Thursday, September 25, 2014

Countdown to 10K

It started with a passing thought in February 2011.  I was running laps in the gym at HCC during my boot camp class. We were doing laps and suddenly out of no where I thought to myself, "I wonder if I could do a 5k". I sat on that thought for a few months and as the class progressed and we ran for longer periods of time, I gave the idea more and more thought.

At the same time, I was embarking on my weight loss journey. I started February at 190 lbs and was determined to make a change in my life. Exercise was part of the journey and a change in diet was the other half. I cut out a lot of fried food and cut back on sweets. I continued my boot camp class and tried to learn about make good food choices. But by April 2011, I realized that I couldn't do this on my own. So I joined Weight Watchers. That made a huge difference with my weight loss.

In terms of my running, I kept my goal of running a 5K in my sights too. As the weight came off, I got a little more confident that I could at least give it a try.  So I signed up for a race. I was scared to do it, but a friend signed up with me and that made it less scary. My first race, the Columbia Rotary Memorial Run was on may 30, 2011. My goal was to finish in under 40 minutes. I don't even know why I picked that time, but I did it. I finished in 38:56. Since then I have worked to decrease my time.

Since then, I've run more races... well actually many more:

May 30, 2011 - 38:56
June 4, 2011
June 9, 2012
May 27, 2013
June 9, 2013
July 14, 2013
June 6, 2014 - Off Road Challenge
June 22, 2014
July 19, 2014
July 27, 2014
August 3, 2014
August 16, 2014 - 28:54

Also, on the weight loss front, I'm down 50lbs from February 2011 and I've made lifetime at Weight Watchers.

About a year ago, I decided to set the goal to run a 10K race. In two days, I'm going down to Six Flags America for the Biggest Loser Race. I'm excited for the race. I'll post my results afterwards.