Week 1, Day 1 - The First One is Always Free...

Today was FINALLY the first day of training... WAHOO!!!!!  So what seriously intense exercise did I do?????  Big, fat nothing, nada, kloom.  Mondays are rest days!  On one hand, it was anti-climactic, but on the other hand, it ended up being a crazy day b/c I forgot about Lilah's Occupational Therapy appointment this morning, so I guess it was all for the best.  

Training for the week looks like this:

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
1 – 11/14	Rest	1.5 m run	3.0m run	1.5 m run	Rest	3 m run	30 min walk

I'll also being adjusting my points for the days I run.  It ends up being an extra point for every additional 5 minutes I exercise at "high intensity."  Since I'm still pretty out of shape, I will be categorizing every moment running as high intensity. 

Point goals for the week will be:



Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
1 – 11/14	32	36	36	36	32	36	34

So away we go!!!.... Tomorrow :)

Wish me luck.

Training minus 1 day...kind of.

Last night's avoidance of the wine worked and for I was down some more weight this morning :)  It's really gratifying to see the number on the scale finally starting going down.... but now I have to stick with it!!

Today I was supposed to go for a 30 minute walk, but it was a pretty crazy day and I just couldn't seem to find 30 minutes to get outside and walk.  That being said, I DID get walk around the grocery store for at least a 1/2 hour.... I'm not sure if that counts, but I think it should count for something. 

Tomorrow is technically my first day of training, but good old Hal made the first training a rest day... which I think is unfortunately anti-climactic, but I'll take it and relish my last day before being officially in training. 

Ixn-ay the Oxedwine-bay

Last night I learned a valuable lesson about drinking cheap boxed wine while dieting and training:

1) Dieting: Immediately after publishing my post last night, I had a glass of wine, which led to two pieces of chicken, which led to 2 more glasses of wine.  Remember last night when I said I was sticking to 35 points per day?  Well, due to the wine and the wine induced chicken, I ended up with 44 points..... conservatively :(  I guess once I have some wine in my system, I lose all ability to resist temptation!!!  Luckily the scale only went  up 0.6 pounds, which will hopefully comes off tonight when I abstain from the cheap boxed wine.  Alas... I suppose I'll be in big trouble if the husband ever brings home good wine :P

2) Training: I woke up this morning with a headache, purple lips and feeling generally mmmehhh. After 4 cups of strong coffee, I decided to go for my pre-training run anyway.  The first mile was painful and I literally felt like I was sweating cheap boxed wine.  Luckily, I was able to rally for mile 2 &3, but I know it wasn't my best.  Since I believe it's unsafe to listed to music if I have the kids with me, it was nice to be able to listen to my own music and zone out a bit :) I know this coming week will be better.

So, it looks like I'll be adding #12 to my "Things I've Learned About Running" page:

Do not drink wine (especially cheap boxed wine) the night before a run.

The culprit - Winco's finest:

I stole the above image off the Internet and have no idea why the person is aerating this crap!

And on the 3rd day before official training starts, we rest...

My training for the marathon technically starts on Monday, but for this past week, I've been doing the first week of training.  It's the first time in a long time I've run with any regularity, but I have to say I truly enjoyed every run I took this week.  The hardest was my Wednesday 3 miler with Lilah.  She seemed really happy for the 1st two miles, but ended up screaming the whole way home :( 

Today was a rest day, although I have to admit that between baking challah, 6 loads of laundry, a Dentist appointment and the two kids, I didn't exactly sit on the couch watching soap operas eating Bon Bons.  Speaking of laundry, I've noticed my increased running has lead to practically a whole other load of laundry a week! 

Here's a picture of the pretty challah I made this morning:

Tomorrow will be my first run this week w/o the kids and I'm excited to see if I've gained strength or speed by pushing the extra 50-100 lbs of kid & stroller.  I actually like running in cold & rainy weather, so for this, Oregon winter is actually perfect running weather!

My diet is also going well for the moment.  The weight watchers plan gives me 29 points to play with per day with an additional 40ish points to spread through the week. Additionally, I get points for my workouts which fluctuate depending on duration and intensity of my work out.  I find the extra weekly points to be annoying, so I've just gone ahead and made my daily goal 34 points per day plus whatever activity points I've earned.  As of this morning, my weight is down over 5 lbs in the last two weeks which is awesome, but the weekend is upon me and that's what usually kills me.  I'm hoping with my extra blog accountability I'll be able to control myself tonight :)

So.... as most of you already know, I've decided to something wild and crazy!!!!...  I registered for the Vancouver, Washington Marathon to take place on June 17, 2012.  SHA-ZAAM!!! I'm super excited about it and am really looking forward to starting training :)

Most Marathon training programs are about 18 weeks, but I've decided to do Hal Higdon's Novice Supreme training which is 30 weeks: http://www.halhigdon.com/beginrunner/novicesupreme.htm.  Why you ask?  Mostly because I'm terrified of getting injured!!!  You see, my husband qualifies for sabbatical (8 weeks of paid vacation!!!!) that same June, so the week after the Marathon, I need to be able to get on an airplane so I can hang out on a sunny beach without pain.  From what I've read, the more progressive your training program is, the less likelihood of injury.  

However.... there are several issues that will be slowing me down on my run to the finish line:

KIDS
I have two adorable little munchkins who will be accompanying me on many of my training runs.  I'll be running on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.  My mother will watch the kids on Wednesdays and my husband will watch the kids on Saturdays (He'll also be watching Premiership Soccer), so hopefully I'll only have Lilah with me on Tuesdays (Ari is in Preschool) and I'll have both kids running with me on Thursdays.  Following?

Sounds like I have it all figured out - right?  Well.... as you might imagine, attempting to jog with kids is kind of like Russian Roulette: you never know when someone will be hungry, thirsty, have to go potty, want his bagel, want her puffs, or just decide they're done and start screaming bloody murder.  It can make trying to stick to a running schedule pretty difficult. 

The other problem with running with kids is the extra work involved.  My single jogger is 28 lbs, my double jogger is 38 lbs, my daughter is 23 lbs, my son is 34 lbs.  If I run with just Lilah, I'm pushing an extra 51 lbs and if I'm running with both kids it's an extra 95 pounds!!  It's really tough to push that much weight and I know I may not be able run the whole distance I'm supposed to :(

WEIGHT
I've managed to gain back all the weight I lost over the summer :(  I'm still 13 pounds over my Lilah pre-baby weight and 23 pounds over my wedding weight.  All the extra weight still stress my joints as I run thus increasing my susceptibility to injury.  I'm hoping to lose about 1 pound per week (totally reasonable!!!) to get to my goal weight by the end of my training.  I've started doing Weight Watchers on my own again two weeks ago (lost 3 pounds) and have been doing really well through the week, but I completely fall apart over the weekend. Part of the reason I'm starting my blog early is to give myself a kick-start over the weekend on my diet. I'm hoping by the end of the training, I'll be down to my goal weight :) 

WEATHER
I'm going to have to train during the winter, which in Oregon means lots and lots of rain. It's going to give training with the kids a whole new level of craziness!! 

Aiit.... here it is.  I'm getting tired now as you can tell from the paragraphs getting smaller and smaller :) I'll be posting daily to keep myself honest.... so get ready for 214 posts coming your way!  BAAM!