Weigh In- Week 3

Normally I'm not happy to see a gain when I weigh in. Like any person who is attempting to lose weight, a gain on the scale (no matter how large or small) is associated with failure. That's what I told myself constantly and I believed it too.

But, it's happened this time on my third week of Weight Watcher's and when I stepped on the scale and saw a gain of 0.4 I celebrated.

 

Okay, so obviously I'm not excited about gaining, but after throwing caution to the wind and allowing the stress of moving to take over, a 0.4 pound gain is an absolute success. We were at the house all weekend until it was too dark to paint anymore and the choices were simple... Fast food or fast food. Of course I could have made better choices and I could have chosen my weight loss over the stress, but I didn't and there's that. Maybe I'll have learned something from this..

 

In all honesty, it pushed me to get back to tracking and to making better choices. I can't say how the rest of the week will go. I know that I'm already stressing, but it's going to get worse as the week progresses. I took Friday off of work and although I have a doctors appointment for my hip (more on this later) I plan on spending the rest of the day finishing up the packing at the apartment and continuing to work on unpacking the house.

 

Speaking of the house... More progress!

Imagine this without the paint cans..

 

 I am getting so excited for Saturday when the furniture comes! Until then I'm going to continue to unpack. My goal for tomorrow is to get the patio and porch set up as best as possible since we are hosting Father's Day at our house on Sunday. I also want to start the kids rooms so that I can finish those up on Friday.

There's still a lot to do, but it will get done in time. My family is already aware that the house will not be unpacked and are not expecting anything other same food, family and a good time together. Patrick and I have always been the kind to be 100% unpacked fast, so I don't see this being any different.

I will tell you that the more we get done the more it feels like our home. Staying there 24/7 will be strange at first, but in no time at all we will get used to it all and it will really feel like our home and our personalities will shine through.

I wouldn't have been able to get through this move without my husband though. He has been my rock and is always there when I start stressing about how much we have left to do. We are both getting pretty burnt out with everything we've been doing (as I'm sure our families are too since they've been helping so much), but he has been amazing and so helpful getting stuff over and unpacked from the truck into the house. He's also allowing me to decorate the house the way I want. I am still passing ideas by him, but he has been awesome and I am so grateful for him.

I'm sure there will be many more pictures to post after this weekend!

Progress!

Well, it took four days and many MANY helping hands, but the painting is about 95% completed. I believe the only things we have left to do are the bathroom ceiling, a few touch ups and the laundry room. The laundry room is just a few spots that need to be covered after the nails were removed and then the holes were spackled. We plan on taking a sample to Home Depot to have them paint match and then just paint over those spots so that we don't have to do the entire room.

The kids bathroom is also being completely remodeled so that a shower can be put in with the bathtub. It was not on the original plan, however it is needed and it's been kind of fun thinking about the tile and other items for that room as well. I'm sure it will look fantastic once it's done, but the idea of remodeling a room is a cause of stress.

We have a long way to go before we are ready to present the house as complete, but the progress we made this weekend is HUGE and I am so proud of ourselves and impressed with how much we were able to accomplish. We have 6 days until the movers come and we are falling behind with our packing. The current plan is to pack at night and then take the boxes over right after work. Lather, rinse, repeat..

It's about time to start packing the clothing and other essential items that we don't "need" in the next week. Winter clothing, extra towels, etc. It's been quite a process and I'm at the point where I just want to throw everything in a box and get it done. I know we can't really do that yet, but I can dream, and we may just end up getting to that point Friday night since we both have to work all week.

Here are some pictures of the progress we were able to make over the weekend:

Living Room: Before/During/After (with extra lighting to help with painting)

Living Room Wall: Before/After

Kids Room: Before/After 

 

 Isabel's Room: Before/After

Kitchen & Dining Room: Before/After

 

Bathroom: Before/After

Bedroom: Before/After

Kitchen Lamp: Before/Soon to be After

 

This coming week will be filled with moving boxes and starting to put things where they belong (my favorite part). I told Patrick that I would take care of decorating the entire house if he wanted to work on the kitchen. I figured since he spends more time in there than I do that it would be a better idea for him to set it up the way he wants. I'm sure it will make it easier for him.

