Me in May 2012 at my heaviest

You’d never believe it, but I have somehow kept on my weight loss journey that I started last year. It has slowed down a bit and it’s not my main focus, but I’ve managed to lose 40 lbs.

Feeling good in February 2013

 

Week one and two were painful. My calves killed me and I ended up waking in the middle of the night with cramps similar to the growing pains I had as a preteen. It was then that I knew two things. #1 – I needed good running shoes and #2 – I needed to talk to a personal trainer.

I’m very lucky in that where I work we have two personal trainers on staff that have made themselves available to anyone with questions. I have a good rapport with one of the trainers, so I asked him to show me some additional stretches to help me with the problem. He demonstrated how to stretch out the calf while on the stairs and using gravity to pull the muscle. I could immediately feel the benefits and put the stretch to good use.

As for shoes, I ended up trying multiple stores and options before coming back to my favoured Nike outlet. I don’t know about you, but I have wide feet with a high bridge and tend to only have luck in the men’s department for most running shoes. For some reason, they make wide women’s sandals, but they just don’t do it for running shoes. Reebok’s fit was narrow no matter which pair I tried on. I found that the arches also hurt my feet. Brooks were not much better and after talking to the team at Nike, I found one pair of wide shoes for running that were perfect. My Nike Air Icarus+ are black with accents of bright blue and white, fit well and are light in weight, but strong in structure.

My first run with the new shoes combined with the new stretches went incredibly well. I combined this with my first street run and survived with my fastest time yet. I still had some pulling halfway through but stretched it out and was able to keep going.

Due to vacation I needed to take a break from the Couch to 5k program but me and the hubby still found time to run at one of the hotels we stayed in near Cleveland. We both did a quick 20 minutes before going in for a swim, but we were still in there on the treadmill doing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still really HATE running. But it makes me feel good knowing that I’m working towards a goal. I feel good knowing that I already have more stamina and can run for two full minutes, even if I’m slower than a rhinoceros.

I wear this shirt with pride-get yours here: http://www.threadless.com/product/1000/Runnin__Rhino

All I keep telling myself when I’m running is that I’m lapping all those people on the couch. That motivates me to keep going. I keep on pushing and pretty soon my 2 minutes of running will turn into 5 minutes and then 10. Before you know it, I’ll have run for a full half hour and if I’m lucky, I’ll be travelling 5km and will no longer need a voice in my ear telling me when to run – I’ll just be running.

Same dress, one year later – July 2012 to 2013