4 bridges half-marathon report

This is a few weeks late because I simply forgot to write it. Writing it 3 weeks late will surely take away some of the emotions, but I do want to always remember my first half-marathon. So here is my race report.

     For 2 days prior to October 20, I began to wonder what on earth I had been thinking (or drinking!) to sign up for a 13.1 mile race. My coach Lisa reassured me I would finish, and I knew i had already trained at 11-12 miles, so logic said I was ready. And, I was a bit excited too.

Tony dropped me off at Coolidge Park at 0630, and I promptly joined one of the long lines for the port-a-potty. It was very cold. I think in the upper 30's. And of course I was wearing a skort, since I don't yet have leggings to run in. 

  

I wasn't sure where to join the line at. I simply stood off to the side about 3/4 of the way back in line. When the race started, it took what felt like forever to actually start moving forward. It was fascinating. I've never been in that big of a crowd before. What an experience. The race began in the dark, and running across the Market St. Bridge was poetic.I almost stopped to take a photo, but I didn't. Mist rising up off the river, the lights on the bridge; it was so beautiful it was magical. After crossing to the south side of the river, we circled around the Aquarium and started an out and back journey on Riverfront Dr. The turnaround was at mile 3, and honestly those 3-4 miles went by very fast, because I was busy watching all of the fast runners running back towards town. Shortly after I made the turn-around, I caught up with a lady about my size. I asked her if this was her first half marathon. She said it was her 49th. What??????? 49??? It was actually supposed to be her 50th, but the race she was supposed to do a couple weeks prior had been canceled due to the government shutdown and the race ran thru a federal park. She is a university professor in Texas and she loves to run half-marathons. Talk about inspiring!

We parted company at the bathrooms, and shortly afterwards I came upon an elderly man. He was doing a light jog/walk. Seriously. Even SLOWER than me. I asked if this was his first half, and he said "Lord willing I'm doing the full, but I'll see how I feel at the turn-off". He went on to tell me that he had raced in hundreds of half and full marathons. REALLY??? These people are crazy! 

By mile 5 I was by myself and was happy to see my friend Kristin at the aid station. She kindly took this photo:

Kristin took me to my first two Chattanooga Triathlon Club meetings last fall. She kind of spear-headed this insanity 😜. After mile 5 it was up and across the Olgiati bridge. Beautiful beautiful beautiful.

Mile 6 found us winding thru the north shore again and thru Coolidge Park, and up onto Veterans Bridge. It was on Veterans bridge that I reached my first goal. I knew I could run 7 miles, so when I saw this sign, I threw a little party!

From there I did a lot of walking. I wanted to finish the race feeling wonderful, and the previous week when I had run 12 miles I experienced quite a bit of pain in my hamstrings and calves. At the risk of sounding like a whiny butt, it was very painful!! I had never experienced pain in my muscles before, and I was a bit paranoid of it happening again, thus my reason behind walking much of the last miles. Also, I might add that miles 8-10 were the most boring miles of the entire race. Just a flat stretch out Amnicola Hwy. I spent these miles alternating walking and running, and texting. Yes. Texting. 😂

Mile 10 was the turn-off, where the half-marathon turned onto the Riverwalk to head back to the finish, and the marathoners kept going. I was completely happy and pain-free and enjoying walking/running with another lady I met who recognized my Swimbikemom visor and shirt. She reads her blog too. Small world. Somewhere around mile 11 my friend April met up with me. She wasn't in the race, she was just out running on the riverwalk and was kind enough to run me in the last two miles. Run. Ha. It was mostly walking at that point. All walking? Probably.

Before I knew it, I was back to the Walnut Street Bridge. I knew I could run the remaining bit, so I quickly texted

My coach and told her I was at the bridge. And she texted back that I needed to put the phone away and run! So I did. Across the bridge, onto The north shore, then into Coolidge Park for the finish. The first familiar faces I saw were DeAnn's boys. They were looking at me as if they were trying to decide if they knew me. I stopped and said "I'm Jimmy's mom!" and Jack said "I knew it!" and went running ahead to his mom, who was awesome to get my finishing pics. Thankyou so much DeAnn!

