13.1 Done

Im still alive!! I survived!! 13.1 Miles done! I officially completed the St. Jude Country Music Half Marathon with a time of 2 hours and 38 minutes. Ideally I would've like my time to be a flat even 2:30 (Im OCD like that..I like even numbers), but i'll take 2:38 because those hills were hard! I am so glad that the rain held off! Thank you Jesus! It would not have been fun to run that race in the pouring rain! Yesterday (The day after the 1/2) while sitting on the couch doing nothing ( a well deserved do nothing day I might add!), I came across this quote while looking for picture frames to frame my medal & finisher photo. "She believed she could, so she did." That quote totally sums up my 1/2 marathon. I believed I could do it, so I did! Woot Woot! Pictures below...not sure why my mom decided she wanted to snap 10 million pictures in front of the porta potties...but oh well....at least there is photo evidence that I finished!

Finished!!! 

Showing off my medal!! (Its heavy!)

Mom & Me (I have no idea how to rotate this picture)

Picture taken by my best friend (Heyheythirdgrade.blogspot.com)..Pretty sure she asked me if I was still alive...

So excited to see my BFF at the finish line! This was my reaction when I saw her at the finish!

Strong 10 miles - 1 week til 1/2! - High School Prom Dress

Nothing really new going on here. I made a great quiche this week to reheat for breakfast this everyday...so there's that... Here are my most recent non-scale victories:

1) I ran 10 miles this past Saturday. While its not the full 13.1 that I will run a week from this Saturday, this was the first run all season where I thought to myself, I might actually be able to run this half marathon! I had never previously had the feeling of a good strong run until Saturday. I felt accomplished and ready to take on the world! (Or 3 more miles on race day)

2) I was in Atlanta this week. (thats where I grew up). While I was home for a few hours this week I stopped by my moms house. Just for fun I tried on all my old sorority and prom dresses. From the time I was 18 til about my Junior year of college, I bought a new evening gown once a year, either for prom or for sorority functions.  While home I tried on all of my old gowns that were in my closet just for fun. All of them were too big! While this shouldnt be a surprise, it was shocking to try on these dresses and them literally fall off of me! These gowns were always a struggle to put on! It used to take spanx, and body shapers underneath my dresses to get them to fit & that was even after I had them altered/taken out to make them bigger. My favorite dress was my pink senior year prom dress. I put it on this weekend and IT WAS TOO BIG!!!!!! This dress was the tightest of them all, and the seamstress worked magic to get me in it.! here's a picture my mom took of me in it. You can't see it, but  the back is super big! I will have to find my actual high school prom picture.

Today is Thursday i'm headed to Gatlinburg for the weekend with the church. Country Music / marathon is one week from Saturday! For the 1st time i actually feel like I can do this!!!

Almost 1/2 Time & Recent Before & After

Today is the day after Easter. Easter was great! But my healthy eating went out the window this weekend! Its Easter tradition that I always go over to my Best Friends & Aunt & Uncles house. They put on a remarkable spread that looks and tastes amazing! I had a little bit of everything! The Mac and Cheese & Sweet potato casserole are to die for! I really enjoyed the food & fellowship with these people are my Nashville family! Unfortunately I paid for that food on the scale today. I weighed in at my weekly Monday weigh-in for Fleet Feet's Ton of Fun (their version of biggest loser). I gained almost 3 pounds :( I wouldn't trade that Easter meal for anything! Good news is today is a new day & I am getting back on track!

There are 2 weeks until Country Music 1/2 marathon! AHHH!!! There are only 2 more Saturday runs until Race day!! I ran 9 miles with my group this week & I feel pretty good about it. The 9 miles were hard, and I was worn out afterwards, but I am learning that I need to slow down & pace myself so I can actually finish the race. This weekend we are doing 10 miles! 10 seems like nothing after the 14 we did 2 weeks ago!  I found my Couch to 5k shirt from this summer. Its crazy to think that almost a year ago I could hardly run for 8 minutes without thinking I was going to die! Now I have a 10 1/2 - 11 1/2 minute mile! Craziness!!

