My "Inner Fat Girl" is a whiny baby.

There's a popular thread going on Sparkpeople.com about how one goes about shutting up or getting rid of one's "inner fat girl."  She's the voice inside that tells you you'll always be fat, it's fine to eat when you know you shouldn't, you won't look good in that new smaller-sized dress, etc. 

I managed to pretty much silence my Inner Fat Girl when I started losing weight back in 2009.  I don't really hear that voice in my head these days.  But I've discovered I have a different negative voice now.

Running Tuesday was postponed this week until Wednesday.  I like doing it on Tuesday because we only do cardio on Tuesdays, so I can run on fresh, rested legs.  On Wednesdays we do our strength workout, so there's less left in me for cardio after.  Still, I didn't want to skip it altogether, so after a good workout on the TRX Suspension Trainer at the gym (our new favorite piece of equipment!) complete with cardio bursts inbetween sets and some squats and dead lifts at the end, I took on the treadmill.

Spoiler:  I made it through.  Ran the whole 2 miles again.  But it wasn't easy to keep going.  After last week's Running Tuesday disaster I went in prepared to struggle through this one, and I was barely into the second interval when I started to consider cutting it short again.  It just felt really hard somehow.

But I caught myself before my fingers hit the speed controls on the keypad.  Were my legs hurting?  No.  Was I lightheaded or weak or nauseous?  No.  Was I having a hard time getting my breath?  No.  Did my heart rate feel too high?  No.  Were there any indications that I was pushing myself so hard that I might end up injuring myself?  No.  Did it feel like any part of my body was about to give out?  Nope.  I was simply having to push myself a tiny bit harder than usual to keep going, probably on account of the strength training leaving me with a bit less energy.  So why the fuck was I about to stop?

Because I don't have an Inner Fat Girl as much as I have an Inner Whiny Lazy Bitch.  She knows I don't have to keep running to lose weight.  She knows it's way more comfortable to walk than it is to run.  She doesn't want to push any harder than she has to.  She's the procrastinator who tells me that five months is a plenty of time to prepare and not running the whole distance that one time isn't that big of a deal.  She's the one who says it's okay to take an extra rest day because it's kind of late and I should have left for the gym an hour ago and now that I'm home and comfortable I might as well just stay there.

Somehow, I'll figure out how to shut her up, too. 

Marathon Pre-Training, Week 11

Another weird work schedule week.  A new employee started training this week (hi, Amanda!) and I worked one overnight shift to help train her.  I thought it would make getting our Tuesday night workout in easier, since we could theoretically do it before I went to work but after Kourt came home so she wouldn't have to nap and then work out.  But Kourt was too tired to work out once she got home, and I procrastinated just long enough to cut time really, really close at the gym.  Unfortunately, I also didn't have any caffeine all Tuesday while I was up, and ended up with a withdrawal headache.  Even more unfortunately, instead of getting coffee or an energy drink (didn't want to have to stop the treadmill to pee), I took some naproxen, even though there was this voice in the back of my head reminding me that there was supposed to be some reason I shouldn't do that before a workout.  Combine that with the fact that to save time I chose to go to the gym location we don't normally use because it's not kept cool enough to be comfortable, and the result was that the second try at Running Tuesday didn't go as swimmingly as last week.  I struggled through a quarter mile, then started to get a bit lightheaded and overheated.  Tried to push through a second, but started getting a tiny bit nauseous.  Ended up just walking and cutting the whole workout to 30 minutes, partly because of how much I was struggling and partly so I would have plenty of time to get home and shower before work.  Still got in close to 2 miles in that 30 minutes, but it wasn't what I'd hoped to achieve.

This week's stats:

• 10.06 treadmill miles
• 0 outdoor miles
• 1 hours on the elliptical machine
• 3 weightlifting sessions
• 2 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 11 weeks
• 83.20 treadmill miles
• 36.21 outdoor miles
• 19 pounds lost (@ 196)

Treadmills can be SOOOO boring.  Also, this stormy April weather is really messing with me.  Every weekend I hope to get out and plant my garden, and then we get a string of strong storms and the soil ends up saturated.  This week's storms came in Friday night and didn't leave, so this morning we all ended up on the treadmills for what was supposed to be a 2-hour long walk.  I was hoping that with three of us there walking on adjacent treadmills it might be less boring, since I figured we might just chat the whole time like we do on the trail.  But that didn't really happen because treadmills aren't actually conducive to 3-way conversation, so we all ended up with headphones on.  We set the treadmills for the max time, but that was only 99 minutes.  I planned to reset for another 21 minutes to finish out the walk, but an hour into it my sister was obviously bored out of her skull.  So we stopped after the 99 minutes.  The upside is that we all got to pace ourselves individually, so was able to keep about the same pace as I did last week. 

