Hey, Remember me?

No?  I didn't think so.  Gosh I've been gone a while.  No excuses I just got lazy.  Sometimes you lose the drive the motivation and the will to dedicate every available moment to fitness/health/blogs.

Well I put on some weight after the Marathon.  I know I'm not going to do race reports for all the little races I've not reported on but I will go back and use the notes I made to give a rough overview of my first Marathon.  It was an incredible experience.  I'm glad I did it and I might do it again...Ok Ill do it again.


So what you can expect in the upcoming posts. ( Not necessarily in this order.)
-2012 IMT Marathon Race Report
-Review of iPhone Running apps
-My current training and feedback/Update on my weight gains/losses
-My upcoming Race plans (Half IM, HyVee Triathlon, ?)

I miss my blog and apologize for going Dark.  This really started out as a way for me to journal my own thoughts and if someone happened to read it...then, Awesome!

If you are reading Im Glad!

I know how stupid it is

I just noticed on my blog stats Ive had a lot of hits for that phrase.  "I know how stupid it is"

To add fuel to the fire... Here's another one.


I know how stuipid it is, but I have about 13.5 weeks before Oct 21 which happens to be the date of a marathon Im about to sign up for. I hope I have enough time. Mr Higdon and I are going to be close friends for a while. Ill do my first ever Half Marathon 15 days before I do my first Full. Is that how your supposed to do it?


Half Marathon High Trestle Trail Half
Full Marathon DesMoines IMT

***UPDATE***
High Trestle Trail was cancelled.  So I wont be doing a half marathon this weekend.  

From Woodward City council Mayor Pro TempThank you for your interest in participating in the High Trestle Trail Marathon on October 6^th.  A third party company was responsible for the event’s organization, registration, and execution. This company is not affiliated with the Community of Woodward, Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, or the High Trestle Trail Authority. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, that company is no longer able to host the marathon, and the race has thus been cancelled.
 On behalf of the High Trestle Trail managers, I apologize for the event’s cancellation, and I want to assure you that you will be receiving a full refund of your entry fee via Active.com. Please allow 1 to 4 weeks for this refund to arrive.
 With that being said, the High Trestle Trail managers were excited about the idea of a trail marathon and even more thrilled by the response that it received. They are considering hosting a marathon in 2013 so please keep your eyes and ears open for future updates on that potential event.

Swimming progress

In the past 2 weeks Ive swam a mile 2 different times.  This is truly and epic accomplishment for me.  Im slow and I just dont feel "awesome" in the water.  Aside from that Ive been terrified of the water since my Peregrine Charities Tri.  I dont understand why.  Im not afraid of the water.  Im afraid of the distance more than anything else.  I suppose its a lack of open water swims.  On my list of goals to do more open water swimming.   Aside from that.  2 mile long swims in less than 2 weeks is a big deal for me.  Im not really losing any weight at this moment but I do seem to be progressing at least in one discipline.  Now to focus on some running too.  If I can get the Swim and Run down I can "Fake" the Bike right Rachelle?  ;)  An Olympic may not be to far fetched for me even yet this year.  I was truly hoping for a 70.3 this year but I think my season is going to lapse before I can get there.  I guess ill focus on the run and get the Half marathon and potentially a marathon.

Workouts to improve your swim

http://www.swimsmooth.com/breathing.html

Great Article : Chrissie Wellington's guide to the open water swim

Update:
I absolutely love my Prescription goggles I got from swimoutlet.com.  They are a good fit and feel and for the first time ever I feel more secure in the water because I can actually see.  Cheap enough for anyone and easy too.

Compromising your Metabolism Part2: The hardest thing

This is a follow up to this post. Compromising your Metabolism?

I've been trying to lose all the fat on my body since January 2010. For about a year I ate at 2000, 1800, 1600, and 1490 daily caloric intake exercising 5-6 days a week and reducing calories levels as I lost weight which was about every quarter.
For the majority of 2011 I struggled to lose weight at 1500-1450 calories/day while exercising. I was exercising 45-60 min with occasional 90 min workouts an sometimes on weekend double workouts I was burning 500-1500 calories a day in exercise. This caused me to be eating at a severe deficit for a long time frame.

Now I'm committed to eating enough calories and I am convinced, finally, that I truly was starving myself.

