So, updates! This morning I weighed 184 pounds. On Sunday I ran my first mile. I now wear a size 14. What do these things mean?
- I'm no longer obese (now I'm merely 29 pounds overweight, haha!)
- I weigh less than my (male, 6'4") spouse for the first time in our 6-year relationship.
- I have lost 67 pounds, which is, of course 67% of my 100-lb goal!
- I'm approximately 33% done with my goal of running a whole 5k.
- I own bright pink skinny jeans. I intend to wear them.
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| Though I doubt I'll look like this-- or wear black pumps, but it will be good. |
That's the run-down team. What I really want to talk about today is running. I posted on Facebook and twitter about my run, but I didn't tell a lot of people that I had started running. Probably because I honestly didn't think, even 67 pounds later, that I'd be able to do it. In middle school and high school, I was 100% that stubborn girl walking the mile. Very much like my dislike for tag-- I had no desire to be measured at doing something I knew I wasn't good at.
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| Do I even need to caption this?! |
When I was younger, that was how I rolled. Now, I believe I could do pretty much anything I have the time, funds and patience to practice for about 10,000 hours (right dad? :) )
Also, I'm straight-up a suck-up and an over-achiever, so when I saw this gorgeous running medal apparatus with a Shakespeare quote ("Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.") I was a little bit lost to the cause-- I wanted a MEDAL! I knew I needed to make a running goal if I wanted to do 5ks (or 10ks! or half marathons!) Specifically, I needed a SMART goal.
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| Not that I expect to get medals. Maybe a parade, but not medals. |
When I say SMART I don't mean "ingenious," or "brilliant." I mean Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-based goals-- S.M.A.R.T. When I decided I wanted to actually RUN a 5k, I had to sit down and figure my life out.
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| I love tables that explain things! |
How much can I run right now? That answer, a few weeks ago, was half of a mile. I could run half of one mile without feeling like I might die. I decided I would start there. I decided that I didn't want running to take over my exercise life, and I'm already doing an hour of yoga twice a week. I figured more than 5 days of "specialized" training was getting kind of unnecessary. So, I decided I would run 3 days a week. I picked Sunday, Tuesday and Friday since I do yoga on Wednesdays and Saturdays and Monday is rest day (AKA laundry day). Someday I will plan something special for our friend Thursday.
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| I swear I will come up with something good for you, Thursday. |
Anyway, once I decided I needed to start at .5 mile, and 3 days a week. I set up a schedule. I use google docs pretty obsessively, so I added a page to my already-somewhat-OCD Healthiness Spreadsheet. I decided that I would run each 10th of a mile twice, then increase one 10th. So, for those of you who are curious, my running schedule looks like this:
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| Bright green means "I DID IT!" also it means go. |
It's very specific. It's extremely measurable, since I do all of this on a treadmill. I increase very very very slowly (slower even than couch to 5k programs). It's also relevant to my interests at the moment and beautifully time-based. SMART goals for the win! :)
It's odd, I've never thought of myself as a runner. But then I realized that I didn't have to be a runner, I just have to run.
Running isn't some kind of bizarre secret club that only thin people in tiny shorts can attend. It's exercise just like any other. I'm not saying it's super-duper fun, but I do understand the draw. No matter how arbitrary 3.2 miles seems, it's a goal. It's something to work toward being able to do that isn't just fitting in jeans the next size down. It's something positive to focus on rather than "getting healthy," which has always felt kind of vague and unquantifiable.
For fun, since I am taking screencaps of my somewhat OCD healthiness spreadsheet, here's my current weight chart with all of my data points since I started.
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| Data! Super-fun! |
That's my update and the story of how I started running. Thank you all for reading and for all of your support!