So, with four weeks left before I start the official training schedule, I've been giving some thought to how to handle these weird shifts in my schedule and such.  It would be far too optimistic to think that there wouldn't be any unforeseen interruptions to my training schedule over the course of 20 weeks.  It's going to happen.  So I guess my thought at this point is that I maintain a sort of priority list of workouts, with long walk/run at the top, and then tempo and speed walks, then strength training and cross training.  If I have to skip something, it should be the strength or cross training first, then maybe the shorter walks if I have to.  And unless something drastic like an injury or something happens, the long walk/runs are absolutely no-skip workouts.  I should probably feel good about the fact that although I have had low-mileage weeks during pre-training I haven't actually missed a long walk or had a week where I didn't do at least three or four workouts minimum.  I just have to keep up the momentum while I'm in training.  And not get all neurotic about hiccups in the plan.

It did occur to me this week that a certain weight loss milestone seems to be within reach by race day: 100 total pounds lost overall since my highest weight.  At two pounds per week I'd hit that goal with three and a half weeks to spare.  It would be pretty damn awesome to be able to celebrate crossing the finish line AND 100 pounds gone at the same time.  And although I usually wouldn't celebrate weight loss with food, you can bet my post-race celebration will involve eating whatever I damn well please for the rest of the trip. 

Marathon Pre-Training, Week 10

 This week's stats:

• 7.80 treadmill miles
• 5.87 outdoor miles
• 1 hours on the elliptical machine
• 1 weightlifting sessions
• 2 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 10 weeks
• 73.14 treadmill miles
• 36.21 outdoor miles
• 17 pounds lost (@ 198)

Five more weeks until I officially start training for this marathon.  Just five more weeks.  Maybe it's the success of the first Running Tuesday, maybe it was yesterday's 90 minute walk/jog, or maybe it's finally being under 200 pounds, but I'm feeling really optimistic.  Giddy, even.

So, yes, I'm doing my happy dance because I'm at 198!  Actually, as of this morning, I'm at 197, but I'm not counting that pound towards this past week.  I'm looking at being under 190 by the official start of training.  That'll be nice.  I've been reluctant to get any really good running clothes simply because I know I'm going through sizes right now and don't want to lay out cash on running gear that will be too big for me on race day.  Once I get down to around 185, though, I think I could start looking for clothes that I can keep using through the rest of training.  Especially if they start out on the snug side.  Up to this point I've been doing all my working out in yoga pants and random t-shirts.  It would be cool to actually dress properly for the activity.

Anyway, yesterday's long walk was a solo one.  I got called in to work in the morning and my sister was out of town for the weekend anyway, so the walk got postponed until afternoon.  By the time we'd eaten lunch and sat down to digest for a while, Kourt didn't feel like coming with me for a whole 90 minutes, so I donned my headphones and headed to the trail alone.  Without anyone else to walk with, I got to pace myself without restraint.  My judge of "easy" pace is whether or not I have to pump my arms to keep up.  As long as I can let my arms swing naturally at my sides, I consider it an easy pace.  So I did my usual routine of jogging the first eighth or so of each mile and walking the rest at an easy pace and ended up with an average speed of 3.75 mph.  I believe the last time I regularly walked distances of around six miles, I had to push really hard to average around 3.5 mph, so I'm certainly happy with that.

So far so good.

Running Tuesdays and surprise accomplishments

I started this whole running thing out of fear and doubt.  Despite the fact that many people walk entire marathons, despite the fact that the prospect of learning to run isn't any easier than learning to walk faster, despite the fact that far more experienced people have assured me I have no reason to doubt my ability to racewalk my way to the finish line in the given amount of time, I had a miniature freakout about the whole thing.  I wanted a safety net. 

So I picked up my feet and started to run.

It turned out to be both harder and easier than I expected.  My body has adapted more quickly to high impact exertion than I thought it would.  My endurance for it has been disappointing at best.  On Saturdays I've taken to jogging the first bit of every mile for as long as my endurance holds out.  I don't always push myself to keep going as far as I possibly can, but the point at which I become very aware of my desire to stop is usually about an eighth of a mile.  On a treadmill I once pushed myself to do a whole quarter mile (and ended that quarter mile gasping and praying my legs wouldn't just fold under me before I got to the end), but after a rest interval I wasn't able to repeat the distance.  My "run" isn't even really a run, it's a five mile per hour jog.  Still, you've got to start somewhere, right?

