Notes

Today was supposed to be hot and humid, so I wanted to get my run done before breakfast this morning. I only had six miles at an easy pace on the schedule, which feels like a cake walk now compared to my other runs! ;)

My easy pace is supposed to be 10:00-10:40/mi. My legs felt surprisingly fresh today, so I just wanted to relax and enjoy it! I was really surprised when I saw that my pace was in the 9:00's. I honestly thought I was happily running about a 10:15-10:30 pace. It's weird how one day, a 10:30 pace actually feels hard, and another day, a 9:30 pace feels super easy.

My run was totally uneventful (unlike yesterday's wardrobe malfunction), and when I got home, I saw my water bottle sitting on the porch. Jerry is super thoughtful in that he always fills my water bottle with ice water when I'm out running, so that it'll be ready for me when I'm done. Today was extra special, because he left me a (very corny) note with it!

It put a huge smile on my face. I sat outside for a little bit drinking my water. Turns out all of my splits were under 10:00. I can only hope that my body feels this good tomorrow for 16 miles!

I got a note card in the mail today from Weight Watchers. Jerry has gotten a couple of cards before, when he hit his goal weight and Lifetime membership; but I've never gotten one, so I was wondering what the heck it was for! Turns out, it was from the leader of the meeting I went to when I weighed in last week.

It's kind of ironic, actually. I finally found a leader that I really clicked with, but she was actually filling in for the regular leader. As I've mentioned before, I've had a really hard time with my WW center. I haven't found a meeting/leader that I "click" with, so I just don't go to the meetings. When I weighed in last Friday, the meeting was just about to start, so I figured I might as well stay.

There was a new leader there, that I hadn't seen before, and she mentioned she was filling in for someone. I felt really comfortable with her, and she didn't look at me like I had two heads when I spoke up. I stayed after the meeting to ask her when her regular meeting times are, because I'd like to go to her meetings. She told me that she doesn't work at this center, she works in Ann Arbor. I was bummed! I thought I'd finally found a regular meeting. Anyway, I thought it was really nice of her to send me the card.

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So, I have to say, it's been really nice not weighing myself daily. I've weighed daily since I started losing weight in 2009. I know that weight fluctuates day-to-day, and I don't let those fluctuations set my mood or anything. But since I was feeling pressured to get back down to 133 for Jerry's sister's wedding next weekend, and Jerry hid the scale from me, I feel kind of liberated. And I've been 100% on-track ever since!

I don't think there is anything wrong with weighing daily, but it's been nice not doing it. Jerry will get the scale back out after the wedding, so I'm curious what my weight will be, but right now, it's kind of fun not knowing. I know that as long as I'm tracking my food and not binge eating, my weight can't be going up, so there really is no reason to weigh.

Once again, I find myself nervous for my 16-miler tomorrow. I have no idea why! I ran 16 miles two weeks ago, and felt great. I mapped out my route, and I'm ready to go. Just hoping that I have another good run!

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Bloody nipples

Today's run was MUCH better than yesterday's. It's been pretty cool outside the past couple of mornings, and today it was only 50 degrees! I was thrilled. My feet were still a little sore from yesterday, but I knew they'd be fine once I started running. I made sure to wear my new shoes today!

After I took the kids to the bus stop, I headed out on my run. I wasn't sure how far I was going to go or what pace I was going to run. I had six miles at an easy pace (10:00-10:40/mi) on the schedule, but considering yesterday's run got all screwed up, I thought I might try for nine miles at marathon pace (8:58). I wanted to see how I felt before I decided.

I didn't want to be a slave to my Garmin by constantly checking my pace, so I just ran at what felt a little harder than comfortable. I decided to look at my pace only when my Garmin beeped at the end of each mile. After mile one, I saw I'd run it in 8:31, so I knew I'd be fine doing a marathon pace run today instead of an easy pace. I still wasn't sure if I'd do six or nine miles, though.

