Kathleen's Adventures

Take that you stupid scale!! I have finally broken 125 for the first time since IMAZ! Of course I'm not even trying nearly as hard to lose weight now and it is coming off. I try for 5 months and nothing. Then, after my marathon, when I'm not doing much at all, it starts to slowly go away. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but gees. I just wish I had a little more control over these things! I should have taken a picture of that # on the scale because I might not see it again for a while after our trip this weekend. I see lots of food and not lots of exercise invovled!

I spent most of the last weekend on the sidelines and loved it. I'll be doing more of the same this weekend at Ironman Florida. Maybe I'm better at being a cheerleader than a competitor. Saturday morning Shellie, LaErica , and I ran 8 miles and ended up at the start/finish line downtown of the Pumpkin Run 5k. It was fun to watch and there were quite a few people in costumes. Most memorable was the guy dressed as Mark Spitz wearing a wig, mustache, medals, a speedo , and flip flops. Augie, Jon, and Jen all had an awesome race too. Augie won her age group, Jon got second in his, and Jen got a PR. The only downside to running to watch a race means you get pretty cold before it is all said and done. I was blue for about an hour, but soy hot chocolate at Onion Creek afterwards took care of that. Saturday afternoon, Shellie and I visited the sidelines of Lisa's house...or more like we dove straight into the war zone! Sarah and Jessica have grown a lot since I saw them last and ...

This is what I did at work today: And this is what my co-workers did: Yes, we are having a pumpkin coloring contest at work. We used to decorate and trick-or-treat my department, but this year we are in a "cost savings mode" so we are scaling down the operations a bit. Good thing my department keeps a good amount of glitter on hand at all times.

I know some of you have questioned it, but I really do have a good heart, as confirmed by a cardiologist this morning. EKG and stress test showed nothing abnormal. BUT, I'm so NOT impressed with my treadmill stress test. I was hoping I would at least find out my true max heart rate through all of this so I would at least have a reference point of some sort. The lady got me all hooked up and showed me where my HR was on the screen and said "now, you are at 60-something right now, you can stop whenever you want, but we'd really like to see that HR get to at least 164." I told her that surely wouldn't be a problem. So I start walking. Whopee . Every 3 minutes the incline and speed increases. I asked her after a few minutes if I would get to find out my true max HR. She said "your 100% max? Well, that is 193. Because it is 220 minus your age." GREAT. She knows nothing. I tell her that I could easily get over 193 and that my high heart rate when exercising wa...

I had a bit of a reality check Saturday afternoon when I was minding my own business and came across a post on Facebook with a link to a MSNBC online story. I began to watch the story and already saw that it was called "The Tip of the Spear" - talking about our troops in Afghanistan. Then I realize the commander of the troop (I'm sure that isn't the proper classification of any of this - shows my complete ignorance to anything military) was someone who I went to middle and high school with - someone who is just 2 years older than me and has the lives of so many in his hands. I sit here and complain about my little piddly problems like I need to lose a few lbs, or that I didn't run as fast as I wanted to at a few races, and then I see this. Wow. Jimmy and the rest of our troops are halfway around the world getting shot at on a daily basis, literally risking their lives almost every minute of the day, so we can sit here and worry about our very insignificant...

The good news is that I ran again this morning without any major pain in my foot. I went to the podiatrist after that and I am good at diagnosing myself - I definitely have posterior tibial tendinitis, but he doesn't think there are any tears in the tendon or anything to really be worried about. I have a 6 day steroid dose pack and will be high as a kite for the next few days, but hopefully my foot is on its way back to ok . The bad news is I ran a whopping 3 miles this morning at 11:00 min/mile pace with Augie and had to stop and walk twice because my heart rate was over 190. I also thought at first we were running ~9 something pace, so it was even more disturbing 1.5 miles in when I had to stop and walk and then looked down to not only see 190+ on my garmin , but I also saw 15:50 for the 1.52 miles we had run. Now I am afraid that is just the way I am and that no cardiologist is going to give me any meaningful insight into all of this - basically I'm just stuck. We will see, ...

Ahhhh . Finally. A good kind of pain. I went to abs/back class at TOTR last night and got my abs/butt kicked. I can't laugh and I can't sit down, but it hurts so good! I had let the whole strength training thing go by the wayside during the last ~2 months of marathon training and I need it back. Also, Dr. Doug (Dad's best friend, member of Team W ) told me I felt SOFT the other night!! What?? Mom said I was wearing a big jacket so he couldn't really feel my back (the part of me he way saying felt soft). Well, soft my a$$. No more! See if he ever calls me SOFT again! By the way, I wore my hot pants to class last night and there are mirrors all around and as against sounding over confident as I am, I must say my legs are anything but soft, even after 2 weeks of pretty much no activity. The only downside to my quest to end all softness is that my foot is still mad at me. I'm beginning to think I should have gone straight into the boot when I got home from St. George...

