Have you heard of Vibram FiveFingers?

So my Christmas wish list included some Vibram Five Fingers Shoes 


If Santa brings them I will review them here. Stay tuned. If you want a pair and know how incredible they are already click the link below.





MyFiveFingers.com Year-Long Giveaway
http://www.myfivefingers.com/win-fivefingers/?awt_l=FUMTI&awt_m=KYWgt21POsJKRQ

Thanksgiving Day - 2nd Annual
Father in-law / Son in-law Turkey Trot

Ok so thats not the official name but my father in-law has enrolled me for the second year to run the Turkey Trot with him and I already love races but a free race is even better ... lol.  I am very proud of him because he does not run regularly and he beat the time of my 1st 5k last year where I had run for 9 weeks to prepare for it.

WAY TO GO RICHARD!


Even though this is my most dreaded course because of the hilly ending mile, its fun and the challenge is still exciting at the same time.

Last year this was only my second race and I completed it in 34:54. This year I ran it in 28:03. A great improvement from a general perspective but of course my competitive nature always finds reasons maybe it should have been better. The race was very congested at the start and so after crossing the start line it was still not possible to run at the speed I wanted for about a quarter mile because I was constantly dodging and tip toeing around the crowd of people. Next year I will definitely be near the front because I think this cost me at least 15- 20 seconds off my total time. My personal best for a 5k was the race in October where I ran 27:45 in Charlotte but it was a very flat race so I had no expectations of beating that on this hilly course but after seeing how close I was I cannot help but to think had I not got caught up in the congestion that I may have actually beaten my Charlotte time. BUMMER :( ... but all in all I am very happy with my progress and time.

I think I want to really focus on improving my 5k time because I really feel my competitive nature kicking in and I am a person that usually just jumps into things with both feet and so I want to find out what I am really made of.  Last year I ran a couple races with my sister and she beat me badly.  I was just beginning to run and very overweight then so I hoped to be able to keep up with her one day.  This year I ran 2 races with her in October and beat her twice and she seemed unaffected; however, I wondered in the back of her mind if she was planning on stomping me in the next race. LOL!   Well this was the next race and she definitely kicked it up a notch and after the first half mile I never saw her again. She beat me by 43 seconds. Does not sound like a lot but in the race world thats about a tenth of a mile.  All I can say is its on now sis! LOL.

This blog used to really be about my struggles and how to stay mentally tough and overcome them but I am happy to say that it is turning more into celebrating victories and looking onto the horizon for a more successful and bright future of fitness.

Thanks for reading and be Blessed!

Runway 5k 

10/29/2011 @ 8:05 AM

RunningAHEAD.com

Distance: 3 . 1 mi

Duration: 27:45

Pace: 8:58 / mi
5k PR

So its about 4:15am October 29, 2011 and I just could not sleep anymore. I woke up at 3:30am and finally decided to just get up.


Well today is the day!
Its been one year since I ran my first 5k race, in September 2010 I decided that it was time to end my battle with weight.  Mentally I was an athlete just like in high school, but physically was a whole other story. A sad one. A story of man that now 100 pounds over weight and pre-diabetic.   It was a weird 10 years of my life being overweight. Feeling active and athletic mentally but appearing and physically feeling overweight was very awkward and frustrating. Then the transition to complacency began and before you know it you almost accept this new place in your life. I say almost because I do not think anyone ever is ok with being overweight but you get darn close to accepting it once you have tried so hard for so long and just cannot seem to get a grip on it. Well my grip came one day last year where I said " this is it,  I am tired of being an obese person! I WANT TO LIVE AGAIN!"

I was not sure what do but I knew what I felt like doing. I wanted to run as far away from the feelings of defeat and low self esteem as I could. So thats exactly what I did. I started running.  If your interested you can begin reading my journey by clicking here, but it has definitely been a journey that is for sure. Today is one year since my first 5k race (3.2 miles) and I am so excited to see my progress.  There have been struggles that only this blog can explain and then some not ever posted here. I will say this though, perseverance always pays off. Set a goal and go for it.

I will return later to post the results.

Be Blessed!


Updated 11:30am ..... for results of today's 5k go to my Facebook page. 

