Run for your life!

Generally, I hit the gym in the morning before my brain has time to figure out what I'm doing.  It's a good tactic, you should try it.  Also, when I start early, my workout burns fat rather than fuel.

Yesterday, 10 minutes after starting on the treadmill...I employed the same kind of strategy and broke into a run.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I started running...and nothing, absolutely nothing, was chasing me.  

There was a time when I could not run...and that was only about 10 months ago...so now, running feels like freedom and makes me feel really alive.  Wow, I never thought I'd say that.  Could it be that I actually like to run?  No, that can't be it.

This past Saturday, I ran for 20 minutes in a row, and so of course yesterday I had to go faster and further.  I cranked the speed to 10 KM / hour and I gave 'er for 30 minutes.  I ran 5K!  I ran 5K...for reals.  Did I mention that I ran 5 whole kilometres in half an hour?  Well, I did.  And, it felt great!  Until the ninja appeared from out of nowhere, surprised me, and I dropped my MP3 player on the moving tread which then shot it off the end and landed it at his feet.  I nearly did the same, until I grabbed a handrail and steadied myself.  Woops.  Classic Suzie.

Run 5K = Winning.

Drop iPod, make fool of self = Par for the course.

And yes, I do believe I like running.  But, don't tell anyone. 

Weigh-in Wednesday #29 & #30

Wednesday, oh Wednesday, you saucy minx.  You're such a tease some weeks and so generous on others.  So on August 7th, Wednesday was a wee bit stingy, and on the 14th, she was bounteous.  Scroll down and check out those numbers! 

Starting weight:  292.1  

1st weigh-in:  286.8

2nd weigh-in:  280.1
3rd weigh-in:  276.4
4th weigh-in:  274.1
5th weigh-in:  270.6
6th weigh-in:  266.2
7th weigh-in:  262
8th weigh-in:  261.4
9th weigh-in:  257.7
10th weigh-in 251.4
11th weigh-in 247.3
12th weigh-in 243.6
13th weigh-in 241.7
14th weigh-in 235.4
15th weigh-in 235.4
16th weigh-in 227.7
17th weigh-in 223.5
18th weigh-in 223.5
19th weigh-in 221.6
20th weigh-in 221.6
21st weigh-in 215.6
22nd weigh-in 213.2
23rd weigh-in 207.9
24th weigh-in 206.6
25th weigh-in 200.1
26th weigh-in 199.7
27th weigh-in 197

28th weigh-in 191.3 (Yay, 100 pounds down!)

29th weigh-in 189.9 (Oh, only down 1.4 pounds.  Whatever, look at what happened on July 31st...down 100 pounds!) 

30th weigh-in 180.7 (WHAT?  Um...sorry, what?  Get off the scale, get back on, get off the scale, get back on, get off the scale, get back on and then immediately call in a witness.  Still not getting over the shock of a 9.2 pound loss on Week 30!)

 
Yes, last week...down 9.2 pounds in one week.  Texted the ninja...ninja says "Too much, too fast" and I have to agree on that one.  How does that even happen?  I mean, I get that I have had two weeks of 3 ninja trainings/week, but seriously?  I swear, I did everything the same...except for one thing...running.  That week, I ran a little bit EVERY day.

So I guess running is my new thing...does that sound as scary to you as it does to me?  Ugh...I don't really like running.  However, if it makes me lose big chunks of weight as it seems to do, it's a keeper.  

Um...did I just sign up to be in a race?

Yes, I did!

A fortnight after the finale of the Times Colonist Health Challenge, there's this little thing called the TC10K.  This race in particular is the reason my Wednesday nights have involved power walking with the Crystal Fools, and I was sure...certain even...that participants in the Health Challenge would be forced to participate.  We weren't.  So, I embraced my new lifestyle and the free pass that Shannon had given me via email and signed myself, as well as my parents, up for the walk.  My darling husband, Stéphane, had already enrolled as part of his company's (Genivar) team in the competitive walking section.  If you've ever seen Stéffi on the treadmill at the Crystal Pool, you'll know why he's not in the pleasure category...the man is a machine!

So, what do you do the night before the big race?  Well, in most cases you would eat a good dinner, drink lots of water and go to bed early.  But not us, we had a birthday barbecue planned.  We were only supposed to stop in for a quick hello and a couple of drinks...and doesn't this always happen?  We stayed until 1 AM or something...where'd the time go?  Oh, I remember, we started to have fun talking to everyone at Ron's celebration that we kept bumping up our cut-off time.  Haha...and believe me, we paid for it the next day.