 

I still have so many ideas of what I want to do and where I want to put things and I am so unbelievably excited to put those thoughts into this house. It really is starting to feel more and more like ours and I cannot wait to stay there for the first time next weekend. 

 

And with that, I am off to do some laundry and packing.

Painting- Day One

Yesterday marked day 2 of owning a home and day 1 of starting the painting we have planned for the house. I got there shortly after work and Patrick got there about an hour and a half later. Thankfully my parents were there to help during that time.

We got the walls washed and ready to be painted and another load of boxes was brought in. Patrick and I decided to stay a little after our parents left and painted the first item: a window frame. We got in one coat and decided to continue today.

Before:

During:

Another coat should do the trick and we will be doing that this morning before we tackle more of the house. 

So much to do! 

But it's already starting to feel like home.

 

This weekend we have planned for friends and family to come and help. We are hoping to be 100% done painting by the end of the day on Sunday. If we go over into next week, that's fine because we have until the 14th before the movers come, but we still have a lot of boxes to move ourselves.

 

We have planned on painting the following rooms:

living room

kids room

Isabel's room

kitchen

our bathroom

our bedroom

 

At some point we will also need to paint the garage, Patrick's man cave and the garage bathroom, but that will come in time.

Getting Back Into Training Mode

Dopey is almost exactly 7 months away and it is time to get my body and mind back into training mode. I haven't been there in that proper mind/body space for probably the whole month of May, getting just over 90 miles for the month, not quite where I wanted to be.

Yes, my mind has been on other things and things have been pretty hectic here, but I can't let that be an excuse. I am still able to get out there and run and it helps with the stress, so there's always that. To be completely honest, I'm surprised I got in as many miles as I did this past month.

But here we are in June and although it's a very exciting time, buying a house has proven to be a very stressful experience. Between the financial side and the packing of everything (and wondering how we accumulated so much stuff in such a small space), both Patrick and I are on edge. The next two weeks are going to be a mixture of excitement, fun and exhaustion. We have a tight schedule to stick to in regards to painting and it is going to be a difficult few weeks owning our house but not actually living there for 10 days.

It will all be worth it though.

Last month I allowed myself to do the bare minimum and although it was nice to not have to stress about the miles, I know that there was a difference in my mood and my body. I just feel better when I am able to get in a good run.

I have decided to loosely follow the Jeff Galloway training plan for the Dopey Challenge and will be starting on July 1st. Until then I'm going to give it my all for June to build up those miles and to enjoy the Mammoth half marathon. Communication is going to be key over the next 6+ months with training taking over a large part of my life. A lot of miles will be happening and I know from experience that without communication it's not going to be a good experience.

Unfortunately with all of the running goals I am currently working towards (running 1250 total miles for the year, completing 14 half marathons in 2014, running 500 days in a row, and completing the "Dopey Challenge") I have a tough decision to make regarding the pain I am feeling in my hip. It's been getting worse and I am feeling it on a daily basis. It's usually fine until I sit for a long period of time (for example, at work) and try to stand up, but once I get started it feels fine.

I have to stop being stubborn and just make an appointment with a doctor. I need to stop thinking the worst and not allow the fear of being told to stop running keep me from making sure I'm healthy. That needs to take priority over running...

In regards to training- schedule to come soon. I'm still going to move forward with my plans until I am able to see a doctor.

24 Days Until the Mammoth Half Marathon

I couldn't be more excited for a race than I am for the upcoming Mammoth Half Marathon. I may even be more excited for this half than I was for my first full marathon..

Mammoth has always been my favorite place. It's where we vacationed when I was a child and the tradition of going there almost yearly has continued into adulthood. We always go during the summer so we can hike, fish, take pictures and really enjoy the outdoors. 

This year we will be horse back riding, fishing, picture taking and doing a lot of running. It is going to be amazing.

This race will also be the second half of The Challenge, a two race challenge including Mammoth and the San Diego Half Marathon we completed in March. It also brings a close to the first half of my racing goal for this year, which has me started thinking about my running goals for next year..

