Fredericton Fall Classic - September 25, 2011 - 5k

Wow... I have so many thoughts after this event. Amazing experience...

I went on a mini road trip with my sister the day before and we didn't get home until much later than planned due to an accidental 1.5 hour detour, so I woke up feeling pretty low energy. I couldn't tell for sure if my upset stomach on the drive to the race (45 minutes) was nerves or the stomach flu that my dad was plagued with on Saturday.

I was about 30 minutes early and got things all looked after at registration, picked up my kit which included my number (which started with a 16, my favourite number, which was a lucky sign), my awesome technical race tshirt and my timing chip for my sneaker. I met up with my really cool non-biological little sister, A, who has run a few 5ks over the last couple of years and was a great source of support (and nerve calming) and, of course, I had my great sister-slash-photojournalist, Shay, with me.

I had looked over the course map but I am terrible at navigation at best, so I had no idea exactly where the path would take us, but it turned out that the majority of it was trail that I had run before with G and his brother. I was also concerned that I would get lost on the trail but was relieved to find lots of arrows taped to the trail and support staff all along the route.

So! What everyone is waiting for! Results:



For those wondering about the numbers, I will break it down for you. :)

86 - my finishing place of 90 in the 5k
1655 - my bib number
Amanda Neal - my name, obviously, haha!
F - female
Central Hainesv - hometown
NB - province
F - female again, just in case you didn't catch it the first time
13/13 - there were 13 in my age/gender division in the 5k and I was bottom of that
F2029 - my division - females aged 20-29
40:55 - my finishing time for 5k
8:11 - my pace per k

As an interesting note, my time for my first K was 7:12 - but when I rounded the corner for the third kilometre (which was also the turnaround point), I was quite sure I was going to hurl. I walked a lot of the way back for this reason, just so as not to shake things up.

But I did learn a lot and will approach my next 5K quite a bit differently, I think:

- I will only take 1 or 2 days off from running pre-race, not 3. Things just did not work out for me to run again after Wednesday night.
- I will definitely get more than 6 or 7 hours of sleep the night prior - and probably the whole week prior.
- More hydration in the days leading up to - I was dryyyyyy!
- Eat cleaner in the days prior, definitely.
- I will carry a water bottle with me on the race. I didn't bring one that was a decent size for me to carry with me (ie I had the big 1.5L one with me which I left with Shay at the finish line) because I thought it would make me obvious as a newb... a LOT of people carried water and as it turned out to be much hotter than originally forecast, I was desperately sorry that I hadn't brought one too!
- I will show up earlier than 30 minutes before my race, to soak up the atmosphere, because it was just way too cool!
- I won't drink the Gatorade - I deliberately avoided dairy products to avoid slime-mouth but then completely sabotaged that by taking the Gatorade at the drink station.
- I won't look back on the trail!

I couldn't get over the awesome atmosphere. I had a brief thought of "what if I am the fattest runner there?" (I wasn't), and "what if I finish last?" (I also didn't, really, and nobody would have known anyways since there were half-marathon and 10k runners coming in through the same finish line with everyone else!). There were so many encouraging people there! Many of the 10k runners or other 5k runners who had already made the turnaround and were passing on the way back shouted words of encouragement as they headed toward the finish line and the atmosphere when I rounded the corner and could see the finish line and hear my group of family and friends cheering for me was a little unlike anything else. I was hoping to get that "tunnel vision" moment that I had at the track last week, but I didn't get any - even so, I had a lot of personal time to reflect on myself and my attitude toward things. Aside from feeling really sick, I had a lot of internal dialogue going on, telling me to keep going, keep pushing. Overall, I loved it, and I can't wait to do it again!

And, the other thing everyone is waiting for - the pictures!


Putting my timing chip on my shoelace.


A and I posing for an obligatory "Pre" shot.


Heading out to line up for the start... I was sooo nervous!


I seem to be freakishly taller than anybody else doing this race.



A coming in for a finish! She was running with a cold, she is a beast is all I can say!


Here I come, they spotted my pink pants a mile away!


This is a picture that I zoomed in and cropped - I love the expression on my face - this was the face I got when I realized I was almost done, I had lived, and I had a group of my family and friends that I love very much waiting at the end for me!


And here I am dragging my big pink butt across the finish line.

If I had thought 60 pounds ago, or even 6 months ago that I would actually be doing this, I would have laughed my face off... but now I want to do it again, as soon as possible! Next run is November 26th... here I come!

