Maintenance Practice

So maintaining wasn't exactly my plan for the month of May, but it's what ended up happening. And I maintained, even lost a pound and a half actually, somehow miraculously without doing a single thing right.

That's not entirely true, I guess. Let's begin at the beginning, then. I guess first I should say I'm sorry that I disappeared, and proved to be a bad cheering-on buddy for roughly the past 28 days. I had a semi-big project at work, and was just really exhausted most of the time. I made some big decisions about my future (My contract was supposed to be up in July, but now I'm staying in Korea until early January), and mostly, I just felt too distracted in my head to face an empty page. I'm back now, though. It's t-minus ~37 days before I'm on the beach at home, and time to get back on track.

My one major accomplishment for the month of May was running the 5k I'd signed up for. In a surprising and unprecedented (ill-advised?) move, I started by carbo-loading and pre-race rest a little early. (Read: I ate pretty much only sugar for the week leading up to the race, and also stopped running.) It was an interesting decision on my part, and I still can't quite pinpoint why I did it, but anyway, I woke up early on that Saturday determined to do this thing that I'd been training for for 2 months.

My friend and I actually were up late the night before making our t-shirts. We bought super-bright hot green t-shirts and permanent markered "Team Foreigner" on them, along with various other decorations. Some people found them humorous anyway. It was as stressful as I imagined, finding the registration tent amongst the vast number of tents labelled in Korean, getting my number pinned on straight, but finally, after much nervousness, I was crushed at the starting line and then we were off. There was also a 20k and an 11k that started before us, which was, I discovered, where the really serious runners were... I think I was mostly running with children, middle-aged people, and the elderly, but whatever. I felt right at home.

It was a little hotter day than any I'd run in this year, but still not too bad. My running buddy Meghan lost me quickly, but that was okay, 'cause she's super-fast and fit. The "festival" area was on a track, and the race actually started on the track, so the first part was half a lap on the way out to the street. I felt compelled to run at a preternaturally fast speed to keep up appearances until we got out of sight of the spectators, then I slowed down to my preferred crawl, although I certainly wasn't the slowest person on the road. The race consisted of a flat stretch, then a slightly uphill jaunt on the way up to a temple, and then another flat (and beautifully tree-lined!) brief stretch next to the temple until we got to the turn-around point. As you might remember, a few weeks before the race I tried running what I thought might be the track, but then found it was suspiciously too short, so I was surprised when I was directed to turn around at almost exactly the point I'd chosen on my practice run.

The second half was wonderful, because then I knew I was half done, and I knew exactly how much longer I had to go. The uphill jaunt magically became downhill, some girls gave me a cup of water (which I mostly just spilled all over myself--I knew if I stopped, even for a second, I wouldn't keep going), and I passed all the people who were behind me (yes!). It was a confidence booster. I wanted to quit a little, sure, but this was special, this was what I'd been waiting for all these weeks... that's what I kept telling myself, anyway. I was sweating profusely, but I felt awesome, and then almost suddenly, I could see the turn in to the university track where I'd started. Victory was within my grasp!

There were traditional Korean drummers lining the path onto the track, which was a little exhausting, though I'm sure I didn't hear them over the beating of my own heart. I continued at my steady snail's pace until I was about a quarter of the track's length from the finish line, then I did it--I just sprinted as fast as I could, feeling awesome and inspiring some amused cheering from the spectators. I didn't feel sick the whole time I was running, though I felt like puking for the first minute after my finish-line sprint. But then some nice girls gave me a bottle of water and a bag with a banana and some yoghurt in it, and all was right with the world again. Then someone else gave me a necklace with a number 18 on it, and I went looking for Meghan on shaky legs. We plopped down in the grass, she sporting her awesome number 8 badge, and I discovered that we had, in fact, placed among women. Excitement. This meant I received a box of semi-delicious 참외 (it tastes like canteloupe, sort of) as a prize, and that, ladies and gentlemen, was my moment of zen.

No, it got better. As were just leaving the university to walk home, we ran into two of my adorable students, who had come (though tardily) to cheer me on. We gave them our free beef-soup lunch, drank our own rice wine, then conveniently they carried our big boxes of fruit home for us. I was exhausted walking home, but the adrenaline got me there, and then after a glorious shower, we had Chinese food for lunch. I couldn't believe it was over.

