My Journey to 13.1

I did it! I finished the race and ran all 13.1 miles. My official finish time was 2:57:01 or an average of 13:31minute miles. My original two goals were 1) finish and 2) have fun and I absolutely met both of those goals!!

At mile 6.8 (or so) when I not only knew I was going to finish,
but knew I was on track to beating three hours.

As many of you know, it was up and down quite a bit for the month before the race and I was really unsure whether or not I'd even be able to attempt it, let alone finish it. But before I dive into the ending, let me tell you more about my long and hard journey here. It's a long post but don't worry, I'll never know if you scroll down to the end!

Those of you who knew me in high school might be surprised to hear I gained a lot (a whole lot) of weight in college. It was partly not having self restraint and largely part of a greater pattern of self destructive behavior. Without turning this into a public therapy session, I'll just say that even with as many physical health improvements I've gone through, the emotional/mental health improvements I've made over the last few years greatly outweigh (snort) the physical.

In 2008 I finally got my medications balanced and lost about 10 pounds as a result. In 2009 I started slowly losing some weight on my own purely by portion control. I began doing things like choosing ice cream or beer (but not both) and the sheer exhaustion of grad school put me into an "eat to survive not because it tastes good" mode. Though most of the ladies in my cohort put on the pounds that year I lost 10. Contracting pertussis probably accounted for 5 of those pounds. I lost another 5 pounds on our trip to Europe where I walked many miles a day for the first time in my life. Down 25 pounds in 2.5 years, not so bad!!

In the late summer of 2010 I joined Weight Watchers. Some of you have heard about my Weight Watchers experience but for those of you haven't: Weight Watchers has changed my life forever and empowered me to be in control of my health. I have a lot of opinions on a lot of aspects of the program. My number one thing I want to share is this: Weight Watchers did not "work" for me. It didn't "fix" me and certainly didn't lose the weight for me. No, I did that for MYSELF. Weight Watchers was the tool I chose to give myself the support and education I needed to move past my nearly one year plateau. I did all the work, all the meal planning, most of the cooking, all the emotional and mental battles, and ultimately I lost all the weight myself. Yes, I used Weight Watchers as a main tool and a huge support. But there are thousands of people who join Weight Watchers and wonder why they don't lose weight... well the bottom line is that with any personal change, it has to come from within and it has to come with determination to make lifetime changes. And, honestly, you need a supportive spouse. Having Mark there to hold my hand, encourage me to learn how to cook new things, and most importantly, to keep his junk food at work/out of my sight really helped me make the changes I needed. If you're curious about my experience with Weight Watchers or weight loss in general, feel free to contact me! I love sharing about it and I try to be very open and honest about what I liked and didn't like, what worked or didn't, and any other details.

By the time we moved to Blacksburg in 2011, I had lost another 25 pounds, bringing my total up to 50 pounds of loss! However, even though Weight Watchers teaches that nutrition and exercise are meant to go hand in hand, I still had not yet learned to incorporate any sort of physical activity into my life. My idea of a workout was grocery shopping (hey, it's an hour on my feet!) or doing laundry (carrying the basket up and down the stairs is hard!) But, after moving out here to Virginia, I started going on hikes and realized I had absolutely no physical endurance, despite all the weight I'd lost. However, unlike when I was heavier, I was starting to feel a motivation to build some fitness! And so that's why weight loss was so important for me on my journey to running a half marathon. I realize that many people start exercising while they are trying to lose weight and that the famous "they" will tell you to exercise while reducing and/or changing the content of your food intake. But for me, changing the way I ate was so drastic of a change that I just wasn't ready to add exercise in until I'd lost almost all the weight I wanted to lose.

And so, 50 pounds lighter and a whole lot smarter about my daily nutritional needs, I started looking for ways to be active. This was a very internal, personal change that came about slowly. I didn't just wake up one day and decide to become a long distance runner. When we adopted Sadie, I started walking with her. At the beginning, it took me 45minutes to walk 1.5 miles around our neighborhood and I was sore, out of breath, and sweaty by the end. But I was walking, feeling good, and falling more and more in love with my dog.

About that time I decided that it didn't really make sense that I was still having severe knee, back, and neck pain. My doctor referred me to an orthotics specialist. It turns out that not only did I have one leg longer than the other (by 1/4 of an inch!) but as a result I had a minor case of scoliosis. I got my custom lift built in with orthotics and over the course of a few months, my back straightened out and my knee stopped hurting! I couldn't believe that after nearly a decade of knee and back pain, something so simple as a quarter inch wedge could literally hand me a pain free life back.

By September, I was up to walking 2 miles with my dog several times a week. One day I tried running. I ran past three houses and was gasping for breath. But Sadie had so much fun I decided to try it again the next day. I ran by six houses the next day. And it continued like that for months: I would think, "hmm I wonder if I could make it a block? two blocks? Walk for 3 miles?" and soon I was walking for an hour or more. I started jogging for thirty seconds, and then walking for five minutes. My pattern was very similar to the couch to 5k plan, though I didn't know it at the time.

At some point I realized that jogging, even though it was so slow and not for very far, just wasn't comfortable in jean shorts and a normal bra. So I did my research and tried a few different ones and finally found one that worked for me. I also found some cheap but nice running clothes from Target and eventually bought special running-only tennis shoes and socks. It was weird to me to buy those things, not because I was "going to try to start" running, but because I was ALREADY running and needed them!

In December, I ran four miles with Mark and Dad. And I thought, well dang I'm pretty hot stuff! In January, I decided that if I could run four miles, there was simply no reason not to run 13.1 miles. A few long hours spent looking for races, reading through runners world, and education myself on training, and I was completely committed.

