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By kilax, February 3, 2009 5:50 pm

I had a post scheduled for tonight and I took it down at the last minute. It’s the first time I’ve ever done that.

The post was poorly written, and in effect, I think some of the responses would have frustrated me.

All I do is work and run. So… just imagine there’s a post here tonight about either of those topics. Thanks.

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By kilax, February 2, 2009 5:57 pm

Awhile ago, Steven told me he felt like he needed to start eating more. The half marathon training was making him feel hungry all the time (plus he does weights and about 10 million crunches every night).

I was a bit behind Steven in the training, so I was kind of like, “Uh huh, use that as an excuse to eat more. Sure.” I mean, why would running more make you more hungry? That just doesn’t make any sense.

Uh… duh, Kim.

Now I am putting in around 16 miles a week (4 days of running) and a few miscellaneous hours here and there (walking, fencing, wii tennis [ha – can I include that?], etc.) and I am HUNGRY. HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY.

I don’t know why, but I just wasn’t expecting this effect. I thought about how I would have to eat healthy, to fuel my body, but I didn’t think my body would respond by demanding more fuel. I guess it all makes sense though.

It feels really good to eat healthy food all day, then have a long run at night. When I am eating healthy, with fueling my body in mind, it doesn’t feel like work. It doesn’t feel like I am being forced to do it. It just feels good – it feels like the right thing to do. It’s the thing I WANT to do.

Will this half marathon training actually make me have a healthy relationship with food? Is that even possible?

I’ve just noticed that I seem to be less worried about how much I eat, since I am running so much, and actually feel hungry. I feel less guilty, having a treat on a rest day, because I know I will work it off. I feel like I deserve it!

Of course, I must admit that my competitive streak did kick in just a tiny bit on the work Biggest Loser Challenge. More about that tomorrow, but I do realize I need to be careful. I want to lose weight, but I don’t want to be so weak I can’t walk up a flight of stairs – I’ve exercised/eaten so little before that I’ve been in that situation, and it’s awful.

That’s not my intent. When I say I am hungry, it means I am eating more, and enjoying it!

So… we’ll see where all of this goes. I am only 6 weeks into my training. I have 10 weeks of training left – and I will be running quite a bit more during those last 6 or so weeks. Maybe the hunger will go away as my body gets used to running so much. Or maybe I will just have to keep eating more. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as my body continues to adapt if I end up putting in less miles per week after the half marathon.

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By kilax, January 31, 2009 5:52 pm

Our Denver Ski trip is official! We bought our flight tickets last weekend (for mid February) and visited the Columbia Outlet Store today to get our jackets and pants.

I’m getting more and more excited as the details get squared away. It will be fun to try skiing, and possibly, some other winter sports. I wonder if we’ll get hooked on skiing and it will become an annual activity?

It will also be fun to spend time with friends! We are going with one of Steven’s high school friends and his wife. And we are staying with the friend’s parents, who live in the foothills of the mountains just outside of Denver.

All of my memories of these friends and the parents are of good conversation and good times. They’re the kind of intellectual people who listen, have a lot to add to the conversation, but know when it’s time to have fun and not be serious.

We had lunch with the friends today before going to the store. We were telling them about our fitness goals and half marathon training. Sometimes people brush this off or make a joke about how inactive they were, but they listened to us, and showed enthusiasm for our goals, and shared a few of their own. It turns out Steven’s friend is training for a half marathon as well! We all even talked about running the Disney World half marathon next January. After reading Laura’s Disney Marathon Race Report, I really think that half (or full?!) marathon would be loads of fun.

It’s too bad we don’t see these friends more often. They also live in the suburbs, but… the Chicago suburbs can be very far apart. And ours are. Add in all of our busy schedules, and it’s not often the four of us can meet up. Even more reason to look forward to the trip!

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By kilax, January 25, 2009 9:32 am

I just finished reading The Nonrunner’s Marthon Guide for Women by Dawn Dais. I read a description of it a few years ago in Women’s Health Magazine and thought, “That sounds like a good book, but I’ll never run a marathon! Ha!”

Yeah – I never thought I would run more than a 5K.

Anyway, when we decided to run a half marathon, I remembered the book and ordered a copy, anxiously awaiting its arrival…

Unfortunately, the book wasn’t all I had made it up to be in my mind*.  The book was set up well – organized into chapters on training, accessories, the mentality of running, etc. It just didn’t have the full technical background I was hoping for. Dais was very clever and witty with her writing – the book is filled with jokes that made me laugh. And I loved the journal entries from the author’s marathon training – I could actually read a whole book of her journal entries!

But in the end, it was just a light read that gave me a few helpful pointers, but didn’t cover everything I was hoping it would. And that’s okay. I shouldn’t have expected it to!

Any recommendations for other books?

Training Update: I will complete my first FULL WEEK of half marathon training today. That means my schedule has been so off-wack since since the beginning of December that I only now can do a full week of training. And I am behind.

I am about to complete Week 4 of training. Steven is about to complete Week 6 or 7! He chose to stay up late and run during December and the beginning of January, while I chose to sleep, or eat too much food then not feel like running.

I am not only behind in weeks though, I am behind on speed. I had to slow down my speed big time, to accommodate the weeks of not training so much, and uh, the few extra pounds I put on during the holidays. Right now, all of these 4-miles runs are killing me. And I get a 5-miler on Thursday. Yay…

I know the extra weight will come off and I will get back to my normal speed soon. I am just worried that Steven will be so far ahead of me that we won’t be able to stick together during the half marathon. I don’t think he is going to want to slow down for me. And I don’t want him to have to… but I don’t want to run the whole damn thing by myself!

