Part 3-Up to Date

I went back to see where my first post began, low and behold it started in February. If you've been following my blog from the start then a lot of these pictures will look familiar! But if you haven't welcome to my page & I hope you enjoy what you read!
I love hearing from new readers! You can email me or post comments, I will respond to them all. It may take me a minute to figure out how, but I will!! (I'm not totally great with technology but I'm getting much better.) I dirges, which is something I do often. Haha!

Part 3 of my running journey. 2014. Looking back over the last year, I...and everyone I've run with, have really upped our games this year. Started taking a lot of our tasks more seriously.

With the new year firmly under way I rededicated myself to eating clean. Staying on a clean eating diet, but totally eliminating gluten/soy/dairy(most days...not every day, I am a winner). I also went to see a nutritionist who sort of helped? But also made life somewhat confusing. At this point I've resolved to eat 90/10...or 80/20, mostly good with a few allowances. Either way, I lost the final 10lbs I personally had been wanting to lose with the help of training for a duathlon in April.

The running buddy and I were dedicated! We had some major training sessions. It was suppose to be a 2mile run followed by a 15mile bike ride and then another two mile run. We were eating lean & trainin' mean! You can read the post for the entire story.

The long and the short of it is, the event got rained out! We were robbed!!! However, we still got to run 3 miles, in which I came in 3rd place for my age group. It felt great.
 (My 3rd place "medal"-it was a bottle opener, but I was still pretty jazzed about it)

In May I participated in the Murph Day challenge. A 1mile run followed by 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, and 300 air squats followed by another 1mile run, all while wearing a 25lb vest. 
Mrs America and I left the vests and did 50 assisted box pull ups, 100 push ups, and all 300 air squats, and ran both miles. It was for an incredibly worthy cause, which you can find here at the Muprh Foundation. It was a workout LT Michael P. Murphy designed while serving in the Navy, he was later killed in an ambush while deployed. The Foundation is in his memory. 

(The Mrs America & I, ready to be the only two chicks in the group. This girl is also amazing. She is about ready to compete in her 3rd Tough Mudder. It's on my bucket list to accomplish at least 1 Tough Mudder in my lifetime.)


 We were sore for probably a week. Mrs America said "I almost wanted to live in my Murph shirt, it was to hard to lift my arms over my head."

June 2014, one of the aunties & I (She's one the who makes the best cookies in the world) ran a 5k in her town.
This was my best time to date! 28minutes and 45 seconds!!!! I felt ON TOP OF THE WORLD!! It was hot, but I wasn't hurt, I didn't feel disgusting. I knew I gave it my best! I think this is when I really started to notice just how much running calms me for the entire day. We went on to have a great weekend & spend time at the local fair!

My first major race I got to cross off my bucket list this year was the Warrior Dash! That was the very next weekend. We finished in under an hour. I had so much fun, I bet I could have done that race two more times before I felt winded.

(The almighty "Don't you forget about me" fist pump while leaving the race given by Buddy, The Solider, and the Flash on short legs.)

Looking back through my pictures, I just realized that I didn't put a race bid on the entire month of July...something felt off, lol! I guess I did two races in June...

And now...Today's Race!!!
#1's & I first mini triathlon.August 2014
Before the race, we were SUPER nervous but quickly found quite a few other people were heading into their first triathlon's as well.
We had NO IDEA what to expect! The closer we got to start time the more our nerves became frayed.
Ready to swim!

Oh wow! The "gun" went off and we got into the pool one at a time. We did a serpentine swim, which is basically swimming laps up and down each lane or with the black lines. Our swim was...sort of a hot mess. LOL! But we made it through! We made a dash from the pool up the hill where our bikes were stashed. Mounted and took off to ride around the center 10 times. There was one mini hill and one GIANT hill. I kept trying to gain speed on the huge hill but quickly tired out after that epic swim we had. Just as soon as I developed a pattern for touring the Community Center, it was time to dismount & ditch our bikes to head down hill for the run.
After 6miles on the bike, I was a bit bow legged and and took me about the first...oohh, last quarter of a mile for my legs to get into a jogging mode. Lapped the park twice and sprinted towards and epic finish!

We both finished under an hour and 9 minutes! Pretty good considering our goal time was to shoot for under 90mins or 1hr and 30mins! We stomped our goal time. We really did have no idea what to expect and we set ourselves up well, or as best as we could. We were warriors.

Just being silly after the race

We felt pretty amazing about accomplishing this task off of our to do list. 

Thank you for all the well wishes & prayers for a good race today. We didn't drown. LOL. So that's good & we had some incredibly torturous fun!


Now on to a victory dinner!
Looks like pasta....but it's not pasta! 
It's Quinoa!!! With Salmon and sauce and green beans...

I'm zonked. 

Seriously, thank you for taking the time to read this post. I will post more tomorrow about the effects of the weight loss journey, but this is my story so far, and thank you for letting me share it with you.

God Bless, 
A

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