My brain isn't only prone to miniature freakouts.  I also have the "make a system for everything so I feel like I have a plan" mode.  I was in that mode this weekend when I came up with the idea to incorporate Running Tuesdays into my workout plan.  There's also the "illogical surge of confidence" mode, and I was apparently in that mode last night when I stepped up to the treadmill to work on my running.  On the drive to the gym I had planned to just run until I felt like stopping and then walk until I felt ready to run again and see how it went.  But when I actually walked up to the treadmill I decided on a new plan: walk a quarter mile, run a quarter mile, repeat for an hour.  Nevermind that I'd only once before been able to make it a full quarter mile, and it was a struggle to do it then. 

So I started up my iPod, started up the treadmill, walked a warmup quarter mile, and then pushed the speed up for a run.  I expected to hit the eighth mile point and want to stop, but ended up making it all the way through the first quarter mile without a struggle.  Actually, I felt pretty good.  That first quarter mile felt rather easy, actually.  The second one wasn't much of a challenge, either.  In fact, it wasn't until I was into my third mile overall that the muscles in my legs started kind of aching from the impact and the fourth mile that I started having to push myself to keep running, and even then there wasn't any of the gasping, sputtering, and praying that my legs would hold out. 

In total, I ran two miles.  Two miles.  I've never run an aggregate total of one mile in a day ever, let alone two miles in an hour.  I know it's not much, but it's a pretty big leap forward for me, and I was honestly surprised I could even do it.

I think I'm going to like Running Tuesdays.

Marathon Pre-Training, Week 9

It was a low mileage week.  I went to the gym alone on Sunday because Kourt's ankles were hurting, took our rest day on Monday, and then skipped again on Tuesday because...  well, now I don't remember why.  Skipped again on Thursday because it was a hellish night at work and I was beyond exhausted when I got home.  Usually, I'd be all about taking out my frustrations on the cable machine and treadmill, but I barely had the energy to cook dinner when I got home and all I wanted to do was go to bed right after punching a few people. 

I didn't do that second part.

But despite only doing 4 workouts this week, the stats are as follows:

• 3.98 treadmill miles
• 2.98 outdoor miles
• 2 hours on the elliptical machine
• 3 weightlifting sessions
• 2 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 9 weeks
• 65.34 treadmill miles
• 30.34 outdoor miles
• 15 pounds lost (@ 200)

In the end, what I ended up skipping this week was just one hour on the treadmill and one hour on the elliptical -- we did all our strength training -- and the low total mileage was partly due to only having a one hour walk scheduled for Saturday.  I made up for some of the calories I didn't burn at the gym by spending Saturday afternoon turning over all the dirt in my garden bed with a small trowel.  I ended up tearing my hands up pretty good (blisters suck!), but discovered that I have a ton more stamina for that sort of thing than I did last year.  I spent nearly two hours digging the whole thing up, turning all the soil over, and didn't walk away feeling sore (except for my hands. ouch.) and worn out like I always did before.  And that was after our 3 mile walk that day.  And that, ultimately, is the point of all this diet and exercise mumbo jumbo.  I'm tired of finding that stuff I want to do wears me out.  I want to be in good enough shape that I don't have to question whether or not I can physically do things that sound fun or interesting to me.

Also, 200!  If I have anything to say about it, that leading 2 will be gone forever by the end of this week!  Now, I've been at this point before.  My previous run at weight loss in 2009 got me down to 199, but then I got cocky and never saw 198, and one year later I was back up to 220.  That is a mistake I will not be repeating.  I will be doing a super happy dance at 198, though.  And then I'll celebrate with, like, a long workout or something.

