Job Offer

So I had an interview this morning at a dermatology clinic for a receptionist position. Here I am in the car before my interview. I was so worried about forgetting paperwork or something that I forgot to put deodorant on this morning. Who does that? Luckily I made it through the interview without getting too sweaty and I still smelled fine. I remembered perfume, at least. Don't worry, I went and bought deodorant afterwards. Hey - at least I remembered all the paperwork I wanted to bring. Application, resume, references, letter of recommendation...

I thought the interview went pretty well - I know I'm qualified for the position, I'm just shy in situations like that and tend to get all socially awkward. Got to do some job shadowing and I was more comfortable doing that, I asked a lot of questions and felt like I would catch on quick.

Met up with my friend Nate afterwards and he bought me lunch at the Thai place. MMMM. Chicken and broccoli with sticky rice. YUM. We've been friends for 16 years now and he's the best. Afterwards I drove home (a 30 minute drive) wearing all black and gray in 80+ degree weather with no air conditioning. That's why I bought deodorant BEFORE I went home, yep yep.

This is me after a 3.1 mile run/walk with Brady. It was very muggy out and Brady was over the running about halfway through. Managed to keep a decent pace, considering all the walking we did I kept around an 11:36 mile pace. I'm estimating that because right before I got in my driveway, the phone rang - and it was the place I interviewed at, offering me a job! I just have to do the drug screen thing (no worries there, haha) and I'm all set. They were fine with the fact that I'm going on vacation next week and it looks like my start date will be the 12th. It's a part-time position, three days/week which I actually prefer. Pete often works six days a week and he's second shift so I like to be around for Brady as much as I can be. No evenings/weekends/holidays. It seems like a really nice place to work so I'm pleased with that. Positive thoughts only - this is going to be great!

This Saturday Brady, my mom and I are doing the Wolverine 5K Run/Walk. My mom will be walking but I'm hoping Brady will run/walk with me like he did today. We'll see how it goes!

Registered for yet another 5K!

Today I registered Brady and myself for the Packers 5K in July. This was my first 5K experience last year and it was also my first DNF... technically I didn't even start! I had stomach issues that entire day and I think I ended up really dehydrated - we were lined up to start and I felt like I was going to pass out so I went and sat on the ground before I did. I ended up not running, it sucked. I cried. I blogged about it, if you want to check the archives.

But this year I'm going to do it with Brady and it's going to be awesome. I signed us up for Wave 4 - 11:00 minute plus mile runners. I didn't want to sign up as a walker because I do want to run as much of it as I can. I think Brady will get such a kick out of running around Lambeau Field! I have two months to get better at this whole running thing, and to get Brady enthused about it as well. Here's hoping!

I worked up a good sweat on the treadmill yesterday - mostly fast walking with a bit of running but I did it for just over an hour and went over 5 miles. I was doing it while watching my tv shows so I could hit my 10,000 steps for the day... say what you want but a Fitbit is motivating! It rained all day yesterday so by 5:30 I had only walked about 2,500 steps and that was unacceptable. Ended the day with over 11,000 - much better.

Here's a picture of me at the Cellcom 5K (my chip time was 36:37) - sorry about the proof, all credit goes to MarathonFoto haha. This girl can't afford to buy the picture, seeing as I'm currently jobless and any spare money goes to registering for more 5Ks. The other two pictures of me were gross, but on the plus side they were very motivational in making me want to eat better because I looked huge and sweaty. This picture is sweet though - check it out, I'm running on air! Haha!

Bike Ride and a 5K Addiction???

Brady got a new bike this week - his friend Aiden has a mountain bike and Brady decided he wanted one too. He even saved his birthday money and paid for half of it! So he is the proud owner of this sweet ride:

He was really excited to go for a decent bike ride instead of just riding around the yard and driveway... so today I talked Pete into going with us. Brady and I got a head start and it didn't take long to find out why - Pete grabbed Jordy (our dog) so he could come with us too! We have a little creek about a mile and a half away from our house so he could stop for a drink, but by the end of our ride he was pretty worn out. I wanted to keep a good pace so I ended up leaving the boys in the dust on the way back... oops. We did just over 5 miles in all, not a very long ride but it had some hills! Pete said he felt the burn in his legs which made me happy.

