:D

Five-Mile Run

Sunday was my very 5M run. The course was relatively hilly, and looped back on itself, which surprised me a little. A beautiful area though. I almost tripped a few times on broken branches since it goes through this big park/reservation and the pavement wasn't exactly clean or even half the time. I wasn't at the end of the pack, so I have that to feel good about.

Time-wise, they didn't use ChampionChips, so your actual time was a little off unless you were the lead runners who started first of the line and ended first. Basically the gun went off, you ran, and when you hit the finish line you were funneled into a line where people were collecting the stubs from your bib in order. So between the fact that I started in the middle of the pack and then waited around a minute for my bib to be collected, there was a difference between my gun-time and the time I clocked on my watch.

Gun-time: 46:06
Clock-time: 45:16

That puts me at an average 9.03 minute mile. Not too bad, and about where I figured. I was a little worried that those last couple of miles would bring my average up dramatically. I think the downward slope near the end helped me shave a bit off the last mile.

I felt a cramp around Mile 3, and slowed to work that out a little bit. I felt maybe one wave of nausea near the end. But I honestly think that was a result of just knowing the end was near. It's kind of like when you know you're only part way through and there is a distance to go, you just hold yourself up. But the second you acknowledge that you just ran nearly 5 miles and its almost over, you mentally let your body feel the pain. It's all psychological. If I didn't realize that the end was coming, I swear, I'd probably bust through ignoring the physical detriment.

Anyway, I'm pleased that I decided to do this run off the cuff. I only had a week to think about it, and was sick the couple days before so I was barely even running that week. Not bad! I'm happy with the results. It's a good place to start from.


The Doctor's Appointment

So I went to chat with my doctor about my weight loss dilemma. That fact that I workout a ton, but have trouble balancing enough food to fuel me with a low enough calorie diet so I can lose weight. So I'd been fairly stagnant and starting gaining weight again. My clothes haven't changed their fit, so I hope its a little more muscle than anything since I've got back to strength training full force, but still - weight gain is the opposite of what I want.

I asked her about appetite suppressants like Phentermine like Victoria had been taking. She said that she doesn't like to put people on Phen in general, due to side effects, the addiction that can result and the fact that it loses effectiveness rapidly. She did say that she's had a lot of positive results with placing patients on Meridia (sibutramine), but that she didn't want to take that approach currently. She said that mediciations like that are basically for people with no will power or ability to regulate what they eat. Given that I'd been doing weight watchers and was able to maintain such a low calorie diet for so long, she didn't feel that that was the issue. It was knowing what to eat and when to eat it in order to achieve balance with my exercising.

She felt that figuring out proper nutrition was going to make a huge difference, so she's setting me up with a nutritionist. We'll see how that works out when I go in for my physical in June.

On another note, she checked out all of my moles and freckles and I appear to be skin-cancer free for the time-being. Yay!

Swim Lessons

Back when I injured my tibia last month, I applied to get swimming lessons at my gym. No one ever got back to me, but since my leg healed okay, I wasn't too worried. I finally asked about it last week, and I received an e-mail from the adult swim instructor yesterday. She asked when I was available. We settled on Tuesday mornings. She asked if I wanted to do it tomorrow... and yes! So last night I picked up two new swimsuits, both black, a Nike and a Speedo. I grabbed from goggles and a swimcap too.

This morning I had my first swim lesson! Now, I've been swimming since I was a baby, but haven't had official lessons on the various strokes and good form since I was a kid. Today we refreshed proper kicking, proper breathing, the elementary back stroke, and the official back stroke. It was awesome! I really love the back stroke and can cut through the water with it. The lesson is late enough that I didn't have time to practice much more, but I can't wait to get back in tomorrow or Thursday. Swimming is awesome.

Do you know what I was thinking about in the shower afterwards? If I keep up with laps over the summer, maybe I can consider doing a triathlon! How kickass would that be? I mean, I love running. I think I'm going to love swimming. And I've been taking spinning classes - so I'll just need to take up outdoor cycling and I'd be there. They have short triathlons called "Sprint" triathlons that are 0.5M swim, 12.4M bike, and 3.1M run. Just something to think about for the future....