Brief Glimpses

Last night, I hit the track for my 5k run while G and his brother worked on the shuttle runs that he'll need for BMQ. I didn't feel like running - but Sunday had been my last run and I was feeling like I needed some distance before the race on the 25th. Monday, I rode my horse and was still feeling sore from that, didn't do a thing as a I decadently celebrated my 26th birthday on Tuesday and then hit the gym hard yesterday morning with many of Jillian Michael's Frontside moves for my arms and thighs. Needless to say, I was kind of sore and grumpy when I landed at the track.

The whole 'shit kicking' as they call it, that I put myself through at the track was worth a couple of minutes that I had while on about my fifth lap. It was this brilliant clarity of mind - I was just running - sure, my legs were hurting a little, and my breathing was a bit laboured, but I somehow managed to tune everything out. It was a perfect moment of focus. It lasted about 3/4 of a lap around the track and then I lost it, but it was there, and if it is any indication of "what's to come", I want it!

I have found that distraction is my biggest problem. I enjoy the challenge and comaraderie of running with somebody else but I find I get my best work done when I am only competing with myself. Otherwise, I am trying to chat, paying attention to what the other person is doing, etc. Last night, I had some distractions - there was another runner on the track with us and I met two men walking dogs that cut across it to get to their regular dog walking route - that was enough to put me off rhythm a couple of times. I just need to learn how to give myself tunnel vision a little more firm than it is now, to keep myself heading in the right direction.

Today is the first time, however, that I feel sore, and not a good sore, necessarily. I have taken some Advil - I am not usually a med popper when I am sore, I revel in abs that hurt a little when I stretch or arms that burn when I use them for normal things but this is kind of a "full of lead" type of sore. As the day has worn on, it's gotten a little better - it could be actual fatigue combined with sore muscles - and to add insult to injury, the scales at G's place this morning said I weighed 3lbs more than last week! I have been told you weigh more when you're sore because healing muscles retain water, so I guess we will see in a couple of days how that looks.

Ahhhhhhh!!!!

So it's official. Entering a 5k is now no longer something that I talk about a lot but never do. The entry part, I have down pat. I'm kind of afraid. But when I get too far on the afraid-o-meter, I swing back, think about how accomplished I am going to feel when I cross that finish line and people that I care about are waiting for me and cheering me on, I feel better. It doesn't matter that I may finish the last of everyone out there. I don't care that it's a race - my placing doesn't matter to me - the fact that I complete what I set out to do matters more. I will finish what I set out to do, and that's final.

As far as weight goes... hmmm. Well, that's an interesting plight, now that you mention it. We have begun the third round of 3-month-long weight loss challenges on the forum for plus sized horseback riders that I operate -- the last two, I have either lost nothing or gained. I started this one at 264 right on the nose. I lost 0.6lbs this week (we weigh on Fridays). I know that 0.6lbs can be almost not on purpose... but I am determined to do more this week. And I am determined not just to do more for my physical health but also more for my mental health - sometimes the two overlap. I don't think I'll mind!

With that said, I am working on a couple of lists. Goal lists, if you will. Weekly fitness goals, a bucket list, and an ongoing list (ie. Read one book a month, it doesn't matter what book it is - just read one.) I will share these once I am finished up - I am actually looking forward to the process as much as anything else!

Battle Scars & Epiphanies

(As a side note, I weighed myself this morning at G's and my body seems downright ADAMANT about staying in the 262-264lb range. Despite pretty consistent exercise over the last several weeks, it is clear that I am going to have to buckle down on my eating habits quite a bit more strictly than I have been. With the addition of my new Android phone, I think this is a good opportunity for me to start toodling with some apps to review!)

Though I have put about 10km on them on my own, my new shoes (and my feet) were really not ready to amp up to 5k at a time. Or it might have been that I don't have appropriate socks for running (or maybe just pushing myself as hard as I pushed last night). Either way, at the halfway point, I was having some serious pain on the heels. By the time we made it back, I had this loveliness:



BUT I finished, and I had a brilliant epiphany during the last running stretch of the evening. The only way that I can explain it is to paraphrase my internal dialogue:

Me: "This sucks and I really want to stop."
Me: "Your breathing is in check, do you need to stop?"
Me: "No, I don't need to stop for my breathing, but I really want to stop."
Me: "Well, why would you want to stop?"
Me: "My legs hurt."
Me: "On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you can ever remember and one being just a minor irritation's worth of pain, how badly to they hurt?"
Me: "2."
Me: "Then why do you want to stop? You have worked through much more pain than this. Your breathing is in check, there are only 30 seconds to this run left, and you're almost home. There is no reason to stop."