I was afraid the bike would be a bit big for Brady yet but he is loving it and cruising around like a crazy boy. I got a gel cover for my seat so my flabby rear was a lot more comfortable on this ride than it was on our last! I definitely see more biking in our future. I love our dog but next time I think we'll leave him home so we can take a longer ride.

I've registered for another 5K. The 2nd Annual Jim Hodge Memorial Run.... they are having a 5K and a 10K. When Catherine first mentioned it I had declined because Pete's family reunion is that day. But I decided if I do the 5K and come home right after we will have plenty of time to get to the reunion. Why did I sign up? Because Catherine will be doing it with me and she is a great motivator. Brady will be with me on a few of the runs I've registered for this year and he gets tuckered out easily so I won't be able to go as fast as I'd like to (like I'm so fast, haha). I'm trying to get the boy to train a bit with me but the few times we've gone out he's gotten bored right away so I don't know how that will work out. I wanted another run where I could try to push myself to do better, so that's where the Jim Hodge Run comes in. It's a small local race so it won't have the excitement of the Packers 5K or the Cellcom, but I know it will still be a fun time. Let's just hope I'm not last!

Race Recap - Cellcom 5K

I had my first 5K of the season today - and needless to say, I was quite unprepared for it. My "training" has been spotty at best. I'm a good 15-20 pounds heavier than I was at this time last year. Yesterday was my son's school field trip (I was a chaperone) and I ended up with a vicious headache that had me laid up most of the afternoon/evening. I hydrated pretty well but needless to say, I didn't go into it with high expectations.

I packed a bag of goodies to bring with me the night before. Got up at 5:00 this morning, showered and dressed, ate a quick bowl of oatmeal and got on the road. I live about an hour from Green Bay so I left the house around 6:30. My friend Catherine met me at Lambeau field and we picked up our race packets. The shirts we got were red, I was pretty happy about that because I don't own a lot of red stuff. However, I signed up for this race a good 10 pounds ago so I was skeptical about the size medium I got - but it doesn't look too bad. They must run big.

Here we are in the Lambeau Field atrium after picking up our race packets. I don't like taking pictures of myself in running gear because I think I look yuck with my hair in a ponytail, and it's hard to look cute when I'm standing next to someone as pretty as Catherine.

 We had a bit of time to kill so we walked around and did some people watching - I love checking out other peoples' running shoes! Catherine talked me through some stretches (that I was really terrible at). The weather was pretty cold but I ditched my Under Armour jacket before the race and I'm glad I did. The congestion of people in the race gave off enough body heat to stay really warm! Saw quite a few people I knew - there were 3,754 people in the race.

Catherine can run like 7-8 minute miles so I told her she did NOT need to run with me, but she is the nicest person in the world and she insisted. She wanted to motivate me. We lined up farther back because I knew I was going to be slow. The gun went off and we started moving. Once we crossed the start line I started to run, slow and steady. I shocked myself by running the entire first mile without stopping! I don't think I've ever done that before. At that point I wanted to check my time but realized I never started any of the running apps on my phone... durr. Mile 2 was definitely harder, I walked a good part of it. My legs/body felt fine but I had trouble catching my breath... my lungs just don't have the endurance yet. Catherine kept encouraging me to run and I kept swearing at her haha. There was a LOT of people around and we had to do a lot of bobbing and weaving which I think wore me out even more. I skipped the first water station but hit the second and was surprised to find out it was Gatorade... never drank the stuff before! It was okay (lemon-lime flavored).

After the second water station I started running again - we could see the finish at this point but had to take our run through Lambeau field first. We ran through the tunnels which was pretty cool, but there wasn't a lot of room for the runners to spread out. It was crazy hot and muggy in there and I have a tendency to pass out in those conditions so I power walked. When we came through the tunnel and hit the field I started to run again - we made a loop around the field and I wanted to make sure I ran that whole time. Then it was back through the tunnels.

 Here is a super creepy picture of me trying to take a photo of myself while running. Yikes. But you can see that we're running around Lambeau field and that's pretty flippin' cool.