 5:30 AM - Wake-up, Ninja!

Up at the butt-crack of dawn after too little sleep...I got into the shower to wake myself up.  Threw on my stretchy clothing, and, slapped on some mascara, and put my hair in ponytails.  Stéphane did much the same...well, he had a shower...I think.  We both ate our respective race breakfasts and waited for the arrival of my folks.  The thing is...parking would have been killer downtown as many streets were blocked off, so we decided to meet at the loft and then walk to the starting line from there...a mere 2 kilometres away. What were we thinking?

7AM - Leave the Shimmy Shack.
 

7:30 AM - Crystal Fools warm-up in Thunderbird Park.  Yes, we did a mambo...Number 5, in fact...and there's video to prove it.  Everyone was raring to go, but a special few fools congratulated me on being the most improved person to have done the Health Challenge.  Thank you, guys. xoxox

7:45 AM - Muster in start area - Stéffi takes off to his place (the competitive hour and a halfers) and I have decided, in my infinite wisdom, that it'll take me and the folks at least 2 hours to complete the course...so mom, dad, and myself are hangin' with the stroller drivers and octogenarians.  Perhaps, I should have chosen differently?  We'll see.  Live and learn.

8AM - The elite runners cross the start line...and the rest of us follow!

8:10ish - We cross the start line...and there stands Shannon (of the TC) ringing her cowbell furiously!  I gotta have MORE COWBELL!  She cheers us on...and we're on our way towards Johnson.  Moving slowly at first, it's hard to navigate in a crowd of 13,000, but we managed to reach our stride.  

On Johnson...we encountered THE BEST signs in front of Body Dynamics (encouraging the racers)...these were some of my favourites:

GO, RANDOM STRANGER! GO!

WORST CROWD EVER! (because there were only about 10 people standing there..haha)

WHY DO ALL THE CUTE ONES RUN AWAY?

ARE YOU TIRED...BECAUSE YOU'VE BEEN RUNNING THROUGH MY MIND ALL DAY!

WHAT KIND OF A PARADE IS THIS?  

On Johnson Street we reached the 1K sign, and I thought...wow, 9 more of these to go.  Better get a move on.  This is how it works for me, generally I take quite a while to get started...but in this case I knew I wasn't walking as fast as I had when I was with my Crystal Fool buddies.  Mom and dad are fast walkers, but I was just caught up in the excitement of it all...there were tones of people around and I was even slowing down to take pictures!  Haha...

When we hit Vancouver, a very special thing happened to me...a lovely curvy girl came up to me, and asked me if I was the girl from the Times Colonist Health Challenge.  I answered yes, of course, and she proceded to tell me that I had inspired her to get fit and healthy.  I'm only on kilometre 2 and I'm crying like a baby...this is not a good sign.

The entire time I was racing, I was also listening to my super workout playlist in one ear...I find it next to impossible to exercise without tunes...but in this case, I found in next to impossible to hear what my parents were saying with music being piped into one ear.  Haha...sorry guys!  The weather was just perfect as were the cherry blossoms through Fairfield.  And then the water station...where I could have downed about 7 times the amount I was handed, that's why I brought some with me in my giant spiky backpack.

Along the route, there were bands set up to entertain us and volunteers a plenty...as a Crystal Fool, I intended to run up and hug a volunteer and thank them, but I completely forgot.  Sad face.  One thing I did get to do was help a blind woman "see" my backpack.  As we pressed on against the heavy and chilly wind on Dallas Road a group from Pearson College were guiding a blind racer.  Apparently, the guide had been describing my backpack, and so asked if the blind woman could touch it...of course!  My grey, snake-skin, spiky packsack constantly sparks conversation on buses, in rec centres, and in general...so, I wasn't surprised when its spikes acted as descriptive braille.  And, wow...walking a 10K without sight, THAT is inspiring.

We walked, walked, walked and walked along the water until we hit the curve around Fisherman's Warf and past the park.  Nearly there, nearly there!  Random spectators cheering us on and telling us to push harder...so I burst into a jog.  What?  Yes, I did.  My mom and dad were still with me...walking strong...and my backpack was flapping around wildly, so I decided to break back into a walk, but before hitting the straight away to the finish line I told my parents that if they crossed over first, I would kill them.  Bad daughter.  And, in the excitement of it all I ran the last 10 feet and jumped over the finish line.  I even heard the announcer say, "And here comes Suzie Spitfyre!"  