And so, I finished. 3:24 was chip time. And you know what? That is slower than slow! I trained a little faster than that. But so what. I finished!! A half-marathon!!! Go me!!! It was a wonderful experience and I'm already signed up for my next one. Crossing the finish line, my eyes filled with tears and I experienced the same emotions I felt at the triathlons. I have been obese and sedentary for so long, and now I'm finishing a half-marathon. Wow. I'm beyond happy. I'm thankful, grateful, exuberant. 

And this concludes my race report for

my first half-marathon. It definitely won't be my last!

Running and studying...

236.2

So I'm not exactly sure which excited me more-- weighing 236.2 or receiving these books from Amazon. How can I have the great fortune and blessing of two incredible events in my life at the same time? 40 lbs off my body, and down to the last 3 months of a 4 year journey to be a Nurse Practitioner. Honestly I'm equally excited about both. However.....

While I tend to lack self confidence in my knowledge of things related to nursing and medicine, I have always known I am intelligent and a good student. So it's not super shocking that I've done well in school. What is super shocking is that for over 8 months I have stuck with diet and exercise and have slowly lost and maintained a loss of 40 lbs. Oh, the times I have tried and tried and failed and failed to lose weight. I really don't think I could ever lose this weight. It's a real miracle that I have lost these 40 lbs, and I am so thankful and happy. I know the weight could come off faster if I ate perfectly. And since I do NOT, the weight loss is slow. But that's ok with me. It's becoming a lifestyle and I love love love all the exercise. I have every reason to believe that the weight will continue to drop as I continue to pursue triathlons each year. 

And that brings me to my next topic. I don't think I'm doing any more triathlons this year. I'm sad!! I actually miss swimming, and really miss biking.  But I'm down to the wire with school-- 160 clinical hours left, a research project and a few smaller assignments. I've got to stay focused so that I finish strong. However, of course I still need to exercise, so I'm training for a half-marathon on October 20. Perhaps I'm insane. I've run 7 miles a few times, so I know I can do that. But 13.1?? Time will tell. I have 8 miles coming up later today so I suppose with time I'll get to 13.1.  My hope is to run 7-8 miles of it and them walk/run the rest. I'm really looking forward to it. And the next moment I think I'm crazy!

That's me running recently. Soaked in sweat. I love it. I may be slow but I enjoy it so much.

Well, I will close this blog entry with a photo I took in May, 2012. It was a wake up call for me, at about 278 lbs.

I didn't realize I was that huge. And while I still have a long ways to go to get down to 165, I am enjoying the journey. This next photo was 2 weeks ago when I fit into size 16 jeans. (I was in size 24 above)

So it's all good. Life. School. Running.  My guys-- they are supportive too. This weekend my oldest son Jimmy is going to do a Tough Mudder in St. Louis. I'll post photos of that next week.

Until next time, I encourage you to tri to be healthy. It's so much fun and feels so good!

The victory is in showing up

Dear Slow Swimmer person,

I had the privilege of watching just over half of your swim at the Fall Creek Falls triathlon yesterday. I have to admit, you were soooo far behind-- my pity turned to irritation because I was afraid you might drown-- why did you sign up for this 9/10's of a mile swim if you knew you sucked at swimming? As the last few swimmers were exiting the lake, my friends and I headed back up

the hill to transition and we left you out there with the kayaks to guide you in. I was certain you would drop out, or that they would make you quit. 

Imagine my surprise when many many minutes later, when all of the athletes were out on the bike or run, we saw you trudging up the hill from the lake! You finished the swim!! So it took you an hour and a half. Who cares!! You kept going. You didn't quit. You were relentless! You beast!

    I'm not sure-- either you simply are not a fast swimmer, or perhaps you had a panic attack as many do on a first open water swim. Or maybe something else went wrong. Probably it doesn't matter. What matters is that all my pity and irritation dissipated when I saw you walking up the hill to get on your bike. Did you hear us all cheering for you? Did you feel as proud of yourself as we all felt for you? I watched you take off on the bike long after nearly all the bikes had returned. And finally I saw you start out on the 6.2 miles run long after many had finished the race. You, my anonymous friend, are the winner today. 

