Rocking A 5-Mile Race

I was very excited about doing the Y's Rock the 80's race for several reasons: it's fun, it's close to home, many members of my run club were participating, and the course was designed by the leader of my run club and another member. I was originally planning to do the 10-mile race but I wasn't far enough along in my training; plus, I wanted to ensure I'd be back in time to do the Fun Run with my kids. So in the end I opted for the five-miler. (Note that this race was measured in miles, not kilometers!) I was also excited once I thought about planning my 80's outfit! Instead of going for the traditional 80's valley girl look, with a side ponytail, leggings and neon colors, I decided to go for the Dirt Rocker girl look, which is much closer to how I was in high school, even though that was in the 90's. I really wanted to wear a Metallica shirt because they were my favorite band back in the day, but when I went to Hot Topic in search of an 80's-era Metallica shirt they didn't have any. I settled for an overpriced, brand-new Guns N' Roses shirt that looked like it had been around since 1987. A studded pleather wrist cuff and a skull bandana completed my ensemble nicely.

The race had a start time of 8:00, so it was still very chilly when I left my house. All three of my kids were still in bed and in the care of my wonderful, encouraging husband. It was also extremely foggy! I took extra care driving to the Y, questioning the wisdom of wearing all black clothing.

I met up with fellow members of the O'Fallon Y's No Boundaries run club for some joking and words of encouragement, and we made sure to stop by the timing booth to say hi to our fearless leader, Robin, who designed the day's courses. My run club is composed of an amazing group of strong, supportive, fun women, and my life has been so enriched by knowing them. Much love, ladies! We were milling around waiting for the race to start, and then all of a sudden it did!

I started out fairly slow but steady. Not in the rear, but not quite the middle, either. Immediately my glasses started giving me a problem. The foggy conditions led to constant fogging of my glasses. I wish I could run without them but that really isn't an option! I had to settle for taking them off periodically and wiping them off with my shirt. And as it turns out, a studded pleather wrist cuff is not the most comfortable item to wear while running, either! It kept rubbing on my wrist and I knew I'd have raw skin if I didn't remove it, so it was gone before I was through the first mile. I carried it in my hand for a couple miles before I finally had the sense to fasten it to the Spibelt around my waist.

Toward the end of Mile 2, I started to catch a good stride. First, I passed a pair of guys in their 20s. Then I started up the large hill on North Lincoln. I thought about what Robin had taught me about hills: don't lean into them, even though you want to. I kept myself upright and tried not to shorten my pace. Huffing and puffing - and keeping my 45-minute goal in mind - I passed another runner on the hill! The only person I was truly interested in racing against was myself, but the psychological boost I got from passing those runners - especially the guy on the hill, since a hill is my natural nemesis - was very powerful for me! I needed little recovery time at the top of the hill and I started going decidedly faster.

At about 3.5 miles came THE hill. The hill on North Smiley, shortly before Wildwood. Anyone who has ever run south on Smiley in O'Fallon is surely familiar with it. I crossed the street to the left because I think it is easier to go up that side - and no one had better dare try to disillusion me on that! I took some deep breaths to fill my lungs with oxygen, remembered again to stay upright, and went up that hill far faster than I ever have in the countless times I've tackled it before! Recovery time was a little tougher after that one, but I knew what was just ahead: the four-mile mark! Home free!

It is so gratifying to hear people cheering in the distance as you approach the finish line. I can't even describe how it feels. I barreled down the length of sidewalk leading to the Y's parking lot, which made me think of Anthony Kiedis running in the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" video. Robin taught us to always speed up at the end of a run, and hopefully I did her proud! I passed the finish line at 48.37. It was more than the 45 minutes I was shooting for, but I still came in at under a 10-minute split! I drank some water and dashed home to get my kids, hoping to be back in time to see my 10-miler friends pass the finish line. I didn't quite make it, but I still got to see them and congratulate them on a job well done! We went inside and warmed up in the sauna for a few minutes. (I decided I still don't like saunas!)

We headed back outside for the award announcements, arriving toward the end, but in time to hear Amanda's name announced for first place in her age division. I fully expected her to win and was so happy for her, especially considering it was her first race! We rushed back inside to warm up and get our kids for the Fun Run. On the way back out I was told I had won one of the prizes for Best Dressed. "Hey, at least I won something!" I said. It was a gift certificate for one paid class, so I know I'll put it to good use, too.

We had a great time with the kids during the Fun Run (which was composed of Run Club members' kids only!), and when we went back in both Maria and Robin told me they thought they had heard my name called while the medals were being given out. I didn't think that was possible at all! Robin had the finish times on her laptop and checked them and, to my surprise, I learned I placed second in my age division! I couldn't help but tear up a little! I never thought I could win anything in a race - not until I get older and the competition dwindles, at least! Less than a year ago, I did my first 5K and I wasn't even able to run the entire thing! It felt pretty amazing to be the recipient of a medal, even though it was a small race and all the really fast runners did the 10-miler. :)

I'm feeling a lot more positive about running these days. I want to keep going, and I want to run that half marathon on Mother's Day! I set that goal a couple months ago and I made promises to my run club ladies, so I'm going to stick with it!

