Virginia goes to Physical Therapy

As the title suggests, I had my first visit with a Physical Therapist today!

Relax, I'm not injured!

I'm just paranoid.

When I was training for the half marathon, my knees started acting up, and I had seemingly continuous back pain, so I figured I ought to be proactive about strengthening and stretching the parts that need that kind of thing.

My biggest fear is that I will run my knees or back into the ground and not be able run anymore and thus lose the only successful weight and cholesterol management method I know.


My physical therapist said I was super tight all over my calves and hamstrings, including my IT band, which is most likely the culprit for my knee pain. I could hardly do one of the simple calf stretches she showed me. The coolest part is that instead of just telling me that my pelvis is misaligned, she talked about things I could do to fix it! That information alone was worth more than half a dozen trips to the chiropractor! She even told me how to test if my shoes were worn out!

Thank you, Physical Therapy and Husband's company's AWESOME insurance benefits for keeping me on the pavement!


Also, sorry to all my fans for scarcely updating. They don't pay me enough (ahem, anything) for this ; )

Lastly, you may (or may not) have noticed my fancy new background. It matches my running shoes!


Happy Trails!

The Biggest Nerd

I have been meaning for a while to post about how The Biggest Loser has inspired me, and I guess now I have an even greater reason to post because today I totally High-Fived this seasons winner, Michael!



I knew he was from the Chicago 'burbs, and they showed clips of him running on the lakefront, but I was still totally surprised! I recognized him right away, walking with a big crown behind him and being a big ham, and I got all star-stuck like a small-town girl. haha.

So what do I do? I run up beside him and yell "BIGGEST LOSER MICHAEL!! WHAT'S UP?!" and put up my hand for a high-five! He was with his mom, Maria, so I waved at her and said "Go Team White!" and then I felt really dumb and overly-excited, so I ran away.

It kinda made my day!

I've decided that if I see him again, I'm going to ask him to sponsor a World Vision child because I know he has the money!

***Shameless plug: If you want to beat him to the chase, you can be my FIRST sponsor here! Come on, I feel a little pathetic being at $0.00!)

So anyway, on to the inspirational bit. I'll keep it short, I promise.


I guess it's pretty simple, really. There are these painfully obese people who work out around the clock and learn about nutrition and end up losing a ton of weight, and then THEY RUN A MARATHON! It's a total "if they can do it, so can I" story. It's true that I don't work out 12 hours a day, but I do have about a 200-pound advantage on most of them! (And better hair... sorry, Daris!)



I've only recently subscribed to Runners' World, but so far every single issue has had someone with a six-pack on the cover. Maybe I'm strange, or maybe I just can't relate, but fit people don't motivate nearly as much as seeing a recovering obese person push themselves across the marathon finish line. In my mind, a six-packer should be running marathons. It's probably easy for them. That's what skinny people do, right? Run marathons all day! But an obese person? Now that's an accomplishment to finish a marathon!

I've always taken the BMI chart with a grain of salt, but at one point I was a pound or two away from being technically obese. It's really embarrassing and surprising and scary because I never felt obese, but I was slowly on my way to being a Biggest Loser candidate myself someday. Thankfully I got my wake-up call early and took it seriously with the support of my Mr. Wonderful, family and friends.

So consider me on the Orange team (World Vision's color) 'cuz here I come, Formerly-fat Marathon-runners' Club!
GRRRR!

Lest I be ungrateful...

Where ARE my manners?! I just got an award (my custom finishers medal... oh yeah!) and didn't thank anyone!

So here it goes:
(In my best rapper impersonation) I'd like to give thanks to God first.
This is for obvious reasons, namely, keeping me alive through all this!

Also, I couldn't have done it without Alan Jackson, Sugarland, Kenny Chesney, and other upbeat country stars to keep me distracted from what I was doing. You too, Taylor Swift!

Half a marathon later and...

...I have no idea how I'm going to run a whole one!

Don't get me wrong, I finished, and it was awesome! But not awesome enough that I could have turned around and ran another one back-to-back to finish a whole marathon!

Another serious concern I have is not just about the marathon, but the TRAINING runs that are longer than what I just ran! Between August and the end of September, there are no less than FIVE runs between 14 and 20 miles! And no medal, no flowers, no porta-potties and water stations and roads blocked off. How is that supposed to work?!

