Blah

(According to my computer's memory, I've used this title "Blah" twice before. I need to think more creatively when I'm blue!)

Had an awful, awful 5K on Sunday - the worst in memory. My calves were so tight I had to walk most of the first mile. It was frustrating, though, because I felt like I had the energy to run, just not the legs to take me there. I actually thought about taking off my timing chip and leaving the race course, but the paranoid part of me thought that if I registered going across the start mat but not the finish mat, the race organizers would think I dropped dead and would call out the Guard to look for me. So I plodded away with a big ole frown on my face. I even took off my Uncle Sam hat during the walk portions.

(On a positive note, Greg finished first in his age group and ninth overall: I was very jealous, er, proud!)

I felt sick Sunday night into Monday and had to skip dinner and my Monday long run.

Today's "run" was pathetic and was more of a walk.

Tomorrow is speedwork day, and we'll see what happens. I need to stretch my legs and roll my calves today and really focus on them. I had plans to go to boxing class after my run this morning but my energy is sapped. Could be the 95-degree temps. I'm afraid if I go to class, they'll all look at me like I'm a weakling. I think I'll skip the run before Thursday's class and perhaps do some cardio after.

I didn't eat awful over the weekend, but I did overeat a bunch of crap last night. Don't know what it is about the end of the weekend that makes me binge. Perhaps I know that a strict diet week is approaching. Who knows.

Back on track today. That's all I can focus on.

Plugging along

I must say, I am loving this MyFitnessPal.com site. It makes me think about every little thing I eat and every opportunity to exercise. Anything to show positive numbers. The other day, I wanted to eat some pretzels (100 calorie pack) but I only had 68 calories left for the day. So I got up from my desk and did 312 steps to burn some calories first.

My easy run yesterday still was stuck around a 14-minute-mile. Tomorrow is a Fourth of July 5K, so we'll see what I'm truly capable of. I hope to do a 5K every month or so to see if my times improve. On Monday, Greg and I may go running in First Landing, where my hope is to put in miles but perhaps by simply walking them. We'll see how my calves feel. They've been rather tight lately.

I'm a bit worried going into this weekend. There are too many opportunities to eat. I was proud of myself yesterday, as I sat at my desk, gripping my computer mouse with white knuckles as huge slices of what smelled like heavenly cake were delivered past me. Folks lined up to get theirs, yet still slices remained when I walked past them to go to the printer. I thought about how much MyFitnessPal.com would calculate "one bite of cake" but then I just rushed back to my desk, sans cake.

Let's hope the rest of the weekend proves just as successful.

Guess you have to start somewhere...

So to make this post positive, I can only say today's "speed" workout will hopefully be the one I can look back on and say, "Look how much I improved!"

4 miles
57.15 minutes
14.17-minute-miles

Only able to "speed" for 1.5 minutes at a time.

But I got out there, thanks to a friend's invite to the "My Fitness Pal" website, where I entered my "calories consumed" and desperately wanted to enter "calories burned."

(A special, special thanks to all of you who have written to me and sent such kind, caring words. Your support means so much.)

Quitter or Realist?

As I approached Mile 3.5 on my Sunday long run, I made a monumental decision:

I am not going to train for a marathon this year.

I didn't make this decision because I was tired at Mile 3.5. It was simply made during a moment of clarity.

I was thinking about how slow I've gotten as the weight has piled on. How I plan for 15-minute-miles on my long runs. How I want to be faster. How I had managed to gain weight last fall, despite running 16, 18, 20 miles on my long runs.

And I asked myself: Do I want to run a marathon, even if it means I ran a marathon-while-fat? Is my goal truly to run a marathon, or is it to be healthy?

There's also this nagging part of me that wonders if I've been sabotaging my weight-loss effort because I DON'T want to run (train for) a marathon. My heart doesn't believe that. But my head does. Perhaps I never wanted to get to 175 pounds because then the marathon plan would be written in stone.

I don't know.

