Fatty Must Run Marathon June recap

I knew it was going to be hard month for me.  What's the saying? "If you think you can, you will. If you think you won't, you're right." ?  Well I think I thought I couldn't. Now if you don't remember what the challenge items were for June, you can see them here.

And if you are new to my blog, first WELCOME! and second you may not be aware of the Fatty Must Run Marathon Challenge that I am doing. If you want to know  more about it, go to Fatty Must Run , and Julie will explain it.  She is hosting the challenge.  Over the course of a year she will guide 14 women  through the challenge that will end with a marathon.

Again, I can't believe all the changes in my life.

Eating:    I am more conscious about what I eat.  Things I use to love to eat, sorta gross me out. But I still love chocolate and Ice tea. I am not sure if that will change.  But I am eating so many more vegetables and I have a juicer now. Ok, so it is still boxed up but I plan to use it starting this week.

My running group: Last time I mentioned my running group grew by 14. This month it grew by 20 more?  I joined a running group in Galveston two weeks ago.  I am officially a member of USA Fit Galveston   I also joined a running group.  I am a part of the Beginners Half Marathon training.  My sister is leading the Saturday morning runs for our pace.  I think it prepares us for our first half in October which meets my needs.

Energy   I feel better.  I don't get tired too early. Well I do get sleepy because I am getting up earlier but at the same time, when I am awake, I feel more energized.

Non Scale Victories:   My body is changing.  My calves are getting muscular and feel toned.  My bum is lifting and while the scale isn't moving much, my clothes are fitting better in some cases and in others, well they are just getting too baggy to wear.


So here is how I did with this month's challenges:

1. Run Everyday  Well it is hot in Texas and I couldn't bring myself to get up at 5 AM to run.  I did manage to run FunFest Run the Bay on the 8th and during the second half of the month, I started to run with my sister and just got over myself and got up.  On the days that I didn't run, I continued to do my squats and I did the elliptical.  So I would have the say the first half of the month was rough for me but I am starting to get the hang of it.
2. Eat Clean  Yeah, epic fail.  I didn't even know what clean was much less how to prepare for it.  But I have started to do it and I have found some great recipes that I will share.  My daughter is on board with me on this one.  We eat quite a bit of zucchini, bell pepper with eggs.  We also tried spaghetti squash and we are making healthy smoothies that contain Kale and flax seed.  ( I promise I will either video tape or blog the recipes. )  I cut down on red meat and drink more water. So I am getting there but I still have a long way to go. 
3. Run a timed 5K.  I ran my timed 5K yesterday.  My first one this month was on 6/8 at the FunFest was 49:08. I was 12th for my gender, 90th for my gender and 211 overall.  There were 226 runners and 100 of them were female.  My last timed 5K was 47:48.  Races are harder to come by so I had to time it myself.  So I was first, last and overall number one!  LOL
4. Complete squat challenge  I did finish my challenge but I did skip a few days.  I want to do it again.  I may start again July 1st.  I really loved the way it felt.

Tomorrow I will share our July challenge.  

Stay cool and stay running.

Kemah Bridge

Well I did it!  This past week, I did my first Kemah bridge run.  I liked it so much that I did it twice!  My daughter and I met my sister at the bridge at 6 AM.  I have driven over this bridge hundreds, if not thousands of times. It is the bridge between me and the nearest sign of box store civilization (Walmart, Target, Office Depot and Home Depot). Why am I running a bridge?  Well, I live in flat SE Texas. We have no hills.  When I say we are flat...I mean we are flat  The Houston Marathon is a great place to qualify for Boston because the run is soo easy...no hills.  But every runner needs to do hill work so us in SE Texas run in parking garages or on high arching bridges.  I happen to live very near to a high arching bridge.  It crosses the waterway that links Clear Lake to the bay.

This waterway is heavily utilized by boaters.  You see Clear lake is home to the third largest fleet of recreational boats in the United States.  Because of all the boat traffic seen, a steep and extreme high bridge was built.   And until my run, I did not realize that the south side is steeper than the north side.  I also didn't realize that cars whizzing by at 50 mph, that are less than 3 feet from you, cause alot of hot wind.  But I loved it.  I loved the way my thighs burned on the incline and the reward of going downhill immediately after the burn.  My sister and I took a picture at the top of the bridge from my phone, which in turn caused my Nike+ to stop recording and my wireless headphones to unlink.  So I am smiling in this picture but moments later I was just frustrated.

Now the bridge is less than two miles from my place but at least 30 miles from my sister's house.  Again, I am truly blessed to have a sister that would drive that far, that early so that she can run the bridge with me.  Isn't she awesome?  There are no words to describe my gratitude.  I am just truly blessed.

