i'm back

i've had an ephiany of sorts - i may not know how to spell the word - but i'm pretty certain that's what happened -- a running ephiany. this ephinany occured to me on monday november 18th. here's the story. I haven't been running too much lately - i've been exercising - don't get me wrong - but i've been exercising to lose weight - not to train for anything specific -- there is a very big difference between the two. When you are just exercising to lose weight - you'll do what ever is easier and more convenient - hence why i've been getting most of my workouts on the bike trainer. With my schedule as hectic as it has been - i'll take a calorie burning workout whenever i can - and most of the time it's at about eleven o'clock at night (and even in our safe city - i don't think that's the best idea to go for a run at that time of night by myself) or at 5:30 in the morning it's a lot easier to drag your butt out of bed to just go down to your warm basement where you can work out while watching whatever shows you've tivo'd during the week than it is to get your butt out in the dark to go for a run. Oh and the pool at the rec center has been closed for i think about five months -- so here i am spinning a lot and running when I can. The only redeming this is I am doing well on the weight loss front -- went from a size 10 - 157 lbs to currently a size 6 - 133 pounds. I'd like to be on the other side of 130 - but these last few pounds are slow going. So here's the weird thing - running less - not training for everything - so not calculating all the miles and all the minutes - and i find i'm getting faster. Is it merely b/c of the weight loss? is it b/c i'm for once not over analyzing myself?

well back to the ephiany - I ran the pigskin 5k on saturday - my goal was to run eight minute miles -- guess what i did it -- finished in 24:54 which is just above an eight minute mile. and guess what -- if i hadn't freaked out that the first mile was too fast and that if i didn't slow down i would end up running a forty minute 5k -- then i probably could have run maybe a 23 something. I swear i am my worst enemy when i comes to running - if i'm going to slow - i get way down on myself - if i'm going to fast - i say woah slow down you can't go that fast. so i started thinking about running and what i've accomplished since i started back up again. so i went through and i made a file of pdf's of all the races i've done since steve and i started back to running in 2005. Here's what i've found -- i've accomplished a lot - 2 marathons and 3 half marathons - plus a ton of other races. I'm pretty proud of myself. But when i look at my times - i know that i can do better. most of my 5k times are around 29 minutes -- and not that there is anything wrong with that - but back in the day when i was not nearly in as good of shape as i am now - i could bust out a sub 21 minutes 5k. So I started thinking about it, trying to figure out what is holding me back - is it the crazy work schedule, along with getting married in 73 days along with trying to redo an entire house, perhaps a bit - but the real culprit is me. So - here's the challenge i'm issuing myself -- stop selling yourself short - you are capable of more than you think. Number two - i'm putting my two main goals out there for everyone to see (well steve and elizabeth - the ones who read this blog anyway)

#1) sub 21 minute 5k
#2) sub 1 hours 50 minute half marathon
#3) sub 4 hour marathon
#4) complete olympic length triathlon

I've got a long long way to go to get there -- namely cutting 48 minutes off my marathon time -- but i know i'm capable. it's no longer a matter of can i do a marathon or a half marathon -- now it's a matter of getting my butt through that distance a whole lot faster