"What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner." Sir James Dyson, Inventor of the Dyson vacuum cleaner _______________________________________________________ This was not my quote but sums up how I felt in my journey from couch potato to runner. It really is an eye opening experience to push when it hurts. I encourage you to try pushing through when it gets tough and you just feel like you cannot go further. Go past that point if only briefly just don't stop when you first feel at that breaking point add a quarter mile or 2 minutes if your timing yourself. It really will be monumental growth later on and will give you new perspective on yourself. For new readers of the blog you can read my journey from the beginning by   "clicking here"  Be blessed everyone.

I want to run again.....

I have not been running for about 3 months. If you have been reading my blog for a while then you probably have read about my running journey. For those of you that do not know let me give you a very brief but hopefully informative summary.


My running began because I knew I had to get a grip on my health. I was basically close to 100 lbs over weight and miserable physically. I hated the way I looked and felt. I could still play my favorite sports and did on occasion but they were very few and far between. I knew I could not let that ability to play sports fool me any longer into thinking there was no problem. I knew from past experiences that just starting a hardcore gym routine  was not going to last because I had tried and stopped so many times. I knew I needed something to entice my competitive nature. So what a better way then to start running. It was something that I did not need anyone else to do with me and yet there could be standards and goals I could set out to beat. Mostly competing with myself, but that was great because I do this with almost everything I do anyway whether it be a record I had set on Nintendo Wii or just other random things. So I thought to myself "running" what a perfect way to challenge myself and get active. So i began my journey. It was really really harder then I thought and I faced walls from cardio endurance walls to joint pain walls to waking up sick on an important running day walls, but I pretty much dug deeper then I had at anytime in my life and broke through all of those. I was very proud at that point in my journey.


(You can read the whole journey here "A Run for my Life") 


Even though I worked very hard and was consistent the weight was not coming off the way I had hoped. Diet played a part but my body adapting to the same routine  played a bigger part. I had reached a place in running where I was not progressing and I was very discouraged. I had come a long way but to not progress was driving me crazy and discouraging me. I decided to focus on weight loss in general. I began to educate myself and immerse myself into the nutrition and exercise world, learning all I could from any source I could find. I was successful and I am down 33 pounds since that plateau where running was not getting the weight off, however as I lost the weight and began other forms of training and exercise, I had lost my time to run and a little of my zeal to run as well. I have run a couple times in the last 3 months but only as a warm up for a class I attend that a friend teaches and so it was like a half mile or so run but nothing that pushed me all that much.. Well the way I felt running just that scared me because I felt like my running endurance had decreased how ever my cardio during aerobic sessions felt increased.  I was perplexed yet to afraid to start running again for the fear of being back to square 1.  Well over the last couple of weeks I have just been craving a run. I have procrastinated because if I could not run even the distance I did before it would really discourage me but finally this week I gave it a go. I ran on Tuesday and actually because of poor planning only had time to run 1 mile at most but I forced myself to do it anyway just to feel that start feeling again. I knew the longer I put it off the harder it would be to start. So off I went to run this mile on Tuesday, however first let me say that when I stopped running 3 months ago my average pace was about a 12 minute mile sometimes 11:30 if I was focused or at a race,  but once running I did feel lighter on my feet and I was like "wow I can feel that 33 lbs gone".  I also noticed that my pace felt swifter. I use my phone to track my runs with GPS and so I glaced at it and it said I was around a 10 min pace. I could not believe it. So I finished that mile looked down and it said I completed it in 9 min 34 sec. I was stoked and in that moment I was reminded of a dream I had just had that night before. I honestly in the dream I had just ran a mile at that time. So that was a pretty freaky feeling. Well today I set out to run 2 miles and I knew that I could not keep my new pace for the whole two miles because I would tire quickly but I was excited to see what it be for the whole 2 miles. I pushed myself pretty hard to keep a decent pace and when I finished today my pace for 2 miles was 9:39 per mile ..... I am so elated with this. I am pretty sure I could not have gone a 3rd but for day 2 after not running for a while I am very ENCOURAGED verses discouraged as I thought I would be. I am so glad to be back running again. There is just an indescribable feeling running gives me. Its a natural high and sense of accomplishment nothing else gives me.  Thanks for sharing this with me by reading my blog. Be blessed everyone.