Preparing for my first 13.1

8 months of anticipation leading up to the events of Sunday. When I first began working towards this idea of a Half Marathon it was daunting. truthfully even hundreds of hours of training and miles later it still feels daunting. It felt so unattainable, which is definitely not the case anymore. This half marathon does not feel unattainable, finishing it is within my grasp, I’m almost there!

They say Races, especially distance races are all in the mind. I would agree and add that the training for them is as well. I have spent countless miles running, walking, jogging, trying to keep a steady pace. I am still fairly sure I can not run a consecutive mile. With that said, I can however walk for 20 feet and start running again. Since my longest run I have been struggling with my IT band, I have to ice after just about every physical anything and do a heck of a lot of yoga and stretching to make sure I don’t injure myself. I think I would also add that the week leading up to the race is a mind game. This week I  finished my Taper. Last Night I finished my last big workout, and tonight I will run 2 miles with my race buddy, and that’s it. I still feel a lot of emotions, and this week my nutrition has been wonky, but I am still doing things. Still relentlessly moving forward.

All in all, I am looking forward to Sunday, I am going to complete my first half marathon, I am running with with Friends, people who have seen me persist through this journey, and reach for the next big thing. I have Friends and Family cheering me on, on the sidelines as well as running with me. I have trained for this. My goal is sub 2:30, and if I’m a few minutes over so be it, I still ran a half marathon. I’m excited because this race is on my Birthday, and afterwards I get to celebrate with a lot of the people I love. I am allowing myself to eat whatever food after the race my stomach thinks it can handle and hoping that food is Pizza. I am looking forward to saying “I am a Half Marathoner” and training for another race.

Little secret, I don’t enjoy running all that much, and am excited to take a couple weeks off before I do a 5k on Thanksgiving with my Fit Fam. However. I do enjoy my runner friends, I enjoy the Runners High, that feeling of  momentary invincibility because I just ran X amount of miles, and yes my body aches, but I feel great! I enjoy being able to just think while running, and finding ways to keep myself going. Running helps me find my internal motivation, without a trainer telling me to keep going. Running is more so me vs. me.

I am thankful for my running friends, and my running community. I’m thankful for people who text me telling me to keep moving my feet when I am running my long runs. I am thankful for the training, time, and energy my trainer has put into me to help me get ready for this race.  And I am ridiculously thankful for everyone who has been cheering me on along the way, who has challenged me to lift heavier, be stronger, go harder, run faster, run. I don’t HAVE to run on Sunday. I GET to run on Sunday, and for that I am richly blessed!

So if you’re new to my journey, thank you. If you have been with me since I started, and long before I decided to even write about it, Thank you.

 

Cheers to 13.1, Ready or Not Here I come!!

 

-ebs

 

I know I said that “Preparing for the Plateau ” would be my next topic. However, It is Race week for me!

Food is Fuel….

Little known fact about me: I LOVE Pizza… Who am I kidding? Everyone knows I love Pizza. A friend even got me Pizza earrings, which I promptly wore to my personal training appointment with a trainer who shares my love and struggle with pizza. Needless to say I’m not sure she took me super serious that day, but the same day I moved to what I like to call the “big kid”  weights, aka weights and racks not just machines.

In all seriousness, this post is my most transparent struggle with food.

I grew up in a big family, we didn’t always have a lot of money so foods like spaghetti, and vegetable soup, rice and beans of every variation came in large supply. Even now as an adult I’m not a huge fan of a lot of foods I had to many of as a child.

Looking back I think food became a problem for me in high school.  And I’m still not sure how. I wasn’t super concerned about my body, looking thin, or being strong, I think and still think “counting calories” is silly. My family has always had a strong push towards “healthy eating”. My dad  as a chiropractor teaches holistic medicine, and does a lot of nutritional counselling. So even as I got to be an adult I thought “oh, I know how to be healthy and eat right”.

When i started college I gained a lot of weight, way more than the “freshman 15” and I ate or didn’t eat whatever I wanted. I found myself too busy to eat, or more often forgetting to eat. When I did eat, I would eat a lot kinda, and not think anything of it. At one point I dropped out of college and moved home. While living at home, I was not the one meal prepping, and again living in a big family portions were pretty much predetermined. There was no moments of over eating, but I was definitely under eating, but never on purpose. My family was/is Vegan so meals were so different than what I was used to having. When I moved out, and had to prep meals I remained vegan, and continued to lose weight, I didn’t exercise a lot, but I was walking a bit. Eventually I came back to  eating dairy, and  over time back to my old eating  habit, in turn gaining pretty much all my weight back.