I felt really good! My feet felt a million times better than yesterday, thanks to the new shoes. I ran an out-and-back along a busy road, which usually keeps my mind occupied (and the time goes by faster). Once I hit mile three, I decided to keep going. At mile 4.5, I turned around and headed home. I was surprised at how fast the miles were going by, and I was holding a sub-9:00 pace easily.

About a mile from home, there was a man running toward me, so I said "Good morning!" as we passed each other. He looked at me kind of strangely, but I didn't think much about it. When I got home, I sat on the porch for a few minutes, drinking my water and checking out my splits. When I stood up to go back in the house, I caught my reflection in the storm door. Words can't describe...

My first thought was, "Ohmygod, are my nipples bleeding?!" because I've seen men at races with bloody nipples. It's actually pretty common, and they even make nipple protection that people can buy at running stores. But sports bras are tight, so it rarely happens to women, and it's certainly never happened to me.

Then the realization hit me: I was wearing a brand new pink sports bra under my yellow top. The dye had bled through from all the sweat. I looked like I had just murdered someone with an axe.

I was SO embarrassed for a moment. I wanted to run back down the road and find the guy who thought I was a weirdo, and tell him that I wasn't bloody, I just like to wear pink bras. But that probably screams "lunatic" even more than he already suspected. So I just shrugged it off, and posted a pic on Instagram ;)

I was thrilled with how great my run was!

So I celebrated with a really yummy, indulgent breakfast--a non-peanut butter version of a Fluffernutter. I toasted two low-fat waffles and spread them with Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter and marshmallow fluff, and turned them into a sandwich.

It was 9 PointsPlus, which actually isn't bad at all, and it was really filling. I like this sandwich with peanut butter better, but since I'm not eating peanut butter until the marathon, this had to do. It was still delicious!

I downloaded an app on my phone that calculates calories burned by heart rate (the name of it is a very clever "Calories Burned by Heart Rate"). I've been frustrated with my Garmin recently, because I know that the calorie burn is much too low, even though the heart rate is correct. I wasn't sure how accurate this app would be, but for 99 cents, I decided to give it a try. It takes into account your age, weight, minutes exercised, and average heart rate. So I put in today's numbers:

Of course I can't know whether this is super accurate, but it seems correct to me! That's about 88 calories burned per mile, which seems much more accurate than my Garmin's latest readings of 60-something per mile. I also don't think it's too high, like some of the calorie calculators out there (the one on my treadmill is always WAY too high; it probably would have read about 1600 for today's run).

Tomorrow is an easy 6 miler, and then Sunday is my second (of three) 16-miler. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to run it outside--Jerry's taking my dad's brother to the Lion's game, and I'm not sure if the kids are going to church with my mom or not. I really hope I don't have to run it on the treadmill... that would be a LONG 16-miles!

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Lesson learned

What a crappy run this morning! I was expecting it to be great, because the temp was about 60 degrees outside. I had nine miles at marathon pace (8:58/mi) on the schedule. The past few weeks, I've done the marathon pace runs on the treadmill, but because it was so nice out today, and the boys had school, I decided to run it outside.

As soon as I started running, I felt okay, and my pace was a little faster than my goal, which was fine. Then about a half-mile into the run, a particular spot on my foot started to ache. The only time this part of my foot hurts is when my shoes have too many miles on them. Most resources will tell you to change shoes after 400 miles or so, but I've found that I have to change them at about 325-350 miles.

I bought a new pair of shoes about a month ago just to have on hand for when I reached the point of needing them, and I set them next to my dresser, where they've been ever since. This week, I started to notice that little achy feeling in my foot a couple of times during a run, but I thought, "I'm going to see if I can ride these out for 400 miles..." (Yes, I know, I'm a certified running coach for God's sake! I should know better!)

