Great Columbia Crossing - Done!

Whew! What a day!  This morning Mr. Kawaii and I got up at 3a.m. and drove to Astoria for the Great Columbia Crossing.  I'm veeery sleepy now, so this is going to be a short posting but I wanted to be sure to update the blog with how AWESOME the day went.

This is the first walk I've done solo, and I wasn't sure how well I'd do on my own.  But as the group of 3,000 walkers, joggers and runners headed across the starting line I looked through the crowd to find a couple of people who's pace I thought I could match and just followed them as they made their way through hundreds of people walking at a slower pace.

When I did this same walk last year, my time was 2 hours and 8 minutes... just fast enough to miss the bus that picks up the slow-pokes at the end of the race.  This year though, after months of walking and other types of fitness training, I finished the 10k in 1 hour and 48 minutes.  I couldn't believe I beat my previous time by a full twenty minutes!

I'm feeling pretty accomplished now, and I've got to give big thanks to a few people for helping me to make so much progress.  To M and K, I thank you for walking the track with me this summer and hiking through the forest of Farmers' Markets.  To E, thank you for listening to me gripe when I feel like I'm not making the progress I feel like I should (you're the best firefighter I know).  And to my dear husband I would like to say a special thanks for being the best cheerleader a woman could have - seeing you at the finish line this morning made the whole walk worthwhile.

And do you blog readers, thank you for checking out the blog.  Without your readership, I probably would have given up on my goal to be more fit months ago.  You have all helped to inspire me to keep my promise to myself to be more healthy by keeping me accountable for the workouts I make as well as those I miss.

Now I am off for a couple of days of rest.  Hope you all have a wonderful start to your week, and remember in whatever it is that you are hoping to achieve: the easiest way to get to the finish line is simply one step at a time.

New Tactics

Today M and I strolled farmer's market for some great deals on produce (we got some of the BEST strawberries!) before we headed out to work in the garden at my house for a little over an hour.  As we chit-chatted, I mentioned that I've been getting a little frustrated that the scales still don't seem to be moving, even after all the work I've done this summer.

M suggested I sign up for a website that she has been using this summer to help her track her progress with changing her diet and exercise, and so I sat down this afternoon and decided to give it a shot.  The website is www.sparkpeople.com and I've decided I'll work with it for the duration of my free trial at 24 Hour Fitness.  It will be interesting to see how the SparkPeople program tracks my activities and meals, and I'm looking forward to reviewing the reports that result from it to see if there are any holes in my program.

In the meantime, I'm keeping busy with even more activities!  Tomorrow I walk in the Great Columbia Crossing, and I'm really looking forward to crossing that finish line!

And Around The Track We Go!

Just a week and a day away from the Great Columbia Crossing, and I couldn't be more pleased with my progress getting prepared for this 10k.

The first 10k that my husband and I did together we hardly did any training to prepare for, and the second one we only trained for about 3 weeks ahead of time to try to be in shape enough to survive.  This time around though, I have been active all summer, and I've spent the last couple of weeks testing my endurance and working up to the 6 1/2 mile distance that the Great Columbia Crossing will cover October 3rd.

While last week I walked/jogged 4 miles, this morning I upped it to 5 and hit the track with as much fervor and enthusiasm as I could muster for 8a.m. on a Saturday morning.  I forgot headphones this morning, so instead I gave myself a series of pep-talks and kept verbally pushing myself to keep a steady pace and not worry about checking the time on my cell phone until I was done.  I have a really bad habit of wanting to time every single lap when I train, and while that might be helpful if I was doing a sprint, it is really just unnecessary micro-management over such a long haul.

This morning I was able to complete right around 5.5 miles in 1 hour and 40 minutes.   I'm really excited that even though I lengthened the walk a mile and a half further than what I did last week I was able to maintain an 18 minute per mile average.

All this work has really paid off and I can't wait to get to the starting line on the 3rd and push myself to finish ahead of the big yellow bus of doom.  I have truly proven to myself this summer that hitting personal goals, while never easy, can be done if you just put one foot in front of the other.

In other news: My reward for finishing this 10k is a new pair of running shoes.  Hooray!