, but it's vehement!). What I'm leaving on the list is a healthy BMI. This actually requires I meet a few of those other things (that healthy BMI doesn't just magically happen because I want it to), but it's best just to keep my head down and push forward on all of those.

Basically it boils down, as we all know, to two things: eat fewer calories, and burn more calories. One pound equals 3500 calories, so in order to lose a pound a week, you need to either cut out 500 calories a day, or burn 500 calories a day, or some combination thereof. Simple, right? Well, sort of. I'm going to let you in on the basics I have learned through the classes I took at Colorado Weigh, which is a fabulous program that I can't recommend enough. Every one of the 100 pounds I lost was a direct result of what I learned there. Unfortunately, they rarely offer classes to the public anymore, and if you're not in Denver these aren't available anyway.

First you need to figure out what your resting metabolic rate, or basal metabolic rate is. This is not exact (the best way to do that is water displacement, but that's kind of thing isn't available to most people, and this is close enough). Go figure it out, I'll wait.

Got it? I'm at 1515 calories per day (jeepers, that seems low!). Ok, so this is the amount of calories you burn if you were to slug it all day in bed, not moving. Basically what your body needs to perform it's vital functions. This number is important, because if you don't eat this, your body thinks "Hey, where's my energy! Uh-oh. I'd better slow things down--I've got to make what I get last!" Obviously this is counterproductive to weight loss. So if I were to just reduce my calories by 500 calories a day, I'd be at 1015 calories a day. This is waaaay too low. My body puts on the brakes (yours will too) if I go below 1200 calories. No one should consume fewer than 1200 calories. Got it?

I'm going to stick with consuming around 1500 calories. This means any energy that I burn, either through incidental exercise or during an actual workout, will be above and beyond what I'm consuming.

So here's where that pedometer (you know, the one you got in a happy meal--I mean healthy meal--one time) comes in. It factors all of the calories you burn through incidental exercise. How much you move during your day just walking around. This counts in that 500 calories I have to burn--woohoo! This is the part that experts talk about when they say park your car further away from the store, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. And yeah, it works in that way, but I'm afraid there's more to it than that. You need to calculate your steps per calorie, which is a chart that factors your height and weight and gives you a number of steps per calorie. Mine is 20 steps per calorie. This means I have to take 20 steps before I burn a single calorie. To put this in perspective, 100 pounds ago my steps per calorie were 12. The less you weigh, the more energy you have to expend to burn the same amount of calories. Bummer, I know.

Today I walked about 7,000 steps. For me, this calculates to 350 calories burned through just walking around. Then I went for a short run after I got home (yay me!), where I burned another 450 calories.

So, here is where the math comes in. My total energy expenditure for today is my RMR (1515), plus energy burned (800 calories) = 2315. In the snapshot of just today, in order to maintain my current weight I would have to consume 2300 calories. Less than this, I lose weight, more than this I gain it. So if I subtract 500 (the amount of calories I need to reduce my intake by in order to lose weight) from 2315, it gives me 1815. In theory, if I were to consume 1800 calories a day and burn 500 calories through physical activity or incidental exercise, I would lose a pound a week.

But it isn't always that simple, is it? First of all every time you lose weight (even five pounds or so) you need to re-do these calculations, because as you lose weight your steps per calorie changes. Secondly, fat is more difficult to burn than carbohydrates. There are 9 calories in a single gram of fat. In either a gram of carbohydrates or a gram of protien, there are only 4 calories per gram. So for my body to burn a single gram of fat (assuming my glycogen stores are depleted), I need to walk 20 x 9, or 180 steps. A single gram. That's like nothing. You can make the scale register a gram if you blow on it kind of hard. But even getting to the burning of that gram isn't easy. In training for my half-marathon I learned a lot about glycogen, which is your muscles' energy source. You have to deplete this energy store before your body will begin dipping into its fat stores. The fastest way to deplete it is through high intensity exercise. Also, the faster you go, the more you burn in less time. Can you see now how I might have gotten into running?

At some point after I did these calculations in class, I realized that I was going to have to walk about 22,000 steps a day (based on calculations) in order to reach my goal. This, needless to say, was daunting. There just aren't enough hours in the day to get that much walking in, particularly if you work an office job. But there was this great option--I could kick up the intensity, which would burn more calories faster. Lightbulb!