This last year when I decided to “get healthy” I decided that I needed to eat better, telling myself and being told by friends that “You can’t out train a bad diet” I started buying healthier foods, but then once again found myself not eating enough, or being too busy to eat. I would prep meals and eat part of them, but never get to the rest. I had increased my activity, but had not changed my fuel or increased my fuel.

After about a month of training with my trainer she began asking about my nutrition, wondering how I felt I was doing, and expressed concern from conversations we had. We began working on a meal plan, and creating goals and a plan for a balanced nutrition plan, and had me begin logging my food choices.

It sucked.

I struggled to make my meals, log my meals, and not just go get quick food. Over time tracking my meals had its good days and bad days, I had days I ate like crud, and I felt it. after a good month and a bit of struggle, and tracking meal prepping clicked better, and my body stopped craving most of the junk I had been eating. (I still want junk sometimes. but when I give in I pay the consequences). I began talking with friends about how to make sure I was eating enough, and staying on track on days where routine was not there. I began setting silent alarms on my fitness tracker to keep myself accountable. (this helps sometimes). I have had to change my mindset about food, and be self aware when I start slipping. My Trainer and a lot of my fit-fam are amazing and generally call me out on nonsense before it becomes something to worry about. At times their analytical views of life hold me accountable, because I know they care and want to make sure that I am properly fueling my body.

Food is Fuel.

I still very much struggle some days eating well, cutting bad habits like late night snacking, giving in to peer pressure and eating out for lunch with coworkers, eating the lunch and snacks I pack every morning. but at the end of the day when I don’t eat well I feel it. I know in how well I do in group fitness classes, on runs, and how I go about my day whether or not I ate, or ate well.

Yesterday I had Papa Johns pizza. just a slice. and for about the next 4 hours I felt bogged down and my stomach was not thrilled with me. My body is no longer used to eating pizza, and the fast foods I was feeding it, and for that I am beyond thankful.

I didn’t go on a diet, I changed my diet. 🙂

I’ve changed the way I view food, and although I will always struggle, I am thankful that I have friends that hold me accountable, and encourage me to continue to eat well, and live well.

-ebs

 

That one time I decided to make a change.

I have started writing this first post about 15 different times over the last 6 months. So here goes nothing!

My name is ebba, and this is my story, and my adventure.

Through our lives we learn and grow, lets say mine is no different. I come from a big family, and went to the college my parents wanted me to go to, I dropped out, moved home, traveled, worked at a high school, became a firefighter, and went back to school. Before ever finishing my degree I got pregnant and became a  single mom to the most wonderful kiddo ever, and then finished my degree with a newborn. (I barely remember my last year of college).

Through all of this I have had these amazing goals of being “fit” and “thin” but also strong. I never really knew where to start or I would work out with a friend or by my self sticking with it for only a couple days, and then falling off. One summer I worked out the most consistently I ever had, biking 12-18 miles a day, and then running a mile or so before some “P90x yoga”, or “hip-hop abs”, but to stick with it I had a goal, and a coach telling me what to do, and holding me accountable. After school resumed I went back to my studying, and not being half as active as I  had been.  Fast-Forward two and half years to February of this year. A couple of my coworkers began working out fairly consistently and were talking about it around the office, I would over hear, or listen to them complain about it being a “rough leg day” or what have you, and wish that I could go with them and work out too. I began talking to a friend of mine and we decided we were going to start a schedule and I would join this super reasonably priced gym that she and my coworkers went to. And then “ta-da” I would be on my way to that beach body! I kept finding excuses on why I needed to push the date I was going to join this gym.

I would say “oh well I’m trying to move, I really don’t have time” or “I’m going out of town next week, so this may not be the best time” or “I don’t really know what to do at the gym except walk on the treadmill” … Finally I cut through my excuses and my friend and I set a date, the weekend after I returned from my trip I would join.

