Running and Counting

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but I thought it might be a helpful hint for anybody else that struggles with jogging.

When I first started my weight loss journey a little over a year ago, the one activity that I dreaded the most was jogging. I just wasn't good at it and I didn't like it. Now, fast forward 1 year and I find myself not hating jogging, but not madly in love with it either. I enjoy it.

When I first started jogging, I think one of the reasons I didn't like it and thought I wasn't good at it was because I had a hard time keeping my pace. I never had a steady pace. I was talking with my mom about this one day and she said to count your strides.

I've been counting my strides ever since. When I first started counting my strides, I would do 100 strides and then I would stop and walk until I felt like I could jog again. If I felt like I could jog longer than 100 strides, I would.

Now, I'm up to wear I can jog 7.0 miles at a time. :) Yay! I still count my strides too.

Maybe this will help you!

Who's Got the Beat?

I'm always in search of new music that has a good beat to it that I can workout to. As I was jogging my 6.0 miles tonight, I was listening to my Zune and an AWESOME song came along that had a fantastic beat to it that helped me keep a good pace, so I thought I'd share it with ya'll in case you were looking for good music to, so here ya go:

St. George Triathlon

Eventually, I want to compete in an IronMan Triathlon. That's my ultimate goal. I think it would be alot of fun and such an energy rush.

Competing in an Ironman, you have to do the following:
-Run/Jog 26.2 miles
-Cycle 112 miles
-Swim 2 miles & 365 yards

The BIG Ironman is held over in Kona, Hawaii. I think it'd be alot of fun to compete in that race, but you have to qualify for it. You can qualify by doing these other Ironman's, like the one in St. George and they have on in Couer D'Alene, ID as well. I know they've got more around the country, I'm just not sure where.

Well, my boss, she has a friend that has competed in an Ironman. This last weekend was the Ironman down in St. George, so my boss and her friend went down to volunteer at it. I don't know what they were doing, but my boss was stationed at the finish line.

When you compete in an Ironman, you have 17 hours to finish the race. If it takes you longer than that to finish, then you don't "officially" complete the race. In the Ironman this last weekend, the last participant to cross the finish line, crossed with an end time of 17 hours and 2 minutes. Unfortunately, he didn't offically complete the race, but what is inspiring about the story is...the man was 74 years old!!!

I would LOVE to meet this man. What an inspiration. I hope I'm able to do that when I'm 74 years old.

Predicament

So, I'm in kind of a predicament. My gym membership expires this weekend. I don't want to renew my membership because I'm hopefully going to be moving out of the county next month, so I don't want to spend money on a gym membership that is not going to be convenient for me to use. Granted, my gym has a monthly punch pass, but it is $60 for 25 visits. :(

I don't know if I should just bite the bullet and spend $60 so I can go swimming 25 times, or if I should just give up swimming for the next month.

Well, and I haven't found a place to move yet, so I can't get a gym membership by where I'm going to live in a month.

Crap...I hate making decisions like this.

"Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning..."

Every morning (except Saturday & Sunday), I'm up at 4:30 a.m. to head to the pool to swim 50 laps (this week I'm experimenting with something and am only swimming 40 laps).

We actually don't get to get in to the pool close to 5:00 a.m., so I'm usually sitting on the pool deck for about 10-15 minutes. I have to get there that early though 'cause otherwise I won't get a lane to swim in because lots of people like to swim for their workout.

Anywho, I usually don't get to bed at night until between 11:00 - 11:15 p.m. So, it's usually a struggle every morning to get out of bed, but I manage to do it 'cause I know it's not going to take that long to go swimming.

But this morning as I was getting up to go swimming, this song popped in my head that I always remember my mom singing, but I didn't know all the words to the song. All I remember (and the words I remember I found out aren't quite accurate) is "Oh how I hate to get up in the morning, oh how I'd rather be lying in bed. Some day I'm going to kill the alarm clock, someday I'm going to find it dead." I was asking my dad if he remembers the song and he told me to Google it and I found the song!

Pardon my stupidity, but I didn't even realize it was a real song! Haha!!! So, here's a video of the song. It's my sentiments exactly some mornings. :)

My First Tri of 2010

This last Saturday was my first triathlon of 2010. It went amazingly well! My final time was 1:25:26.7, which is 3 minutes better than my best time from 2009! Woot woot!!! Yay!!!

This particular triathlon that I did is kind of difficult. Right now I just do sprint triathlons which is a 3.2 mile run, 10 mile bike ride and a 350 yard swim. This particular triathlon, the bike is the hardest part because there are 2 hills, one right after another that are pretty big hills that are hard to climb on the bike. I can always make it up the first hill, it's the second hill that I always have difficulty with and end up getting off my bike and walking up half of the hill.

The swim is usually really easy. This year, I just ran in to a little problem that through me for a loop for a minute. I finished swimming the first lane and went under the rope and started swimming the second lane, and my goggles fell off!!! Needless to say, I had a ton of water coming in to my eyes. Basically, when I first got in the pool, I was in such a hurry, I didn't make sure that the strap on my goggles was far enough down on the back of my head, so they slipped off. So, I just had to stop for a second and put my goggles back on and I didn't have any more problems!

So, here are a couple of pictures of my triathlon. Normally I would have more pictures, but my dad's camera decided not to work, so he only had my cell phone and that doesn't take very good pictures. You can see more pictures of me at the triathlon at http://www.zazoosh.com/members/viewGallery/2312

Me right before the race started.

Coming in from the run.

Charlie Horses and other stuff

Today, right after work, I went jogging 4.0 miles and then rode my bike home (11.0 miles). It wasn't too bad, the only problem I ran in to (no pun intended. Lol.) was I got a charlie horse in my left leg really bad while pedaling on my ride home! Oh man, it hurt, and the only thing I could do was pedal my way through it and when I could, take my foot out of the pedal cage and kind of stretch. I didn't have much opportunity to do that though 'cause I was in the middle of an intersection and had to keep pedaling.

Also, I don't know what I've done, but on my left leg, it feels like I've bruised part of my muscle or something. It's fairly tender to the touch. When I first start jogging, it aches, but after I've been jogging for a while, the pain isn't as bad. Hmmm...

Last thought...my first triathlon of the season is this Saturday! I'm SO excited. I'll definitely post pictures and my finishing time on here. :) I can't wait!