I went home to Beaumont for the weekend to visit my parents and ran a 5k on Saturday morning while I was there. The winning time in my age group was 27:28. My pr set last February was 24:27. The winning time on Saturday did not belong to me. If you had told me all I had to do was run a 27:28 to win my age group I would have told you I could have done that with my hands tied behind my back. WRONG! While I did get 2 nd in my age group (keep in mind this is Beaumont...no one runs there), and have a wonderful trophy to show for it, I ran what I think was my worst 5k ever. You may say "well, that is ok , you probably weren't going all out or anything." Wrong. I gave it my all and 29:30 was all I had. That is like a 9:22 pace or something like that. That is 1:30 min/mile slower than my pr race. I am a bit horrified by my experience on Saturday. My foot also bothered me quite a bit, but it wasn't what slowed me down. Nothing worked. Not my brain, not my lungs, not my heart,...

Oh yeah - I'm starving. Seriously starving. I've been too busy to get any food and have learned the hard way that I can't really get my hands on anything I can eat after 9pm. Even Chipotle closes at 9! Gees. Oh, and today is my dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! I think I'm going home on Friday so we can celebrate his birthday then. That will be fun. Molly's birthday is on Saturday and I have nothing for her...hmm....I gotta figure out what is cool for 11yr olds these days.

Geeeeees . Life has been crazy lately. Good thing I'm still recovering from the marathon and don't have to be training a lot right now. I tried the whole social thing again last weekend and actually had a great time! Thursday night I went to the Texas Exes happy hour with Augie and Shellie and met Leigh and Melissa there. I haven't hung out with Leigh and Melissa in forever, so it was great getting to see them. Friday night we went out for Augie's birthday and again it was fun to go out without having to worry about getting up early to run the next day. Of course at 7:43am I was wide awake. I didn't go to bed until after 2, but nope, can't sleep late. I felt worthless by 7:44am. Augie texted at 8:10 to say she was wide awake too and we were at the park by 8:30. We weren't exactly heroic though - we did a whopping 3 mile walk, but it was probably just what we needed (she did Longhorn 70.3 the weekend we did St. George). Saturday night I went to see Jackopier...

Last Saturday I ran the St. George marathon in St. George, Utah. It was quite the experience. I have been training for the race since June, after laying low (sort of...) for a few weeks after Ironman Arizona. In January, I ran 4:30 at the Houston Marathon and had my sights set on bettering that time as soon as we signed up for St. George. I had several very fast (for me) races right after Houston last year and was super excited about taking another stab at a marathon. Unfortunately, I forgot that Fall marathons mean Summer training, which means you really have no idea what you are capable of because every run is done in 85+ degree temps and 85%+ humidity. I showed up at the start line of St. George far more prepared than I had ever been for any other marathon. I had several 35-40 mile weeks which is more than I have done in the past. (yes, I know that is nothing for a lot of people, but 30 miles a week is the most I had ever averaged before this summer/fall). The more I ran, the more ...

The following PSA is from my PCHA weekly newsletter, and I thought I'd post it in honor of a few very close friends: Spiders wait, motionless, for flies to enter their webs. This is when spiders get to eat. If the flies don't start flying, the poor spiders are going to starve. Enter the pounce card. This card helps flies steer clear of any webs they might not want to enter and helps the spiders get a bite to eat when they might otherwise starve - by making their web look a bit more inviting. Flies are much better suited to pounce than spiders, but sometimes they forget this (the card is designed to help situations such as this). Everyone once in a while you might come across the Wild South American Pouncing Spider, but that species is very rare. Spiders, flies, pouncers, and pouncees should all consult the PCHA guidebook for further rules and regulations, including the ever-popular PUI/PWI clause. Note: PUI/PWI is not considered an offense punishable by law.