It may have been suggested to me to not set such high expectations/goals for myself. Instead of doing a 30 day challenge I should cut it in half, the goal being to not put as much pressure on myself or to be as disappointed if I don't complete the goal.

That same night I told Patrick that I wanted to complete 100 half marathons in my running lifetime. He asked me one question- how many have you done so far? 14. He made one suggestion- cut your goal in half.

So I did and decided that I would like to complete a total of 50 half and full marathons in my running lifetime. This only includes organized races that I receive a medal for, it will not include the "dopey challenge" or the 26 Angel Run. I don't know why I decided to exclude these, but I did, so there's that.. 

I have started thinking about my goals for next year, but more importantly I've started thinking about which races I would like to participate in. There are a lot of good ones to do and a lot of new ones I would like to try. I can't afford or commit to a certain number, but I can dream of new and repeat races (like the San Diego Safari Park and the LA Marathon to name a couple). 

I'm so glad that I follow the Mammoth Half Marathon on facebook so that I could enjoy the following pictures. They were too pretty to not share and give an idea as to why I am so excited to be running in this race in June: 

I cannot wait to take my own pictures on the course! Rachel and I have already talked about it and due to the elevation we plan on taking this course very slow. Well, the elevation and the fact that I'm probably going to be stopping so that I can take a million and a half pictures along the way..

Mountains 2 Beach Half Marathon- Race #6 of 14

Race morning started early, as most race morning start. My alarm went off just after 3am and I woke up startled with the fear that the alarm had been going off for awhile.

Thankfully, I had enough time to get up and get my things together. I had already set most of my things out the night before, but I just needed to put a few things together before heading outside to be picked up at 4am.

Unfortunately I wasn't going to be picked up because I had read the text message wrong and I was supposed to be picking Rachel up. We got it all figured out though and didn't waste any time to get to the shuttles.

Our shuttle time was 5:15am, however we were able to get on an earlier bus since we were already there. The start line was a short ways away from where we were dropped off so we made the walk to the start line.

The one good thing about the start line was the number of port-o-potties. There were more than enough and it was nice to not have to wait in line or worry that you wouldn't make it to the start.

Rachel and I started talking about the plan for the next 13.1 miles. We decided that since training hadn't gone quite as planned this past month we would extend our walking intervals and do 30:130. It actually worked out really well and we were able to maintain our pace and use this half as a training run for the Mammoth Half Marathon next month. There was no pressure to finish in a certain amount of time.

The run wasn't awful, however there wasn't much to look at on the course. Apparently the first half of the marathon course is where the views are, but since we start at the halfway point of that course we got the industrial views for almost all of our course. Thankfully it was mostly flat and relatively easy to complete.

I strive to be better about race recaps. To give detail and be witty about the things that happen along the course. The things I think or feel or see. That doesn't seem interesting though, at least not when I type it out. So instead, as always, I leave you with pictures from the race and of the course.

 

 

Our finishing time was 3:00:12, which was right on track for what we planned to do. A long distance training run for us means a pace of a 13:30-14:30 minute mile and we were consistently around a 14 minute mile.

 

The only concern I had before, during and after the race was the pain I was feeling in my hip. I've been experiencing some discomfort for about a week now, but it wasn't as bad as it was race day morning. By the end of the race, and after the drive home, it was a little difficult to walk. Ice, rest and a massage made it better by this morning. There's still a dull ache, but I am not as concerned about it as I was yesterday.

 

It will be something I pay attention to though. I am definitely one to tell others to listen to their bodies. Especially those who are thinking about starting a running streak. Listen to your body. Don't push it too far. And then here I am with a potential injury and what did I do tonight? Well I went out to continue my streak..

 

Mammoth is the next half on schedule. It will be the halfway point to this years running goal. I cannot begin to express my excitement for this next race. It will be in my favorite place that I have been and the sights during the course are going to be breathtaking. I am slightly concerned about the elevation as we will not have an opportunity to train in high elevation beforehand. We are going up a few days before the race and will be able to run a few miles in order to help us get used to it, but I know it may not be enough. But, if we walk the whole thing then we walk the whole thing. I'm just so happy that I get this opportunity.