Before

I'm going to use this picture as my before.  Because I don't really have a good one of just me that's a good before.

See - I'm not huge or anything.  But it was time to either get pregnant again, accept my size and buy appropriate clothes ...

Or get myself busy losing baby weight.

I have wanted to run a Disney race ever since I knew that they existed.  I wanted to bring the whole family and run through and take pictures with characters and with the castle and I love Disney.  Lewis half grudgingly says he works for Disney.

I have talked about it for months.  A year.  Years.  Since Julia was a small baby.  I had it all worked out that I would be out of baby jail in 2017, Megan should also be between babies ... we could make it work.  So I put the registration date in my calendar, way back in early 2016 when the date was released.

And I talked about it and I was going to do it.  But I hadn't run anything since before David.  So Lew was skeptical.

But on September 20th my sister and I signed up for the Tinkerbell 10k.  And on September 21st I went back to BBC.  And luck would have it they announced they were doing 5k training starting in October.  So I signed up for that too.

And me of the "I-dont-know-how-people-run-so-many-miles" set started running.

And it's pretty much couch to 5k.  It's interval running.  And I don't think I'll ever run without the intervals.  It just fits so nicely into my brain, taking the run in such manageable chunks.  My issue before (and I've run 5k's before - pre David) was that it just felt so long.  Such a slog.  I'd run the first mile or so (and my pace was crap, way too fast) and I'd wear out and just felt like dying.  And they addressed that in class, people that run run run so fast and after a mile or two are exhausted and don't want to do anymore.  That was me!

I was there to learn pacing, that's what I needed.  And it has worked.

We started running 30 sec and then walking 90 sec.  We did that for 25min.  Then we did 45sec walking 90 sec.  Then 60sec run walk 60 sec.  Then 1:15 / 1.  1:30 / 1.  1:45/1.  On and on raising the running by 15seconds at a time.  And by 1:45 I was like - I can totally do this.

But I'm never giving up these intervals.

I run 3 miles a day now, or have for the past three weeks.  Resting on Tuesdays.  And still going to boot camp M/W/F.  I'm home resting today because we're up to 3/1 and a hard instructor taught Friday and my legs still hurt from that - and my runs.

Have I mentioned I'm running pushing the double?  It's so hard.  I run maybe once a week without it and it feels like freedom and my pace is a full minute faster.  The stroller has been good to keep me slow.  Maybe that's been a good thing.

Anyway.  All this to say - it all started because I just wanted to run the Disney race.  I just thought the weight would fall off as an after thought.

Yeah, that hasn't happened.

I'm trying not to let it get me too down.  It's been two months.  Which I feel like is a long time but it's not.  We'll see what happens if I keep it up through the spring.  It took forever for my metabolism to kick in.  Usually after I'm back at BBC, within the first two weeks I'm starving and I can feel things starting to change.  This time it was easily week 5 or 6.

Anyway.  All this to just document when I started, so that hopefully maybe by Spring break or something I see real change.

But if I stay this size but more toned up than that'll be fine too.  This house is very aware of heart health and exercising that muscle is extremely important.  All good things.

Doing the Turkey Trot on Thursday and then the Frosty 5k is the finishing race for the 5k training.  After that ... I may be crazy ... half marathon training starts in January.  I have no idea how I'm going to find time to get those homework runs in.  I have 30-40minutes every day because I run G to school then run around the park after that with the littles (who are not much happy with all this but thems the breaks).  I'll need hours to train for those other runs.  No idea where that time will come from.