    I want to celebrate your tenacity. I don't know your story. Perhaps this was your first triathlon. Who knows. I simply applaud you for completing the race. Even the Bible says that the race is not to the swift only. The swift ones might take home the medals, but you took home pride and self-achievement and confidence and increased levels of persistence and tenacity. Truly, you are my hero.

    You see, I chose not to do that particular triathlon because I knew I would be super slow. I didn't want to be the last one in the water. Nor the last one in the bike and run. What a great opportunity I passed up because I forgot that victories aren't measured in timing chips. Oh sometimes they are, but it would have been my first Olympic distance and so a simple finish would have made me a champion. Perhaps it was your first olympic distance. Perhaps it doesn't matter. 

Congrats to you for not giving up. You have inspired me, and really, that's what this sport is all about, isn't it?

Run for God Triathlon-race report

And my second triathlon was perhaps the most fun I've had since--- oh-- since the last one. Or since I was watchin brain surgeries the other day. Ah, but I digress. 

Today I "raced" in the Run for God sprint triathlon in Dalton, GA. I almost didn't do the race. I am already registered for another triathlon next weekend, so I was actually supposed to work today. But when I realized several of my new triathlon pals were signed up, I found someone to work for me, and I slapped down the money to go swim, bike and run for 93 minutes. And 42 seconds. Let's not forget that:-)

And so, in hopes of inspiring someone, anyone, to take up this fantabulous sport, and so that I can look back myself one day, here is my race report.

THE SWIM

Can you find me? The swim was 300 yards. I love short swims. While I am finally seeing some improvement in my swimming endurance, overall I still don't love this part. Today we had to swim 6 lengths of this 50 meter pool. With 139 adults racing, it was surprisingly not too congested. They started us about every 3 seconds. 

I tend to get caught up in the people and the excitement and the desire to go fast. At my first tri, I ended up stopping and standing up quite a bit due to being completely of of breath. Today I did better. I kept talking to myself, telling myself to do the various strokes my coach has me do during training. So I would focus on magic marker drills, reaching and rolling, fat lady strokes, swimming downward, etc. Talking to myself and doing the various strokes made the time go by fast. Indeed it was FASTER. A full minute faster than my swim in the first tri. So I was happy happy happy!

THE BIKE

I think the bike portion is my favorite. Today we had a 12 mile ride that was actually 3 four mile loops. There was only one long hill and the rest was flat and fast, except there were so many turns it was hard to get going very fast for very long. In spite of that, my average pace was 15 mph. I'm super pleased with that. Why can't I ever average that on my training rides? Perhaps the momentum and excitement of the day adds some speed. 

A positive: the city of Dalton shut down the roads for us, so the roads were safe and not dangerous. Plenty of police on the route and angelic volunteers who cheered every time we passed them.

A negative: I have learned in triathlon that you always ride to the right, and if someone passes you, they yell "on your left". Towards the end of the bike I yelled "on your left" as I passed another cyclist. Either I didn't really yell it, or she didn't hear me, or she was in the mood to live life dangerously. About the time my front tire was next to her back tire, she moved over towards me. I am fairly certain it scared her more than it scared me (and trust me, it scared the sh$& out of me) because she yelled an expletive and then said "I'm so sorry!" I'm pretty sure I didn't reply, and just got the heck away from her. I'm glad I didn't mouth off to her because she passed me as soon as we started the run and I never saw her again. I am very thankful we didn't wreck, and I even more so appreciate that accidents can and do happen. Everyone be careful. 