I'm feeling more and more confident about my speed, too.  I've been basically just randomly concocting different kinds of interval workouts for the treadmill to keep things interesting.  Sometimes I work in running, sometimes I concentrate on walking.  It's whatever I feel like doing when I step up to the treadmill.  This week I decided to do quarter mile walking intervals at 3.5mph, 4mph, and 4.5mph for an hour.  Previously I've put my fastest walking speed for intervals at 4.2mph so I was actually not sure if I could complete all the intervals at 4.5, but didn't have any trouble.  To do a six hour marathon my average speed has to be 4.37mph, and to be honest I've been worried about whether I could even get my short little legs to go fast enough to accomplish that without running.  So to be able to do 4.5 at all with just under six months to go puts me more at ease (especially considering that I should be able to take off another 30 pounds minimum by October).  My sister keeps telling me I have nothing to worry about, but this is all new to me and I can't help constantly running numbers to try and reassure myself.  I get excited when I see improvement like this, but I think I have this fear that at some point I'll hit a limit.  Like it's great that I can walk this fast now, but what if I don't improve any more beyond this?  It's silly, I know, but I have a feeling I'm going to feel less than 100% sure about this until I'm a few miles from the finish line.  And that's okay.  That's what's driving me to keep pushing myself.

In the interest of being able to see my progress, I like to have pictures of myself taken after every ten pounds or so that I lose.  I'll warn you now, what follows is pictures of a flabby 200 pound body wearing a sports bra and yoga pants.  But this is what I've accomplished:

Now with 4.7% less flab!

I do feel, though, like I've crossed some kind of line on this journey.  Now when I see people out running when I'm at work, I feel a little jealous that I'm not out there with them.  I finally understand why people run.  I certainly don't consider myself a runner by any stretch of the imagination just yet, but I have the desire to become one.  I get it.  I didn't used to.  Honestly, I never understood why somebody would go outside in the sun and the heat and do something so uncomfortable and exhausting and claim that it was fun.  And now I get it.  I've even gotten to the point where my days off don't feel right if they don't start out with a workout of some kind.  Seriously, we took a whole Friday a couple of weeks ago and declared it a lazy day.  We slept late, stayed home, played on the internet and watched TV, and I cooked a special meal.  And when all was said and done we both felt like we'd totally wasted the day.  If we get up and work with our trainer, do a morning gym session, or hit the trail, we actually spend the rest of the day doing productive things.  If we don't, we sit around feeling like lazy bums all day.  And that feeling sucks.

Marathon Pre-Training, Week 8

This week's stats:

• 7.42 treadmill miles
• 6.53 outdoor miles
• 3 hours on the elliptical machine
• 2 weightlifting sessions
• 3 pounds lost

Total pre-training stats:

• 8 weeks
• 61.36 treadmill miles
• 27.36 outdoor miles
• 13 pounds lost (@ 202)

We were good this week, and didn't miss a single workout.  And the weather turned absolutely beautiful this weekend, so we had a ton of company out on the trail yesterday morning.  Tons of joggers and walkers and bikers, and they were all so happy to be out in the sun!

And if you're wondering, yes, I did remember the sunscreen this time. 

Of course, being Missouri, it's cold and super windy today.  Gotta love it.

Anyway, my new favorite thing at the gym is doing the elliptical machine in reverse.  I've started alternating directions during my elliptical workouts (one song forward motion, one song in reverse) because I'm discovering exactly how underdeveloped my quads really are.  It's significantly more challenging to go in reverse, and you really feel it in your quads and calves and back.  And our trainer has finally moved beyond working our hamstrings most of the time and has given us a more well-rounded leg workout. I'm starting to see little hints that my body might soon look more like it did in high school.  Funny, I hated that body then.  I'm dying to get it back now. 

Slowly but surely, the running part of my walk/run regimen is getting easier.  I'm seeing a very gradual increase in the distance I can comfortably run during each interval (still only .15 - .2 miles at a time, which is sad, I know) and it feels less and less jarring on my body.  So far I haven't had a recurrence of the knee pain.  They're kind of mildly achy after a long walk/run, but not really painful.  I'm just more aware that I have knees, if that makes sense.  Kourt, on the other hand, tried running a bit on Saturday and now has pain in her knees, ankles, and big toe.  For the record, I didn't push her to do it.  And she'll be fine. 

What I'm most proud of at this point is that it's now put in three solid months of consistent commitment to exercise.  Since the beginning of February, there have only been two weeks where I put in less than 11 total miles, and only one where I came in under 8.  I'm kind of surprising myself at how motivated I am to do this, although I'm sure it helps to have a hard deadline that I'm up against.  But most of all I'm really loving the workout routine we're in and how good I feel physically.  For the first time ever, I can actually see myself becoming athletic.  I think it makes a huge difference that I'm not working out just to lose weight.  It's always been a means to an end before, and now I'm approaching it as a pursuit of its own.  And it's pretty cool.