The good news is that once upon a time I thought running three miles was a lot. (It still kind of is, actually) but now I can run 3 miles pretty easily. 26 miles should be no problem, right? (okay, I'm not convinced either...)

I guess we'll just cross (or hobble over) that bridge when it gets here!

The Mile by Mile Overview
My lungs felt fine! I was not out of breath at any point!
My legs, on the other hand, started to run out of gas around mile 9 or 10. I experienced a brief surge of energy around Mile 11 (getting closer!) but it was short lived. Then I saw the finish line, and BOLTED! Praise the Lord, I finished!



Then I spotted my husband and made my way toward the water stand. There was only one problem: I could barely move!

It remains a mystery to me how someone can RUN the whole way and then have a terrible time walking afterwards. It's like, Hello Body, I'm giving you a break, here! Work with me!

That's probably been one of the most fun parts about this whole thing is understanding my body more (and sometimes less) than I ever would have.
The definite most fun part has been eating. I ate a whole frozen pizza after the race! Don't judge me; I burned about 1300 calories in 2.5 hours! Try doing that in Pilates!

13.1 TOMORROW!

(This post is for Courtney, since she reads my blog too. And she's ran half marathons before!)

The past 12 weeks of training have all led up to this: my very first HALF MARATHON is TOMORROW!

Honestly, I feel ready for it. Yes 13.1 miles (can't forget about the .1! I call it the pesky point-one because... it's pesky! You get to the end of your last full mile, and then you're not done! Annoying!) But as I was saying, 13.1 miles is far. Farther than I've ever ran. But I've ran farther than I've ever ran a lot over the past several months, and I think I can do it again!

Praise God, I have not been severly injured and made it this far in tact (for the most part). My knee is untrustworthy, but it's still there, so that should be good enough. Otherwise, I have no reason to believe I can't finish. I ran 10 miles last weekend, and it was a big, long, sloppy, sweaty mess, but I finished! I was terribly sore and walking around like an old lady, but I wasn't out of breath! That's about my expectation for tomorrow.

As good as I'm feeling, a little inspiration never hurts, and I found some while watching this: The Spirit of the Marathon!




I've developed a taste for documentaries over the years, and this one is coincidentally about the Chicago marathon, and it follows beginners, intermediates and professionals through their journey. I got all goose-bumpy and kinda teary all over again. Cleary, I need to hurry up and just run this thing! The anticipation is the hardest part. Hopefully after tomorrow I'll have a better idea of what to expect!

See you at the finish line!!

(Sorry, I had to!)

I'm not sure how to account for my blogging absence. I've been running; I've been not running. I feel guilty; I feel proud. It all blends together.

This is probably bad, but as my long runs get longer, I still do them, but I slack a little on the weekday runs. In my defense, I have been battling a bum right knee recently.

On an up note, I once again ran farther than I've EVER ran before! NINE miles! Go me!
I then proceeded to binge on pizza and ice cream the whole weekend in celebration of my 25th birthday.


And because this blog doesn't have nearly enough pictures (because spandex running gear is NOT flattering) here's me on my birthday!

I WON!!!

(This update is for Angie because she's the only person who has told me she reads my blog!)

I got my cholesterol checked again, and.... DRUM ROLLLLLL..... I WON!I reached my goal! My triglycerides are normal!

Warning: Biology lesson to commence below

To be specific, a healthy triglyceride level is below 150, a not-great but not-terrible range is between 150 and 200, and over 200 is really bad news.

In October, my triglycerides were at a scary 222, and the doctor started talking about Diabetes and all this crazy stuff, which is what motivated me to start running more seriously. Now, my triglycerides are totally in the clear - 143 to be exact!!! YEAH BABY! Take THAT, diabetes!

And if you really want to know...
My total cholesterol was good in Octber and got better: It's now 158, and needs to be below 200

Interestingly, my LDL (bad) cholesterol went up since October, but I'm still under 100, which is healthy.

My next project is to get my HDL (good) cholesterol up. It went down from 38 in October to 33 in April, and it needs to be above 40. The strange thing is that the only remedy is... exercise. Hmmm? That's exactly what I've been doing!

My doctor said HDL is mostly genetic, so my mom appologized to me when I told her :)


Biology lesson over.