Shucks, time to lesson plan. Tonight, the rest of May, and some race photos. I hope you're all doing well! I'll see you at your blogs soon. :)

I RAN 5K!

That's right. I basically rock. 

After being thwarted in my attempt to figure out how fast I've been running last weekend, I tried again today. I knew there was a running track at the local university, but up until now I'd been afraid to try to use it, since there's usually people around, and I don't know if it's really for public use or what. Plus, I just imagined the awkwardness when someone tried to tell me to leave. But today I snuck in and discovered, to my elation, that it was completely empty. It was about 11:15 when I started, and a beautiful day... about 70 degrees with a nice breeze, and I was feeling pretty good when I started. 

I was feeling even better when I looked down at my iPod and saw that my first mile time was 10:16. Hell yeah. I started to get bored and want to quit halfway through my second mile, so I just told myself I had to finish that one, but when I saw that my second mile was 10:15, I knew I had to finish. My desire to quit, I realized, was really ludicrous. Nothing on my body hurt. I didn't have stitches in my side, or feel out of breath. My legs felt good, and I wasn't even sweating too bad. The only thing that hurt was what I've come to think of as my "will to continue" muscle. I'm not sure exactly where it's located, but it's the number one impediment to me completing runs. On Friday I quit about halfway through, and I was disappointed in myself. I'm glad that this was my special race day dress rehearsal, because if it hadn't been, I might have quit again. These days I'm struggling more with boredom while running than with anything else. I'm thinking switching up my tunes will help. 

So yeah, mile 3... I'm not sure. I had a bit of a stopwatch malfunction on the last lap, but I feel fairly confident I can extrapolate that it too was under 10:30... probably closer to 10:20. Which means I did three miles in... under 31 minutes. I hadn't even dreamed I could be that close to 10 minute miles! I was sooooo excited! Granted, I still have to add that last .1, which I conveniently forgot to run today (whoops). Plus, the actual race route has a slightly uphill portion which will slow me down. But I was shooting for under 36 minutes, so now I'm feeling really good about my chances at pulling that off! 

And more that that... it's just nice to be able to say now, for sure, that I've run three miles. When I started, I definitely didn't think it was possible for me to run even one mile. And although, during C25k, I knew that theoretically I was probably running at least a mile at a time, I still doubted myself. I figured I was just running phenomenally slowly. (It sure felt like it.) But now, here it is, irrefutable proof that I'm in way better cardiovascular shape that I was the beginning of March. Sweet. 

As for the May Exercise Challenge.... it's going well! I got a little side-tracked in the last few days, but we're still on track. Last week I did 485 minutes (my goal is 400 a week). This week I'm at 225 so far, with plenty of time to make the goal. I've been doing the ab workouts, although it's hard for me to remember to do and they're really boring. I'm just hoping I see results. It doesn't seem to hurt enough. Maybe I should do more, or different exercises. I'm not sure. I had some over-snack days, but I managed to have a perfect day today, and I'm shooting for a perfect week, so wish me luck with that. It's going to be really hard to get into the 160s before the 28th, but I'm bound and determined to do the best I can with these next 17 days. There's still time. 

Question to any runners who may still be reading this: What do you think about while you run? I'm asking because of my boredom problem. Do you try to think about anything? Do you try to think about nothing? Do you zone out to music? How do you keep from getting bored? 

Alright... time to wrap it up and hit the sack. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! 

New bling, day 3 of the EC, and MEXICAN food!

First and foremost, I'd like to direct your attention to that shiny new bling on my sidebar. Oh, I'm sorry... it already blinded you? My bad. :)

So I got on the scale this morning with more than a little trepidation, but lo and behold, I was rewarded with an all-time low to help me get May off to a good start. I'm down 2.2 pounds from last Saturday and a total of... 60.1. So yeah, I barely squeaked in there, but I've been waiting so long for that badge (32 days, to be exact) that I'm claiming it as soon as possible.

