Thursday, February 21, 2013

Race Weekend is around the corner

So, at the last minute I decided to run the Disney Princess 1/2 Marathon this coming Sunday. This will be my first 1/2 marathon of this year (my second race of the year). So far so good on completing 12 races this year. (one a month). As of right now I have my races planned till April, and one in December. I'll be doing a St Patty Day race next month, and Color me Rad 5k in April. My next 1/2 that is planned is the Space Coast 1/2. Now to fill in everything in between.

Now back to this weekend. I haven't really trained for this race, but I did just do two back to back 1/2 marathons in October and November plus I have been getting in some miles since. It will be hard, but that's OK, it will be with it. This will also be the first long race that I have done completely for me. I'll be doing it once again with my 2 best friends Deb & Robyn. Oh and of course you know the main reason for doing this race is for the bling. It's the 5th anniversary of the Disney Princess 1/2 so that means special medal. So you know it will be nice. Make sure to check back after Monday for photos.

I'm also excited because there will be a bunch of my fellow PbRc friends there as well. Many of these people have become great friends, even though I have not yet met them face to face. Finally I will get that chance.

Speaking of running clubs, I am starting one. Well, it's already a national running club called Mom's RUN This Town. I'm starting a local chapter, The Lake Mary/Sanford MRTT, and the Oviedo/Winter Springs MRTT I figure it will not only help me to share my love of running with other mom's in the area, but also to help keep me accountable to my own running journey. I can't slack off when other people are depending on me for advice and answers can I ? I'm very excited it will be like my own little local running community.

It will be a lot of work, but it will be well worth it to be able to share the love of running. I've even started looking for sponsors and so far I have one official sponsor. OFF the Wall Prints. They are located at the Oviedo Mall and do an amazing job. I'm looking forward to working with them. If you need anything printed be sure to pay them a visit. They do everything from Business cards & fliers to vinyl decals and banners and even car wraps. Check them out at  the Oviedo Mall 1305 Oviedo Mall Blvd, Oviedo Fl 32765 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/offthewallprints or give them a call at (321) 355-2373Tell them Angi Sent you.

Till next time my friends

Run for You, Run for Fun, Run4Life

Angi

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Hand Surgery BLAAAAHhhh!

Carpal Tunnel Surgery...hmmm...not what I expected. I went in at 5:50 am, was home by 9am. Can't believe how quick it was. I think the thing that took the longest was to nurse trying to find a vein for the IV. Yeah, so apparently I have floating veins that like to run and hide when a needle is about to peirce them. Come on now can you really blame them? So after 3 nurses trying 3rd time was the charm when the anaesthesiologist DR. had  come over to try to put the IV in. There was one in the right hand and one to be put in the left as well. OUCHY!!! Once they were both in place the nurse injected something into the IV, and it was nightie night lights out for me. Snip, sew, done, and sent home.

Then came the 3 days of pain. I'm talking about quite a bit of pain. Then on day 4 they removed the soft cast, covered the stitches with a large band aid & put on this cool, stylish, black  hand and arm brace. At this point the pain is not too bad, but I am pretty limited in what I can do when it comes to pinching, grasping, pulling, and lifting with my left hand. Glad I am right handed.

On my first day back to work I was pretty much useless. Well, for the whole first week really. I was not allowed in the concession stand because of the stitches still being in. Something about open wounds and food or something. I tried tearing tickets for the usher, but that was extremely painful. Tried selling tickets in box, and that was better but still hurt. So I just stood around looking pretty like only I can do. :)

I went back and had the stitches removed, now I am going through some physical therapy.  Things are getting easier, but I still have my moments where the pain creeps back in. Once the left hand is healed, then comes having the right hand done. Oh Joy, that one will be fun.

That is all for this update.

Till next time my friends

Run for you, Run for Love Run4Life

Angi

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

My weight loss Journey has begun with the PbRc Biggest Loser Challenge

It's a horrible 4 letter word. I hate hearing it and yet here I am about to start yet another DIET! This time I am going to make this one more of a life change than a diet. I have a little extra motivation. I'm competing in the PbRc Biggest Looser challenge. After all what better motivation than a little money, right?!

Let's back up a little. I have pretty much been on diets all of my adult life. When I was younger I was always a little on the chunky side or at least I felt like I was. Looking back now at pictures I realize that I really wasn't that big. I just let others convince me that I was. I wasn't the stick thin preppy girl or the rail thin popular crowd type. I was just me. The girl who had a few friends, but, mostly stayed to herself. I was active in school for the most part. I was in color guard for the first 3 years of High School. This kept me at a reasonable weight. Looking back now I see it as reasonable, but at the time I thought otherwise. I was "big Boned" as my Dad would tell me. Beautiful on the inside my mom would say. Yet, I believed the cruel kids that made fun of me or didn't let me be a part of "Their Crowd". The numbers on the scale were not that forgiving, because truth be told my Dad was right. I was big boned. I had a frame that was bigger than most females, but try telling this to a 15year old girl.

In my early 20's I still felt overweight, in my had I was twice the size of every other girl out there.  People would say oh you look good, but to me I was a tubby mess. There are not too many pictures of me from those days because I would not let anyone take my picture. The other day though I found one and when I looked at it, I didn't realize at first it was me. It couldn't be me. I was never that thin...or was I?