Yesterday was Easter! He's Risen! He has risen indeed! So its tradition to take Easter pictures at church on Easter Sunday. Here is a before and after. At this point last year I had already lost a decent amount of weight, but was (and still am) a work in progress! Sorry for all the before & After pics lately, but this is the way I judge my progress.

Current weight loss total: 84 Pounds!! Woot Woot!!

NSV'S and 1/2 Training

So...my brand new super duper wonderful computer is still dead :( ...but on the bright side my old laptop has mysteriously started to work so I am back in business.

I am EXTREMELY proud of my best friend (heyheythirdgrade.blogspot.com), she started a program called whole 30 & has stuck to it and took to it like a duck to water & I could not be more proud of her. The Whole30 diet is super hard because of everything that you cut out for 30 days straight! Super proud of her because there are no cheat days on whole 30! If you cheat you start over! AHH !! So Way to go Theresa!!

While Theresa is killing whole 30, I am working on getting back on track after two weekends of what feels like nothing but eating! My mom and I went to Savannah GA for their annual St. Patt's day parade. There are so many good places to eat in Savannah! For the most part I stayed away from fried food, but did allow myself to have fried shrimp & hushpuppies one evening for dinner. My mom & I also ate at Paula Deen's restaurant which was AH-MAY-ZING, but im sure everything was cooked in straight butter! I refused to miss out on my favorite Savannah foods (& coffee). I didnt really get any workouts in while in Savannah, but I did not a lot of walking! so hopefully that counts for something & the number on the scale wont be to high! I also got the chance to go visit some friends in NJ last weekend. They live about an hour from Philly, so after a concert we went and ate a real Philly Cheeseteak! It was awesome!! You cant go to Philly & not get a Philly!

Update: I officially dropped out of Weight Watchers at work, this was more due to my work has picked up so much and I am working so many hours I simply do not have time to stop my work and go attend a meeting, so I dropped it. I will miss the group, but I haven't tracked points in a long while and I was pretty much over it! This also goes back to the same thing of I am doing well enough on my own just trying to avoid eating junk food that I don't really need weight watchers.

Non Scale Victories:
1) 14 Miles!!!! You read that right 14! So this was pretty much an awful run! I should be proud that I ran 14 miles but this run was tough! I took a nasty fall at mile 6! Im ok and I got back up and kept running, but I was so tired and sore by the end of the route that I ended up walking the last 5k portion of the 14 miles...I was disappointed that I walked so much. I am hoping that on race day the excitement of the race will keep me going. There is officially less than a month until the 1/2 marathon! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

2) I avoided cake at the office twice this week! Good grief! what is it about spring! There is food everywhere! Junk food everywhere! Not only was there a retirement with cake this week, someone else just randomly brought in cake and sent an email to everyone telling them to come get cake! I am proud I didn't eat the cake! Not even one piece! I went to the party, said my best wishes, but didn't eat a piece of the gorgeous carrot cake that was calling my name!

3) Being healthy is contagious! My co-workers are starting to catch on! One co-worker is drastically cutting back on the amount Coke she drinks & another is simply trying to eat healthier! Its not really my goal to inspire people, (That sounds bad), but everything i'm doing, im doing it for me and no one else but it is exciting to see it rubbing off on others!

4) In a previous post I told you about the biggest loser game at Fleet Feet and their group workouts at this gym called Quest. Quest is kind of far away from me, its a good 45 min drive with traffic. For the first time since the biggest loser game started ive finally had time to go all the way out to brentwood to quest. Im glad i did! The class I took was an hour long and was super HARD! Crazy thing was...apparently this was the easy class..........Holy Crap! I survived!

On deck for this weekend: 15K, 9 miles and some change. Here's hoping that 9 miles goes better than the 14 from last weekend.