To backtrack a bit... things have been going well. :) I started off May on Thursday with a perfect day (2 exercise stickers and an on-plan eating sticker). Friday I succumbed to a little snacking temptation, but still earned my minimum cardio sticker. And today felt great. I woke up early and went for my run on the actual race course (more on that later). It was 85 degrees, so I worked up quite a sweat, and I had to walk 20 minutes to the start and 20 minutes from the finish, so I was pretty worn out by the time I got home. But it felt great. I'm feeling really good about the Exercise Challenge (EC), and watching those total minutes increase on my spreadsheet.

When I got home, M and I decided to try making burritos. We'd been planning on saving it for after the 5k, but today seemed as good a day as any. She had bought a can of refried beans in Seoul, and my tortillas were going out-of-date, so we bought some lettuce, onion, and cheese and gave it a try. We were worried it wouldn't be delicious, what with the tortillas tasting a little funny and the lack of what I'd previously considered Mexican meal staples (meat and salsa), but they actually ended up being really delicious.

I spent most of the day around the house, but this evening around 7:30 I headed over to the gym. I hadn't done a full weight training workout for two weeks, thanks to being sick and my pulled back muscle, so I was hoping to really work hard tonight, and I definitely did. My back wasn't bothering me at all, so I kicked my own butt, and thanks to the hot weather, I sweated a lot. I did my first special ab workout for the EC, and the planks especially were killer, so hopefully I'll see some serious results at the end of the month. I measured myself today for that purpose. I always have a hard time with doing measurements, because I have a hard time remembering (or indicating in my notes) where I measured, and then I don't know exactly what to do... Should I try to be as natural as possible? Pull my abs in? So today I just did the smallest part of my waist and the biggest part, as I figure that'll be the easiest to replicate at the end of the month.

Smallest: 86.5 cm

Largest: 100.5 cm

I really wish I'd measured myself when I started, but this is the first time I've done it and recorded it, so hopefully I'll see some substantial changes on May 31.

Lynne asked me a question on my last post which I'm going to go ahead and answer here. :) I've written about it before, but it just helped me so much that I want to do it again. One thing that my Complete Idiot's Guide to Weight Loss suggested was to come up with a mantra for yourself. They encourage you to choose one for yourself, but the idea behind it is affirming that you are already at your goal weight. Not affirming that you can do it, but affirming that you already have. I pretty much just appropriated their sample: "I, Briy, am now a healthy and thin person. I wear a size 8, and I do what healthy and thin people do."

I am a healthy and (relatively) thin(ner) person now, that much is true. I'm not quite yet a size 8, but truly, after thinking this everyday for so long, I sometimes forget that. And the last part, as I've said before, is my favorite. It really helps me to think this way--to think of myself as one of those healthy and thin people I always envied before, and to remind myself to act like them. This alone has helped fight off a lot of cravings, when I say to myself: "Would a healthy and thin person do this? Would someone with a healthy relationship with food do that?" Obviously it doesn't stop me all the time, but it's a big help. So yeah, I just write my mantra in a notebook 8 times every morning. It doesn't take long, but it reminds me, every morning, why I'm doing this. And tomorrow will be day 60. It's nice to be able to flip back through it and see that I did something everyday for the past two months, especially as there are very few other things I can honestly say I've stuck to for that long.

I'm not sure, but I really feel like this has played a BIG part in my recent success. I guess, from a strictly numbers standpoint, that must be true. I've lost 12.7 pounds in 2 months (since March 1), and it took me a full year before that to lose 48. More than anything, I think it just keeps me FOCUSED, every single day, which inevitably helps breed good results on the scale. As part of my goals for May, I'm adding a step. From now on, every day, I'm also going to write down 3 victories from the previous day. They're not necessarily weight loss related, and often they're really small, but that doesn't matter. It's helped me, so far, just to focus on the positive for 5 minutes a day, when more often than not I find myself harping on what I did wrong instead. So yeah, that's my mantras book, in a nutshell. I hope you find it helpful, Lynne! :)

And now, a brief synopsis of today's run:

