Race/Birthday Weekend Recap&T25 Progress

Good morning lovely ladies!!!!

The work week is back is sccchwwwwing, and I'm okay with that. I'm still buzzin' off my weekend high.

And sheeee'ss sooo hiiiiiiiggggghhh above me, she's so lovely.... no? okay moving on...

For my birthday this last weekend the hubs and I had a little overnight vacation, did some shopping and enjoyed Olive Garden...and I ran my first officially timed 5K race.

Ahhhhhh shit.

Well first off it was forty some degrees. It was so FREAKING cold, If I had balls, I would of done froze them off.

I do love my Under Armour Cold gear though, well worth the money. Even with layered tops I still ended up throwing the long sleeve race shirt on on top of everything. Yeah it was that cold... or maybe I'm a wuss...nahhh It was just that cold.

I was as nervous as a whore in church. To this date my fastest 5K time was 28:50 and my goal was to 

A- run it under 30, PR or tie previous time

B- not fall on my face

There was also a 15K going on at the same time and they started us all together so there was a cluster of peoples. I'm all nervous over here waiting for the gun and then I turned up my music and just kinda settled into my zone. I had my Garmin on, but I'm horrible about watching my time and criticizing myself, luckily it was a town Im not really familiar with so I tried to distract my mind and look at the city itself, that worked for the most part, I still kept checking my pace. Up until about half way through mile 2 then I just started running with my heart. I know that sounds corny as hell, but for real I just started pep talking myself (anyone else do this?) in my head. Telling myself how proud I was, how far Ive come, no matter the time I did good today and that seemed to help boost the self esteem factor, that and one of the safety monitors at the last turn gave me a high five. This was also around the time where for some reason I wanted to walk, but I kept telling myself that I hadn't walk in a race before, why now? I knew that if I walked when I really didn't need to, I would have let myself down and regretted it later. So with my pep talk replaying and an uplifting mood after a random high 5 I pushed through. A little bit of kindness can go a long ways ya'll. After that I just told myself you got this, now GO! When it came close to the finish line and I could see it, I gave it every last bit that I had, I pushed myself to go hard, cold sore muscles and snot running down my face I kicked it into full gear and crossed the finish line feeling accomplished. My mom was taking pictures and she had my Cyclone Cup full of Rehydrate by Advocare and I wanted a big swig of that more than anything...for some odd reason I threw up moments after crossing. I've never thrown up from running but it was mostly mucus-y crud. I had to chase my mom down because she said after she saw my face and knew what was coming she got out of the danger zone. I kept following her cause I just wanted a damn drink!

My official time was 26:07 I felt so proud, I almost started crying. I finished 43rd overall and got 2nd in my age group (20-29) females. I almost lost it. I had met each one of my goals that day and placed???? I was on cloud 9!!! That was the best feeling in the world. I never thought I was going to place. Proud doesn't even began to describe how I felt. When I first started running, I couldn't make it a minute, I did the C25K program and at the end of it, I barely ran the 5K in 45 minutes. I was a mess. Now here I was 9 1/2 months later, almost 70lbs lighter, running 3.1 miles in 26 minutes and placing 2nd in my age group?!?!? I knew right then that all those bad days, the days I didn't want to workout, the days I ate crap food, over ate, slept in instead of working out, had what ever it was didn't matter. Alls that really mattered was the days where I did good, because those where the days that shaped and led up to this race. They were the road itself, the others were just speed bumps along the way.

It was a good day. Met up with an old friend, medaled and pr'd. I went back to the hotel took a power nap and the hubs and I showered up and we were off for some shopping. We had a good time at the mall and finished the day with a meal at Olive Garden and some Starbucks for the way home. I was a tired gal, I had to work early and late the days before so I was low on sleep so we got home I passed out on the couch and the hubs played some Grand Theft Auto 5. We live such exciting lives.

.....FOCUS....

So today was my first day of the Beta phase of Focus T25, I was nervous, I was scared I almost just wanted to quit before it began. But I forced my self to hit play and Shaun T mesmerized me into working out and sweating my balls off.

This is how I felt after. Shocked by the intensity but proud I finished.

A lot of the times I never want to workout, but a few minutes in I remember why I like it so much and then when I'm done I always feel so amazing.

As promised here are my before and afters of the Alpha Phase:

Weight wise (thats another story, the scale and I aren't speaking right now), I'm about the same but inches and definition wise I'm definitely improving!!

Since its only a 5 day a week program, 25 minutes a day, I'm pretty impressed with the results so far, and I'm noticing improvements on my running times because of the cross training.

So, how was your weekend???

Have a good Monday!

-J