Point Chevalier II

The answer to why I’m entering the tri series is because things have slid since I lost 30kgs a few years back. Those 30kgs weren't really lost and I found them again quite easily along with 10 of their mates. My self esteem took a dive, I though that it would have been better never to have lost the weight than to have the shame of carrying it (and more) around again.



I didn’t want to see people because I thought that they were looking at me and thinking “what a failure” “she obviously can’t control herself” and I dreaded bumping into people that hadn’t seen me since I had regained the weight.

I became dissociated from my body. I just pretended it was never there or I would just not have been able to cope at all.

In September last year I had had enough and decided to join Weightwatchers yet again (I had joined every year for 6 years and I just couldn't make it work) this time I felt desperate. I was 37 and I figure that I was always going to be the lump that I was.

I decided to not exercise and see where that got me for a few months. I just concentrated on eating and figured that at some point I could trust myself to want to do more. It took a while! It was around April that I took a Zumba class and never looked back. Then in June I started ice skating lessons and in July I got a new bike for my birthday.

I have lost 22 kgs but that is not really the point and I still have a very long way to go so I am not small! But I really want people like me, that are large and fat with round bodies and feeling like they are not part of life, to realise that being fat is not a reason to avoid the things that you love. Fat people can move, and dance and skate and run and it's OK. The biggest hurdle is getting past the one that says I can't do that. So now it's a triathlon that I want to do and I am not too fat, or unco, or unfit to do it. Because even if I come last I will have beaten all those women that have not taken part, and beaten all my demons that tell me that I shouldn't be there.

To be the Tri it girl is an honour and I’m so excited. I have always wanted to be able to help people realise that round  and soft bodies can do anything. That there’s no point waiting as I have been waiting for the last 6 years and all I have got is older, not thinner or fitter!

Week One part A

I’ve been feeling a bit stressed.

I wasn’t planning to start training yet and here I am the IT girl and I haven’t started.

Hardly inspirational is it?

It’s been a busy week – work, study, preparing for overseas visitors.

Rugby, school stuff, swim lessons, going away, coming back.

Lots of reasons not to train -  next week will be easier.

But as I heard myself on the phone tonight again apologizing for being so busy, I realise that I’ve been saying I’m too busy for years. Wait until I’ve finished my degree, until I’m settled in my job, until  I’ve finished my post grad – until, until, until.

I wonder how I can fit it in, then I realise that I’ve watched some TV, been on facebook, read a book, and that there is time, it’s just I’ve been choosing not to spend it on exercise.

I’ve been thinking that if I can’t get out for an hour then there’s no point bothering (my last tri years ago I was regularly managing an hour of exercise a day)

So I’ve trained myself to think that if I can’t do a lot then I won’t do any.

So this week, while I’ve not started training my body, I have been training my mind to realise that it all counts. That a training programme is great but so is just getting out there and moving a bit more than normal.

What that has meant for me is saying yes when my friend from work says “fancy a walk up the road at lunchtime?” It’s probably a maximum of ten minutes tops but it’s ten minutes less on my butt and ten minutes of chat and sunshine and moving the blood around my body.

Plus it’s ten minutes that makes me challenge the idea that small amounts don’t count. Because they do.

So hopefully, next week will be week one of a programme but if not, it’ll be a week of moving a little bit more than this week and that’s OK too.

29/1/2011 Update

Well finally I have my life back.

My parents visit from the UK is over, Study is over for the year. Assignments done, exam done. Assorted family detritus managed.

Now I can concentrate on me for a bit!

Throughout the crazy time that has been the last few months I have continued with the Zumba and the swimming. I am doing the most eclectic training for this tri. But I figure that's the beauty of these tris. That they are so doable that you can mist it up a little. Sure I will start the recommended training so that I can do the best tri that I can, but I know that if Haidee and Kate came along tomorrow and said, "Sorry chick, we messed up the dates. You're on on Sunday", then I could do it. It mightn't be pretty, I might not walk for a week after and I would definitely be walking and not running the last part, but I could still do it and have a sense of achievement for doing it.

 

I started the couch to 5k programme 6 weeks ago.

I did one session!

I didn't read it properly and was unable to walk without pain for six days.

So I started it again on Sunday!

This time it started with a treat of running round Virginia Lake in Whanganui, listening to the Gossip on the iPod so totally congruent with fat chicks making the most of their assets.

