March 11, 2013

Motivational Monday #6


I've had a secret since shortly after coming home from Florida in January, and I've been dying to write about it--but I wanted to wait until it was 100% for sure going to happen before I said anything. My Ragnar teammate, Andrea, and I spent an extra day together in Miami before we headed home from Florida--and in conversation, she mentioned that she would like to run a marathon one day.

At the time, I thought our houses were much closer than they are, and I figured I could drive down there (Kansas City) to cheer her on and see her finish her first marathon. When I got home, I saw that we actually live 11 hours apart, which is a bit of a drive!

She (jokingly) suggested that I run a marathon with her, but I'm retired from marathons, remember? So I looked for marathons that were about the same distance from each of us, and what do you know?! CHICAGO was the perfect halfway point!

So I did what any retired marathon runner would do, and I agreed to run the Chicago Marathon with her in October. ;)

To everyone who would like to say "I told you so!"?  Touché.  ;)  

When registration opened, we both tried signing up right at noon (I was at the dentist office, waiting for my kids to get their teeth cleaned, so I was using my phone for internet). The server was down, which was irritating. I figured that after the initial rush of people trying to register, it would be back up, but I still kept refreshing the page with my uber-slow connection.

A couple of times, I even got as far as typing everything in, but then when I clicked to go to the next page of registration, I got an error message. I was really frustrated, and thought about just waiting until I got home to use my actual computer, but since I wasn't doing anything anyway, I kept at it. Finally, I put in my payment, clicked "submit" and... error.

I was afraid to get charged multiple times, so I went to my bank's website, and the money had been deducted... so I figured I was in! Even though I didn't get a confirmation. Meanwhile, I was texting Andrea, to see if she got in, and she hadn't yet. She worked on it a little longer, and finally, SHE got the confirmation.

We later found out that shortly after we both registered, the race had to close down the registration until further notice, because of the huge mess that had occurred with everyone trying to register at once. Andrea and I were very lucky to have gotten in when we did! To sum up a very long story, there were 15,000 spots left open, so they ended up having a lottery for those spots--and 30,000+ people entered the lottery!

I'm excited about this race--I'm not running to PR, but to run with Andrea while she completes her first marathon! We'll go at her pace, and enjoy scenic Chicago together.Then we'll spend all of our activity PointsPlus on some pizza, of course.


Anyway, on to Motivational Monday! I had a very, very crappy eating day yesterday--I didn't binge, but I was snacking all day long when I wasn't even hungry. I used 63 PP yesterday, most of it on random snacky junk. Today, I made a meal plan and stuck to it, and ate very healthy all day. I'm going to do the same tomorrow, and hopefully all this crap won't show up on the scale Wednesday. This morning, I definitely needed some motivation, and you all certainly delivered!

Kimberly PR'ed a 5K race... AFTER doing a 35-floor stair climb race the day before! That hurts my legs just thinking about it. 



Amber set a new distance record on her stationary bike--her previous record was 13.1, but she biked 14 miles one day, and even farther the next day!



Natalie completed her very first race--the Disney Princess Half-Marathon! She's lost 68 pounds since August, and her goal for this race was to finish under 3:30--and she did it! She finished in 3:24. Here she is holding her very first medal:



After losing 27 pounds, Jennifer completed her first 5K race! She even took a wrong turn during the race, but didn't let that discourage her--she felt so good when she was done that she plans to run a 10K soon :)



Katie and her running partner both set personal records in a St. Patty's Day 5K! They both just started running only six weeks ago--amazing!



Ang completed her 15th race in 15 months... but this one was special because she did it with her two sons (11 and 7 years old). They did the one-mile fun run at the boys' school. (You can read about it on her blog here).



Lorrie has been biking to work for 10 months now, and has reached a milestone of losing over 107 pounds in the past couple of years!


 Z was getting frustrated with the scale not budging, but when she took her measurements, she saw that she'd actually gone down quite a bit!



Allison got back to running this week after having to take some time off due to bronchitis. She worried that taking time off was going to make her gain weight, but she said she learned to listen to her body and recover from the bronchitis. She was glad to get back to running this week, though!



Amy has two things to celebrate this week--she ran a 5K race 13 minutes faster than she did at the same race last year; AND she reached a milestone of 50-lbs lost!

And as usual, Facebook never fails to inspire me when I read all of your accomplishments! Here is a snippet from today:
You can read the whole Facebook post for more motivation and ideas!

31 comments:

  1. Everyone is doing so great!!

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  2. No way!! My husband registered for the Chicago Marathon too. It will be his first. He had the same experience as you with registering and we were so glad he got in! He is going to be charity running the event for an organization called Back On My Feet. Maybe I will see you at the finish line.

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  3. What does a retired marathon runner do? Wait - there are no retired marathon runners!

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  4. Yea for Chicago!! My husband and I also got registered the first day (took me 1.5 hours of nonstop trying to get us both in!) and it will be both of our first marathons!! And, we live in Kansas City:) I'm so excited that you'll be training at the exact same time that I will be, as if you aren't motivating enough, now we have the same target marathon! I can't wait to see what training program you're going with. We're going to be following Train Like a Mother's Marathon: Finish It plan. We're using the Train Like a Mother Half Marathon: Own It plan right now and *love* it, in the past I'd always used Hal Higdon's, but I love the TLAM plans as each work out is totally different and keeps me excited to run each run, because, as like you, I can dread my runs sometimes. I now look forward to my easy runs, because they're easy and not boring. I look forward to my speed work as they're something different and hard, but rewarding. And I look forward to my long runs as I get to go slow and have lots of time to myself:) Eek, I'm so excited!