Anyway, about half a mile into my run today, I started feeling that ache on the side of my foot, and I made a mental note to swap out my shoes when I got home. But then I started wondering if I could even wait that long; the pain was getting pretty bad. I hit my target pace for the first mile, but my feet were hurting, and I decided to just forget the pace and focus on finishing.

By the time I got to mile two, I was practically hobbling. I decided to turn around and go straight back home to change out my shoes. For a minute, I even considered taking my shoes off and walking home barefoot, but the road isn't exactly barefoot-friendly.

The pain traveled up above my ankle, to the tendon on the outside of my leg. I was so glad to finally get home. I took off my shoes, and saw that I had a big knot on my leg where my tendon was feeling irritated. Instead of switching shoes, I decided to call it a day and just rest. As soon as I took my shoes off, I felt relief. I even tried on my new shoes, just to feel the difference, and it's kind of amazing at how different they felt! I've worn Brooks Adrenalines ever since I started running, and you don't really feel them breaking down but it's a big difference when you put on a new pair!

The one on the left is brand new; on the right has 385 miles.

So my lesson learned is that 50 miles makes a HUGE difference on a pair of shoes, and next time, I will change them as soon as I hit 350 miles.

Tomorrow is a six-mile run at easy pace. If the swelling is gone and I feel back to normal, I may try to do my marathon pace run tomorrow; otherwise, I'll just stick to the schedule for tomorrow. I sat with my feet up and I iced the swelling over my tendon, and it's feeling much better now. I'm really glad I turned around when I did, rather than trying to finish out the whole run (because I'm stubborn like that).

I got some groceries at Kroger today, and I saw that they had Justin's Nut Butters on sale for Buy 1 Get 1 Free... the best sale ever! I usually stock up when they have this sale (only a couple times a year). I bought four jars of my favorite, the Maple Almond Butter. This afternoon, I opened a jar of it to have with some carrots for a snack, and was surprised to see how liquidy it was. I've bought it dozens of times before, and it's never looked like that.

When I tasted it, it tasted like straight-up oil. Gross! Then I opened a second jar, and it was normal (yummy!). I'm not sure what the issue was with the first jar, but I wrote Justin's an e-mail about it, so I'm curious what they say. You can see the difference between the two in this pic:

On the left is obviously from the liquidy jar, and on the right is the normal jar.

I like Justin's Maple Almond Butter almost as much as I like peanut butter. I haven't had peanut butter in over eight weeks now! It's been really difficult at times, but I'm determined to make it until the marathon. I can't wait to get my new set of dishes! ;)

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Scale free

Well, I don't have a weigh-in to post today. Jerry took the scale and hid it from me somewhere! I've been WAY too stressed out about fitting into the stupid bridesmaid dress in 10 days, and he thinks that taking the scale away will help me stop worrying about it, apparently ;)  I think it might actually work, though.

It's kind of interesting... when I feel pressured to get to a certain weight by a certain deadline, it really gets to me, and I usually end up gaining weight rather than losing. I always manage to get my weight back down when I'm not feeling any pressure at all. It works the same way with races, too. When I set a specific time goal at a race, I feel all kinds of pressure to hit that goal, and I usually fail to hit it; but when I go into a race without any expectations, I usually end up having a great race and a PR! I guess I just work better when I'm not under pressure.

I tried on the dress a few days ago, and it fit well. So as long as I don't go completely overboard with junk in the next 10 days, I should be okay. Then, I will be totally pressure-free to enjoy fall! I try not to put pressure on myself (like with this wedding), but it just naturally happens. I wish I could avoid that. I think I've just been so worried about this because the end of summer is always when I'm my heaviest.

Speaking of that, I went to Weight Watchers for my monthly weigh in a few days ago, and I was up a pound from last month. I stayed for the meeting, and when the leader asked if anyone wanted to share about their weigh in, I actually raised my hand. Most people think a 1 pound gain is a bad thing, but considering I always gain 15-20 pounds in the summer, I was thrilled. My grand total for summer weight gain was just four pounds this year.