After having children though the weight seemed to just pile on. Partly from not loosing "the baby weight" as it is so often referred to, but mostly because I had a bad self image. Partly because I was in a relationship where I let someone tell me I wasn't good enough. It was a verbally and physically abusive relationship that convinced me that I was worthless, and I would never be wanted or excepted by anyone else but him. My spirit and self esteem had been beaten so low that I actually believed all of this. Why even bother to try, it's just a waste of time.  Eventually I broke free of him, but the damage to my self esteem was almost permanent. I spent many years trying to loose weight only to just give up the moment it got tough. Convinced that I would never be able to do it, and I wasn't worth the effort anyways.  I yo yo dieted with just about every diet out there. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, slim fast, Adkins, low carb, no cab, the grapefruit diet, protein diets, shake diets, fruit diets. You name it, I probably tried it.  Problem wasn't the diet, it was me. I would give up on everything because I had really given up on myself. I had no motivation The numbers on the scale wouldn't move fast enough and I felt I wasn't worth the effort anyways.

Then along came CANCER! I pretty much gave up at that point.Why would the God that I so believed in let me be such a failure. Why would he let me have to face such a difficult fight. What was there worth living for?  One day when I was at the lowest point, God hit me with the answer. It was right there all along. Mike, Dawn-Marie & Tyler. My greatest accomplishment in life The three beautiful children that God allowed me to bring into this world. THEY were worth it. They were worth fighting for.

I'd like to say at this point everything got better and life was all Sunshine and roses, but the reality is that it wasn't. What changed though was me. I changed just enough to fight against cancer, and win. I'll save all the details of that  story, as you can always go back an read about how running saved my life at this point. Just go back to my first post and read from there. This tale is about what had not changed yet. My weight.

So, what is different this time, why do I suddenly think I can do this? Truth is, nothing. I don't know if I can do this. I may just fall flat on my face like all the times before. This time is different because I know that I can push myself  to do anything I set my mind to. How do I know this, because I set out on a journey in January 2012 to complete my first 1/2 Marathon at the Disney Marathon Weekend. and I DID IT!..  Not only did I do that one, but I went on to prove to myself that I could continue to stay focused on something and completed 2 more 1/2 Marathons  a 10 Miler, a 5 miler a 10K and 7 5k's in one year. This person that never finishes anything she did all this.

So now, I will head out on a journey to lose weight. With the support of my family. The support of my friends. The support of my PbRc (Pacebook Running Club) friends and my fellow runners who also know what it is to commit to something and to push yourself past your comfort zone.  Most of all, with the support of myself.  I know that I am worth the effort. I know that I can do ANYTHING I set my mind to.

That is why I Run4Life!!!!

Till next time..Run for you, run for fun, Run4life!

Angi

Recap- Color Run 5k 1-13-13

I might actually be getting caught up on my blogging. I've been recovery from Carpal Tunnel surgery and typing one handed has been a bit of a pain. So here it is 1/28/13 and I am finally getting around to updating everyone on the Color Run that I did a couple weeks ago.

This was probably the funnest race I have ever done. I think I laughed every step of the way. By the time I even made it to the 4k mark my entire face hurt from smiling and laughing so much. A big part of the fun was that there was absolutely no stress. No minimum pace requirement, no balloon ladies, no bus, just a few friends, some color and a ton of fun.

While on the subject of friends. I went to the race with 1/2 of my Team Aries friend Deb, her daughter Rachel and another good friend Patrice. Once we got there though I picked up a few new friends. I had joined the Color Run Orlando page and met some great people and it was so much fun to get to meet them face to face at the race. Lori & Heather and their families where so much fun, even though we ended up getting separated right at the start of the race, it was nice to at least get the chance to make new running friends. You get to meet so many people as a face on a page and you forge amazing friendships with them, but nothing is better than getting to know them in person. I may have even picked up a new running buddy in Lori!


FB Friends


OK, back to my race recap. When I signed up for this race, I had NO idea what I was in for. All I knew was that I would be doing a 5k where they threw some sort of colored powder at you when you reached each 1k mark.


Deb & I BEFORE
 






First up was Red, Plan of attack walk on through right down the center.  Not so bad, didn't get very much color, but sure did inhale a bot of it.

Next up Yellow, this time we chose to dance through it. right down the center again. We were a little more colored but again nothing like we expected. We looked around and saw other with tons of it on them, hmmm..What were we doing wrong?

Deb realized that we were attacking the zones from the wrong angle. For maximum color you needed to go through it either to the left or the right, NOT down the middle. That was where all the volunteer were lined up to squirt you to your hearts desire.

Her came the 3k mark, and Blue. This time we decide to boogy our way through on the right side. Oh yeah we got plenty of color this time. There was this really cool tree on the left side of the road that had every leaf covered in blue power and it was very surreal looking. 

4k...ORANGE...and the entrance to Oompa Loompa land. What better way to get through it than to do the ole Wizard of Oz skip, and that we did.

At the finish line it was a blast of every color. Powder was coming at us from all angles. It was amazing.

Even though we had crossed the finish line it was not even close to being the end. There was a huge stage set up and lots of fun loud music, and every 15 minutes or so they would do a massive color throw. As part of your race entry you were given a color packet and this was your chance to throw it up in the air.


To finish the day off you were blown off by a man with a leaf blower to remove any loose powder and then head on home.

As I drove home, I had the biggest smile on my face. I had just had the time of my life, and I wanted to do it again.

Now once home I had the fun of getting all the color off, and to my surprise it really wasn't that hard at all. A nice hot shower and a little baking powder added to my body wash, and I was back to normal with only my pictures to prove that I was crazy enough to run a 5k and let complete strangers throw colored cornstarch at me, and enjoyed it.

AFTER
 














Till next time  my friends... run for fun, run for you...RUN4LIFE!!!

Angi