Eight to Great challenge

Today I started Swim Bike Mom's eight to great challenge.  You can check it out on her blog here.  She has been such an inspiration to me in this crazy start to triathlon.  Basically this plan is a clean eating, paleo-ish (although I will still have limited grains and dairy), workout and train hard, and just to keep going.  I am in! I needed a good swift kick in the behind to focus on my running before October 5th.  Our family's eating out needed to stop as well so the timing is perfect.  There will be a couple of days where I will more than likely break the plan later in the month while we are traveling.  Also, vacation comes during this challenge, but we will have a full kitchen available to us, so I am hopeful to not fall off the plan too far.

Mondays are weird for me at the gym.  There aren't really any classes that I want to take that will be beneficial in triathlon that work with my life and my children's bedtime. So since I am "focusing on running" I decided to actually go to the gym and run.  I also decided to get off the treadmill and get on the track.  That was a much better experience!  Now, I am not saying the treadmill didn't serve a good purpose for me.  I found out just how fast I was really running with the RunKeeper app on my phone and used the treadmill to slow me down to a more sustainable speed.  But I got to where it was too easy to just not click up the speed and actually run, or conversely, it was too easy to just stop running.

I (may) have had the best running workout in my life.  I ran all of my intervals and even thought about doing more, because I knew I could.  And then I wised up and realized that tomorrow is a run day again and looked at the plan for tomorrow and it has a pretty big time increase in the running intervals. 

I still have a LONG way to go, but I am beginning to feel like I could possibly, actually, finish at Rend Lake in October.  In hopefully three hours! You all know this is a sprint distance, and if you do tris at all you think this is a really long time.  I am just going to say that a 21 mile bike ride does NOT belong in a typical sprint distance race.  The bike portion is also why I decided against doing the Oly distance which was my original plan, 42 miles seemed a little too long for a first race.

Those of you who have been asking about my doctors appointment here is an update.  I have had a huge amount of blood drawn. and a thyroid ultrasound.  I was scheduled to go back next Monday for the results thus far, but they have to reschedule due to who I am seeing breaking her hand and having surgery.  I am a little frustrated since it worked out that David is working the back side of the clock that week and could watch the kids during my appointment.  It will probably be at least three more weeks before I know anything now, and that is assuming I can find someone who is willing to watch one or possibly both of my kids so I can go.

Switching to the right

This might be the first time in my life that I am excited about a doctors appointment.  Well, other than the ultrasound appointments while pregnant with my boys.  My appointment is at 3:15 tomorrow, and I have heard such wonderful things about this practice that I am extremely hopeful.  I will definitely let you know when I find out something.

On another note, I took a day off from spin today.  I really needed to.  I have been neglecting swimming and running.  I am planning on riding tonight after I make sure my kids are asleep, though.  It has become such a good stress relief for me.  I did swim and run for 30 minutes each at the gym this morning.  I realized how much of a left sided swimmer I am.  Unfortunately both of the races I have already decided on doing the buoys are on the swimmers right.  Here is to hoping that I can undo my left sided breathing only after a good 20 years of practice!  It was so weird trying to breath on my right.  I generally breath every 4-6 strokes in practice and 10-12 strokes in races, so I was trying to breath odd numbered strokes today to get in some right sided practice.  I felt like my breaths were shallow and useless.  More practice is definitely needed!

Running still stinks! I don't think it will ever get better.  More practice is needed here too.

Muncie 70.3 is officially a year away!  And Rend Lake's Tri is about 10 weeks.  So much to do before then...

What do I have to do to actually lose weight?

Frustrated.

Beyond words.

Annoyed.

What am I doing wrong?

I have been working out for somewhere between 8-11 hours a week for about 6 weeks now, and was working out and eating well before I joined the gym, and I haven't lost ANY weight.

That's not *entirely* true...I lost my baby weight...all 5 pounds I put on during my pregnancy with Keane.  I am down from my heaviest weight, which was both pre and post Teague's pregnancy. (I gained nothing with Teague, and I lost nothing either.  I haven't figured out how I can have an 8 pound baby and not at least weight 8 pounds less...) Most of this weight I actually lost while I was attempting to breastfed Teague, and failing at that. 

I can lose weight if I eat less than 1000 calories a day, but that is really unsustainable long term for me. Others have told me to eat more...I tried that, I may not gain weight, but I am definitely NOT losing weight. 

I am losing inches and sizes in clothing, but I WANT to lose pounds. 

I WANT to weigh less than David for once in my life.

I WANT to be out of the fat category when I go to the doctor.