Second place, in your face!

Running on Apathy

Headed for the finish line at the John Wilt Foundation 5K last October

I am not loving running as of late. I am supposed to be training for a half marathon on Mother's Day and I was initially very excited about it, but now I'm kind of "meh".

It could be because I have been unable to run regularly. Over the past several weeks, snow days, sick kids, and other factors have prevented me from sticking to a schedule, and I've only been able to get a couple runs in per week.

I've also been feeling really slow. I have been way behind everyone else in my run club, and running in the back by yourself can be rather demoralizing. I run a heck of a lot faster than I used to (I went from averaging a 12 to 12:30 minute mile to 10 to 10:30), but I run with some gazelles! (For anyone in my run club reading this, I hope you know I don't resent you for being fast and I am in fact very happy for you.)

I know I've been tired. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in a long time. The baby was sick for a week and she hasn't been sleeping well ever since. Hopefully this will change soon!

I'm not eating carbs like I used to. It's been slightly more than two weeks since I changed my diet and my body is still adjusting. Maybe I need to cave and eat a bowl of oatmeal before my next run. (Although I did have a good run after eating a breakfast of eggs, spinach, cottage cheese, and an orange.)

Then there is the fact that a large component of running is psychological. The more weightlifting resources I read, the more I think that long-distance running is too much cardio, and something the human body is not designed for. It kind of makes me wonder why I'm doing it! To prove that I can? I feel like I've already proved I can do a lot of things. I would have never dreamed I could run six miles, so why do I feel a need to more than double that?

This is not to say I'm giving up on exercise - far from it! Exercise is important for my health and happiness. And while I'm no longer sure I'll be getting up at 5:00 in the morning on Mother's Day to run 13 miles, I'm not giving up on running for now. After I pick up the kids from school, I'm heading to the gym - nothing like logging a few miles on the treadmill to renew a love for running, eh? ;)

Adventures in Real Food

Weird happenings in my kitchen today

Today I made yogurt cheese! The claim on all these health food websites is that yogurt cheese is very similar in taste and texture to cream cheese. Unlike cream cheese, it's full of probiotics. It can take the place of cream cheese in any recipe as long as it doesn't need to be melted. And it's super simple to make: pour a container of yogurt into a piece of cheesecloth (or a cotton kitchen towel, if you're like me and have no idea where to buy cheesecloth), suspend it over a container, and let the liquid whey drain out. I hung up the ends of the ends of the towel in order to keep the bottom out of the whey. I plan to make veggie and fruit dips from the yogurt cheese, but I'm hanging on to the whey, too. It's good for added protein in smoothies and many other recipes

It only took a few hours for a 32-ounce container of plain Dannon yogurt to drain. It made almost 2 cups of yogurt cheese and a little over 12 ounces of whey. I had some of the yogurt cheese with celery. It's really good! It does indeed taste like cream cheese, albeit a bit tangier. I can't wait to see if it passes the kid taste test.

This little real food experiment went much better than the one I attempted yesterday: making my own chicken stock. I buy cartons of chicken broth or stock regularly, but it never occurred to me how much more economical and healthful it would be to make my own. The directions I followed to make the stock stated to let it cook for up to 24 hours in order to extract the most nutrients from the chicken bones. I brought the leftover carcass from a roasted chicken to a boil, cleared the area of anything remotely flammable, and set the burner on my stove to its lowest setting overnight. (I figure it's no more dangerous than leaving a crock pot on while I'm gone during the day.) When I woke up this morning, the pot wasn't so much as simmering! I stuck my meat thermometer in there and it barely registered 140 degrees. Salmonella city! Into the trash it went. Such a disappointment, but I plan to try again tomorrow.

Rethinking My Diet

I mean "diet" in the true sense of the word: my regularly consumed food and drink; not in the sense of a restrictive regimen designed to lose weight. I want to change my eating habits for the better permanently - and my family's, too, whether they like it or not!

When I lost 60 pounds four years ago, I was following the South Beach Diet, which is an approach to low-carb dieting. It obviously worked - until I got pregnant and went back to my carb-bingeing ways. When I got back on track a year ago and decided to get the weight off again, I initially went back to South Beach. I had the plans memorized and knew that it worked. Then I discovered calorie counting. The general wisdom there is that as long as you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. That is true. However, I began budgeting things like pizza, french fries, donuts, and other things with refined flour and sugar into my calories for the day. On a typical day, I'd eat a low-calorie breakfast and lunch (Special K and Lean Cuisine were my friends) so that I would still have 1000 calories (sometimes more) available for dinner. I was happy I wasn't eating like someone on a diet. I was also setting myself up for failure.

