goals Archives - Page 3 of 3

September 15, 2010 By Christina

I’ve been having a lot of trouble with the 25 minute mark in running. Ever since BlogHer I’ve managed to run a full 25 minutes straight only a couple of times, and other times my legs have given out at the 22 or 23 minute instead. It’s been frustrating.

But Monday night, I set out to do a 25 minute run again, and a funny thing happened: I ran for 28 minutes – the next step on Couch to 5K. I’d like to say I did it due to great stamina and mental conditioning, but the truth is far more humble and a little funny.

As I looked at my iPhone and realized I had less than a minute left to run, I noticed two of my neighbors walking up ahead of me, going the same direction I was. At 20 seconds left, a quick calculation in my head made me realize that if I went into my cool down walk right at 25 minutes, I’d be stopping roughly at the same spot they were at. Which would mean I’d likely have to talk to them. We don’t get along all that well, and I really wasn’t in the mood to talk, anyway.

So I kept running. I ran right past them, my huffing and puffing a perfectly good excuse to not say hello or even acknowledge them as I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. I had to make sure I got far enough away before slowing to a walk – to keep it from looking obvious – so I gritted my teeth through the pain in my side and finished 28 minutes of running.

Social awkwardness: who knew it was such a great motivator?

This Friday I’ll be running in the March of Dimes Night Moves 5K. My hope was to run this one entirely, but I know I’m not quite ready for that yet, so I plan to run as much as possible and be proud just to finish. Well, that’s the plan, but I’m worried that I’ll come away disappointed if I don’t put in a certain level of performance, too.

As much as I want to run an entire 5K, I know that my body is still adjusting to the idea of being a runner. It will happen, though, and I’m hoping that the excitement of being at a 5K race again will push me to go a little further without walking.

Hey, I did 28 minutes straight, right? Maybe I just need to imagine the people in front of me are my neighbors who might want to have an awkward talk?

A New Low

August 25, 2010 By Christina

But it’s a good kind of low.

I decided to step on the scale again this morning, and was delighted to see an even lower number displayed: 181 pounds. I’m so close to the 170’s that I’m twitchy with excitement.

Now that the high end of my “acceptable weight range” is slowly coming into view off in the horizon (160 lbs is considered the high end for 5’7″), I’m starting to think about what happens when I reach that moment. Will I stay at 160, or will I try to continue to go lower? I’ve got a larger frame, so I definitely don’t want to be on the low end of the acceptable range for my height (121 lbs – seriously, I’d be a stick!), but I don’t know if I want to be constantly flirting with overweight, either.

At my wedding, I was somewhere around 170 pounds. And I felt pretty good at that weight. It was the lowest I had been for a long time, and even though I still felt overweight, I didn’t feel completely self-conscious as I walked down the aisle in my silver wedding dress. I probably could have lost more weight, but the more weight I lost, the happier I was with my body, and the less motivated I was to continue losing weight. Not exactly the best plan.

I can’t wait to see 170 again, but I don’t want to let myself get too comfortable before reaching my goal weight. Whatever my goal weight is. Hmm…I guess I really should pick a goal weight, shouldn’t I? I’ll officially call my goal weight 160 for the moment, and then when I reach 160 I can re-evaluate and set a new goal if needed.

But for the moment, I’m so, so close to breaking through a mini-goal of saying goodbye to the 180’s and hello to the 170’s. And when I do, I’m posting new photos to show how far I’ve come.

Filed Under: weigh-in Tagged With: goals