Each fall, I spend a few months taking that weight back off. I am really excited that I'll be able to take it off in a matter of a few weeks rather than months this year. And hopefully next year, I can learn to keep my weight within a pound or two over the summer. ;)

Anyway, today was the kids' first day of school. Noah started fourth grade and Eli started second grade.

I can't believe how big they are! Next year, Noah will be in middle school, which is just crazy talk. When I was in school, we went to elementary through sixth grade. Then seventh and eighth was junior high. And ninth started high school. My kids will be in middle school in the fifth grade!

My day went by way too fast. I was hoping to get totally caught up on e-mail, which I didn't. Today was my rest day, but I did manage to go out for a 45-minute walk, which was nice. Yesterday's weather was perfect jeans and long-sleeved tee weather, but today, I was pretty hot in sweats. I think I'm just too excited for fall weather.

Last year, I fell out of the habit of walking with the boys to and from the bus stop. I would just watch them from the back deck until the bus came. But I want to get back in the habit of walking around the block with them again, rather than having them just cut through the backyard to the bus stop; and then in the afternoon, walking to the stop to wait for the bus. It's a little extra exercise for all of us, which doesn't hurt!

When Noah first started kindergarten, I asked him what he wanted to have for dinner that day. He told me he wanted Spaghetti Pie, which I thought was hilarious, because I'd only made it a couple of times, and I didn't even know he liked it much. So I always think of that on the first day of school, and I made Noah's Spaghetti Pie for dinner today. :)

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Calorie burn

Well, we didn't end up going to the Metropark yesterday, but we had a nice day at home. The weather was gorgeous, so we opened up all the windows. The kids got the idea to rearrange the furniture in their bedrooms (something I used to LOVE doing as a kid), so we helped them with that. I've never seen them so excited to clean their rooms ;)

I had a seven mile run on the schedule yesterday, and I ran outside. It was tough--I felt like I was working hard but a half mile in, I saw my pace was 11:15/mi! I put some more effort in it, and the farther I ran, the easier it felt, but it was still a tough run. When I got home, I was shocked to see my calorie burn: 454 calories burned in a 7 mile run?! That's only 65 calories per mile. I know that can't be right.

My average heart rate was 148 bpm, and the last time I ran with a heart rate of 148 (a couple of weeks ago), my calorie burn was 83 calories per mile. Something around 80 calories per mile is very typical for me (on super hot/humid days, I'll burn about a 100/mi, but the lowest is usually 77 or so). I was curious what it would say for my run today, because I always burn a lot during intervals.

For today's interval workout, I decided to do 12 x 400's at 5K pace (7:30/mi) with 400 jogs. After a one-mile warm up, that basically means to run 1/4 mile at 5K pace, then jog slowly for 1/4 mile, and repeat for a total of 12 times (6 miles total, not including warm-up). I hadn't done 400-meter intervals in a long time, because they are usually used for training for short races, like 5K's. But 400's usually feel like they go by so quickly, because you're only running fast for a couple of minutes at a time.

Each interval went by really quickly, but I felt like today's run dragged on forever! I kept telling myself I could quit after "one more" interval; and then, of course, I would say, "Okay, you can make through one more." And eventually, I made it through all 12 of them!

My average heart rate was 156 bpm, and according to my Garmin, I burned 557 calories (80/mile). The last time I ran with an average heart rate of 156, I burned 97 calories per mile. So I really feel like I'm getting screwed on the calorie burn. I looked it up on Google, and found that I'm not the only one who has noticed it. A lot of people who have the 910xt have the same complaint. Interesting! I'm not going to use that calorie burn number to figure out my activity PointsPlus earned; I'll just use the Weight Watchers eTools calculator.

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Today was the kids' open house at school. Their last day of summer vacation! They got to check out their classrooms, drop off some of their supplies, and meet their teachers. I'm excited for them to start school tomorrow, but also a little sad. They've been fighting all summer long, so it will be nice to have some quiet; but they're so funny/cute sometimes, that I'll miss them being around all day.