I did calorie counting for almost a year. I finally came to the realization that it wasn't working. Yes, I was losing weight, at times rapidly, but there were long periods of time when nothing happened. I yo-yo'd with the same five pounds from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day! Eating those unhealthy foods just caused me to crave them more, and overindulge more and more frequently. With what I was eating in the amounts I was eating it, you'd think I'd have started piling the weight back on, but I would alternate with calorie deficit days and exercise so much that it evened out. Running five miles or doing a Spinning class would burn 600-700 calories a pop. I would get really cranky on days I couldn't do a workout because I couldn't eat as much as I needed to truly feel full. I was also obviously not eating healthily, nor was I having a positive relationship with food. Something had to change. A lot of things, really.

My "Ausamerican" friend Haley (visit her blog here) had been posting some articles and information on Facebook that were making me question what I thought I knew about healthy eating. I asked her some questions and that led me to explore "real food". Real food is food that is as close as possible to its natural state. Guidelines for looking for real food include "not eating anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" and "not eating anything with a logo on it". Fresh or minimally processed fruits and vegetables, meats, dairy, eggs, butter, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. Using real food guidelines, I came up with my own healthy eating plan:

• I'm eating more fat. Eating healthy fat helps improve satiety and keeps food cravings at bay. I was surprised to learn that conventional wisdom about saturated fat no longer holds water. I started using real butter instead of I Can't Believe It's Not. I was disappointed to learn that the canola oil I'd been baking with and using in whole-grain pancakes and waffles was highly refined, bleached and deodorized. I ordered some coconut oil and am learning to use it. At least I was already regularly using one type of healthy fat: olive oil.
• I'm not eating anything with added sugar or artificial sweeteners. I will allow myself some honey or real maple syrup if needed. I used to think stevia was natural, but the process that makes the white powder found at the grocery store is anything but.
• I'm cutting out processed food. There are certain items in my kitchen, such as salad dressing, that I'm going to finish up because it would be wasteful to just toss it, but I'm planning to make the switch to homemade and real food versions of everything I can.
• I'm watching my carb intake again. I'm shooting for 75-100 grams of carbohydrates a day, maybe a bit more on run days. My Fitness Pal is still very helpful at tracking this for me. I even set my profile to my new carb ceiling.
• For two weeks, I am not eating any grains. That includes wheat, oats, rice, and corn. I am doing this to get cravings for problem carbs under control and to stabilize my blood sugar. I also want to see how my body reacts as they're (slowly) reintroduced.

It's been a week and a day since I've fully adopted and stuck to this new eating plan, including not eating grains. I have lost five pounds! I'm not sure if I was retaining a lot of water or what - all I know is that the scale is showing five pounds gone. My stomach has shrunk noticeably. My eating self control has improved by leaps and bounds. (I have even made waffles and muffins for my kids and not tasted a bite.) I'm not hungry all the time. It's hard to judge whether I've had more energy because I've been dealing with a sick toddler who hasn't been sleeping well, but I certainly don't have less energy than normal.

All of this is not set in stone. If I deviate from time to time, I'm not going to beat myself up (although I am going to be strict about the no-grain period). I think the 80/20 rule is good to follow - if you eat right 80% of the time, the other 20% of not-so-great eating will not affect you too much. Which is what I'm going to use to justify taking my kids to their school's McTeacher Night at McDonalds this evening.

Runday: Killing Two Birds With One Stone

I had a blast last night at my kids' school's annual Trivia Night and Auction. Not only was it a fun night, but it has enabled the school PTO to eliminate door-to-door fundraising - no cookie dough, wrapping paper, or anything else to hit people up for money for, so it's a win-win! I also drank too much wine. My husband, who came to the church where the event was held straight from work, had to drive me home and leave his truck behind. Today I came up with the great idea to run the five miles to retrieve the truck. I have had two sick kids this week and only got to run once on Tuesday, so I was really grateful I got to leave the kids with Jason and get some exercise!

I am currently in the middle of two weeks in which I am going grain-free in an attempt to "detox" and regain healthy eating habits (I may go into detail about that in a different post). I was a bit nervous about attempting a longer run without the benefit of fueling with oatmeal or a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I had two eggs scrambled with spinach and cottage cheese, followed by an orange so that I was at least getting some sugar. I then headed out the door with last night's makeup still smeared on my face.

The nice thing about running to get the truck is that I got to take a route I would never get to do otherwise. A new route is always exciting! However, a long stretch of my run was on kind of a back road, without the benefit of sidewalks or even a paved shoulder in places. I was forced to run in the loose gravel and grass at times, which was really mushy from all the snow we've had lately. This was probably my most dangerous run. Milburn Road is also quite hilly, something I've never noticed while driving on it in the comfort of my van!

It was bright and sunny, albeit cold and a bit breezier than I like when the temperature is barely above freezing. My toes were numb during at least the first half, but I still ended up ditching my gloves and head wrap by mile three, and ultimately unzipped my fleece vest.

My concerns about not being adequately fueled were unfounded. It was a good run! I was already into it when I realized I forgot to time myself, but there will be other runs on other days when I can track my pace.