Around 1 hour and 59 minutes after the very first person crossed over the starting line in the TC10K  - I finished the race, me..the fat chick...I just walked 10K!  And in 1 hour and 49 minutes, according to RaceDayTimer.com.

So now what?  I'm happy and sweaty and hungry!  Stéphane runs up and hugs me shortly after I finish.  He speed walked the race in 1 hour and 24 minutes, I'm so proud of him and my parents...and of myself.  And, so is he...he tells me so as we embrace.  Just after the finish line, there are juice boxes (juice punches...and I don't usually drink my calories, unless the fruit juice is gape, and those grapes are fermented), full fat yogourt (and I prefer fat-free, thank you very much), and several types of cookies (Really?  Okay, not everyone is as strict with their food as me).  I had the lesser of 3 evils...punch...because Ferris' Oyster Bar & Grill beckoned with après race brunch.  And by brunch, I mean oysters, and by oysters I mean raw, and by beckoned I mean I heard a champagne cocktail call my name.  Huge thank yous to the movers and shakers behind the scenes at Ferris' because they bent the rules and got me something that wasn't on the menu until 11:30 AM...well done, seasoned professionals, well done!   It just go to show that if you go somewhere and habitually order the world's most amazing deep fried oyster burger and fries with a mayo sampler for years and years, they might just make an exception, if you're really nice.  The experience was great, not only did we get the extremely intimate and dark booth at the back (which I now fit into quite comfortably), but the food was superb...if I were going to order brunch, may I recommend the Louisiana inspired poached eggs with chorizo on red beans and rice, it smelled deeelish!  And I know the 3 other parties at the table thoroughly enjoyed it.  Please tip your server generously.  The buzz in the restaurant was decidedly 10K.  All the diners in our section had run the course, and were excited, loud, and content...like us.

22 Days Later -  Here I am writing about this experience, and I'm so sorry not to have done so before...because what an amazing day it was.  Now I fear I have forgotten so many details.  Argh!  Such is life!  It gets in the way of true documentation.  Please kick my ass, dear reader!  Haha...

 

Throwing my weight around.

No rest for the wicked

All this doesn't just end with the scale...there is also fitness testing, something I have been both looking forward too and dreading.  

When I first started this challenge, the ninja got me to do things while he held a clipboard.  Included in this testing was an 800M walk/run, push-ups, plank, a wall sit, and sit and reach test for flexibility.  

And my results?  Well, how do I put this?  They were pathetic.  At first I managed to do a wall sit for 10 seconds...and that was pretty terrible, so then I tried again and I got to 24 seconds...astounding, I know.  Then push-ups, and I got to 8.  Yup, 8 whole push-ups done on my knees with my gut pretty much holding me up, and not a very bendy elbow...I doubt I went to 90 degrees.  And I have no idea about the sit and reach (the results are still on that sheet of paper, where ever that is...in an office, filed away)...all I remember is that my stomach and my boobs made it very difficult to bend.  Nuff said.  I wasn't so bad at planking in comparison, I think I got 40 seconds or so.  The "run" and I included the quotation marks as I didn't run at all.  I walked.  I thought I walked it pretty fast too, I know I was all out of breath after completing it.  In my defense, I will add that Jonathan made me run down the field with a cone, so for me it was more of a 1K than 800M.  Haha...look how whiny I just got.  I don't like running.  It scares me.  13 minutes, that was my time.  Now, THAT scares me.

That was then, this is now.

Started with the 800M run.  I wanted to run at least part of it...all of it?  Not sure if that's possible. 18 times back and forth down that long hallway at the Crystal...the ninja says it's nothing, I beg to differ.  Oh, fuck it!  Here goes nothing...I start my run, concentrating on regulating my breath (thank you, yoga) and I'm feeling pretty good, I'm feeling like I can do this...oh my gods, how much farther?  Huff puff.  The ninja tells me I've done 8 lengths, "You're half way there."  It doesn't matter that he can't do math, he's pretty.  And, I suspect that is some sort of training trick to make me think that I can do it.  It kinda worked.  I hyperventilated myself through another 8 laps and then I only had two to go.  The ninja shouts out a time and tells me, "Do it in less than 6."  I tried to lengthen my stride and go faster, put everything I had into it...and finished the thing in 5 minutes and 45 seconds.  That is probably really terrible compared to other people's times...but I just more than halved my previous time...so I am pretty proud of myself.  AND, I ran the whole thing!