I was toying with the idea of switching my long runs to Fridays again (it's easier for me to get outside for a run when the boys are in school), but with this Hansons training, ALL of my runs are pretty long. SO it really doesn't make much difference. I think I'll just stick to the schedule the way it is.

Over the past week or so, John and I have managed to put together the entire Ragnar team for SoCal 2014! I was thinking it would take a long time to get a full team together, but I went through old e-mails from readers (people who had expressed interest in running a Ragnar), and invited them to join. Within a few days, the team was complete.

With the exception of John and I, we are all strangers to each other. The first time we'll all meet up is going to be in California in April when we go there for the race. I've mentioned some of them on my blog before, mainly from Motivational Mondays, but I think I will slowly introduce the team here like I did with my From Fat to Finish Line team. We haven't come up with a team name yet, but hopefully soon! I'm super excited about this team :)

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Labor Day

Hope you're all having a great holiday! I forgot to post a reminder on my blog yesterday about Motivational Monday, and I only had two submission this time... so I decided just to hold on to those for next week.

Today, I'm just hanging out with my family, so I'll catch up tomorrow :)

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Wine hangover

My wine club meeting last night was so fun! It had been a while since I'd gone to a meeting, so I was looking forward to seeing my friends. Jerry even volunteered to drive me there and pick me up, so that I wouldn't have to drive; normally, I only drink 4-6 oz. because I have to drive home, so it was nice not to have to worry about that ;)

It was at Rachael's house, and she chose to do a theme of her favorite wines. She had about six different wines to share. I think my favorite was the Kendall Jackson Summation, a dry red blend. The dry reds are always my favorites! You can always tell when I've been drinking wine, because my teeth tend to get a purplish tint (so classy):

Jessica, me, and Renee

Anyway, I definitely indulged too much, because I woke up this morning feeling hung over. Not fun when I had a 10-mile run on the schedule! I drank a ton of water and procrastinated for a while, but finally got on the treadmill and got it done. I'm just grateful it wasn't a 16-miler this week.

Using that foot pod tool a couple of days ago worked perfectly! I found the correct calibration number, and it's very close to what my treadmill reads. And because the calibration was based on TONS of my runs (via GPS), I think it's very accurate. My long run pace is 9:38/mi, so I set the treadmill at 6.4 mph, and my splits were very even. The tenth mile, I kept bumping up the speed to get done, though.

I started watching American Horror Story on Netflix while running, and that's been interesting. I love scary movies, but I'm not usually into supernatural stuff, so I wasn't sure what I would think. I really like it so far, though! There are a couple of seasons, so it should get me through quite a few more treadmill runs.

I was feeling pretty crappy all day long, thanks to the wine last night. I was really craving homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner (one of my favorite comfort foods), so I made that and I'm sure I went way over my PointsPlus today, even with the 10-mile run. We ran a few errands in the afternoon, but then I changed into some sweats and lounged around for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I got a text from my mom saying that she was at a garage sale that had a ton of Victoria's Secret clothing. I love VS clothes because they are so cozy to lounge around in. They're super expensive, however, so I always look for them at garage sales.

I went to the sale my mom told me about, and I was shocked at just how much this woman had. She works at Victoria's Secret, and she told me her daughter is very spoiled! The daughter had been a size 4/small, until she went to college last year and gained some freshman weight, so she was getting rid of all the smaller clothes. Lucky for me, that's my size!

I bought five hoodies, three pairs of jeans, one pair of sweatpants, a couple pairs of pajama bottoms, a few long-sleeved t-shirts, and a couple of other tops. I didn't even make a dent in the amount of clothes she had, either. I can't imagine how much she must have paid for all this stuff new, even with an employee discount. The hoodies retail for $45-50 alone, and I paid $66 for everything. I'm excited for the weather to feel more fall-like, so I can get cozy in my hoodies and long sleeve tee's.