THE RUN

The run was just 2 miles today. I knew I could run 2 miles without walking. Looking back at my 15 minute miles, perhaps I should have pushed myself faster. I'm always wanting to just putter along so I can keep going. And I was tired, it wasn't like I was the energizer bunny at that point. The run consisted of 2 one mile loops. So I was able to see friends and encourage people and people encouraged me. I just love this! All sorts of "lookin good!" "we got this!" "almost done!" "we love this!" and these comments weren't just from the volunteers, but the slow, tired racers were saying it to each other as we passed one another. The camaraderie and the support in this triathlon world is amazing.

Soon I was running up the finishers' chute and hearing the announcer say "#51, Debbie Fine from Cohutta, Georgia" somehow kicked me into a faster run as I crossed the line.  Fist pump! Yeah buddy!! My husband and fellow tri club members were there and it's just the most emotional moment ever. Just typing these words makes me eager to do the next triathlon.

     And guess what?! No last place for me today! I came in 14th out of 23 females in my age group, and came in 113 overall out of 138 finishers. Yes it's true my weight isn't falling off very fast, and it's also true that I looked like a stuffed marshmallow in that spandex tri suit. But you know what? Who cares. I love it, and I hope to do many more triathlons. It's so much fun, such a great group of people, and it makes you feel sooo good. 

What's next? Next weekend I'll be doing the women's triathlon in Acworth. I'm hoping to meet one of my heroes-- Swimbikemom (www.swimbikemom.com ) at that race. After that, I'm not signed up for anything. If Tony and my coach will not think im crazy, I would like to go back to Oak Ridge TN for a tri on August 11. I loved that pool and bike route. It's a slightly longer course, but I can do it. As for the moment tho, I'm on the couch with a blanket. Happy. Thankful. 

My pals: April ( who has lost 70 lbs), Shelley ( who has lost 40? I think) and me, who has lost 30 and has a long ways to go :-)

The tri suit, and Nutella

Weight: 241.8

My very first official tri suit arrived today! Here's the proof:

Oh em gee!!!! Yet another reminder that I'm nowhere near goal weight. But, I'm down 30 lbs from a year ago, and I will be grateful for that. So yes, I guess I'll wear this to my next triathlon. Ya know, it's kinda fun!

    The scale stalls because I've had this love affair with chocolate peanut butter here lately. 

Geez, why can't I have a love affair with cucumbers? Or carrots? Honestly! Ok so I am going to try harder. I really am starting to desire a really clean diet. Fruits and veggies. I'd love to avoid all processed foods. But with working full time and clinical hours for school, and swimming, biking and running several hours a week, processed foods are just way too convenient.

    Tomorrow is my only day off this week and I was planning to swim, bike and run. Not an official triathlon, but one of my own making. But now there is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow-- so, I'll run in the rain if there isn't any lightning; otherwise I'll be tortured on the spin bike for 2 hours. Why two hours? Because I don't want to lose momentum. Because, when the two hours are over I'll feel glorious both mentally and physically. Because for some yet unknown reason, I love it. I love the exercise and I love triathlon, and I love seeing my body morph into something smaller (kinda like watchin grass grow). I'm blessed.

Goodnight.

The scale moved!!

243.2

Woohoo!!!! That's all I have to say today!

Wild Rose Triathlon report

The last few weeks leading up to the triathlon have been exciting and busy. In addition to work, clinical hours, and the boys' ball games, I made time for swimming, biking, running, and sessions with my trainer. I was excited, and had confidence I could finish.
Except for having to crap in the woods last weekend during my run.  That concerned me because I knew there were no porta potties on the run course. What would I do? Suffice it to say I stopped eating fiber the last few days before the race and all was well. I didn't even think about going to the bathroom. Yeah!

The Swim
Race morning dawned wet and overcast.  Arriving early, I received my registration packet and timing chip. They passed out cute pink tech shirts. Of course the largest size was an XL, why??? Did they not expect fat people to do the tri? So it will be another 20-30 lbs before I can fit into the shirt. Sigh....
This triathlon was a pool swim, which ended up being life saving because I stood up many times. It's one HUGE pool.

See me? I'm standing up like a real goof. What will I ever do in a lake? Drown.