As I trained, I had to really learn how to be kind to myself. Someone once asked me "if you can't be kind to yourself, how can you ever learn to be kind to others?" I'm sure learning to be kind to yourself looks different to everyone. For me, it was learning to be happy with running any distance, regardless of how far I walked. It meant being proud of myself for doing any activity, not mad at how slow it was. And, as I started gaining weight, it meant not quitting. (I'm actually about ten pounds heavier than I was last year, but between muscle and learning not to over-reward myself for my long runs, this isn't that shocking.)

After I started regularly running five miles, I had to stop running with Sadie because she just couldn't last that long. At first this made me really sad, but I have a smoother and more even gait without her and running has become highly personal and private for me. When I run, sometimes I am able to work through the hard stuff. You know, stuff like grief, regret, anger, jealousy, hatred. The stuff no one teaches us how to cope with. And sometimes when I run I don't think at all. And sometimes I think about really happy, fun, beautiful, and exciting things. Like I said, it's highly personal.

By March my training schedule was nice and comfortable and conservative. I took days off, stretched, iced, and only added a little mileage at a time. However, towards the end of March I developed some excruciating hip pain. I was convinced it was related to my orthotics so I kept going in to get them tweaked. I brought my weekly mileage way down (4-5miles/week instead of 20-25) and tried to rest. Finally, ten days before my half marathon, my orthotics specialist said I was as squared up as I could possibly be and any pain I was having was likely being caused by something else. He guessed it was bursitis and sent me back to my MD. So off I went!

I am so lucky that my MD is also a runner... in fact she runs ultramarathons. A quick exam (about 72 hours before the race) and she declared my pain to be most certainly bursitis. Apparently that was a good thing because it was so easy to treat! She put me on a high dose of advil round the clock and gave me strict instructions to ice and heat. Most importantly, she gave me the go ahead to try to finish the race. By Friday, I was feeling nearly 100%. So the race was on!

When we checked into the hotel Friday evening, I started getting really nervous. Everyone there was walking around in their race tshirts from previous races. They were all super skinny and buff. None of them seemed to be concerned about taking a wrong turn or having to stop part way through the race due to bursitis in their hip joint. I was getting psyched out and all the "You suck! You're a terrible person!" voices that I had worked so hard to delete started bouncing around in my head. Mark helped me talk through them and my dad had a lot to say that helped me too.

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 5am. I was really nervous but mostly excited and I and synced back into my positive thinking space and in general, was ready to have fun!

Stretching before the race

Here I am stretching before the race. I was feeling good. Confident, happy, strong, and excited. I made sure to start the race in the very back of the pack because I knew I would be one of the slowest. And, in fact, I was! Admittedly, this bothered me a lot more than I wish it would have. Logically I want to be able to say "I ran my own race against myself and it was fun and rewarding!" But truthfully, I was really upset at being one of the very last runners. (Actually I ended up finishing 3rd to last) However, I started the race and after the first mile I was absolutely certain I would finish the race. Miles 1-6 flew by very quickly and I was right on target at about a 13:30 mile. I'm so short that 13:30 is actually a run for me, not a fast walk! 

Mile 6.8 (or so)

Here I am a tad before mile marker #7. I'm feeling strong, cocky, and awesome. At this point I'd already demolished several "hills" and was thinking "frak you you frakking hills and your puney inclines!" As you can see, I was all 'tude and feeling great.

Just before mile 10

At mile 10 I had official ran more than I had ever run in my entire life. I put my hands in the air to celebrate and all I could think was "I can't believe I'm still running!" Somewhere around this point is where LMFAO starting telling me that I'm sexy and I know it. Little did I know my brick wall was waiting for me two miles down the road.

Sure enough, at about mile 12 I hit THE WALL. This is where being really, really obstinate comes in handy. I decided to run through the wall no matter what. I settled into my deep yoga breathing and Stephanie came and started running next to me, coaching me and distracting me and being amazing support. At mile 12.5 I hit the last hill and the Olympic Fanfare came on my playlist. I dug DEEP. I found emotional and physical strength I didn't know I had saved. At mile 13 I forwarded to the song Celebration. Any other HMB kids out there know you only play that song after a WIN! When I saw the finish line and saw that I would indeed finish under 3 hours, I started sobbing.

THE FINISH LINE! Mile 13.1

Here I am crossing the finish line, with my "finisher" medal in hand and sis-in-law running right next to me! I'm so glad she was there to help me through the toughest 1.1 miles of the whole race!

After quite an emotional break down (I just kept thinking I DID IT!!!) I made it to the grass to sit and hydrate. Since I was so far at the end, most of the aid stations were out of gatorade by the time I got there (luckily they had water). And there was no after party since most everyone had left. Dear race organizers and sponsors: You suck for leaving before everyone was done with the race. I was a solid half hour faster than your cut off time and I really wanted a frakking sandwich!

Post Race Rest

So, despite finishing 3rd to last, I am pretty damn proud of myself. I met my two goals (finish and have fun) and I continually improve on being kind to myself. I'm already looking at planning my next half marathon, which I hope to run with my Dad this fall. Hopefully I won't get sidelined during training so I'll have an easier recovery and potentially a faster time, but regardless my goals will continue to be the same: finish and have fun. 

And, for those of you who only knew me in high school or haven't seen me since college, here's my before/after pictures. It's taking a lot of guts to post these, but here they are.

2007

2012... 45 pounds smaller and about to run 13.1 miles!

Being smaller is really nice. But learning to be kind to myself, to be proud of what I've done and I can do, learning how to be kinder and gentler, and seeing myself positively are way, way, way more awesome than anything the scale can ever show. And as we all know, if anything at all, I'm AWESOME.