Ok, it isn't exactly pretty, but it is the best I can get. The first column is the mile #, the next column is the goal mile time and the next is the goal overall time at each mile. The next two columns were actual mile times and overall time. You can see I was on track until mile 14...then lost about a minute a mile during the second half. Funny. Pace Band 2008 Actual Mile Pace Splits Pace Splits 1 10:04 0:10:04 9:37 0:09:37 2 09:53 0:19:57 10:01 0:19:38 3 09:29 0:29:26 9:16 0:28:54 4 09:18 0:38:44 9:26 0:38:20 5 09:41 0:48:24 9:24 0:47:44 6 09:41 0:58:05 9:15 0:56:59 7 09:41 1:07:46 8:49 1:05:48 8 10:51 1:18:37 10:40 1:16:28 9 10:22 1:28:58 10:37 1:27:05 10 10:04 1:39:03 10:17 1:37:00 11 10:27 1:49:30 10:58 1:48:00 12 09:58 1:59:28 10:29 1:58:49 13 09:41 2:09:09 9:49 2:08:28 14 09:29 2:18:38 10:49 2:19:27 15 09:12 2:27:50 9:38 2:29:05 16 09:29 2:37:20 10:08 2:39:13 17 09:29 2:46:49 10:04 2:49:17 18 09:29 2:56:18 10:58 3:00:15 19 09:58 3:06:16 11:47 3:12:02 20 09:29 3:15:46 11:10 3...

God's Country (Zion Park, UT) Sin City That is about the best way to describe my trip this weekend! Our group included 12 runners, 9 of us who traveled together most of the way. We left early Friday morning and flew into Las Vegas. We drove straight to St. George from there, and the scenery just got prettier and prettier the further north we went. Friday we just went to the expo, drove the course, ate pasta dinner at the hotel, and went to bed. It had been a pretty long day. When we got out at the start line the wind was howling. That was not a good sign of what was to come! Saturday morning was spent racing, and that report is separate (above). The rest of Saturday was pretty tame, with lunch at a local Mexican restaurant, a nap, and a pretty good dinner at a place called the Gun Barrel Game and Steak House. Sunday we went out to breakfast and then came back to the hotel and packed up to check out of the hotel and headed to Zion National Park. It was about an hour northeast of St...

The following is a list of casualties from the St. George Marathon on Saturday. Some are a total loss while others are just slightly damaged. 1. My ego (slight damage here) 2. The arch on my right foot 3. Right IT band 4. Previous marathon PR (again, just slight damage here) 5. Normal color in my lips (blue is not my color, however I seem to have regained most of my normal color after jumping in the hot tub at our hotel in my running clothes) 6. Some skin from both legs 7. 2 shins 8. 2 quads 9. 3 toenails 10. Loss of feeling in approximately 10 fingers 11. Ego again, but this time in Las Vegas when everyone stared at me because I could not walk in a straight line, stand up or sit down in a normal fashion. The geriatric gamblers looked better than I did. I was sober. 12. My faith in the idea that I will ever be able to travel to a race known for its great weather and actually have great weather. Full race and trip report with pictures to follow...whenever I catch up on my sleep and wor...

Here we go - out the door to run St. George. I have no idea what is going to happen. I guess we will see!

A brief sigh of relief as I have a whole 15 minutes or so to finally sit down and relax for a bit. Then its carbo load time (minus of course the best part of Italian food...bread and cheese), then get to bed as early as possible. We are flying out super early in the morning and this is my important night of sleep. Too bad I'm not leaving much time for it. I'm not excited yet, but I'm not as worried anymore either. I'm just too wound up from work right now to really have much thought about it at all. I will say though that my time spent last night after work was absolutely fabulous! I finally got to meet Jessica Anne and Sarah Grace . I brought dinner to Lisa and her family and got some serious baby time. I think I'm in love. Sarah and Jessica are absolutely beautiful. I got to spend over an hour last night with the two little angels asleep on me. At 6 lbs each, they feel like feathers when you hold them, and I'm still not sure I even believe they weigh 6 lbs!...

I miss bread. I miss sandwiches. I miss pizza. I miss bagels. I miss ice cream. I miss beer and wine (well, not really, but I'll throw it in there anyway). I miss being able to go downstairs at lunch and finding something easy there to eat. I miss tortillas. I miss cheese. I miss hamburgers. I miss cinnamon scones. I miss Collina's bread dipped in olive oil and herbs. I miss Burger King croissants after my long runs. I miss whole wheat toast beside my omelet . I miss cheese in my omelets . I miss not having to plan and prepare for each meal of the day or risk starving (me starving is not the way you want to see me...I promise...I might bite your head off). I guess you get the point...life without yeast and dairy (and a few other things) isn't exactly satisfying! I no longer eat for pleasure, I only eat to make myself not hungry anymore. I know some people get joy out of only eating to fuel their bodies, but blah, how boring! You would think I would be losing weight eating...