And so, well, I didn't. And once I had that little chat with myself, the rest of it felt alright, and I finished in fine form. My legs didn't fall off, and I didn't die, though I did nearly become victim of both a sprained ankle and a concussion at the same time, from falling off the sidewalk. Fortunately, even that was avoided!

So now, it's just the heels that hurt. I think my next stop today will be Running Room for a pair of real socks for running!

Mind vs Body

I read somewhere, and it has stuck with me "the mind will give up long before the body does" - so it's not just a matter of training the body to do these challenging physical activities - it's training the mind. I am working on it, little by little.

I ran (and remember when I say run, it's about 50% run/jog and 50% brisk walk at this time, but steadily increasing to more run!) last night and used a visualization technique - I would picture the telephone pole that I would run to before I would take a break and then when I got there, I would go to one more telephone pole. I would think to myself "this is the absolute farthest I can run..." and then once I passed it, I would think "I'm not dead, I can go one more." - eventually, I figure I will be able to use this theory to go 2 more, and then 3 more, and eventually, I will be running the whole way to the halfway mark, and then halfway home again.

The important part for me is to focus on the mark ahead and pick closer ones and then if I want to extend further, to break it up smaller once I get to my original mark. My regular run takes me kind of into a bowl, up the other edge and back again and I do some running both down and uphill as well as on the flat. I have also been working on regulating my breathing, thinking about it and so then I don't end up as often gasping for breath. It is really beginning to become a reality for me to be able to do the 5k. I got this. :)

On the same vein as training/looking after my mind (which is the point of this whole blog) is looking after my body. I do get more achey when I do the run at my place because of the hills - and last night, I noticed some soreness in my knees immediately following running. I applied "ice" (I knew that bag of navy beans would come in handy someday - since I don't know how to cook them!) and they felt better almost immediately. Another going concern is footwear.

I am currently running in a $30 pair of Dr Scholls, which I know is not a good idea. Quite frankly, running in those, on the terrain (highly concussive - pavement!) at the size I am, I am pretty lucky not to have really hurt myself by now. Our local Source For Sports has a "Buy One Get One For a Loonie" sale on until September 18th and while I was originally thinking of seeing if someone would split with me and we could each get a pair of running shoes, right now I am thinking that I probably could use two pairs - one for the gym and one for outdoor running/walking. Once I put that kind of investment into it, I can't give up!

Another thing really fueling my desire to run is the app for MapMyRun.com -- I just got an LG Optimus One android and I got the app almost right away after seeing it on G's iPhone. Since I love to improve on my time, etc - it is perfect! I am also quite excited as I'd like to do reviews of the various apps available in the Android Market for the various calorie counting websites, etc for the blog. Love doodads!

Goals & Accomplishments

One of the things that I like the best about this whole weight loss mission is setting goals and reaching them, or making lists and ticking things off of them. I love to set a goal to do something X times per week and meeting that goal.

It is with this in mind (as well as the need for G to get in shape and my subsequent support and participation) that I have decided that I am going to run the 5K Citizens’ Run & Walk at the Fall Classic Road Race on September 25th, 5 days after I turn 26. Everybody who has found out that I have the intention to run a 5k wants to know what time I want to finish in... I keep telling them that I just want to finish! To give it some relevance, I completed 5.44k the other night with G and his brother in 1:01:10 and I did 3.43k in 0:29:38 tonight - it took me about 31 minutes to finish that on July 26th.

The best part of deciding to run this 5k is that my friend, Jill from Scuffed Boots Photography invited me to come to Moncton to run the Miss Movember 5k for Prostate Cancer on November 26th, so I will have a "starting point" with the September 5k and then be able to compare in November. These are the sorts of things that I enjoy, just like seeing how much time I am shaving off of my times for running each time I go out.

So this is what I am working for right now. G is working for Basic... I am working for these two 5k events. I think I need a new pair of sneakers...

Revelations

I inherited a deep love for horses, and horseback riding - I grew up on a farm with horses always around, and so I find that, by times, I compare most things in life to horses. For example, last night during what we've come to dub as a "run" (it's actually a walk/jog/run split - not a full run... yet!), I concluded (but I must admit I was aided in coming to this conclusion by G's brother) that G and I are like two distinctly different breeds of horse.