Speaking of which, I am going to the doctor on the 18th.  I am hoping that this doctor (nurse practitioner actually) listens to me and doesn't blow me off and write on my medical forms that and I quote "am just lazy and obese."

I was going to post a picture of my weight, but I am afraid of the number still.  I am not as bold as my friend Leah.  Major props to her for putting it all out there!!!! Maybe one day...

Any suggestions from anyone who has gone through this journey?

I am tired of failing...

What girl doesn't like shoe shopping?

I went shoe shopping!! And I found a pair!!!!

Aren't they cute?  Now here is to hoping that they solve my feet going numb issue.  I tried them out for just a few minutes on my bike this evening and it seemed to help.  The real test will be the rest of this week.  Crossing my fingers...

Vacation leading to gym woes

I went home for a week! While I was there I had big plans to get most of my workouts in (no swimming) but lots of running and weights.  I made it to the gym exactly once, and about 3/4 of the way through a weight session mom received a call that my step father was sick and we needed to go home.  Fast forward a couple of hours and they decide to go to the hospital. And from that moment on the rest of my week didn't go as I had planned.  I did learn that Teague is SEVERELY allergic to cats.  I have never seen so many hives on one person.

I missed the gym.  I never thought I would say that, but I missed the gym.  I missed Leah, my workout partner, I missed Tasha, the instructor who might be sadistic but is just as amazing, and I missed my bike.  I guess I should have taken it with me.  Lesson learned for our real vacation in September.

I am having some issues though on my bike and while at spin.  My feet are going numb. (!!!) The instructor has said to be conscious of if I am curling my toes or to just go ahead and invest in shoes.  I went back to spin today thinking about my toes.  I am definitely not curling my toes, my feet are just sliding around in my running shoes and causing them to bunch up in the toe box.  That and where the pedal hits my foot on the backside is just in a weird spot.  I guess this means that I am going to buy shoes soon.  I knew it was inevitable, but I was hoping to delay it for a bit longer.

And I may be crazy, but I am enjoying the training so much for this half that I may not want to stop at just a half!  But that is for another time.

In the pool...finally

I got in the pool at the gym for the first time and have a couple of quick observations.

1.  That pool is HOT.  Like really hot.  Like swimming in Pulliam's pool, but hotter, for those of you from SIU.  It was a huge challenge to finish my laps and there weren't that many today.  I only did a 500, which was half as many as I wanted to.

2.  If I am going to swim, I should not do a weights class before swimming.  As I am not a huge fan of freestyle and breaststroke being my preferred stroke and that being much more arm intensive, I was dying.  The weight class was pretty rough on triceps and shoulders today with lots of push-ups, tricep push-ups, and adding a bit of weight to the bar.  My arms were dying on breaststroke, so I tried freestyle only to find that was just as bad.  My arms felt like they weighed a ton!

I only have until Friday before we leave to go to southern Illinois, so I need to get my swimming in for next week before I leave.  I won't have access to a lap pool up there.  I know Du Quoin has their pool, but after guarding, managing, and dealing with the park board for 10 plus years there, I really have no desire to ever step foot there again.  That said, I will only be able to run and bike next week.  And biking is debatable, since I am not taking a bike.  I am pretty sure that there is a spin class at the gym up there that I can join.

This could work out for the best though.  I REALLY need to focus more on running, and maybe being in a place without many other options will be a good thing. 

Slacking today going to pay for it tomorrow

I slacked off at the gym today.  I only did Body Pump, which is a weight lifting class.  My plan calls for me to run on Tuesdays and Thursdays after this class, but today I didn't.  Keane has been sick. (I think it is his ears or his teeth.) I was debating taking him into the doctor this afternoon so I wanted to get out of the gym and give both him and Teague the opportunity for a nap in case I did make an appointment.  Well, I ended up not taking him to the doctor, so I wasted my gym day, and will have to make it up tomorrow.

Tomorrow is spin!  And then I will run after class...which makes it my first brick workout! I am hoping my legs hold out for it.  I went to spin on Monday and contemplated sticking around for a second class.  Riding is getting SO much easier!  That said, I still have yet to log actual miles on my bike and not on the trainer or in spin.  My plans to do so this past weekend were thwarted by weather. 

It will be some time before I actually can get out on the bike for real now.  We will be out of town for the next several weekends.  Visiting family in Charleston before they move even further away from us this weekend and then going home to Du Quoin next weekend!  I will be in southern Illinois for right at a week, so figuring out how to get workouts in while I am up there could be interesting.  I may just "borrow" moms gym pass to Robbie's for the week...I am pretty sure he wouldn't mind.  At least there I can spend some time on the treadmill.  I thought about taking my bike with me, but I probably won't go that far...