Since tomorrow is officially the last day of the kids' summer vacation (they have open house on Tuesday, and school starts Wednesday), I think we're going to take them to the water park at one of the Metroparks. The weather looks good for it; I just hope it's not packed because it's a holiday. Anyone have big plans tomorrow?

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200!

Dinner and the Mud Hens game last night turned out to be so fun! Originally, Noah chose Bob Evans for dinner, but my mom suggested Spaghetti Warehouse, which was just a block from the stadium. Noah wanted to try it, so that's where we went for dinner. None of us had ever been there before.

I really wanted to like it, but I wasn't impressed. The food quality wasn't very good at all. I ordered the Wild Mushroom and Chicken Pasta, which is described on their website: "You'll go wild for our creamy sauce featuring a trio of fresh mushrooms, tossed with spaghetti and artichoke hearts, then topped with grilled chicken breast and roasted red bell pepper." It sounded fantastic, and it was 16 PointsPlus, which isn't too bad for a dinner out.

I thought it looked pretty good, but the pasta was really overcooked, and the chicken was very fatty (I ended up giving the chicken to Jerry, but even he wouldn't eat it; and he eats ANY meat). The artichokes were still kind of cold, and tasted like they'd been dumped from a can right onto the dish, so I didn't eat those, either. I really liked the mushrooms, so I ended up eating the mushrooms and pasta, which was very filling.

Anyway, after dinner, we walked around for a little while before heading to the stadium. We got to the stadium about an hour before the game started, so we tried to keep the kids entertained.

The game ended up being a blast! Normally, I am not a sports person in the least sense of the word, but I do like to go to a baseball game now and then. Usually, we go to Tigers games. Well, after going to the Mud Hens game last night, I have no desire to ever go to a Tigers game again! The Mud Hens' stadium is smaller and homier, and they have all kinds of entertainment going on throughout the game. Yesterday was "superheroes" day, so there were tons of people dressed up in costumes. The game was good, and ended up going into extra innings. The Mud Hens finally won in the bottom of the 11th inning. Then we stayed for fireworks after the game, so we didn't leave until 11:00. It was a late night for all of us! Noah said it was his favorite birthday present he's ever gotten, which made my day ;)

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When I was losing weight, I remember seeing the scale read 199 one day, and I vowed never to see the number 200 again. Getting below 200 pounds was a huge milestone, and thankfully, I haven't seen the number 200 again in over three years... until today. I'm not talking about my weight, of course, but the number of miles run in one month.

Today, I reached 200 miles run in August!

That's a LOT of miles. It averages out to 6.45 miles per day (or, if you factor in my rest days, it would be 7.69 miles per active day). This is how it breaks down:

My shortest run of the month was 5 miles; my longest was 16. My previous highest mileage month was April 2012, where I hit about 140 miles.

I have to admit, I really like the Hansons' training. I've remained injury-free, which is more than I can say for the last two marathons I trained for (during my first marathon training cycle, I injured my right knee; then injured my left knee while training for my second). I really think my body likes running more frequently, and higher mileage. I'm certainly looking forward to cutting back a bit after the marathon, but so far, I'm glad I've done this training.

Anyway, I was pretty excited to see my August stats when I uploaded my run today:

I burned the equivalent of approximately 302 Oreo cookies... not bad! ;)

Tonight is my wine club meeting, so I get to celebrate with some wine and chit chat with friends--can't wait!

You'll go wild for our creamy sauce featuring a trio of fresh mushrooms tossed with spaghetti and artichoke hearts, then topped with grilled chicken breast and roasted red bell pepper. - See more at: http://www.meatballs.com/menu/d_pasta.html#sthash.ASrEBamY.dpuf

You'll go wild for our creamy sauce featuring a trio of fresh mushrooms tossed with spaghetti and artichoke hearts, then topped with grilled chicken breast and roasted red bell pepper. - See more at: http://www.meatballs.com/menu/d_pasta.html#sthash.ASrEBamY.dpuf

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Liberating!