No time to celebrate...there was more work to be done.  Started with the wall sit.  I have been practicing those, and I know I've gotten better.  Wow, 90 degrees is really low...and there's less distraction in the fitness room...damn, I like watching the boxers or the swimmers have at 'er when I'm wall sitting, makes the time pass faster and distracts from the burning of the thighs.  I'll look out the window...at nothing.  GRRR.  Usually I pop out of wall sits, but after a minute 19 my legs were jumping around like heavy rain bouncing off pavement...and then I slid to the ground in defeat.  But still, a minute 19!  Victory is mine!

The next two tests I don't want to talk about, but I will.  I planked for a minute and something, I can't even remember...I've tried to put it out of my mind obviously.  And, I did 23 push-ups.  So both were improvements over my last numbers...however, I could tell that the ninja was disappointed that I didn't plank longer and that I didn't bend further in my push-ups...or do more of them.  Awww, man...I was disappointed too, but what can you do?  Let's talk about my run again!  Haha..

The last test was the sit and bend, and I know I did better at that one, as my stomach has flattened significantly over the last 3 months....18 cm off my waist or something like that...not bad, not bad at all.  More importantly, I can actually feel my abs when I do sit-ups now, before it felt like I was using the muscles in my jaw and neck - not pretty.

And then it was all over and I was free to go home.  Awww...man, now what am I going to do?

One last ninja session before Sunday's finale, that's what!

Run away...run away!

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest," and I have always thought of it in a rather Darwinian way i.e. "better adapted for immediate, local environment."  However, now I think of it every time I step on a treadmill.

Not so long ago, the ninja taught me how to run on the treadmill...and I use the word "run" in the loosest possible way.

I have harboured a certain amount of disdain for the treadmill since I began training around 3 months ago.  So when Jonathan asked me whether I wanted to do stairs or the treadmill, I obviously picked stairs.  Which then came back to bite me in the ass as he said, "Great, treadmill it is."  And then he added, "we're going to run" or jog, as the case my be.  Running sounds better though...so I'll continue to use that.  Jogging just conjures up images of my dad in a royal blue track suit with three parallel yellow stripes running down the side of the legs and arms...and sweatbands in general.  

One of the nice things about having a personal trainer is that, generally, they know better than you what you can do when it comes to exercise.  When I started down that long hallway towards the row of self-contained moving sidewalks, I was dragging my feet.  I started feeling sick to my stomach too...because it's only been 5 months since I sprained my ankle, and I worry about treadmills in general as previously stated.  So, the ninja calmed me down by telling me that he knew that I could do it.  And that he would teach me how to start, stop, and jump off, if need be.

My name is Suzie and I have found it difficult to walk at a 5% incline at a speed of 3.0 MPH.  In fact, I much prefer 2.8 MPH which makes me sweat, but not hurt.  The ninja wants me to feel the burn, and so I have passed on the treadmill for a couple of weeks in favour of the elliptical.  So I start the belt at 2.5 and I start walking.  To jump off, use the hand railings at the side of the treadmill...hop up and use your hands to lift yourself up and then place each foot on opposite sides of the belt.  That is how to jump off a treadmill.  Now...to get back on, you need to to lift yourself up and move your feet like you're already running...and then gently...well...just start running on the thing.  Glad that's sorted.  If you need some balance, grab the bars in front...by then end of this, I'm going to need to go to the bars.

So, I'm walking at 3.5 MPH at a 3% incline...and I'm not falling over.  Wow, apparently leave treadmill out for a couple of weeks, and you get better at it.  Ninja is looking on...and then tells me to increase the speed - so I do...to 4.3 - and I'm jogging.  WHAT?  Very exciting...and thankfully, I have worn 2 bras.  So, I run for a minute, hop off...go back to a walk...run for a minute at an increased speed of 4.5...and then hop off and run again at 4.7!  And I'm dying...and my shins hurt, but I'm running!  I don't care!  Who knew this was possible?  Well, Jonathan did...even if I didn't believe him.  I don't even care that my stride is akin to that of a Hobbit.

What's that they say?  Even a bad run is better than no run at all.

I'm a superhero ninja (in my mind).