Once we got out of the tunnels I started running again.... up a small incline and then the finish was in sight. We got close enough to see the clock and I saw 39:?? (and some seconds) on there and that was when I realized "holy crap, I can finish this in under 40". That was my dream goal, to finish under 40. I know that's crazy slow but I'm not in shape so it was a lot for me.

I saw that clock and I just started to run FULL OUT. I'm sure all the spectators were laughing because I looked insane but damn it I wanted to cross before 40! Catherine later said that I shocked her and she was impressed (she was probably just being nice, but she made me feel great anyway). I crossed under 40 and was SO happy.

It took me ages to catch my breath after my "sprint" but it was such a great feeling. I've participated in other 5Ks before but one was untimed (the Color run) and one I did with my mom and we walked it (Firetower Run, in 45:23) - this was the first time I really tried. It was awesome. Catherine and I checked out the health and fitness expo afterwards and then parted ways.

I headed home to take Brady to his cousin's birthday party but first hopped online to check the results. That's when I discovered that I finished even faster than I thought! Even though the gun time was 39:42 I started in the back of the pack and didn't run until I crossed the starting line.... so my chip time was 36:37. That averaged out to 11:48/mile. YAY! So I did even better than I had hoped for!

Again, I realize this is crazy slow to some people but I was ecstatic. I wasn't last, and I wasn't even close to last! In my age group of women 30-34, I was 91 out of 218. Out of all women, I was 999 out of 2,298. Overall I was 1,952 out of 3,754. I'm very satisfied with this because I KNOW that if I keep working at it I can continue to improve, which is so exciting to think about. I'm hoping to use this to help motivate me to sticking with it, since I tend to struggle a lot with staying consistent.

I told Pete he totally needs to get me that Forerunner 10 as a gift - I would have loved to see how fast my first mile was (the one where I ran without stopping once). With the race and all the walking we did I hit my 10,000 step goal by 9:20 a.m.... so that was awesome too. Yep, today was a good day.

It's All Mental (and my new Fitbit Flex)

I know that many people say that with running it's all mental. I agree with this, to a point - for people that are convinced it's ENTIRELY mental they should see my out of shape ass with my heart rate so high that I feel like the dang organ is going to jump out of my chest... they'd probably change their mind. But I definitely think that the mental aspect has a lot to do with it, and I really struggle with that.

Every once in a while I will get lost in thought while running, and just get into a groove and suddenly I will notice that five minutes have passed and I break out in a huge grin. I end up in that zone on accident, by chance, and it doesn't happen often. I wish there was a way to get into that mode more easily. Sometimes a really good song will do it for me (I like the new Fall Out Boy song - go ahead and judge), sometimes I start thinking about actually running in a 5K and what it will feel like, and sometimes I just get lost in thought thinking about the things I have to do that day.

Most of the time though I am very present in the moment. Thinking about my running form (is it bad? How should I adjust? I wish I had a trainer) or my breathing (will I ever find a breathing rhythm that I can stick to? Why is it so hard to breathe in through my nose?) or the time ticking on the treadmill (Can I make it another 30 seconds?). Will I ever get better at this? I know that consistency is key and I just need to stick with it. It would just be super awesome if I saw more progress.

My brother-in-law is on some hardcore new diet and is doing P90X and lost 6 pounds in a week already. I should feel happy for him (I do) but I'm also jealous. Not gonna lie. Check out my green eyes (okay, they're really blue-gray). I want results like that.... but I'm still trying to figure out what's right for me.

Check out my spaced out look.... LOL. I do not sweat pretty. I get red faced and gross. My headband is super cute but I've decided I'm not a huge fan of sweat dripping all over my face and prefer the awesomeness of the Bondi Band. Every time I get on the treadmill I say I'm going to go longer than 30 minutes with a 5 minute cooldown but I never do. I think it's because I keep trying to push myself harder during those 30 minutes so by the end of it I'm always totally worn out. I'm just winging this here, input is appreciated.

