c25k Week Three
Is complete but not without it’s frustrations. I’ve been pretty strict about my running days (Sun, Tues, Thurs) since starting this program a month ago (holy hell a month already!!!!). This week was the first week I had a schedule snafu (totally my fault) and it really threw me for a loop. I accidentally scheduled myself for a dental appointment this morning at the buttcrack time of 8:00am. This put me in a bind. In order to get the run and dentist accomplished I would need to be where I needed to be by 7am.
My first thought was to move the dentist appointment = Nothing available until March 4th. That’s a no go. Then I thought about moving my run day. Also not an option because then I got all angst about missing my regular day, which turned into a “maybe I should shift my running days all together” which inevitably turned into a “Oh Tara, you’ll never run again and gain all your fat back (especially your back fat)” conversation.
Okay so moving the appt was out and moving my run day was out. That left moving the location so that I would be in a midway point between run and office for easy transition. Waterfront = out. Track = in. All of this decision making took place for almost 4 days before today. I angst…A LOT.
No pretty water to look at but I did discover something pretty spectacular today. I can now run one track length without stopping. That’s 400 meters! To calculate that in terms of what I can understand if I am doing two 3 minute intervals + two 1.5 minute intervals I am running the equivalent of … wait for it: 3/4 of a mile.
3/4 OF A FREAKIN MILE!!!
Now before you all run out and by some pom poms for cheering me, it is with my walking in between but come on people, that’s pretty cool considering a month ago I couldn’t run even 100 meters (or 1/4 of the track length) without stopping and practically spitting up a lung.
So there you have it folks. Fat girl is running faster and longer. Now that this whole dental / schedule snafu is out of the way I can get back to focusing on week 4 which is due to begin on Sunday. It’s quite a jump in length for running. Two intervals of 3 minutes and two intervals of 5 minutes…5 MINUTES! Again, I will give it my all on Sunday. If it is just too much of a push then I’ll repeat week 3.
Imagine me running for 5 minutes.
Weigh in anticipations.
Tomorrow will be week #8 for weigh in. Two months I’ve been on this journey. It feels like forever. If feels like just yesterday. I’m weighing myself everyday and I like the numbers that I see. I mentioned in an earlier post I think I’m going to hit the 20 pound milestone in the morning. I got some good numbers today and barring any wicked ideas of eating a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (followed by a coma induced trip to the dollar menu at jack in the box), I think I’m gonna have some good numbers tomorrow (fingers crossed).
The person in the mirror irritates me.
Seriously! I wish I could just turn her off for a bit. I can step on the scale and see the positive changes. I can put on my clothes and feel the difference . I feel better. I’m sleeping better. My overall mood is good. But I’ll be damn if that person in the mirror isn’t trying her best to bring me down. There is no way I could do this if I wasn’t also in some form of cognitive therapy.
It’s so frustrating. Everyone around me is complimenting me, congratulating me, motivating me and being motivated in return. Yet, there she is lurking in those damn mirrors. Waiting for me to catch a glimpse of myself. Waiting to shut me down. Oh I see her and I try to prepare myself. I point my finger at her and sternly think “oh no you don’t”, but in the end she does.
Losing the weight is the easy part. Losing the girl in the mirror…now that’s the real work. I want to be a 100+ pound loser. I want to have those fantastic side by side shots. One being 263 the other 163. I want to have those awesome pictures where you see the person eating a big old piece of cake and then the same person running a marathon. I want to put my fat pants on with both my legs in one pant leg. I want to be that person that people look at and go “her, really 263 pounds??? no way”. In order to do that the girl in the mirror must vacate.
I love her though. She has been with me since before I can remember. Telling me how she’s my only friend. She’s the only one that truly understands what it’s like to be fat. She’s the only one that understands what it was like during bouts of bulimia. She took those diet pills with me religiously and told me this is the way to lose the weight, knowing full well this was not the way it was going to happen. She was the one that repeatedly told me to just give up cause this is never going to work. It didn’t need to work because we were going to be together forever…just her and I.
I really need to work on that “vacate the premises” paperwork.
Do you have someone in the mirror?
When I was reviewing products for Cranky Fitness, I got to review (and keep) a little pocket video camera. Turns out that gadget is extremely helpful, motivation-wise.
I don’t really /see/ myself when I look in the mirror. I’m too used to that face/body to really see it. But if I videotape myself and play back the clip, it’s like I’m looking at myself from the outside, as a stranger would.
It sounds narcissistic to videotape yourself, but it’s really helpful to be able to look at yourself that way. I absolutely /hated/ videotaping myself when I started. At my highest weight, my face was… hard to love. Now, it is so absolutely cool to be able to compare the way my face looks now with back then. Even if the scale doesn’t love me (because I gained muscle while losing fat), I can tell that my face is definitely thinner than it was.
Forget the mirror, reach for the camera!
This is a great post!
First of all, congrats on completing week 3. As you’ll see from my blog post today, Week 4 proved to be too intimidating for me, so I’ve decided to do my own little running program, rather than the C25K. The jumps in time start becoming too huge, at least for me. There is no shame if you need to repeat week 3 or do a modified version of week 4. Just running for 3/4 of a mile is very impressive! (Even with the walking breaks in between).
I agree with the commentor above, stop letting that girl in the mirror get to you. A camera is a great way to see the progress. It’s what I’ve used to keep myself motivated, especially because the scale hasn’t been moving for me.
Which brings me to my last comment – you have done amazing things in regards to the amount of weight you’ve lost in 2 months. It’s awesome! You should be so proud of yourself. I’m very proud of you, plus a tinge of jealousy, too, because I’ve been at this so much longer and haven’t lost anything significant. You inspire me!!
Tara, I died laughing at your “back fat” self talk! I so identify with that. And that’s my ‘girl in the mirror’ response, too. I sometimes feel like I am two different people: the one who is kicking a$$ and taking names with this healthy living stuff, and the one who randomly takes over my body, parks it on the couch, and thinks a pint of ice cream is only half a serving.
What I’m realizing (and what some time in therapy helped me realize) is that I *do* have more than one “me” inside of me. No, I’m not schizo! lol We all have different versions of ourselves, for lack of better terminology, that fight for supremacy when we we’re making decisions about our behavior. The one “Valerie” I fight with the most is the petulant, instant-gratification seeking, rebellious teenager in me who wants what she wants when she wants it, dammit! Learning to acknowledge her WITHOUT letting her control my adult life is a tricky thing.
Anyhow, thanks for sharing, GREAT job with the running, and GL on your WI tomorrow!