On my return 3.5 miles on Sunday (I only did 7 total), I took my earphones out and walked back. I listened to the birds and the trees and my heartbeat. And I made plans for a new goal: I'll train for a 10K, with the goal of setting a PR. This will mean harder workouts, but not necessarily the longer workouts that accompanied marathon training.

You may wonder why I don't just take the marathon plan down a peg and train for another half marathon. My heart has, indeed, been heavy wondering when I'd run one again. It's been more than a year, almost a year and a half, the longest I've gone. And part of me wonders if I'll lose that part of me.

But when I do train for longer races, I sacrifice speed. I don't do speed training for fear of injuring myself and not being able to run long. It's only when I bump up my activity level and speed train that I see results in my body. Two summers ago, that was what I worked on. I had a little list at the bottom of my training calendar where I wrote "best times" and tried to beat them. I haven't done that in ages. it's time I refocus on that.

I would like to reiterate something from a long-ago post: I don't want to run a marathon simply to mark it off on a life's to-do list. I want to be a marathon runner. I want to be that girl in the cute running skirt with toned legs and arms who runs long because it makes her feel good and alive and because she can. This marathon goal of mine isn't going anywhere. It's just being postponed (again) while I try to focus on something smaller, yet bigger: How to get healthy again.

I call myself the Fat Runner, and while I'm not ashamed to be that (hell, I'm RUNNING), I don't want to remain that girl because I haven't tried harder to NOT be that girl.

So what is this 10K PR I speak of? Well, I've run countless 10Ks, but I've never gotten below the time I reached in my very first 10K (when, yes, I was my thinnest). It was the Oak Island Lighthouse 10K, and I ran it in 1:11:30, which was an 11:30-minute-mile. I've gotten close to beating it. Two summers ago, when I trained for speed, I managed to get a 1:12:30 in the Marine Corps 10K. I felt awesome in that race and would have achieved a PR had I not run out of steam in the last mile.

I've been as slow as 1:23.

My last 10K, last month, was 1:19.

So I have a ways to go.

As I was walking back on Sunday, trying to be all Zen about the decision I made, I couldn't help but wonder about how people would view it. Would they think I'm a quitter? Would they think, "Of course she's not going to do it. I never thought she would"? Would they be disappointed I'm not even trying again?

Am I disappointed?

Maybe.

Am I a quitter?

Maybe.

But am I at peace with my decision?

Yes.

And, right now, that's what matters most. I can't run a 10K looking back.

Soul searching

Sometimes I feel like I'm living two lives.

I'm the girl who lost a lot of weight, who strives to be a runner and wear cute clothes. I'm the girl who loves to go out on long runs, get sweaty and grimy and muddy. I feel pride when I take hourlong spin classes, boxing classes. I read books and magazines on how to eat healthfully. I love being outside and feeling the sun on my skin.

But I'm also the girl who grew up fat and unhealthy, who became an obese and then morbidly obese adult, who succumbs to her depression by stuffing her face and avoiding the world. I'm the girl who will lose a few pounds, only to gain them back, sometimes in the same month, sometimes in the same week. I self-sabotage. I try to diet, but as I'm dieting, I think about how it won't last. How I'll always be fat. So I load up on fatty foods at the grocery store, avoiding eye contact with the cashier, with the world.

It's disturbing, living this dual life. Who knows which Diana I will wake up to. My personalities are extreme and I never have a little of each. I'm one or the other. In a big way.

This past weekend, I fell into a depression. My mind was swimming with all those things I try not to think about: Where is my life going? Will I ever have a family? Am I doomed to live a solitary life? Have I hit the peak in my career? With each question, I ate. And ate.

The scale zoomed up, of course. And I fell deeper inward.

They say awareness is the first step; acknowledge that you have a problem and then you can start correcting it. Oh, I'm aware. And oh, I've acknowledged. And yet here I am. At a loss for where to go now.

Of course I prefer runner Diana, healthy Diana, fit Diana. Of course I hate being trapped inside obese Diana, depressed Diana, lonely Diana. So it seems like a simple solution: Just be what you want to be. Do what makes you happy.