This morning, I had a five mile easy run on the schedule; however, I planned to run nine miles instead of five (I'll write more about that tomorrow). Since I finished Breaking Bad yesterday, and haven't decided on a show to watch next on the treadmill, I decided to run outside, regardless of the temperature.

It was a VERY humid morning. I headed out fairly early, at 7:00, but it was already really muggy. I just decided to pretend I was running in Key West ;)  I didn't carry water with me, because I usually don't need it for ten miles or less, but since it was so humid, I stuck close to home. I planned to do a six-mile loop and run by my house, stopping for water if needed, and then do a three-mile out-and-back.

It was a GREAT run today. Even though it was humid, causing me to practically drown in sweat, I felt really good. I don't know what planted this idea in my head, but I started thinking about ditching my tank top when I ran past my house, and running in just my sports bra.

I've never, in my entire life, bared my belly in public. I've never worn a bikini (even as a kid, I always wore a two-piece). When I was pregnant, and friends asked to see my belly, I was adamant about saying no. Shortly before I started losing weight, my friend Melissa asked me if I would want to go with her to auditions for The Biggest Loser (couples' edition). I said that I would rather stay fat than let anyone see my stomach.

But once I got the thought in my head, I spent a few miles talking myself into it. I know my belly looks much better than it ever has, thanks to the weight loss and the skin removal surgery. However, I still have stretch marks, and the skin is still loose (the only way to correct that would've be with a vertical incision from my breast bone to my pubic bone, and I didn't want that).

As I ran, I kept thinking about how absolutely terrifying it would be to run in just a sports bra, but how liberating it would feel to get rid of those insecurities. When I was obese, if someone had shown me a picture of my future stomach (what it looks like now), I would have been ECSTATIC with it. I would have said that I'd walk around naked, just to show off my new body! ;) But now that I'm here, in this body, I still have insecurities, although they aren't as bad as before.

So, I asked myself, "What's the absolute worst thing that could happen if you run in just your sports bra?" And the only thing I could come up with is that someone would make a rude comment to me while I was running. Big deal! Sometime over the past few years, I stopped caring so much about what random people thought about me. And I decided to go for it, even though I was super nervous.

At mile six, I stopped at home for a  second to throw my shirt in the house. I didn't want to look in the mirror, because I was afraid I would chicken out. I hesitated at the door to go back outside, but then, before I could change my mind, I opened the door and ran off the porch, down the driveway, and into the street.

I was running... without a shirt. Something I never, in a million years, would have ever thought I'd be doing.

And it was SO liberating! The breeze cooled me off much better than when I had my tank on. When I looked down, I could see the skin on my stomach bouncing a little, but I honestly didn't even care. I had thought that maybe I would just run around my neighborhood, so I wouldn't run into many people/cars; however, I was feeling so good, that I went on a busy road and ran a mile and a half out, turned around, and ran home.

Nobody made comments to me, no cars crashed from my blindingly white skin, and people barely even glanced at me as they drove by. It was awesome!

50 Shades of Pale

I thought it was pretty funny when I looked at my splits. I was trying to run an easy pace (high 9:00's to mid 10:00's). You can see just how nervous I was when I took my tank off, because my pace for that 7th mile was 8:58. When I'm nervous, I always run faster!

It was fun to do something that was so scary for me. I don't look anything like the high school girls that run cross country in their sports bras (who I see out training occasionally), but considering I'm a formerly-obese mother of two, I'm very happy with how I look now, and I'm going to keep working on not feeling self-conscious of my flaws!

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Calibration frustration

I had such a frustrating run this morning! Today was a nine mile run at marathon pace (8:58/mi), and it was a hot morning, so I chose to use the treadmill. I was down to the last two episodes of season five of Breaking Bad, which totaled just about the same amount of time I would need to run nine miles--perfect!

