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| My inspiration:) |
Yesterday was a day off for me. It's March break here, so I took Wednesday and Friday off. I still got my butt out of bed at 5:30am so that I could get an early morning run in. Hubby had to do some volunteer drives yesterday morning and was out of the house by 7:45am. I had to be up and about and ready for the boy to make his appearance. Jules came down at 8am. I had already run, stretched, eaten, showered and had a couple cups of coffee. A very productive morning indeed! After breakfast and cleaning up the house a bit, we were off to visit my gal Tanya and her little guy for a play date.
Even though it was my day off, I felt like I was busy all day. Once we got back from Tanya's and I made and ate lunch (extra lean ground beef with sauteed cabbage and mushrooms...sounds unappetizing, but was pretty good if I do say so myself!), I played with the boy for a bit, then went to pick up some groceries before heading out the the Running Room to speak to the manager about teaching the next 10K clinic. Then it was back home to pick up the boy, drop him off at my girlfriend's place while I went to physio and hubby did another volunteer drive.
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| The 10K instructors for the April session! |
After discussing running plans with Monica ad Dawn over coffee on Sunday, Monica decided to instruct the 10K clinic with me. I'm super excited because I think we'll make a good team. I'll miss instructing with Beverly, but she's still on a running hiatus but will be coming back full force very soon. There's always gonna be a clinic to instruct in the future and I'm confident Beverly and I will be co-instructors again in the future! Instructing the 10K clinic works really well for my personal running schedule over the next 8 months. It doesn't start until the middle of April and ends the third week of June, one week shy of when the half marathon and marathon clinics begin. I'll be taking one of those clinics. The are taught together so I'm hopeful that some of my running gals from the last half clinic who will be training for a half in the fall will be with me once again. Who knows what I'll be feeling by that time. Will it be the half or the full? I really want to do the full. I'm hoping that I'll get faster by June so that I can run with the big boys, but we shall see. If it doesn't work out this year, I'll do the half again. And my foot issues need to be worked out as well. I won't be running any marathons with crampy toes!
I'm excited and nervous about my assessment with Graham tomorrow. I'm being given a full movement assessment to help determine what is going on with my crampy toes. I'll be running on a treadmill for the first time EVER! Should be interesting, but that's not what makes me nervous. I'm nervous he's not going to be able to figure out what's wrong with me. That would really suck. I have confidence in his abilities as a physiotherapist. He really knows his stuff! Fingers and crampy toes crossed that I get some much needed answers!
I am always blown away when people call me inspirational and admire me for what I have done over the past year and a half. The truth is, I have done nothing special. Many others have done this exact same thing before me. I'm still not at my goal weight and I'm not sure what my goal weight is just yet. Those who have lost a substantial amount of weight and maintained it for years are the real success stories. I hope to get there one day, but in the meantime, I keep plugging along, fighting the good fight.
Find inspiration where you can. If you find me inspirational, then make me proud baby! But more importantly, make yourself proud. Remember, I was you eighteen, twelve, or even six months ago. If I can do this, so can you. I finally stopped making excuses and found the inspiration to take my life back. You have the strength within yourself to do the same, I promise. You just need to be ready, willing to put the work in (because it is a lot of work), and be prepared to make permanent changes in your life.
Losing weight and getting fit is hard work. It sucks, it hurts (physically and emotionally), it's inconvenient. It requires planning, dedication and consistency. But it is SO worth it! I'm at a place in my life right now where I can never imagine going back to where I started (300+ pounds was my heaviest). Nothing I could eat would be worth it. That is why my before picture is my phone's wall paper. Keeps me on the straight and narrow. Keeps me honest.
It has been over a year and a half since I've been plugging along here. I have become a runner in the process and accomplished things that I never thought possible. I fit into a single digit size (8) and a regular medium (no more size 24 and 3x for me). I wanted to be able to run 10:1 intervals (run ten minutes walk one minute) as many times as it took to run a 5K. Two weekends ago I ran my first half marathon in what I though was a pretty decent time (2:19:47). The pain (which is hard to remember after the fact) is so worth the pride I feel within myself. It's addictive. And that my friends is why it is so worth it! Make it happen!
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| LOVE this. Made me laugh out loud! |