Essentially, all these calculations are a nice way to track your progress, and to adjust your goals as you move along. For me they were the mode by which I realized I had control over what I weighed. They were the tools that got me up off the couch and onto a treadmill at the YMCA. I always think of what Maya Angelou has said: "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." Even with weight loss, it applies. Now that I know exactly how to do the math, I know that weight loss (or gain) doesn't just happen by magic.

It might seem daunting to some to have to live within the confines of a particular goal, either in consuming fewer calories or burning more of them (or more often than not some of each). But knowing that the answer is in your grasp, and the ability to change how you feel and how you look is in your control--to me that cracks the world wide open with possibilities.

(Gah--I feel like I just vomited out the hideously deformed baby of a 12 step program leader and a motivational speaker that sells his own tapes on 2 am informercials. I didn't mean for this to turn out quite so earnest. I'm tired. I'll try for more sass tomorrow, ok?)

the fear

Confession time: I haven't really run or worked out in anyway (well, I ran 3 times two weeks ago). Part of me has really enjoyed the squishy laziness of not exercising or watching what I'm eating. Then there's the other part of me, which is freaking the f*ck out. I am prone to bouts of doing very well, making progress, losing weight, which are often followed by bouts of general laziness and apathy. I know this about myself. And yet...at the moment I'm having trouble getting back to who I've been for the last 11 months. I started the last leg of this journey in December of last year, and I've really done well in 2009. I can't remember the last time I stuck with a healthy eating and exercise plan for this long. And maybe there's a part of me that feels like I'm done. Maybe it's just that I'm too close to what I really want and this is a fit of self-sabotage. Maybe it's fall, maybe it's vacation, maybe it's burnout.

Whatever it is, I need to snap out of it. I've gained a couple of pounds over the last 5-6 weeks of sloth, which part of me doesn't want to look at or deal with, and part of me is jumping up and down and screaming. But that part is being muffled rather well by the rest of it.

So that's where the fear comes from. I'm afraid of myself. I'm afraid that I'm stumbling at the finish line and I don't want that. I'd like to just finish this already. Fully and completely reach this goal.

In order to do that, I'm going to have to go back to the beginning and double down. I'm pulling out all the stops and all the tools in my toolbox. Pedometer, food log, exercise schedule, and maybe if I can swing it, personal trainer. I'm a pretty independent exerciser--I don't like classes or groups. The reason I haven't made it to a yoga class is just because of the class aspect. I get embarrassed, I feel awkward and I have that feeling I had in 5th grade when we moved and transferred from public to Catholic school. I just want to do the work and go home. But I'm thinking that if I can work one on one with a trainer to get a sense of what I should be doing in order to be working toward my goals. I think I just need to hit the reset button. I'm hoping a trainer can help with all of that. I don't want to put it off on someone else to get me where I want to be (like that ever works anyway), but I just feel like I need some guidance. Have you ever used a personal trainer? Did it help?

I'm realizing a few things about having fallen out of my routine. I'm really tired all the time. I never have a second cup of coffee in the morning, but lately I have had a second to try and wake me up. I'm going to bed too late, dragging myself to work in the morning (one morning I almost missed my stop because I was dozing on the bus). I eat worse (and a heck of a lot more often) when I'm not running. And I feel bad about myself. Like I'm not doing what I know I need to. I feel like a hypocrite for all the "you shoulds" I've relayed to other people. I don't feel like an inspiration or even a good example at the moment.

Even knowing all this doesn't make me want to lace up my running shoes. The weather is crappy. I don't have a direction. It's about to get to that point in the year where it's dark when I get to work and dark when I leave it. I work best with a carrot out in front and a whip cracking at my heels. When I was training for the half-marathon I had to run or I wouldn't be able to run it.

So that's where my head is at the moment. November brings us back to NaBloPoMo, and while I didn't do it last year, I'm going to make it part of my routine this November. If I had it to the things I have to do, and I complain about the same things long enough, it'll give me a boost back up onto the wagon. You are welcome along for the ride.