June 9th has come and gone. I am now 44 years old and can now be called a runner! The Never Quit race was a lot of fun and very empowering! As you know, my goal for this race was to finish somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes. Throughout my training I have had to fight off the negative thoughts telling me I won’t be able to get near the 40 min mark. As you saw from my post on Thursday, I was hoping to beat the 40 min mark, so the negative thoughts were gone. Gone, that is, until Saturday morning at about 7am. We got to the beach at around 6:50, found a parking space and worked our way to the beach. Just as I am getting my iphone and headphones situated it started to rain. Then it REALLY started to rain. THEN, IT STARTED TO POUR!!! As we headed for cover, all of those negative thoughts rushed in. The Conversation in my head went something like this:
This is the NEVER QUIT race. They are not about to cancel the race for a little rain! I cannot risk running with my i-phone since it is not water proof. If I have to run in this rain, I am going to have to do it with no music! How am I going to run this in 45 min with no music and torrential rain? GREAT! Happy Freaking Birthday to me. 
You are once again going to fail and disappoint others…
It was at this point I looked at my wife. She was standing partially under cover, windblown, and soaked. She was so wet she was actually ringing her shirt out to get rid of some of the moisture. And she looked at me and told me she loved me. Suddenly, all of the voices shut up. It wasn’t just those three simple words that fill my heart with joy every time she says them. It was the fact she had given up sleep to get up at 5:30am to come out and stand on a beach for an hour or two while I ran just to support me. Then, as if losing sleep was not enough, she is now soaking wet. And does she complain? No. Does she point out what she “gave up” to be there? NO. All she does is say “I love you” with her words and actions. How in the world could I fail her when she has never failed me? This is when the negativity went away and I knew no matter what, I was going to hit my goal!
Well, the rain stopped and we headed out to the beach again. I had about 10 min before the race so I headed off to find my friends and line up for the race. The instructions were to line up in the pace you anticipate running . My friend Leann and I lined up near the back of the line so we did not get trampled by the faster people. There were so many people running this race it took us over two minutes to actually get to the start line. When I began running, I was surprised how many people I passed in the first half kilometer. I got to the point where I had to walk to catch my breath and some of those people I had just run past now ran past me. Once I caught my breath, I ran past all those people again. And so it went; I ran past them, they ran past me, I ran past them again, they ran past me again. It was good to know I was keeping pace with all of these people. When I got to the halfway point and turned around to head back, I saw how many people were behind me. Seeing all these people made it click in my mind I was not “pulling up the rear”. As I approached the four kilometer mark, I made a decision to alter my pace a little bit. I was determined I was going to RUN across the finish line. I did not want to get all the way there and have to walk across the line. So I altered my pace so I would have the energy to run the last portion of my race. If I have any regrets from the race, it would be this decision. Because I altered my pace, I did not finish as fast as I could have. When I made it across the finish line and once I got past all the people handing out water, I stopped my “Map My Run” app to see what my unofficial time was. It had me running 5.29km in 40:12 with an average pace of 7:35/km. Even though I had to wait a while to get my “official” time, if my app was any indication of my time, I hit my goal. If you had told me 2 years ago I would have finished a 5k in 40:12 I would have laughed you out of the room. Now I am considering what my next 5k will be and what time I want to finish it in. It took a few hours for me to get my “official” time for the race. I finished the Never Quit race in….(drum roll please)…. 39 minutes and 40 seconds!!! WHAT!!!! WHOOOO!!!! HUZAH!!!
Now, onto my weight update. There was no real surprise to me when I stepped on the scale. Despite my run on Saturday morning, I really have not been on my usual track this week. I took Thursday and Friday off from working out to give my body some rest before the race and then did not work out again until Monday night. I missed last night as well do to another obligation. In Addition it was my Birthday weekend so we went out on Thursday for Lunch and dinner, Friday night for dinner, Sunday to a friend’s house for a cook out and Monday out to lunch. (Yes I know how to celebrate my birthday! :) In addition 2 friends made cakes for me. While I normally pass on cake, I felt it would be rude for them to spend all the time they did making and decorating the cakes to not eat any, so I had a small piece of each cake. Keep in mind my mentality on this journey is one meal or one day does not make or break my eating habits. I still need to live and celebrate. Honestly, compared to previous birthdays, I did very well. Normally I would have opted for much fattier foods, larger portions, desserts and after dinner drinks. My 2,500 calorie day would have been more like 5,000 calories!
At last, the celebration is over and it is time to get back to work.
Weight recap:
- Week 69 Weight – 6/13/12 – 296.0 pounds
- Week 68 Weight -6/6/12 – 294.2 pounds
- Starting weight -2/13/11 – 384.8 pounds
Week 61 Weight gain – 1.8 pounds
Total Weight loss – 88.8 pounds
Filed under: Diet, goals, Health, Inspiration, Journal, Journey, Lap Band, Losing Weight, Mens Weight Loss, Other, Overweight, Personal, Uncategorized | Tagged: diet, Goals, health, inspiration, journal, Journey, Losing Weight, Mens Weight Loss, Obesity, other, Overweight, weight loss | 2 Comments »
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