I picked up the new Fitbit Flex at Best Buy the other day and was crazy excited about it. Could I afford it? Of course not, but I'm considering it my Mother's Day gift to myself since I know Pete won't get me anything. I gave Pete my Fitbit One so he can see how many steps he takes at work - so yay, I actually have someone on my Fitbit friends list, finally! So far I really like the Flex - I constantly left the One clipped to clothes and then had to dig through my dirty clothes basket for it, and I hated wearing the big velcro wrist band at night. I thought the altimeter (that logged stairs) was really inaccurate so I don't miss the fact that the Flex doesn't have it. The Flex is much easier to use for logging sleep, and I never looked at the One screen so I don't miss having a screen at all - I always use the app on my phone.

This is a screen shot from Saturday. Brady and I walked to my mom's house and back and I was pretty psyched to get over 10,000 steps - it is more of a challenge than you think, at least for me. Even when I was working, my job was rather sedentary and unless I exercised I would only hit 5000-6000 steps in an entire day. If I'm at home being a lazy bum I'm lucky to hit 2,000. The Fitbit motivates me to get off my ass.

There are a LOT of complaints about the Flex right now. Fitbit never gave a solid release date and Best Buy jumped the gun and released it early. People that have pre-ordered it are livid. I canceled my BB pre-order and picked it up at the store (no I could not wait, I'm not big on self-control). People say that it's logging steps when you wave your hand around and that it's NOT logging steps when you're pushing a stroller or grocery cart. I am wearing mine on my non-dominant hand (you can set that in the settings) and it seems to be pretty accurate for me. For example, aside from a tiny bit of walking around the house I did 2.65 miles on the treadmill today (see above) and right now my Flex is saying I've gone 2.67 miles today, or 5,006 steps. Sounds accurate enough to me! You can further calibrate it by inputting your stride length and all that on the Fitbit website, but I haven't found that necessary. Plus, I'm keeping in mind that this product was just released and technically wasn't even *supposed* to be released yet - I'm sure with all the feedback pouring in that a device update will be coming soon. For what I use it for it is (knock on wood) working great. They say you can even wear it in the shower, but I haven't been that brave. This little piece of tech wasn't cheap, yo.

I had a great weekend with Brady. Aside from the nice walk on Saturday (we stopped for ice cream, I had a few bites of his but did NOT get my own - hooray for tiny victories!) we worked on a school project together. I had to help him make a turtle out of clay. I think we did a decent job! He has to write his turtle report tonight but I'm not allowed to help him with that. Yesterday we saw Iron Man 3 in the theater (I admit it, I totally had movie theater popcorn and only felt semi-guilty) and we both liked it - Robert Downey Jr. is my dream lover. Seriously. My friend even made a photo years ago of people having a double wedding and she stuck our faces on the brides and the grooms were RDJ and Jude Law. No joke. If I could find the picture I would show you. I am trying the new Vine app and posted a few cute vid clips of Brady because he's my favorite person in the world. If you follow me on Twitter I posted a few links to some of the videos.

This is getting entirely too long and now I'm just rambling. To sum it up: Good weekend, liking the Fitbit Flex so far, need to work on my mentalness. Hahaha.

Ticks *shudder*

Finally talked Pete into a (very brief) walk yesterday and he decided it would be a good idea to walk in the woods on the trail he is "making" for me. It wasn't quite a mile long so he wants to keep expanding it but I really don't think he needs to bother... I'm not walking it again.

Don't get me wrong, I love the nature aspect - we saw a tree where a bird made it's nest in a hole, another tree that had buck rubbings on it - but when we got back to the house Pete noticed a tick crawling on him. Then he found four more. I proceeded to irrationally tweak out a bit and made him check me all over - he found three. Later that evening I thought I felt another one on me but figured it was all in my head... nope, I had one crawling across my belly. That was when I jumped up and squealed and ran to Pete and kept my eyes squeezed shut until he got rid of it.

I realize I'm immature when it comes to ticks but I practically have a phobia. Is there a scientific term for a tick phobia? I should look that up. It all started when I was about 8 years old and I slept in my friend's tree house... I woke up covered in ticks and her mom had to get them all off (they were stuck) while I stood there and cried. When my grandpa was still alive and I lived in a duplex (I had to be around...24-25) I had a tick stuck on me and I literally drove to his house so he could get it off me. I'm not making this up. I have no idea how I've survived 30 years in Wisconsin. I need tick repellent.