Warning: Cheeks appear larger than normal

Two days later I decided to do it again.  Because I was doing it by myself, I decided to go a bit earlier.  The second picture was taken as I was leaving the bridge to go home.  The bridge is 1.9 miles round trip.  I think next week I will try to do it twice which is....3.8 miles.

Running group do's and don't

I am always full of fear the first time I do something. And sometimes I get so scared that I do this thing where I start crying which, for whatever reason, turns into laughing.   Running with a running group was no different.          I would love to say that I took every effort to make sure that I was going to be at my best for this first run.  But I didn't.  I stayed out late with a friend and only slept 4 hours before my run.  Which leads me to my do's and don'ts for your first run with a running group.

Don't stay out late the night before you go on your first run with a group of people you know are faster than you.  You need all the rest you can get.  So if a friend asks you to stay out later, just apologize and let them know that you have made a commitment to become a better you and need to get home for some rest.

Do lay out your clothes the night before.  I had to be in Galveston, about 45 minutes away, by 6:15 AM.  That meant that I had to leave at 5:15 if I wanted to give myself some wiggle time.  Having everything together meant all I had to do was brush my teeth, pull my hair back and put on my clothes.  No hunting through my drawers for matching socks or headbands. No running across the house to the laundry room to find my bottoms and then to the living room for my shoes.  Just do it.

Don't leave the address to the running group at home. Thank goodness I had wiggle room because I made it there at exactly 6:15.  I lost time when I had to Google the store and then GPS the location from downtown Galveston.

Do hydrate the night before and the morning of the run.  It was hot out there and you'll see later on why it was so important for me to hydrate well.

Don't take off on a run without knowing the route.  You see I was slower than the rest of the group and within the first few blocks I was alone on the road. I didn't know the route so I spent alot of time GPSing my location and trying to figure out how to get back to the store where we started.  I wasn't frustrated but I was annoyed with having to stop, pull my phone out of the armband, turn off my Nike+ app and go to Maps.  Eventually I made it back to the store but not on the same route as everyone else.

Don't beat yourself up if you get left behind. I have to admit there were a few times on my run that I felt  a lump in my throat and thought I was going to cry.  It wasn't because I was alone...I run by myself all the time.    I felt defeated.  I felt that my inability to stay up with the slowest group just confirmed my inability to be a part of a group.  Bottom line, I just felt less than. And true to form, what started out as a feeling of wanting to tear up and give up became a feeling of just wanting to laugh. But when I shared how I felt to my husband and daughter, my daughter said something profound, "Stop beating yourself up about how far you have to go and start celebrating how far you've come.  Remember the first time you cried because you couldn't run a minute? Well look at you now.  That is what you need to focus on. "  She is 17 and wise beyond her years.

And yes, if you caught that...I have cried before.  I am a llorona (Spanish for cry baby).  I cry for joy and I cry for sadness.  So don't feel sorry for me because I cried.  The physical expression of the emotion that I am feeling seems to get exaggerated in my body and I know it is ridiculous so I start to laugh.

So this week I am taking on the Kemah Bridge.  Fortunately, I live about a mile from the only safe bridge to train for hill work.  I believe it is 1.9 miles over and back.  Wish me luck.

Birds of a feather

I finally did it! I joined a local running group.  I can't tell you how many times I started to fill out the registration form and then just shut down the page.  I even went as far as filling out the form, entering my payment information and hovered the mouse over the "submit" button before my  cursor flew uncontrollably across the screen like hands on an Ouji board and clicked the close window button.  Whew, disaster averted. 

But this afternoon when I finished my work, I officially became a member of the USA Fit Galveston Marathon Half Marathon training season 2013-2014.  I should have been wearing my HRM at the time I joined because my heart was beating fast.  But what's done is done.  As hot as it is outside, I can't seem to make myself get out there at 5am to run, which is why I found myself running in 90 degree weather this week.  But I will do it if I am running with someone else.  This should be fun, it will be fun.

A great day for the Reyes girls!

Sure my sister's last name is Sandoval, mine is Peckham and my daughter's is Vera but deep down the blood that binds us is the Reyes blood.  This was the first run we did together.  I ran the 5K.  My daughter and sister ran the 10K.  We are all runners but each was on their own path and a different place in their journey.  Which just means....it takes all kinds.

Belinda
Age: 56
Employment:  Retired
Activity:  Active her whole life with skiing, yoga, aerobics, water aerobics, biking, spinning and Zumba just to name a few. 

Running experience:  Started last year in a beginners clinic and ran a 10K before being injured and sidelined.  Redid the beginning clinic again and this was her first race of the season.

