It's been awhile...I've been running

It's been such a long time time since I've shared with all of you. What a crazy 5 months it has been! So many thing have happened! Summer flew by, fall is gone and the end of the year is quickly approaching. My journey is still underway and I am continually achieving great strides and learning new things about myself along the way.

When we last left each other I had just celebrated my Chix Anniversary and was dealing with the struggles of what seemed like an endless plateau. To change things up a bit and to take my mind off the scale, I began training for a Mini Triathlon. In this event I would swim 400 yards, bike 6 miles and run 2 miles all in the same day! For the next month, I worked out two times a day. I would complete my normal Chix workout and then alternate my time between swimming, biking and running. I was introducing my body to something new, and reminding it that I was in charge. During this training I began to have an appreciation for what the Olympic athletes did everyday for the last 4 years of their lives. Each of these sports has their own uniqueness but I found swimming to be the most challenging. yet provided a workout that I had not experience before. It worked every muscle, pushed my cardiovascular levels to their limit and was just exhausting.  But I learned to love it! Then when you combined all three events it was a whole other experience. August 4th was the day I put my short training to the test. I knew I was prepared in each individual category and now was the time to put them all together. My goal was to finish in 90 minutes and to do the best I could.



It was a beautiful day for a race. I arrived early to set up all my equipment so my transition from swimming to biking would be as quick as possible. I was given the number 280, so my swim didn't began til an hour after the first shot gun. The swimming went off better than expected. I had these visions of hundreds of people swimming in a lazy river like a bunch of salmon swimming upstream. That wasn't the case and I finished the swim in good time. My transition from swim to bike however didn't go as smoothly. It seemed like I was in the corral for 20 min or more, even though I think it was only 7 minutes. I needed to make up some time during the biking portion to stay on schedule for my goal. The bike was the easiest part of this whole thing. Three laps around for a total of 6 miles. I pedaled as fast as these thighs would allow to get the job done. One more thing to do, run 2 miles, that would be easy right? I have run 13.1, 2 miles is a cake walk!  Well yes, but not after riding a bike for an extended amount of time. I arrived at the transitioning corral and hopped off my bike with every intention of running my bike to its spot and taking off. My legs were like jello! I felt just like Gumby. No matter how much my brain told my body to run, my legs were not able to comply. My run for the first mile was slow and it took that long for my legs to recover properly and start doing what they should. I crossed the finish line in 1 hour 2 mins. Killing the goal I had set for myself. It was a great feeling and accomplishment to add to my exercise resume. I will definitely do one again!

The process of training for the mini tri helped me break my plateau and I started losing weight once again in the slow and steady pace that my body was accustomed to. I was happy to see that scale start moving once again. Well if you have learned anything about me from following this blog, you have learned that I do my best when I am busy. The more things I have on my plate, the better and I have found that several mini projects and goals help me get to big goals. So whats next? 

Another race of course but this one would be an experience of a lifetime and could only happen in the happiest place on earth! Disney World!! If you know me, I LOVE Disney World and everything associated with it. It would only be natural that I would want to run a race there. So I gathered up some of my favorite people and the planning and training began. On September 29th we were scheduled to run The Hollywood Tower of Terror 10 miler race at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The training for this race was similar to my training for the half marathon expect I only had to run 10 miles and I had done the training before so I knew what to expect. I continued to run as well as doing boot camp on opposite days. Then on September 13th the work I had been doing for the last 2 1/2 years paid off in a big way. I had lost 100 lbs! There were times I thought I would never see that number show up on that scale. When it did, it was worth the wait and the best feeling ever. :) What made it even sweeter is that I was only 50 lbs from the overall goal of being half my size. Easy! Faith and wonderful support had gotten me this far, nothing would stop me now.

At this point there was a little over two weeks left until the Disney race. It is custom that race participates dress up in costume for Disney races. Though it is not required it is what makes racing at Disney so much fun. There were 5 of us going to this race so we decided to dress up as princesses because all Chix are princesses in their own way everyday. Each of us picked a princess that I would say fit our character in some way or another. Tish was Tinker Bell, she looks just like her! Rebekah choose Jasmine because who else could pull off that outfit, plus she does have some resemblance. Danielle dressed as Snow White and a good one she was! Jackie was the ever famous Ariel, the Little Mermaid. Why? The red hair of course! Finally, I was to be Cinderella. Fitting since that's basically what this year has been for me, one great big fairytale. My mother, ultimately named "Fairy Godmother", joined us to keep us in line and be our awesome costume designer.

The race did not began till 10 pm so this race was a little different experience and preparation than any other race we had done. Instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to be at the start line, we slept in and then spent most of our day relaxing pool side. My plan was to take a nap in the late afternoon, but that didn't happen. Then we began the task of getting ready for the race. I think that was the best part! Fairy Godmother did a great job on our costumes and I think we looked pretty authentic. Tish was actually approached for autographs because she looked so much like Tink:)

After many pictures and getting used to our new identities, we headed over to race headquarters. This is where we waited in our corrals and walked to the race start line to begin our journey. I had never seen so many people at one race in my life....it was crazy. Especially since most of them were in costume. It was like one big Halloween racing party. There were 4 corrals and your placement in them was based on when you would finish the race. Tink, Jasmine and Snow White(Tish, Rebekah and Danielle) were all in Corral A because they are speedy. Ariel(Jackie) joined me in Corral D so we could race together. At 10 pm, Corral A walked their way to the start line and were sent off by fireworks. 20 minutes later Jackie and I had our chance. Off we went, slow and steady as normal but then a things began to arise that we had not trained for. It was after 10 in the evening but it was still 90 degrees with a lovely humidity in the air of about 75%. Basically it was HOT! My skin could not breathe. This added a challenge that I had not planned for and it made the run not so fun. Unfortunately, I complained a lot and would have loved for Mickey to pick me up and drive me to the finish line.  Thankfully, Ariel was a good princess and put up with my complaining and didn't let me quit. We finished the race and not in a time we would have liked, but we finished, and that's all that mattered. As Tish said, you can train for the race and the day of it, you either have it or you don't. Well this race I just didn't have it, but that was ok. It was still a blast and one of the best weekends of my life. A lot of memories were made that weekend and I wouldn't trade it for the world! One of the highlights for me is that Tink, Snow White and Jasmine had their picture captured by Disney which ended up making the RUN Disney website and the whole group had our picture used as advertisement for the company that made our racing skirts. Closest thing to celebrity status I will ever achieve and I just loved it!

So many achievements and memories were made these past 5 months and these were only the highlights. It blows my mind how awesome this year has been and yet it still isn't over. Who knows what can be achieved in the next 27 days. Anything when God is involved I would say!