Race for the Halo 5k Report

 I decided last year after another disappointing half-marathon I was going to take a break from longer distances and concentrate on loosing weight and getting faster. It has at times been a tough choice as I have missed those longer runs. But I know that my training needed a boost and these old legs needed convincing they could indeed run faster. 


Race for the Halo held on Valentines day was at a beautiful park off of Lake Houston. I finished with a 2nd place age group win! Technically it was two age groups (50-59) combined!






Weather: BEAUTIFUL! The sun made the chilly 45 degrees perfect! The lake was a gorgeous backdrop. It was a tad windy but not too bad.

Course: was part trail and road but the trail was not compact dirt as I had originally thought. After we reviewed the course on Friday before packet pick-up I was a little freaked out to say the least. I spent the rest of the day fretting about the more than one mile of rocks, roots and ruts I was going to face. Thankfully by morning I decided that it was more important to play it safe on that part of the course than to spend weeks recovering from a injury. The course was long and my watched showed 3.21 miles.

Mantra: "don't think, just run." Exactly the kind of race mantra I needed for this course. All heart, nothing mental. I find this really helps with shorter races as they are over before you can hardly think! :)

Race/Highlights: This was the second year for this organization Real Life Angels to put on this race and its obvious why they doubled in size from last year! Beside the fact they offer a nice medal which is not always the case in shorter distance races, the awards were nice and 3 deep per age group. The food and water was well stocked and they offered a play area for the kiddos. Another REALLY nice part was that the race started and finished at a pavilion in the park so we could use park facilities instead of port-o-johns! This also made parking a breeze! The best part of the day was seeing my baby-girl get her first AG award. She came in behind me so I got to see her run in, my heart swelled as I watched her cross the finish!

Loooooooong Time No See!

Wow! Where does time go! It has been over a year almost two since I posted on this blog! I really wasn't planning to stop blogging but it happened. Beside being super busy I just ran out of blogging mojo and trying to post interesting enough stuff to take up your precious time. More than that my training had stalled and I was tired of hearing myself drum on and on with my training woes and trying to make things sound better than they really were. Over this unplanned break I have been running consistently and ran my 7th half marathon April 2014. Although I am always grateful to complete the 'bigger' race distances, that race was like so many prior and was a combination of personal disappointment and being limited by physical issues. After that race I promised myself I would not sign up for another race until I lost weight. I was coming to grips with the fact I needed to do whatever it took to loose weight even if it meant I had to stop running, and if you knew me personally you know that type of decision would be almost like cutting off my leg! Yet I couldn't seem to balance higher mileage training with the effort I needed to put into loosing weight. Part of the difficulty is my age but also that my body has adapted to running over the 20+ years I have run. 

The first picture in the photo was taken in 2011 after I completed the RnR half in Dallas. I had actually lost about 10 pounds prior to that race. The one in the middle I'm 4-5lbs lighter than the first pic but is where I had been stuck for over 3 very long years!! These years have been a struggle on so many levels. To not see the scale move yet you are trying everything is disheartening! To add to it the weight gain was the result of some heavy trials that God has 'blessed' my life with so the desire to loose the weight had a lot of emotional freedom attached to it. The last picture in the photo was taken in December 2014 prior to a fun 5k my daughter and I ran in Galveston. We stayed at the Hotel Galvez and the entire weekend was a wonderful time with family. That picture is reflective of another 10+lb weight-loss!! I ended up with a terrible chest cold two weeks before that race (probably because my diet was so strict) so I had put back on about 3-4lbs. Total weight loss between picture one and three is roughly 25lbs!! That may not seem like a lot but the fact I'm 5'3, over 50 and was not able to make the scale move for over 3 years, I'm ecstatic!! My runs feels so much better physically and I am able to feel that lightness again both emotionally and physically. I want to loose a little more weigh but feel like I can do that slowly. I'm sticking with my diet and lower mileage for another month or so but hoping to, kind of itching to, get back to half-marathon training. Hopefully this will be one of many post and re-connecting with my blog running friends in 2015!

 It's a small thing I can do but today's run is dedicated to those who were affected by the Boston bombings.

 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21

 

 

Sweaty Sandy Days Ahead

My blog has been bombarded with a bunch of spam so I am now moderating comments.

So move out spammers I've got your number!!

In other news life continues to move along...the kids are ready for school to be over and frankly so am I. We have been planning our family vacation TO THE BEACH and it has got everyone longing for more leisurely days. Sadly we are not taking our vacation until September so our excitement will have to stay under wraps for quite a few more months. I looked at and considered running a 5k while we're in Pensacola Fl. but I'm just not sure I want to ask my family to get up early on a vacation morning for such a short race. As far as running goes, mileage has notched way down for now and my body feels thankful for the break. Training will pick back up 1st of July and I look forward to being back on track for the fall racing season. It will be tough training thorough July and August here in Houston but this won't be my first summer getting through it. Sweaty sandy days ahead for sure!

What races are you training for that will have you running through the heat of summer?


One of the places we are considering staying!



Fitness Friday (Abs)

I decided after my last half marathon to take 2 full weeks off from running. My goal in taking this much time off was to see if my Piriformis would stop hurting completely. Interestingly the dull ache continued and seemed to get worse with time. I tried to stretch it out but the ache was chronic. Funny thing is since I'm back to running this week the ache has decreased substantially, this makes me laugh.
Running has been such joy again! Not feeling the crunch of a pending race has taken the pressure completely off and I am just enjoying the love of running. I have had a really good week being consistent at my additional goals of stretching and strengthen. In addition to running I have done some form of weights, stretching, rolling and ab work at least 4 times.
Life continues to have some challenges but I have been strengthened by the love and support of a few dear friends who I have opened up to. Their friendship is one of the greatest blessing in my life and as I thought they have rallied around me wrapping me with arms of love and care. I am overwhelmed with Gods grace expressed through them toward me.
Since this is fitness Friday thought I would post this chart of ab exercises I found to be helpful:

Pressing on,
Terri