I got everything all set up, and decided not to run a warm-up mile (because my warm-up pace is only slightly slower than marathon pace, so it's really not needed). I planned for this to be a "set it and forget it" kind of run, where I just set the pace and run until I reached nine miles. It didn't work out that way at all.

I noticed that my Garmin was showing that I was going much faster than the treadmill was reading. I have a fairly new battery in my foot pod, so I knew that wasn't the issue. I wouldn't have minded if it was only off by a couple of seconds per mile, but it was reading something like 8:37 when the treadmill said 8:57. Multiply that by nine miles, and it's a big difference!

I didn't want to have to recalibrate it in the middle of my run. I decided to manually fiddle with the calibration number on my watch to try and match the treadmill's pace. Each time I did that, I had to stop the 'mill, stop my Garmin, press a bunch of buttons, start the 'mill, run, and restart my Garmin. I probably tried four different numbers, before I finally decided just to calibrate the thing the long way, by running for a half mile.

After I calibrated it to the treadmill, it was telling me that I was running 8:02 or something ridiculous. I knew that wasn't right, either, and I don't understand how that happened. I should have just thrown my Garmin across the room and worried about it later, but I was determined to find the right calibration number.

I messed around with the stupid thing for over four miles!

Finally, I got it to read 8:45-ish, which was the closest I could get to the treadmill pace. The one good thing about all the hassle was that the first half of the run went by really fast. As soon as I reached nine miles, Breaking Bad ended, so the timing worked out perfectly, even with all the starting and stopping. I'm not even going to post my splits, because they are so inaccurate.

I searched online for some info about the foot pod and why it might not calibrate properly. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find a cool (and very nerdy!) program that gives you a really accurate manual calibration factor based on all of my previous runs done by GPS. I'm not going to get into it, because it truly is the nerdiest thing I've ever wasted my time with (I loved every second of it!), but if you like nerdy numbers stuff, you can find it here. If that is correct, my treadmill shows that I'm going slower than I actually am, which is interesting! I'm excited to try out the new calibration numbers to see what it shows.

I think my body has been craving vegetables lately. I am a self-proclaimed salad-hater, but once in a while I go through a phase where I just can't get enough salad. So the past few days, I've been making big salads to eat for lunch, along with a bowl of soup. I love the Bolthouse Farms ranch dressing (I wrote about it here); and lately I've been adding Craisins, almonds, turkey, and rice noodles.

When I do eat salad, my favorite part is all of the toppings. When the bowl is almost empty, and all the lettuce is gone, and there is just a bunch of random toppings left--those are the best bites! Anyway, I've also been eating vegetables for a snack--I've been hooked on cucumber slices with cream cheese (mixed with Italian dressing mix).

I mixed a whole brick of fat free cream cheese with two teaspoons of Italian dressing mix (a powder). Then I just spread two tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture on cucumber slices for a 1 PointsPlus snack. It's really good!

After running nine miles today, I wanted to balance out those veggies with something a little more indulgent ;)  So after dinner, Jerry and I took the kids to Cold Stone for ice cream. I got a small cup of cake batter flavor--my favorite.

Noah got cake batter with Snickers and Reese's Cups, and Eli got chocolate with Snickers and Reese's Cups (Jerry got plain mint). I still haven't had peanut butter (six weeks and counting!), otherwise, I may have been tempted to get Reese's in mine, too. The cake batter ice cream is only 10 PP for a small, and it's SO worth it.

Tomorrow, we're taking the kids to the Toledo Mud Hens game. We bought the tickets for Noah's birthday last month. The game is at 7:00, so we told Noah we'd go out for his birthday dinner tomorrow before the game, and he could choose where we go. He chose Bob Evans, which was an unusual choice for a nine-year old, but that sounds good to me ;)  We won't get home from the game until late, so I probably won't write a post tomorrow. Have a great weekend!

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