G is like an Arabian. They are commonly used in endurance racing - this is the breed of horse you hear about making a 30 day race across the desert. Industrious, they have the stamina to go forever. (The thought also came up that G is stubborn, like a mule - I concluded that he is, indeed, an Arabian mule.)

Myself, on the other hand, am a lot more like a quarter horse. They are named such because they are the fastest horse over a quarter of a mile. I could sprint off pretty quickly but eventually the brothers caught up and surpassed me, even if I could hold them (or at least G!) off for a period of time, he could run twice as long as I could at a steady pace.

Overall, though, it was good. It was helpful to have G's brother, who is fitter than us (but not uber-fit... yet!). I can only push G to the limits of what I can do - and he can only really push me as far as he can push himself because it's pretty useless to say "Go faster! Don't worry, I'll catch up! Save yourself-... oh wait, this isn't that kind of movie...

The Twisty Turnies

That's what I call it when you set out with a plan and through a variety of incidents not completely your fault, your plan gets tossed aside but is replaced with something either equal to or better than what you originally hoped for.

Such was my day today. I had a nice lie in and the house to myself (well, and the 70lb border collie/lab cross who demanded to be the little spoon), a nice breakfast that fueled me up for what I hoped was one heck of a going over by Jillian Michaels via my Frontside and Backside videos that (surprise, surprise) have killer exercises specifically to target either your frontside or your backside. For whatever reason, while I consider myself to be reasonable adequate when it comes to technology, the television-to-dvd-player-with-satellite-and-vcr baffles me to no end. Today, of all days, I just could not get the darn contraption to play a dvd.

Second plan! My laptop has a dvd player, I would just pop it in there and set my laptop up on a stand so it was an appropriate level. This is the first time I had tried to play a dvd in my (new to me) laptop, so imagine my surprise when sounds akin to a cougar that has pulled its prey into a tree started coming from my laptop... eeeeeeeks.

Fine then! I have to go with conventional, "real life" exercise, in the fresh air. I was reluctant... It was pretty warm... I would get a sunburn... I'd get so far from home and then be too tired to come back... Flies would bite me... My iPod was dead so I had no tunes to motivate me... I couldn't run if there was a car coming by! Trust me (and ask anybody who knows me), I can be the entire royal court when it comes to making excuses. Today was no different, but grudgingly, knowing that if I didn't work out then, I wouldn't get to work out later, I tied up my shoelaces, filled my water bottle, and grabbed my trusty companion, Morrie:

The running buddy is a 5 year old Miniature Australian Shepherd - they're a herding breed, so generally known to be high energy. Though he was not originally intended for me, Morrie has been my right hand man since the day that my parents arrived home with him at 2am and dumped him on the bed where I was sleeping and he pinned me down by my hair and washed my face - the rest, they say, is history. Good ole Morrie would do anything for me and with me... except run 2.9km, apparently.


That's right, the path was a 2.9km, mostly uphill ramble. I know this picture is tiny (I took it with my not-a-smart-phone) but try to understand my vision here. I was at the end and turning around and the red dot on the horizon, that's where I had to go back to. I chose this route for a variety of reasons, even though I could have traveled a different route which would have had -slightly- flatter terrain. Most importantly - not a lot of houses to see me coming by. Secondly - not a lot of dogs that might run out of their yard and attack the fluffernutter, and thirdly - there is a stream at the 1/4 mark where I could give Morrie a proper drink and chance to cool down. It was on our way back at this stream that he started to lag behind. Just tired, and lazy - a lot like me, but he doesn't have as much weight to lose! It soon became more that I was dragging him than him keeping up.


Fortunately, I was wearing the most psychedelic outtfit possible and my sister, as she was coming home from a dog trial, saw me and drove down to say hello. Morrie begged his way into the air conditioned car and drove home with her while I jogged another telephone pole length uphill and then briskly finished off the trip back home. The last 1/4 of the trip, I kept thinking to myself "I can't wait to get home and blog about how I was able to motivate myself, for once!"

I won't lie. I'm pretty dang proud of myself for doing any amount of running without someone there to prod me along. I ended up completing 2.9km in 34 minutes. I would say that I ran or jogged approximately 1/4 of that and even did some of it uphill. I just kept thinking to myself "Don't stop." and somehow, that managed to work. Overall, I have to say... proud of myself. (The boyfriend (hereafter known as "G") also ran today - almost 5km himself - so I am pretty dang proud of him, too! Even though it did take some convincing for him to concede that my 2.9km equaled his 4.93km because mine had hills and his didn't!)