 For 2 weeks I have maintained my intake at 2350-2550. Regardless of exercise. I don't eat calories back because I'm technically eating at my maintenance or slightly under (200-300 cals). This past week I was traveling for 3 days and despite poor nutritional options I monitored my caloric intake the best I could. ** I made a best guess on the mexican fajitas I ate.** I worked out 2 days of the 3. One day I did 20 min of HIIT calisthenics in my room and the next night I ran 4 miles. This morning I weighed and I was .2 heavier than the day I left. Im ok with this because i didn't really gain I haven't been exercising consistently and my nutrition hasn't been super clean so I definitely think I could be retaining a bit of water. Since I started I have lost about 4 lbs and kept it off instead of YoYoing. Despite always believing, and telling others, that eating your calories back was the right thing to do; I lost weight for a year consistently by not doing it. Being morbidly obese when I started, and working hard enough to compete in triathlons I was terrified to eat my calories back fearing I would start putting all that weight back on that I had worked so hard to lose. It took me a year of not losing anything and being frustrated to the point of giving up to get to this point. I'm excited once again to be moving forward instead of being in a state of constant frustration. I urge you all to determine your TDEE and then eat at a slight deficit. It maybe working for you now to starve your body but eventually it will catch up to you and you will waste a lot of time and destroy the motivation and drive you have.

The hardest thing was me forcing my brain to accept the fact that doing this wasn't going to make me fat and if gaining a little weight the first week was my only way to make progress over the long haul was to take this step of faith than doing that was better than continuing to gain and lose the same 10 lbs for another year.

Back on Track...this time for real

Im going to start writing again and following this better.  I think I figured out part of my problem.  No motivation.  When I say no motivation I mean.  I didnt have any races to race..I had plans for a schedule but nothing I had signed up for.   I cant let that happen again.  I have less than 2 weeks and I need to get my mileage back up to 5.


I got a great Post coming up too so watch for a lots of pictures about some awesome fun!

Swimming refrence

Someone posted this a while back and I thought it would be good to share

http://www.chrissiewellington.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/220_Open_Water.pdf

2012 Shore to Shore 10K - Race Report

This race I thought was going to be a great fun race.  I turned out to be one of the most horrible runs Ive ever done.  It was harder than anything I had previously done.  this was my first official 10K race.  Id run 10k before in training of course so the distance was no surprise to me.   Many things played a huge roll in my DLF.

Yup I finished Dead Last.  Well I was still alive.  Not only was this humiliating and a huge blow to my ego but it was back home in my local hometown.   Which made me feel like DNS>DLF.

I know I wasnt fully prepared for the race overall but I was capable of running the distance and I knew and expected to finish in under 1 hour.  When I got there as I was driving into the park i got a very ugly feeling of what was ahead of me.  The race would be run on the roads inside the state park and they were much hillier than I had remembered.

I thought going into this I would fare pretty well.  Low numbers for the 10k Lots of 5k runners.   AS the start time approached.  It got muggier 90% humidity mid 80's  I was OK as the race started and kept pretty good pace through the 3 mile mark when we hit the first Big hill. I was pacing at about 9:45 and I felt pretty good about it.  I felt like I could maintain, but the heat and the hills caught up to me quick.  At 2.25 We begin the first big hill climb.  It was over a 100' of climb in a half a mile.  I believe this hill and the the following hill were what drained my tank and stole all my energy and motivation.  After getting to the top I felt a little bit relieved and head back down.  I was slower and the people I had been pacing with were 100 yards ahead of me now.  I knew I was slowing but I had some down hill and flat to catch up to them.  I made slight progress until I hit the next hill, 120' of climb in .6 miles.  This was where I stopped to walk the first time.  This hill seemed to never end and walking killed my motivation.   So disappointed.  From here on out it was hill after hill and I just never regained my legs or my drive.   I knew as I was in the last mile that I was maybe one of the last ones and I was pretty sure there was no 10K racers behind me.  That only added to the de-motivation.

I was the last one to cross and despite the feeling of accomplishment of finishing my first 10k race I was angry at myself for letting my fitness level go so far that I was this slow and this out of shape to not even finish under 11 min avg. pace.

I hung around for awards just to give props to the other racers I ran with and embarrassingly placed in my age category.    I hate that feeling.  Not a good showing at all and Im not sure Ill run the race again...Or maybe I will just to redeem myself.