Half Marathons, Triathalons, Boxing, Oh my!

The summer is over, and so is all the craziness.

The bottom line as far as weight loss goes for the past 2 months...NO CHANGE :(

However, my % body fat did go down a little over 2%...so that means that (not to get specific) 'several' pounds that were fat are now muscle! Yeah!

Am I disappointed...no. Should I be...who knows. I will say, that this summer is ranking high on the list of busiest summers EVER! This summer I went on 3 personal trips (2 to Seattle, 1 to Philly) and 3 work trips (1 to Anaheim, 1 to San Jose and 1 to Albuquerque). This has meant that almost every other week involved some sort of travel. I missed tons of WW meetings, and had to cancel many sessions with Alyssa, ate out tons, and often didn't have the opportunity for PA. But, the summer is ending on a high note, I did go to WW last week and I lost 1 lb! Yeah!

To recap the last couple of weeks...

Disneyland Half Marathon: The Happiest Race on Earth

That's their slogan, and if it's true, then I'm definitely never doing another! The race started at 6am on 9/6. N and I attempted to carbo load the night before, although we had a hard time finding a restaurant with any pasta dishes that sounded good. We ended up at McCormick & Schmicks to get a seafood fettuccine Alfredo thing...not bad. Oh, and of course bread! Also, you are so supposed to drink for the race the day before, so I attempted to drink a gallon of water...not sure if that happened or not.

We had to catch the bus to the start line at 4:30am, so we tried to go to sleep early, but neither of us could really sleep. Nerves. The alarm went off way too early, but we did manage to catch the bus on time.

The race started in waves, and we were in the 3rd wave. Racers are required to finish the race in 3.5 hours from the time the LAST person passes the start line. So, as long as you are not the last person, you have a buffer of sorts. The pace to complete the race in this time is a 16 minute mile. Actually, there is a slow bus that will pick you up if you can't keep the pace. For you runners reading this, you might think this is no problem. I run/walk a 15 minute mile...but I had never actually done the whole 13.1 before so I was pretty nervous.

But, we started out strong doing a 12 minute mile to start. The course starts out going around the outside of Disneyland, then going into the park through the old main entrance (which takes you into CA Adventures now), run through there, run through the Esplanade, through Disneyland entrance, around D-land (through Cinderella's castle!), then out of the park...that's about 4 miles. We were doing good and easily meeting the 16 minute mile requirement. The next 4 miles are running through Anaheim...kind of boring, but they have stuff set up all along the route (ie: cheerleaders, hula dancers)...so far doing good but starting to feel tired and legs getting sort of tired. Mile 9 we ran through the Angels Stadium and got to be on the big screen! That was pretty cool, but I was really starting to feel TIRED at this point.

OK, well then things got really tough. Pretty much mile 10 to mile 13 were HELL! My feet gave out. I heard (after the fact, of course) that it is common for your feet to swell some when doing distance running. So, what I think happened is that my feet swelled so that my shoes were too tight and circulation to the bottom of my feet was significantly slowed/stopped. The result of this is that the bottom of my feet HURT SO MUCH! Each step was agony. I shed a few tears and was definitely (secretly) hoping the slow bus would catch me, but I didn't see it. I literally do not know how I completed those last couple miles. When we finally saw the finish line we started running again, and the next hour is truly a blur, we got our medals, a bagel, sat down for a while, and then hobbled back to the bus to get to the hotel, took showers, packed up and headed back to SD. Oh, and when we did get back to the hotel I finally got to look at my feet to try and see what was wrong...they didn't look injured (no blisters, etc) but they were totally gray, like the color of a dead person, so this further confirmed my hypothesis that somehow the bottom of my feet weren't getting blood.

During the car ride down all the acid settled into our muscles. I still shudder at the memory of walking up to the apartment. I burst into tears when I walked into the apt because every, yes EVERY muscle in my entire body below my shoulders was SCREAMING IN AGONY. I can't even describe. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe, it was terrible! The next day was similar, but I started feeling pretty normal within a couple days.

Next events: November 22, Mud Run (5K), May 16 Triathlon (750 m swim, 20K bike, 5K run)

And, the final bit of info (I will write more about this later) is boxing!!! Yes, I started taking boxing classes and they are an awesome, FUN workout! I'm kind of wanting to fight someone now!

adios!