*I have to remember to approach things (books, movies, games, etc. – NOT PEOPLE) with lowered expectations. If you approach something with too high of expectations, it never lives up to your standards. I’ve become much better about doing this with movies, but apparently not with books.

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By kilax, January 19, 2009 9:16 pm

My entire right arm, right shoulder and the right side of my neck are sore. It’s the result of carrying too heavy of a purse for too long, bowling* for the first time in months on Saturday, and playing Wii Tennis** a bit too intensely on Sunday.

The funny thing is, I’ve been ignoring the neck pain caused by my purse for a couple of months. It wasn’t until this Saturday, when the pain spread to my shoulder, that I thought I better do something about it, because I was worried it would affect my running. Since I’ve been training for the half marathon, I’ve really become more in touch with how my body feels when running, and what I need to do before and after running to make it feel its best. My neck wasn’t bothering me too much while running, but I could tell the shoulder pain was going to turn into something awful if I didn’t act on it. So I am acting on it. So I can run better.

It’s really interesting, to follow a half marathon training program, and learn so much about my body while I am doing it. I just never expected to become so in touch with what my body likes and doesn’t like. I won’t go into details, but I’ve learned how important my diet is when it comes to running. If I am running that night, I need to stick to my healthy diet throughout the day, or I am going to be sluggish and uncomfortable on the treadmill. And the thing is, when I am running that night, I DO want to stick to my healthy diet. I am enjoying the training so far and how it makes me feel. I just hope I don’t have any more interruptions in my training schedule. December through mid-January has been hell on my schedule.

*Remember when all I used to blog about was bowling? Then our summer league ended, I and quit playing, because my hip was killing me, and I wanted to focus on running. Well, even though it took me an embarrassingly long time to get back into the swing of things on Saturday, I had a lot of fun, and I miss it.

**Christina and Kyle came to visit us this weekend! We spent ALL day Sunday at home, playing Wii and… playing Wii. Maybe we watched a DVD? I don’t recall. Anyway, I’ve had the Wii for over 5 months and NEVER played Wii Tennis. Kyle and I were fooling around with it, and convinced Christina and Steven to join us after our late lunch. We ALL became ADDICTED! Christina and I had to go change into gym clothes because we were working up such a sweat! Why didn’t anyone tell me Wii Tennis is so fun? I think we spent over 3 hours playing it yesterday. Christina and I were teamed up against Steven and Kyle most of the time, then we let the two of them duke it out, “competitive ass” style.

Competitive asses in action.

FYI: I haven’t really been feeling like myself lately, and I realize that this blog post is a big steaming pile of crap. And… it took me almost 2 hours to write. I mainly wrote it to make Christina happy… are you happy now Christina, are you?!?! Ha ha. Come back to Chicago!

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By kilax, January 4, 2009 1:21 pm

Yesterday was our first run of the new year, in Steven’s parent’s very, very hilly neighborhood.

When we were driving into their neighborhood on Thursday, I thought, “Wow! These hills will make a good challenge!”

Ugh. My quads are so stiff today.

Steven used his new training watch to keep us at our normal pace, 6 mph (10-minute miles). I was struggling though. I was out of breath, my heart rate was too high, my nose was running like crazy… yay.

And I suppose the fettuccine alfredo, curly fries, sesame seed bread, mozzarella sticks, pie and soda from the day before weren’t helping me feel any better.

I think I am going to have to slow down my pace a bit, and build it back up for the half marathon. I’m kind of disappointed in myself for slacking so much in the last month and a half. I knew I was going to have to cut back on exercise and be less strict with my eating during the holidays, but it got a bit out of hand. And I let it.

But at the same time, 2008 was a very good year for me (and Steven!), health-wise, and I should be proud of myself for that. I not only ate healthy (most of the time) and lost some weight, but stuck with running. I’ve gone on and off running a few times. But now, I feel a deep commitment (and desire!) to it that I haven’t felt before. It’s great to be training with Steven, and we are both really excited about running a half marathon.

And now, with the holidays over, I am excited to reevaluate my exercise schedule and recommit.

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By kilax, December 14, 2008 9:26 am

I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to my little weight-loss tracker on my sidebar… but it has gone up! As in, I’ve gained some weight.

It all started when my family was out here baking cookies, and I ingested 12 pounds of cookie dough/baked goods. Then Thanksgiving came. I tried to eat healthy, but that didn’t last the whole day. Then, with the stress of changing jobs…

See how wonderful I am at making excuses for myself?

It’s amazing that I can be so hard on myself when I make what I perceive as one little mistake (like eating an extra cookie or something) but so easy on myself when I have been just eating away, piling on the pounds, not really taking care of myself, or caring.

What is that about? Really? Where does this mentality come from? “Oh, it’s okay if I pack on a little weight around the holidays! Everyone does, and it will come right off!”

No, it is NOT okay. Because once I start down that track, it is hard to get off of it. I recognize that right now is not the most sensible time to be losing weight, but I do need to stay on track and only allow myself a few indulgences (except Christmas Day – no restrictions then).

The sad thing is, I recognize the triggers that make me overeat – boredom, stress, frustration, guilt, restriction – but I’ve just been ignoring my inner voice. Well, it’s time for that to stop.

I don’t know HOW, but it is time for that to stop. Or at least, for me to stop making excuses for myself.

In other “health” related news, Steven and I have discussed our plan of attack to train for a half marathon (13.1 miles). We are following two  guides from Runner’s World – an 8-week program that takes you from 3 miles to 6 miles, then another 8-week program that takes you from 6 miles to 12 miles. We’ll start the program tomorrow.

There are two half marathons in Illinois in April, but I don’t think we will be ready for them if we follow this training, but I am going to search for a target race for us. I am excited about it! I think this will be a fun adventure to embark on together.