Unfortunately, the battle isn't always in my control. But I know, deep down, I have the weapons to fight. And fight I will.

Great race

Don't have much time to write (off to do a little more running before the temps skyrocket this morning) but I wanted to update you on the past few days.

First, my Friday weigh-in: 207.2, so I lost about a pound and a half. I was pleased.

Second, my Saturday 8K. I was extremely worried as I started running those first few steps. My legs felt exhausted. I could only think about my leg workouts at the gym and how they probably just wiped my little stumps out. But I was determined to plow through. (Oh, and I only had four hours of sleep, too.)

Turned out, all went just fine. It was blazing hot in the sun, but those moments in the shade - sometimes a whole stretch of a city block - were glorious and I always picked up speed at those points. After running the first mile, I did a run/walk. Then, during the last mile, as I thought about trying to just get through a quarter mile at a time, an odd, odd, odd burst of energy hit me and I was able to run almost the whole mile.

Yes, I was still insanely slow (1007th out of 1156) but it was a great run on a pretty day and I was pleased as punch.

Toot toot

(That's me tooting my own horn.)

I could be down on myself - why not? I weigh too much and have a serious eating problem. But I'm going to pat myself on the back today. I just got back from my boxing class, which followed a three-mile run/walk. And despite my exhaustion and feeling crappy after the run (I'm beginning to doubt I can ever run straight again), I not only attended the class and not only finished the class, but I kept up with the class. I boxed and kicked and squatted and lunged and stepped and (kinda) pushed up and crunched. I did it despite feeling like I was going to vomit. And when, after a hard set, I took off my hand wraps and the trainer looked at me and asked if I'd had enough, I said, "Oh, I'm not leaving."

And I didn't.

It sucked. And I felt very foolish, especially doing the frog leaps, with my big thighs flapping together for all to hear. But I never stopped. And I'll give myself credit for that.

Blah

God, I hate looking at myself in the gym mirror.

That was a tough one

Yesterday's 8-miler was tough, but I blame myself for every single step. I got up at 7 a.m. but decided to fall back asleep. Got up again at 10. Didn't leave my apartment until 10:45. Didn't get out to First Landing until 11:30 (oh, right, BEACH traffic; who'd a thunk on a summer Sunday at 11:30?).

It was HOT, and worse, HUMID and I had only myself to blame.

But I did it. It was hell. The first half was just fine, but the second half seemed to last hours and hours. I'm still having flashbacks of the internal struggle of getting through each quarter mile. The humidity was so bad it was hard to breathe.

Luckily during that last mile, I had an angel sneak up on me. A man who was running came to a stop behind me and said, "I could use the company." He, too, was soaked in sweat. He was finishing up 14 miles and, like me, was savoring the last drops in his water bottle. He only stayed a moment and then was off, but it was enough to get me moving.

Otherwise, the weekend has been OK. I did have an unfortunate run-in with a box of Reduced Fat Cheez-Its. I knew when I bought it I was going to regret it. But part of me was like, "Oh, I can portion these out into little bags." Yeah, right. Oh well. Could have been worse.

I meet for my consultation with my trainer in a half hour, then will spend the rest of the day (hopefully) making progress with this proofreading job. I got a lot done yesterday, but not nearly enough, what with my insanely late start.

One week down

I always think it's funny how pathetically out of shape some of my muscles are - and how I'm shown this the day after an intense workout. The pain started hours after yesterday's boxing class, but today....well, today I could barely roll over in bed to answer the phone. Every movement is accompanied by an "oomf."

But it's the good kind of sore, and while my schedule says to run today, I will not be doing so. I'm going to catch up on my proofreading job and clean and have lunch with a friend. And try to stretch a little in between.

The scale today: 208.8. So, technically 11.2 pounds lost since last week, but we know that it's not real. The first week for me, always, and especially after pigging out, will show a much bigger loss. Also, the morning I registered 220 was after a night eating Chinese food, which will just pack on the water weight.

But, yes, I'm happy to have made it a week. I worry a little about the weekend. But I'll have this book to keep me occupied, I hope.