As you can see, it was a huge pool- 100 meters long. We had to swim 3 lengths. I didn't think it rained during the swim, but Tony said it did. It was a time trial start, with the fastest ones starting first. Hence, I was the last handful of swimmers to enter the pool.

The Bike

Once out of the pool, I peeled off the swim cap and goggles and jogged over to the bike area. I put on my biking skort, socks and shoes, helmet and gloves, and I was off.  I was sad because while I was not the last one out of the pool, I was second to last out of the bike area. These photos are very humbling because I look so huge. It's a wonder I didn't crush that bike. Thankyou, Raleigh, for making strong bicycles!

I post this photo because it will be a good photo in the future (Gosh i was huge! What was I thinking??) 

The bike was my moments of glory. And nobody saw it. In fact, Tony and the boys went to Starbucks while I was riding in the rain! In the first 5 miles of the 10 mile bike, I passed 6 people. Yes!! Nobody passed me, but I passed 6 people!! The ride was mostly flat. Just a few gradual slopes, but mainly flat and fast. It was my fastest time on the bike-- 38:39. One little gal passed me in the last couple

Miles, but on a downward stretch my weight works in my favor for speed and I passed the little gal. Of course on the next uphill near the end she passed me and was long gone. I finished the bike with a smile on my face. It was fun! And fun knowing I was ahead of several others.

     As I got off the bike, my son Jimmy informed me that my awesome coach Lisa had just finished the race in 2nd place. She's a beast I tell ya.

The Run

I started the run with a fast walk while I chugged a Gatorade. I didn't drink anything on the bike, and I knew I needed some liquid and fuel in me. I no sooner ditched the Gatorade and started a slow run, when it began to rain again. Within a few minutes, it turned into a downpour! I trucked along, finding my slow rhythm and just enjoying the moment. All of the cycles behind me eventually passed me on the run. 

    The run was 2 loops, to equal 3 miles. As we approached the halfway point, it began to thunder and I saw a flash of lightning. Surely to goodness they will stop the race if it starts to lightning! I passed a race official and he didn't tell me to stop, so I kept going. Then the gal in front of me took a left turn towards the bike area. I told her she was going the wrong way. She told me she was dropping out, because of the storm.

    Looking back now, perhaps that was my moment of truth. Personally, I am terrified of storms. Just ask anyone who has ever known me all my life. When I was a kid I would take my Bible and my flute and a blanket to the basement whenever it stormed. And here I was, trying to finish a triathlon in a thunderstorm?? If I dropped out too, it would be wise. Nobody would blame me.  But all I could think of at that moment was the likelihood that the storm might blow over - and I would regret for the rest of my life dropping out. Plus, I felt certain that if it did get worse, that Tony would come pick me up. So I continued on. I wanted to finish!

       The pouring rain continued for the next mile or so. I had to take off my glasses because it was so wet. At some point another runner caught up to me and we ended up staying together until the finish. We walked and ran and chatted the rest of the way. She told me she has done 3 other triathlons and she's always last but doesn't care, because it's fun and keeps her exercising. What a positive attitude! At one point another lady passed us, and I began to realize that we were it. We were last. Well, atleast I had a buddy to be last with. Misery lives company. Ha.

      It was a great feeling to see my trainer Lisa and my son Jimmy waiting for me at one point to offer encouragement. And finally when we climbed the last hill and entered the little finishers chute, I didn't think I could keep running. The Hal said "yes you can. We can finish this!" and so we ran. I heard those crazy wonderful folks from the Chattanooga Triathlon club cheering me in. It was just fantastic. Best feeling ever!!!!!!

    My goal was to finish it in under 2 hours. But I was really hoping for 1 hour and 45 minutes. But guess what! I finished in 1 hour and 36 minutes!!! Yes!! So even tho I placed last-- I still killedy goal, and considering I'm still 80 lbs overweight, I really really am happy, pleased, and grateful. 

So what's next? Today is a rest day, but tomorrow I'll run again and get back into the pool. I have new a new goal. Having a goal- in my case-- registering for another triathlon-keeps me committed to the exercise. 

All in all, it was a wonderful experience.

My heart is grateful today.