I thought about adding a picture of a tick to this post as it seems like people prefer blogs with lots of visuals.... but I'm sorry, I can't do it. Gross. Oh, I should also mention that one fell off of our dog Jordy, all swollen and full of blood. So Pete got out the Front Line because if I'm not picking ticks off myself, I'm definitely not picking ticks off the dog. Eww.

The treadmill was rough today so I'm definitely taking a break from it tomorrow - but I'm going to take a nice walk outside if the weather permits. Still went around 2.5 miles total, but had more walking than running today. My right ankle was sore though so I don't want to push it and injure myself. I feel SO good about my progress this time, I don't want anything to get in the way of that!

Overate at dinner yesterday and it made me feel gross - my body is ALREADY adjusting to getting a proper amount of calories so that's awesome. I didn't go over my calories if you count my exercise calories... I'm trying to stay around 1230 calories and yesterday I hit 1,475 - all because of dinner. That's okay though, it's still less than I had been consuming and I'll just learn from it and do better today!

Has anyone heard of True Lemon? I just picked it up at Woodman's to help me stay away from soda... it has 100% natural ingredients which is what appealed to me because I want to get away from aspartame. It does have a small amount of sugar, but 1g is fine and at least it's natural. This stuff is my new addiction, next time I go to Green Bay I'm going to buy the stuff in bulk, lol! I can't wait to try the other flavors, too. It's helping me with my water intake, I've been drinking about five 20 oz. water bottles worth each day and I put this in one or two of them.

I'm off to read a bit and wait for Pete to wake up so I can start running the vacuum cleaner... Brady has his first baseball practice tonight, can't wait!

Progress... or not?

I am still taking it SLOW. However, with that said today I did the longest "running" spurt I've done so far - 8 minutes! I felt awesome about it, since the longest I did at one time yesterday was 5 minutes. When my 30 minutes + 5 minute cool down was done though I had ended up going the exact same distance as yesterday (2.54 miles). I think the longest I jogged at once after the 8 minutes was 3 minutes, and most times it was 2. I'm wondering if I should start a C25K program to get more structure... I just worry because last year I attempted it (see old entries) and did not finish. I want to stick with running. I have the Zombies 5K app but haven't tried it... I have been running on the treadmill this time and I know those kind of apps don't really work right on a treadmill. I could and should start running outside now that it is FINALLY warming up, but I don't really want my ridiculous running attempts to be seen by the public yet and I'm just a scaredy cat making excuses, I know. I just like the treadmill... I feel like I get more of a push seeing that clock and saying "Oh, I can do another minute". I just don't know how to proceed. Help?

Two days in a row of eating well and staying within my calories... I am not eating my exercise calories, just sticking to the recommended amount of calories on MFP. The scale is already moving a little (thank you jeebus) but I need to pick a certain morning and start weighing myself once a week so I don't get all scale obsessed. I'm trying to eat every four hours or so... breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner and sticking to this has made me realize just how drastically I was overeating. Like whoa.

In a moment of weakness I ordered a sweet pair of ProCompression marathon socks. I know, I'm currently jobless so the last thing I should be doing is ordering a pair of expensive socks when I will probably never run an actual marathon in my life. I've just read so many things about how good compressions socks are for post-run recovery and I don't want anything hindering my running progress. So these will be for when I get farther in my "training". I also used a 40% off coupon code (found on Retail Me Not) and got free shipping so you really can't beat that. Also, they will look awesome with my running shoes. I will totally look the part, at least. Heh.

I have the above picture taped to my treadmill, along with a few other motivational sayings. Come hell or high water though, I will stick to this. It makes me feel good about myself, and I want to get better and better at it. I have never been athletic in my entire life and the fact that I get winded so quickly and that my heart rate gets high so fast proves that I need to make some changes before I just become that obese old lady that sits in her favorite chair watching her shows and eating Cheetos.