Tag: Training

FGP Say’s I’m Not a Wheenie!

Deana1 Comment

Shaolin Kung Fu with SiFu Rick ThomasOn July 11, Runner’s World starts its free Tulsa Run training groups every Saturday morning. Runs start with stretching at 6:45 a.m. at Veterans Park, 21st Street and Boulder Avenue. There will be beginner and advanced 15k race training groups, and a 5k race training group. – Carrie Aspinwall

 

 

I am not a wheenie… did you see that? There are training groups for the Tulsa Run, including a training group for the 5K race. I love it. So, I can now proudly say (Because Carrie put it in print) that I am TRAINING for the 5K – life is so good.

So, who might you ask, is Carrie Aspinwall? Carrie is the Fitness Guinea Pig for the Tulsa World and she is training for the Tulsa Run. Carrie is also the women who turned me away from boot camp (Yikes!) and on to Zumba, a real live exercise/dance like class thing. If Carrie says it’s fun, we try it. Carrie knows healthy living.

I have three favorite Columinists with the Tulsa World. Carrie, Natalie Mikles and Jason Ashley Wright. Between them they cover everything this girl wants to know about Fitness, Food, and Fashion. Call me shallow, but hey, I like what I like. Which might explain why I know so little about politics. Either way.

I wasn’t always overweight, but I have always had issues with food. The smallest I’ve ever been is a size six and that was 20 years ago. I tend average around a size 10-12, which is an acceptable size for me. Right now, I average about 40ish pounds over that ideal and I need to get back in shape. I love working out. Seven years ago I studied Tia Chi and helped teach Shaolin Kungfu to kids at the YMCA. I could even do a really cool back kick back then. My father in law thought that was hilarious and warned my husband that life as he officially knew it was forever changed.

 I also enjoyed walking until I blew out my ACL playing church softball five years ago. Oddly enough I loved Re-hab. I had my own personal fitness trainer for two hours, twice a week and enjoyed every minute of it. Then my knee healed, and I was released and afraid to do anything else.

Since then I have been on many diets trying to lose 10-15 lbs and wound up gaining 40. In the past five years I’ve Weight Watched, Metifasted, Atkinsed, Acaiberried, green tea-ed till-I-peed-green my sorry self all the way to LA Weightloss and South Beach, only to diet  my way up to what I weigh now. I’m thinking I’ve done every diet out there from A-Z. That plus now when people comment on my “new” look, I tend to hoover brownies in response. Not cool.

So, I’m counting my calories – or at least trying to and I’m in training again. Yeah it’s for a 5k, a lousy 3.10 mile race. But so what. It’s a start. I didn’t start of doing spinning back kicks and wielding swords – or doing a perfect horse stance for five minutes when I did martial arts, I had to build up. Okay, actually I had to stop ducking when SiFu kicked in my direction – but the point is, I started somewhere.

This is my somewhere.

But… I Can’t Do that…Can I?

Deana1 Comment

Month’s ago someone Tweets “What is your favorite running song?”

Seriously?

There really is such a thing?

I mean unless there is a song called running makes me vomit, I just didn’t see the point.

Being as he was training for a triathalon I’m thinking he was serious. So replied.

“C is for cookie” by cookie monster.

Radio silence ensued and my serious running tweet-pal never asked that question again. That or he deleted me from his follow me list. Who knows.

I wasn’t always so flip about running. I actually used to like it, until I shattered my ankle. The dr’s fixed it, and I could run again, but now my ankle is in need of a brace to help me walk straight. Marathons are out. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

Only, I keep reading about people almost 20 years older than I placing third in this triathlon or that person running in that race. I even read a book about a guy who was running marathons and climbing mountains with his daughter when he was my age.

I’ve done the whole conversation with God – in my true to mask joke form “you know God at my age and my shape, I could achieve neither the race nor the spandex.” That is just too big of a step for me. KWIM?

So what happens? God apparently agreed with me and so he sent me Heather.

Heather – from church – our C-Fit instructor runs her very first 5K and places third for her age this past Saturday. I saw that and thought, I can run a 5K. I mean it’s only 3.10 miles. I just have no idea how to train for that. I’d have to train, trust me. My favorite song really is C is for cookie.

My next thought was after reading all my friends post about the Tulsa Run and other such marathons, is saying I’m gonna try for a 5k the total of weenie ville? Maybe, but it is a start. And to help me because I know nothing about running, I found the From Couch to 5K training information.

So… to David who climbs mountains, Reed who always ran past my door every day, Melissa who trained for a half marathon last year, Heather who tried a 5k and did it, and my other triathlon friends, I’m gonna do it.

And I’m going to try not to feel like a wheenie about it.

EDITED JULY 9, 2010 — The verdict is in… I cannot run, my leg won’t tolerate it.  I can, however, swim and cycle. Those will be the areas I can pursue. I tried. And I’ve learned my limitations. yes, I will some day need a brace. That is reality and not defeat. And I’m learning how to be okay with that.