Today was #2 out of my last 8 runs before the big RACE day, and my plan was to run on what I believed to be the actual course of the 5k, in order to get an idea of how much I need to speed up my pace in order to finish the whole thing in my goal of 33 minutes. That's not quite how it worked out though. I set my alarm to go off after 32 minutes and started running. It was hot, and I was tired by the halfway point, but I just kept on trucking. As I started to approach the "finish line," I was still waiting for the alarm to go off. I even started to wonder if I'd missed it somehow. When I got back to my starting point and looked down at my iPod, however, I was shocked to see that I'd only been running for about 26 minutes. This does not, unfortunately, mean that I'm running sub-9 minute miles, I'm sure. :) It means that I must not be running the entire race route, which is not a huge surprise, as I'm guesstimating where exactly I should be starting and finishing. Either way I was happy with the run, but it means I'll have to find another way to figure out what speed I'm running at and work on adjusting my pace. There's a track at the local university which I've previously shied away from, because there's often students on it, or playing soccer on the field inside of it. But next Saturday I figure I'll get up early and do my run there, which should, theoretically, be way more precise than today's effort. We'll see how that goes!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend! :)

high-altitude saturday

This entry was composed on the top of a mountain. Pictures from the hike will follow soon.

Today I had one of those "I'm the king of the world" moments, and I just have to share it. Today isn't a "Couch to 5k" jogging day, but I still wanted to do some pretty intense cardio, because tomorrow's my day off. My lower legs, especially my shins, have been a little achy, and I'm desperately afraid of being sidelined by shin splints, so while looking for lower-impact alternative to jogging that would still get my heart pumping, I remembered that there's a mountain in my town, just a twenty minute walk from my house.

I've only successfully hiked to the top of the mountain once in the eight months I've lived here in Naju, and that was with my friend Meghan. It was exhilarating, by which I mean I felt like I was dying the entire time, but disappointingly, it wasn't a very clear day, so I couldn't get any nice pictures at the top. I've tried to hike it three or four times since then, but never made it to the top. (There's a nice little picnic area about halfway up that tends to seem high enough when I start to get tired.)

I'm really starting to believe that spring has finally come. Today was the hottest day of the year so far, at least 65 degrees fahrenheit, so I packed my (too-small) water bottle, my iPod and digital camera, my notebook, my cellphone (to call for help if I dropped dead or broke my ankle), and a Snickers dark chocolate bar as a reward for getting to the top, and set off around 1:30, after giving my lunch a chance to digest. It took me about 25 minutes to get to the start of the trail, but I was still feeling good (gung-ho, even) at that point. The first quarter of the trail is gently sloped uphill, but I told myself to start slowly, and sure enough, my heart rate was definitely near max range before I got to the second quarter. The second quarter is stairs built into the mountain, and this is where I started to feel like I might die. Slow slow slow, I kept telling myself, and miraculously, I just kept going and made it to he halfway point where I had cut my hike short several times before. The stairs portion isn't even that long, but it's steep and exhausting. My heart was racing as I settled (read: collapsed) onto a bench for a rest, but my body recovered much faster than I thought possible, and I set off again. A couple of other hikers were eating lunch at the halfway point, and they invited me (in Korean, mind you) to join them, but I accepted a big, delicious orange from them and declined coffee and spicy cabbage. I thanked them profusely in my terrible Korean and continued.

So, I did the second half of the hike with a huge orange in my right hand. Awesome. The second half alternates between long stretches of flat (and even downhill) bits, and super(ish) steep rocky parts. Overall, it feels much easier, because just as you start to get out of breath, it flattens out. At the top there's a little pavilion-like structure with benches, and let me tell you, as I approached, I felt like just about a million bucks. I wasn't even tired anymore, just thrilled. I ate that big old orange slowly, luxuriously, and it was as tasty as a cold glass bottle of orange soda. It was also almost the size of my first, which according to Diet Book of the Week, is as much food as one needs for a meal. So I even decided to save the Snickers bar for when I reached the bottom.

Yeah, yeah. It's been a good day. So now, I'm just going to relax up here, enjoy the view, and perhaps even take a nap. It's super quiet, perfect weather, and unbelievably peaceful. If only I had a book. This is what Saturdays are all about.

eta: I'm now freshly showered and relaxing in bed, getting excited for dinner. Doing that hike was such a good workout, and so enjoyable, that I'm vowing to do it twice a month until I leave, so note to self, do it again in two weeks.