What a busy half of year!

Well, what a busy 6 months it has been! I have lost 38 pounds and one size…isn’t that ridiculous…only ONE size! That is a bit frustrating but I’m making huge strides in my fitness. Since starting my new life on September 18, 2013, I have run 258 miles, swam countless laps and biked 70 miles. I know, who would have thought 6 months ago that I would be running more than biking? But that will change soon as spring is around the corner and I’ll be out on my new bike in no time.  

Goals Accomplished

I have lots of goals. When I started this thing I didn’t really know what goals I had other than lose weight, start running and finish a triathlon. And my weight loss goals were reasonable. I didn’t say anything crazy like “I want to lose 100 pounds in 6 months” or something like that. My initial goal for 6 months was 26 pounds, one pound a week. Well I pretty much crushed that at 38 pounds lost. Secondly, I wanted to get in better shape and be able to run a 5K and triathlon.  Triathlon is yet to happen, planning on July but I’ve done multiple 5Ks in the coldest of days and my times are getting faster…on that note…

Call me “Roadrunner”

My running pace has improved immensely. My pace on the very first run in September (which, by the way, was less than a mile), was 16:25 per mile. It was really a walk. Now I run 3-4 miles regularly (3-4 times a week) and my pace has dropped to 12:30 per mile. I ran a mile in 11:39 on Saturday and didn't die and even continued to run over 3 more miles with an overall pace of 12:26 per mile. I never imagined that would happen. My first 5K in Omaha in November was 43:15. My 5K time this past Saturday was around 37:30.  That is almost 6 minutes faster!  Yesterday I did a little over 2 miles and my pace was 12:16 per mile. That is such a huge improvement, just in the last few weeks. I have huge goals. I want to get my 5K time down under 35 minutes (I'm proud to be a slow fat runner), I want to participate in the Minneapolis Marathon Relay (running anywhere form 5-8 miles, depending on which leg of the relay I do), I want to run a 10K race and complete my own triathlon. As you can see, I have a lot wants…I mean goals!

60#  

I know I have lofty goals but so far I’m crushing my past goals so I’m going to keep them. Firstly, I want to get out of the damn “obese” category on the BMI chart. Can you believe I have to lose another 32 pounds just to be over weight?  ARGH! I know that is not a good goal, wanting to be “overweight,” but it is progress! I would like to eventually be in the “normal” weight category but that requires at least 60 more pounds. Now I have mention this to friends, family and coworkers and their general consensus is I’m crazy and that if I lose 60 pounds I’d look like the girl who won this year’s biggest loser.  But these are the standards that have been put out there by doctors and they wouldn’t lead us astray would they? I know percentage of muscle, bone structure blah, blah, blah…all plays a part too. And I highly doubt I can actually lose 60 more pounds but I’m sure the heck going to try.

70.3

The next goal is another crazy one, well half crazy. And I know, I haven’t even completed one triathlon and I have never biked 56 miles in one day or ran more than 6.5 miles at one time but I seriously want to complete a Half Ironman (see half crazy).  This is probably the loftiest of the goals but it is still out there. I’m not talking about this summer, I’m not that crazy. I’m talking about late 2015 or 2016.  So the Half Ironman is 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles on the bike and 13.1 miles of running (70.3 miles).  Now I have 1/3 of this thing in the bag. I can swim a mile. I have done it numerous times…even before I started this new way of life. So that doesn’t scare me.  It is the other two that frighten me. I think the running is obtainable and I have a mini goal to run Grandma’s Half Marathon next June. It gives me a year to build up to 13.1 and this past weekend I did 4.4 (1/3 of the distance) in a good time and I didn’t feel completely drained afterwards.  Look where I have come from that first run. I started out barely running a mile to running 4 miles comfortably.  If I can do that, I can get to 13.1. The biking…well biking…it has become my weakest event. And maybe I feel that way because I haven’t been on my bike since October and I have had some failed attempts at the stationery bike. I need to hit the ground running, I mean biking, when this snow melts.

No turning back
So there you go, my future goals are in writing. No turning back now, I’m accountable. Hopefully this journey will end successful. But the pessimist in me says it probably won’t. Negative thoughts always creep into my head and I have to keep batting them away. Hopefully my report in 6 months will be filled with success stories.