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  5. I have been reading your blog for awhile now and can relate a lot. Last year I lost over 30 lbs and between a combo of getting lazy and a new med I gained it all back. 20 lbs in one month from the med alone! I was heart broken and discouraged.

    One night at work I was bored and looking through my bookmarks and found your site again. I became motivated again and in 6 weeks I've lost 14 lbs with diet and exercise. I come back to your site daily to remind me to keep my focus- it can happen.

    14 down....86 to go :)

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    1. wow..thats great :)
      Congrats
      I have never seen the scale bee kind ti me....

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    2. Thank you!

      And you look amazing!

      Just keep at it. While the scale showed a drop, my pant size has not reflected that.

      Further proof we can't just rely on the scale to show us our achievements. You're obviously doing something right :)

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    3. thankyou, and so are you :)

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  6. I am also running Chicago!! My sister in law and I somehow both got in!! It took me 1.5 hrs and her another hour longer. We also knew we were in by seeing the charge to our credit card accounts well before we got confirmations! We both were only charged once even though it showed me registered 3 times and her 4 times when the website was back up.
    How exciting!!

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  7. Thanks Katie for including me:)
    I definitely, feel as if Im featured on a celebrity blog.

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    1. Thanks for including me on your blog as well! Ditto on the celebrity bit lol! I love that Katie is so dedicated to her running!

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    2. LOL. Me too!!! Congrats on your progress Z!! And Lorrie!!

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  8. Amazing women! You are all inspiring!

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  9. Chicago is an awesome marathon.. I live on the course and I've been a course marshal the past couple of years. Hopefully the weather is not too crazy!

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  10. That's fantastic! I'm running Chicago too!! Took over 2 hours to register but got in. This will be my second marathon. I read your blog every day and will be awesome to know we're training at the same time. If I struggle your blog always keeps me motivated!
    Ill be flying up to Chicago for the first time...live in texas. Can't wait! Never been this excited to train for a race before.
    Cat

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  11. I almost thought you'd be coming to kansas city! (I live here!)

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  12. CHICAGO!!! Can't wait to cheer you ladies on :)

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  13. Yay!!! I have a friend who ran the Chicago marathon (at 16 too!) and needless to say, I'll be excited for your recap! Good luck!

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  14. You guys are all amazing!! Thanks for sharing your achievements with us.

    Also, @ Katie: haha, cracked me up - but I won't say I told you so! :P Really awesome that you & Andrea will do it together.

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  15. I thought I was a one and done with marathons, but I keep saying maybe once I'm done with school... Maybe!

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  16. Congrats on getting into Chicago! I got in as well. I almost came back and registered later (since it took 6 days to fill up last year), but like you, I decided to just keep trying for a bit. Then yesterday I was thrilled to see I got in to the qualifying start corral I wanted. So exciting!

    Oh and this is my "one and done" so we'll see how that goes. I have been running for several years and done lots of halfs, but never been that motivated to try a full. Maybe I will end up with some of your "retirement" mojo after completing my first as well. :)

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  17. Congrats on the next marathon!!

    If I EVER do a full, it will be that one (provided I can get into it). I personally feel that Chicago is the BEST place to run. My favorite races (other than Disney but that's kind of an extra special thing)have been in Chicago.

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  18. This blog is so inspiring!! I'm trying so hard to find my motivation to get up and exercise before work--which means getting up at 4:35am.. All your tips and success stories will help hopefully!!

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  19. Haha, I knew you couldn't stay away from another marathon forever! This gives me hope when I do my first marathon in the fall that I won't completely hate it!

    Congrats to everyone on their accomplishments!

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  20. Great job everyone!

    Katie, I'm so excited for you to run Chicago, it's on my bucketlist...In the meantime I'll live through your adventures, as I often do :)

    www.projectfit4life.blogspot.com

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  21. those women are all so inspiring! do you have the respective weblinks to their blogs? that would be so great, i love to check out people after reading here about them :-)
    and yay for your chicago adventure!

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    Replies
    1. If they have a blog and wish to share the link, I always do. But most of the readers don't have blogs.

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    2. Mine is www.enlightnedberg.blogspot.com.

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  22. I just love these posts! I thought about doing something like this awhile back and never got around to it. They are so inspiring!!

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  23. I'm so excited you are running the Chicago Marathon! My friend is also running it and since Chicago is just 30 minutes from where I live, we're going up to cheer her on but now we'll have two people to cheer for. Good luck on training!

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  24. I just love reading your posts. I came across your blog a few weeks back and took my time reading from the beginning to catch up. You have come a long way and have given me the courage not to be afraid to start. I read a quote the other day that said " no matter how slow you are you are still faster then everyone on the couch" and that is what I was thinkning about the full time I was walking last night. I like reading things like your blog because I know now that I am not doing this alone, that there are thousands of people like me out there that have been fighting the scales their full lives. Keep up the great work and I cannot wait for the day that maybe I can be featured in your Motivational Monday :) Have a great day

    J

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I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

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