Goal for this run:  Finish

Gabrielle
Age: 17
Employment:  High School Student
Activity: Swimmer since the 4th grade, water polo, cross country, track, any cross fit like training
Running experience:  Started running in 8th grade, doing it off and on for the past years
Goal for Funfest:  just finish without dying

Rozette
Age: 43
Employement:  self employed
Activity:  Some soccer in highschool, weight lifting and light cardio in my 30's, roller blading
Running experience:  Completed Couch to 5K in 2009, ran a few 5Ks and just recently started C25K again
Goal for Funfest:  Finish

We each had different reasons for being there but at the same time we all were glad that this run was our first family run.  I enjoyed training with my sister, Bel,  the week before.  She is such an amazing person.  She is an encourager and a coach. She watches my posture, my feet dragging and my pace and she is always praising me.  It comes natural to her.  So natural that sometime during her run, she made a new friend and encouraged and supported her to the end.  You would have thought they had been friends for years after they crossed the finish line...nope they met during the run. Gabrielle was so laid back. She went to bed in her running clothes and when I woke her up, she brushed her teeth, grabbed her shoes and water and got in the car.  Her only comment about the race? "You and aunt Bel are talking HRM, pace, fueling, proper clothing and here I am in a cut up cotton t-shirt, old gym shorts and a bottle of water.  I hope I don't pass out."  Pass out?  That girl took second place for her age group.  She was so surprised when she went to see her time.  As for me, I think I was ready and I was surprised at how comfortable I felt.  And to my surprise, as soon as the clock came into view, I noticed that if I turned it on, I may end in less than 50 minutes...a first official time for me that was below 50. 

I can't wait to do more races with my family.  That has always been my dream.  My very first post talks about my dream to run with my daughter.  When she was only a toddler, I would take her in the jogging stroller while I ran or roller bladed.  I wanted to be one of those parents that instilled the importance of fitness into their child by doing it with them.  Somewhere along the way I lost sight of that goal. But on the way home from Funfest Run, my daughter said she was glad we started doing this. That she always wanted  to do things with me and was sort of mad at me for quitting before.  She wanted this to be our thing.  And it looks like it is.

Non-Scale Victories

It wasn't until Weight Watchers that I learned the term NSV.  It stands for Non Scale Victory.  It's when something changes besides the numbers on the scale.  I have had quite a few of those these past few weeks.  I love it when I discover a new NSV.  It's like finding little nuggets of gold as you pan for it.  They may seem small but the are worth so much more. That is the way I see NSVs.  They are these grand moments of  "Oh my goodness, I dropped 5 dress sizes in 2 weeks! "  We all know that if you drop 5 dress sizes in two weeks, you 'll probably add 6 dress sizes in three.  No, I am not looking for those kind of sucesses.  I want the long term ones.

I think one of the first ones was the walk to the church office.  It was on the second floor of the youth building.  Every week I volunteer at the church and have to climb these stairs. Because this is in the youth building, the doors are locked and you must hit the buzzard and someoen will come open the door for you.  This is where I panic.  I am left so winded that I usually wait a bit before I hit the buzzard.  I didn't want to have to speak before I had time to catch my breadth. Pathetic, I know.  Well, these past few weeks have been great.  I no longer get winded going up the stairs.

Then I noticed something that may make others cringe but I love.  I mentioned in another post that I gain muscle pretty quickly.  Well I have been doing squats for three weeks and the muscles are starting to make their debut.  The fluff around them is not subsiding as fast as the muscle is being gained so they make me seem a bit more bulky in areas but my body is changing.  The bum sits alittle higher.  There is a nice shape forming on the legs and the calves feel stronger (more because of the running than the squatting). So crops feel a little tighter in the legs and bum but I am swimming everywhere else. I know that in time, as the fluff leaves, the crops will also fit differently.

My skin is changing also. I don't know anyway to explain it but my skin seems more radiant and healthy.  It feels smoother.  I think all the sweating and drinking water has really cleaned out my pours and I can feel and see the difference. I just can't stop touching my face.

These are just a few of the changes I have seen in the past few weeks.  I am excited to see what NSVs I'll discover at the end of the month with more running and clean eating.  Have you had any NSVs lately?

Monthly Motivating Movie

As promised, here is the monthly motivating movie for June. On the first Friday of each month I plan to recommend  a running movie. My pick is coming out a few days early for a reason to be announced later in this article.  My pick for June is Spirit of the Marathon.

