My Little Obsession

Miles in 2013: 931.5

Days Until Dopey: 58

Some people have called me running obsessed.  They might be right.  Then I wonder if I should be angry with these people – I mean is it really such a bad thing?  3 years ago I was fat.  There is no sugar coating that statement.  I woke up one day, saw a photo of myself and thought “oh my God – when did I get fat?”  So at the largest I’d ever been – 29 years old, roughly 234 pounds, and a size 16W in the only real pants that fit me I decided to get it in gear and try and lose weight once and for all.  Over the previous 10 years I would get on a fitness kick, lose weight and do well for a while only to slowly creep up and be larger than I had been before.  I don’t know why this time I thought I was ready to make it be different but I was.

From the weekend I realized I was fat

I started by going to the gym and spending 30 minutes on the elliptical.  I had two knee surgeries in high school when I was 16 and 17 and my orthopedic surgeon told me that I should never run on anything besides an elliptical because the impact would be too much.  I worked in a little bit of weight lifting and started keeping track of my calories.  My dad had gone through a scare with diabetes not long before and had taken a nutrition course through the local hospital.  What I took away from that was basically take the number of pounds you wanted to be (150) and add a zero to the end (1500) and that’s approximately how many calories you should eat a day.  I started there.  For two months I did well with this plan and lost a few pounds.  Then I was fortunate to have 2 things happen.

First, my friend Kelly from high school and her husband Allan, were opening a gym (2 hours away!) and had a Thermometer Jeans Challenge.  Basically following their plan I would more or less lose 2 pants sizes over 8 weeks.  After some talk they decided to add in a virtual option for those of us who didn’t live nearby.  I talked to Jason about it, the virtual option was $300!  The thought of spending that much money on myself had my stomach in knots.  He encouraged me to do and said if I was going to really commit to it that he would hand me the cash from his “fun money” right then.  I don’t know if I’ve ever given him enough credit for believing in me.  I signed up.  The day before that 8 week challenge I did the Warrior Dash 5k obstacle course.  You can see why I needed to get myself together.

Before the Warrior Dash

The jeans plan was pretty easy to follow.  Kelly was working on becoming a nutritionist and Allan was a trainer.  Between the two of them I had a work out plan and an eating plan.  I won’t call it a diet because it really was just an overhaul of what I should have been eating.  One thing I liked about this was there weren’t crazy supplements, shots, shakes, pills, etc. that so many weight loss programs include.  Just real whole foods and sensible work out routines.  Two days a week I did a metabolic acceleration program and two days a week I did total body strength training.  At the end of the 8 weeks – lo and behold those size 12 jeans I had mailed to Kelly fit.  They weren’t fitting well enough to wear in public, but they sure did button and zip without a whole lot of acrobatics to get me in them.  8 weeks earlier I had 2 pairs of XL stretchy leggings and a pair of 16W jeans that fit me.  Nothing else.  Now I could go shopping through my old clothes and find things that fit again.  I continued to stick with both the eating plan and the workouts and continued to lose weight.  I have told them many times just how thankful I am to Allan and Kelly for coming into my life and giving me those tools at just the right time.

With Allan and other Thermometer Jeans Participants at the end of the 8 week challenge

Around this time, my friend Sarah had suggested that we try something new and fitness related each month.   Warrior Dash was our first, that was January.  February and March were my jeans challenge.  In April we ran our first 5k.  I admittedly did not train for it like I should have.  If I look back at my Nike+ data from then it’s no wonder that the Run For the Trees was so miserable.  We did another 5k a few weeks later.  Yup, just as miserable.  My little brother ran that one too and waved as we were a mile in and he was almost done.  Sarah and I had signed up for a local marathon training program that started in June.  I lied and said I could run 4 miles at a 12 min mile pace.  I thought that was easy.  Man, was I wrong.

I struggled for months when Marathonfest started.  I was always in the back of the group.  I couldn’t run the 3:1 intervals to save my life.  We developed a “run to” plan – “run to that tree” or “run to the corner.”  A month in I sat down on the corner ¾ of a mile into a run and cried.  I was a mess.  Running was not something that came easily to me.  I know there were many times where people looked at me waiting for me to give up.  Little did they know I’m cheap and had spent $150 bucks on this 7 month program and I refused to let the money go to waste.  I’d also signed up for the Daytona Beach Half Marathon in October and wasn’t going to let that money go to waste.  I also had gone to a real running store and paid full price for real running shoes – so I had a lot invested in this endeavor.  I’ve always been stubborn (just ask my parents) so those looks people gave just made me want to succeed even more.  My first half marathon was less than stellar.  I got super sick the day before and had my fever break a few miles into the race.  Halfway through the race it was all I could do to do a “run to.”  A man on crutches beat me.  My time of 3:18 was slower than I had hoped for but it was over and I had done it.

Halfway through my first Half

I had signed up for my first marathon before I completed that half.  So I was stuck having to train for it whether I was ready to be a marathoner or not!  I realized that no one from our group was training for a spring marathon – time to put my big girl pants on and be a leader.  I felt like I had a lot to prove.  The girl from the back was now a leader, talk about pressure.   Then one day between seasons I met up with the group for a run and something had changed.  It was cold out.  I could run, in fact I was up at the front of the group for the whole time.  That had never happened before.  I was finally hooked now that I knew what a good run is supposed to feel like.

Over the course of the next two years I have run 16 more half marathons and 4 marathons.  I’ve taken almost an hour off of my half time and over an hour off of my marathon time.  I’m signed up for 9 more halves and another marathon.  Needless to say I’m hooked.  I’ve lost 85 pounds and am now comfortably in size 4 and 6 pants.  This brings me back to my original claim that people have called me obsessed.  Yes, I run a lot.  Yes, that means I don’t live the same lifestyle that I did 3 years ago.  Yes, I dedicate a lot of time to running.  Is that so bad?  My husband and I have chosen not to have children.  I have lots of friends with young kids and that’s their priority.  I don’t ever criticize them for making that their priority.  I don’t see some people as much as I used to.  I used to not have any commitments and was able to drop everything and do things for everyone else at any time.  My friend Shannon put it best when she told me “you are a giver, and all of the takers in your life don’t know how to handle you not being available to them all of the time anymore.”  Just because I’ve chosen to dedicate my time to running and being healthy doesn’t make it a bad thing.  I could be fat, tired, and lazy still.

After marathon #4 - NYC! From 6:43 to 5:29!

I’m fortunate to have a husband who supports me.  I really don’t thank him enough.  He doesn’t run and  he doesn’t often go to the races, it’s not his thing after all, it’s mine.  He never tells me not to go run a race, he follows the text alerts whenever I run a race that has them,  and he always instinctively knows when I’m struggling in a marathon and sends texts messages that push me to the finish.  Yes, it means I’m gone for parts of the weekend and sometimes its 10 weekends in a row.  I’m lucky that he sees how happy this makes and continues to encourage me to keep running.  I feel better knowing that the one person whose opinion really matters to me is in my corner and so proud of me.

My man, I'm a very lucky girl

I’m not planning on stopping this crazy running routine anytime soon and if that makes me obsessed I’m ok with it.  If you’re a friend of mine who just doesn’t get it, that’s ok too but keep your opinion of me to yourself! It's my thing and there are worse things I could be doing.