A Confession and Looking Ahead

Well, two days since weigh in and the scale is still not budging. I keep saying I'm not going to let it get to me, but guess what? It's getting to me...a little. I do not want to be a 'large, fit runner'. I want to be a 'slim, fit runner'. I am realizing this is a 'danger zone' in weight loss. This is when one could say 'f-it', I can't lose, so I may as well eat! I'm not quite to this point, but yesterday I slipped up big time.

NO - I did not succumb to my old M&M addiction, so that is good news. But I did eat way more than one serving of Planters Nutrition Mix for Energy. Way WAY more. Ok, nuts are good for you, healthy oils and all that...but also high in calories, high in fat - so in MODERATION, they are one of the top 5 healthy snacks of all time. MODERATION is the operative word here...and I just kept mindlessly munching away at my desk yesterday afternoon. Part of it was my 'scale turmoil' in the back of my mind, and added to that was an emotional eating component. Consequently, I literally binged on nuts. It could have been much worse - see Barbie there in a much more precarious situation ha ha.

I have some restlessness going on at work that I'm working through and yesterday was just one of those days when things started to click in my mind and I started some 're-evaluating' and thinking ahead. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I work with great people in a wonderful environment - it's just that some of my day to day work is becoming a bit 'schlep-like' and I'm craving 'newness', or something...more to come on that another time.

I almost wasn't even going to blog my little nut mishap, but this is a natural part of this journey...sometimes we fail in order to learn and move on to success. So move on I will, today is another day. I also did not run last night, nor could I wake up this morning to do it, but I have been feeling a little tired this week, and I think my body needed an extra rest day from the increased running times? I will do it this evening, and Sunday - so I'm still good for the week.

In moving on, I have some plans in place now in terms of the physical aspect of my journey. By next weekend, I will complete C25K. This is really a great gift to myself for my 41st birthday, which is next Thursday. I have my 'last' C25K run on Saturday the 27th, so I'm pretty excited about that! My first 5K will be on October 19th - a little local race in my community. And then on Thanksgiving, I hope to run a Turkey Trot 5 K in Virginia where we will be visiting family for the holiday.

(Be warned, the following may sound a little 'manic' but it's all good, really)

STarting the week of 9/29 though, I will be moving on to the One Hour Running program, which goes for 10 weeks. By December 6th, I should be able to run for one hour straight. I can't imagine.....

For the rest of December, I plan to simply RUN, whatever I can get in, at least 3 times a week. I'm not going to follow a training schedule other than, just run. It's going to give my body a 'rest' of sorts, and with the holidays and all the craziness of December, this is a good time to step away from training plans. If the OHR program takes me longer than 10 weeks, I've got December as carryover for that if needed, otherwise, I will Just Run.

Then, moving on to January, I am going to start a 10K training plan that runs for 12 weeks. That will take me to about the end of March 09, or into April depending on how the training goes (repeating weeks? injury? ) I've got a nice cushion of time built in here so that I am good and ready to run my first 10K - The Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon, 1/2 Marathon & 10K on May 17th, 2009! *gasp* Who would of thunk it?! I haven't even gotten to the first 5K yet and I'm already planning the next distance. (**side note, if any of the techie people out there can tell me how to get the picture/countdown from the Cleveland Marathon site to my blog, I'd be forever grateful!)

In the spring while working on the 10K training, I will do some 5K races as part of the training. I also plan to join a running club in April, NEOFit looks like a small personable group and a good fit for me. They have a six month marathon training season (full and half) that works towards participation in the big fall races. It costs $100 (cha-ching, investment) but I think that is money well-spent. I will be preparing for a 1/2 marathon which will be the Detroit Free Press Marathon in October 09 where I hope to meet up with one of my newest Blog Friends and well, anyone else that we can grab (drag) along the way!

Any more experienced runners out there can feel free to knock me down a notch if any of this seems remotely unreasonable! But everything I've read about training for 10K's requires a 6 month base of just endurance building, which is exactly what I am doing with C25K and One Hour Running. So I'll have that covered. So I think a 10K by May 09 is reasonable as long as I stay healthy. That is still 8 months away after all. And the 1/2 marathon is just over one year away - so that is attainable, right? It suddenly occurs to me that I will be 42 years old when I run the 1/2 Marathon in Detroit next year, and it will be the one year mark since running my first 5K. Wow. How cool will that be?

How can I let a little over-indulgence of nuts get me down when I have all this great stuff to look forward to?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!