Courtesy of Netflix

This Spirit of the Marathon is a documentary that follows 6 runners on their journey to running the Chicago Marathon.  I love this movie because it follows 6 very different runners.You have a male and a female elite runner that are  training to win. A couple that have run a few marathons around the world.  A senior, running again and his daughter that is running for the first time. And one more female that is running her first marathon as she progresses naturally from 1/2 marys to a full mary.  Each story is unique and in many ways they are similar.  It is definitely worth a watch if you are training for a marathon, 1/2 mary or a 5K  

Haven't sold you on it yet? Well here is where I get cheesy.  BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! While googling for a picture of the movie cover, I came across some exciting news.  There's a sequel!!!!  That's right, it was sooo good they came out with a sequel. The sequel follows runners training for the Marathon in Rome (In my dreams, that would be where I would run my first marathon.)   It is scheduled to be in theaters for one night and one night only.  Click Here  for a theater near you.  It will only be in theaters June 12th! Run and get your tickets!! That is the reason I wanted to share this one early.  I want to give you time to search for a local theater and make sure your calendar is free for that day.

Enjoy!

It's me not you

Dear John,

Let me start by saying that I have always loved you.  You have been there since the beginning.  You are known as comforter and used as an reward.   Have a birthday to celebrate?  You'll be there.  Getting married?  You are one of the most important things at the wedding celebration.  Gathering with fellow Christians for a prayer session, committee meeting, retreat, seminar...heck anytime we gather as a congregation, you are there.  End of school year party for the elementary kids?   Teachers are sure to send a note home with little Tommy or Sally reminding us to bring you to school that day. We would die without you....literally we would die with out you.  But your importance for living has become an obsession and people are dying a slow death because of you.  What was meant for good, has somehow turned to bad.  And that is becoming more apparent now than ever in my life.  

Please don't cry.  It's me not you.  I took advantage of you.  I used you and abused you in my times of need.    I was too clingy.  I wanted you to be my everything.  If I was stressed out during the day, I ran to you to comfort me.  If I was celebrating any occasion, I wanted to do it with you.  I wanted you so much that I found reasons to celebrate.  I smothered you and put you on a pedestal.  It is for that reason that I have to distance myself from you.  We will still see eachother and be good friends but I can't let you consume me.  I want us to have a healthy relationship.  

I can't let you be my joy and my sorrow. I hope you understand. I will always care for you and need you but in a different way.  I hope you understand.

Love,

Rozette

When I read this months challenge for the Fatty Must Run Marathon Challenge, my heart just sank.  I knew  I would have to have the most difficult conversation with my food.  I had to admit that my emotional attachment to food can be unhealthy.  It's not that I don't like healthy food, that's not the issue.  I love vegetables, fruits, chicken etc but I obsess over chocolate, whip cream, flour tortillas.   Remember that song from the 70's Torn Between Two Lovers?  There is a line in there, "torn between two lovers, feeling like a fool.  Loving both of you is breaking every rule"  Well that is me. I don't mind eating healthy food but I want my bad also. And it isn't a hunger thing, its a "I want ______" thing.  No amount of filling health foods is going to satisfy my desire for chocolate.

So this weekend I went to Penzeys's Spice and picked up Fox Point, an amazing blend of herbs and spices that make everything yummy.

Last night we had chicken with a baby spring salad that consisted of Baby Spring mix of lettuce, celery mandarin oranges, cranberries, strawberries, pecans and a raspberry vinaigrette. 

Next time I will probably leave out the strawberries but may put apples. For lunch, I had more chicken on organic corn tortillas, with beans and lettuce.  I really enjoyed that and can't wait to eat more of that.  

I had cherries and grapes for a snack.  They were meh.  I didn't really satisfy my desire for something sweet but they satisfied my need to chew.  I have to come up with something clean to eat that will help with my sweet tooth.  Any suggestion?

I keep telling myself it is only for 30 days but in reality, I am hoping that this 30 day challenge will give me a new perspective on food.  It's fuel...nothing more, nothing less.  I need to grasp that concept. 

June's Challenge

Our June challenge has been posted. Please feel free to play along.

1. Run Everyday.  Ok this one hits on my lack of time management skills when it comes to personal goals. I have a tendency to put everyone ahead of me.  If I have time left at the end of the day to do my things, then I do them.  But this month I must put myself first everyday.
2. Eat Clean.  Well at first I thought this was going to be easy.  Wash your food and you can't eat anything that fell on the floor and was not picked up within 5 seconds.  I'm kidding.  I had no idea what is considered clean eating. I have heard those buzz words alot these past few months but had no idea.  I still don't know since googling it pulls up several interpretations of it.
3. Run a  timed 5K  We will do another 5K this month. We have been encouraged to run the whole thing.  I am interval training so that is how I will run it.  It will be interesting to see if I shave off any more time this month.  I would love to be in the high 30's at the end of this month.
4. Complete 30 day squat challenge.  I am really loving this challenge and may redo again when this 30 days is over. 

As always, please feel free to play along and let me know how you are doing.  If you want to see how everyone else is holding up in the challenge, you can click a link to their blogs on the right.