My first official race and why I did it.

clepant

While most of you are sharing your weight loss stories I want to say that I started an incredible journey just over two years ago this month. It was to change my way of living. To examine my life and figure out why I have struggled forever with my weight and to make a change for life. To keep it brief, I was a yo-yo dieter. Lost it, gained it back but each time with more weight. I am sure many of you can say the same thing. So I did not go on a diet. I decided to change my lifestyle. So in the journey, I decided that it was not going to be a fast fix. I gained this weight over time and I wanted to take it off the right way. I say this mainly for me, but we are a society that wants the quick fix and want to know how we can do something as fast and as easily as possible. I started at 220 pounds and had just ate my way out of size 18 and was headed for the plus size clothes when I said no. I will not buy one more larger clothing size. I never looked back. I dove head first into my journey.

I always exercised although it was taking a toll on my body. I wanted to continue teaching and I also wanted to be a role model to my students but I knew that I had to leave my comfort zone in order to get the job done. I have not yet reached my weight goal. In fact the last few pounds have been the hardest. Not because I have gained them back but because I have been pouring on the exercising and as I am seeing my body tone, I also have seen it slowing down on the weight. I am not worried, I will get there....I have no doubt.

In late March of this year after having lost about 70 pounds, I decided to take up running. Something I have never liked. I participated in volleyball, swimming and gymnastics many years ago. I still played volleyball competitively 19 years ago. I still like to swim, kayak, walk, etc,, I wanted to learn to run. My sister did her first marathon at age 50. She never competed in any races. She did lots of them and always finished in the top 12 of her age group and top half of the total field. But it just didn't click for me.

In April I talked my 41 year old nephew to train and compete in a Sprint Adventure Triathlon the end of July 2013.(Kayaking 2 miles, cycling a 20K and running a 5K) I chose it not because I disliked the swimming component but because I knew that the local sewage plant has overflows into our river and I did not want to swim in sewage. That weekend that had five overflow dumping's due to the high rainfall this year.) I had not run any race in my entire life. It was slow going but I managed to work myself up to running some 5 mile training runs close to race day. It was hard at times to drag my body out of bed at 5AM each morning to go run. It took discipline and it meant stepping out of that comfort zone.

I still had my old Schwinn bike from college but knew it was too heavy to get through the race. So at the end of June I bought myself a new and much lighter Trek. That was the first time I had been on a bike in years and it was only a month of training time along with running. At times I wanted to give up. Even though I had built up to a longer running distance, I felt like I was back to ground zero on the bike. I fatigued more quickly then expected and was feeling the leg muscle burn. But I started alternating my running and cycling and the cycling was slowing getting better.

I owned a kayak but I had not been out in it for a couple years. Always seemed to be something that got in the way of getting it out and heading 45 minutes to a lake to go paddle. I did get to do one day of ocean kayaking three weeks before the race. I didn't seem to be too concerned because I had pretty good upper body strength and felt I could sustain the two mile kayak portion. But I almost ended my entire training when getting off the sea kayak. The boat swung when it got hit by a big wave and turned and pinned my left foot right up against the bottom of it with me between it and the shoreline. I seriously bruising my foot. It had swollen badly and that night I woke up with severe pain because the impact hit the nerve running to my big toe and I had lost all feeling in my foot while I slept. I went for ice and taped it to my foot and fell back to sleep. In the morning when the alarm woke me from a horrible night, I managed to crawl out of bed and cried. All this work and now I had injured myself. I got up and got dressed. Loosened my shoe lace and managed to get my foot in my shoe. I pushed through and decided to go try to run. Fortunately, it did not hurt when I ran. It was the entire week of being awaken in my sleep because my toes had lost their circulation and were throbbing in pain.

Two week before my race was most discouraging. It was so hot and humid, every run felt like I was literally swimming in a fish tank. I felt like I was going backwards rather then forward. I realized that I needed to put some transition runs in there where you bike and get off and run. That was even more discouraging but none the less I kept at it. I probably did everything wrong in my training. Carb loading, transition training, not tapering off properly, etc., but in hind sight, not knowing was a blessing in disguise.

The week before the race, my mind kept trying to get the best of me. They say that sometimes its not the person next to you that is your biggest competitor but the one inside your head. It is so true. I had not heard from my nephew for a couple weeks and I had secretly hoped that he was going to say he was not prepared to run. But when I emailed him he said that he was still going to attempt it.

I won't bore you with the details of the race. It had its moments. I kept to the time I had hoped in paddling, I bettered my bike time and had dropped a minute off each mile and my 5K basically sucked. There were seven women that started in my age group. As you may or may not know, they take your age by what you will be by the end of the current year. I am 59 1/2 and was the oldest one in my group. I told my husband I had several goals, The first was not to tip my kayak. The guy next to me tipped his getting in before he had even started. The second was not to get a flat or wipe out on my bike when I rolled down the one hill at 46 mph. The third and most important on was to just finish the race. Well I managed to meet all my goals even though I really had no real expectations. When I finished, my nephew and husband hugged me and told me how proud they were of me. But most of all, I was proud of what I had accomplished. Out of seven women, three dropped out along the race course or were disqualified. When I looked at the digital results, I saw a number beside my name and even though I am not really blonde, had to ask the guy next to me what that meant. He told me that I took second place in my age group. My nephew told me that I had been in first place after the first transition and held it almost to the very end but the woman had passed me during my 5K. I laughed and said that I was happy to be alive and relieve to have finished.



If you are still reading this, I want to say that I learned so much from this experience. So many times I wanted to give up. It was easier to say I wasn't ready and that there would always be next year. But I didn't and now I have the bug now. I want to eventually do a full triathlon. I am working my way up to a half marathon. I want to attempt to "Ride the Rockies in 7 Days" when I retire from my current career in the next couple years. I see the world differently....and I know each new experience means getting out of my comfort zone. But that is what life is all about.

Neale Donald Walsch said it best. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone". I hope all you press forward and keep the eye on your prize. It's there not far from your reach and you can do it if don't let that guy or gal in your head tell you differently.

PS I lost another 6 pounds over the last 9 weeks.. I am getting closer to my goal. I am now a size 6/8. My cholesterol levels while not in the bad range a year ago, had improved even further into the healthy range. My waist is below size 30. My BMI is in the healthy zone. I want to continue to live a healthy life.

Mama530

Thank you for sharing your motivating story. I love that your race had kayaking in it. I love, love kayaking. When my kids get older, I'm hoping they can enjoy it with me.

clepant

Thank you for sharing your motivating story. I love that your race had kayaking in it. I love, love kayaking. When my kids get older, I'm hoping they can enjoy it with me.

I always enjoyed kayaking and since the completion of my race, I have insisted that my husband and I get the boats out and go more often. It is also the one thing my 90 year old father is still able to do.
The kayak part of the race was fun. I learned that you should not be in the middle even though I hung back to be out of the mob. I kept getting hit with other boats. First one from the right and then one from the left. Many people rented kayaks through the race officials and had no idea what they were doing. I could barely get my paddle in the water at times because of the closeness. I managed to get my boat to the outside edge and it was smooth kayaking from that point on. Some guy told me later that it was the biggest difference in his race from this year and last. If only I had run into him before the race...lol