February 28th I walked into Good Life Fitness, I rushed through the paperwork, (Sorry Steve), and met my friend, we walked some, and then kinda lifted some… and then I went home, a couple more days the next two weeks I went in, and my friend began having to work late,  so I would go into the gym and try to figure out what to do, but I felt too embarassed to use the machines much, so I would walk/jogg, and then leave. The next weekend I decided that since I was paying for classes and feeling a little discouraged that I would try Yoga. It was amazing, I thought I was fairly decent at yoga, but I hadn’t done yoga in years so I was  out of practice, and felt crazy, but I did it. I survived the class, and the next day began looking at other classes that might fit my crazy schedule.

Tuesday rolled around and I decided to give Kickboxing (KBX) a go. It sucked. and I loved it. I couldn’t do a burpee, I was not great at hitting a bag, I used the smallest amount of weight I could find from the boot camp room, and moving my bag was a challenge.  Afterwards the instructor was talking about personal training, and what not. I thanked her for the class, and she told me I “killed it” and that it was good seeing new people step out of their comfort zone. and boy was I out of my comfort zone.  The next week I started talking with her about personal training, and then about my goals.

My Initial goals:

• to run a half marathon at some point in my life
• to be able to do a pull up.
• to be addicted to fitness as a whole.

She immediately told me that registration for the Halfsy was open and I should look into it. I found a million and one excuses on why I should NOT run the Halfsy. I thought and said, ” I wont be ready by November to run a half marathon” “I definitely don’t want to run a half marathon on my birthday” and again “I’m not ready”, the response I got back was  “yes you will, its plenty of time , you can do it”.. so the next day  I registered for the Good Life Halfsy.  I started trying to add more working out in my life, I decided that I would “check-in” on facebook when I went to the gym as a form of accountability. If others knew I was going, I had to go..  For my pull up goal I started personal training with this trainer. We began having many conversations about my goals, what I wanted to do, and began working on how to accomplish them.

My first day in my personal training appointment I was terrified, I had no idea what to expect. We walked into the weight room, which besides the treadmill I had found a way to avoid… She had me do some squats on a machine, and I thought I was going to get stuck, and nope, just nope. For the next couple days I nearly obsessed about how I could do this squat better, and be better at it. ( looking back now we both laugh at what I did so poorly then, vs what I do now.. its pretty incredible)

Meanwhile I began trying to figure out what other classes I could/should go to. I had established Sunday morning Yoga, Tuesday evening KBX, and Thursday evening KBX, however I felt like I needed more. My kiddo struggled at first being dropped off in the gym daycare, which took a major toll on me. I posted one day that someone should tell me to get my bum to FIRE (Freakin Intense Resistance Experience) and got an amazing amount of support saying  “yes do it, take care of you so you can take care of your family and others”, and some push back saying “maybe you should just hang out with your kiddo, he needs you”. Well needless to say I made it, and was so glad I did.

I began tracking my progress in my measurements April 1st, and March 29th in pictures.  I quickly became a regular in the classes I went to, and added the instructors I had taken classes from on Social media so I knew when other classes they taught would be. Pretty soon other instructors added me, I felt kinda cool for a minute.

Anyway, So the past couple months my life has changed a lot. I have found myself trying to find more things to do to step up my training. I go to classes a lot, I do boot camps now which is not something I saw myself doing… not for a long time at least… I joined a running group and walked a 5K. I started meeting with a nutritionist (who is also my trainer) and was told that I need to eat more not less. My view of changing my lifestyle has changed. I see so many things where I wish I could have found this life long long ago. I am happier healthier, thinner, and stronger! I am strong. I have increased the weight I use in classes nearly 7.5lbs in group fitness classes and use much heavier in boot camps.

Since the end of March I have trained every other week with my personal trainer who has become a friend, (its kinda nice) and here soon will be training weekly with her. I am not nearly as scared of the weight room, and even play with the idea of lifting more than I attend classes…( stay tuned… this may actually happen) …

My goals have changed some, although I have actually only attained one. My body has changed A LOT, in the amount of time I never thought possible. I am happier, healthier, and so much more positive. Fitness has become a passion, and here is where I will document my journey.

 

My current goals:

• Half Marathon, ( I am so prone to the race bug at this point, this will not be my last)
• Pull up (still not great with upper body things, better not great)
• STAY addicted to fitness
• Lift more.
• Get more defined muscles…
• inspire and encourage others
• find more goals.

 

I think that’s all for now…

– ebs.

 

Ps. Any Ideas, or topics, things you want to know or hear about let me know.