I was going to go again on Tuesday but excuses got in the way so on Wednesday I enlisted family help. I got my daughter to come out with me on her bike while I walked/ran/walked/ran. Family bonding and exercise for two - a double bonus

 

The Zumba I realised has really boosted my cardiovascular fitness and so this means that the running is less scary. I'm less scared that I might collapse with a heart attack as i know that my heart can manage an hour of flinging my unco sweaty body around joyfully every week. Running I'm sure stresses my heart not more than that. It just stresses my thigh muscles.

 

Good thing about running though and something that took my mind of the thought that my thigh muscles might actually be tearing themselves away from where they should be...I was jogging ahead of my daughter and she said "you've got muscles in your calves mum". I don't think anyone has ever noticed that I have calf muscles before.

I never thought that I could run. I'm not a runner. Not built for it, and of course I'm far too slow.
I'm too old at 38 to start, it will wreck my knees and I'm bound to be attacked by stray dogs.

There have been so many reasons not to run. In my head is every barrier.

Some seemingly insurmountable. Really, the biggest worry is that people will yell out of their cars at me.
They'll yell "fat cow" and "look at the state of that".
This is what keeps me walking instead of running.

However, somehow I became an IT girl for Pt Chev 2. And I'm pretty sure that when they picked me, they were hoping for a little more from me than excuses as to why I can't do things.
So I had to do something to stretch myself.
I've never stopped swimming due to how I look in a swimsuit, like a lot of people, so that was going to be OK for me.
And much as the sight of my generous backside on a bicycle is not for that faint-hearted, I have not been perturbed there  either.
But there's something about running.

I realised I just had to do it. Not because I wanted to but because I have been given an opportunity to help others and I can't really do that from the back.
I started my running programme four weeks ago Today is week four and day one.
Today i ran for 16 minutes out of 24. Today I ran for 5 minutes non stop.

Now for some, that may not seem like much. I say  to myself - "it's quite pathetic really - you should be better"
But actually, when I speak to myself kindly, I realise how far I have come.

Those fears at the beginning of this entry are with me everytime I go out. But I still go.
No one has yelled. And to be honest, if they did, I doubt they would say anything nearly as mean as the things I have yelled at myself in my head.

Back to the running though.
I realise that all the time that I am telling myself that I can't that my body is telling me that I can.
It's whispering to me "let me show you what I can do - don't worry"
All I have to do is trust my body to take one step after another.
To breathe in and out.
And that's it.

When it was hard, I concentrated on moving my arms - it's easier to focus on moving my happy arms than my tired legs but if I move my arms, my legs will follow.
I tell myself that I can stop at the next tree, the next bend - but it turns out my body is happy to go a little bit further - just one more step.
I count...one, two, one, two all the way and then I get there.

I have some how turned into someone who runs in the rain, while my mind is not keen on this, my body is like a new puppy and itching to get out there. I think it's making up for lost time.

More updates on my running

I’m continuing with the running and wanted to share the highs and the lows.

A friend of mine recommended running with the Ipod and I was keen to give it a go. So I loaded up my new running tracklist and off I went. I certainly found some favourites. Was bouncing along to the Fun Loving Criminals; feeling the injustice of Pulp’s common people and bounding along to Ministry of Sounds Running Trax 2011.

But.

All this enthusiasm was short lived.

Music makes me run too fast and seeing that my natural running pace seems to be slightly slower than my walking pace, I was pooped. Very early on. So I felt terrible actually.

I’m so useless. I’ll never get there. I was crazy to try. Who am I kidding? I can’t do this. That tape was running through my head drowning out Alabama three Chris Isaak’s baby doing a bad, bad thing.

I was ready to give up and walk home. After all if I can’t do it all there’s no point trying, right?

Thank heavens at my most despondent I saw another woman jogging along in her Contact Tri woman T–shirt. She gave me a smile and I remembered why I was doing this. Not just for me, but to help others get to where the T-shirt  like her too. So that they can go on to inspire others. Without her, I would have gone home for the night, feeling terrible. Beating myself up. But because of her I thought that I may be able to knock out a few more minutes.

And I did.

I continued to find last week hard. The holiday had left me exhausted . It had been a hell of a year emotionally and mentally and without my usual crutch of food to soothe me I had limped along to the end of 2011. I felt absolutely buggered by New Years Eve. Fluey and icky and knackered.

This is a new week though and I thought I’d repeat week  five of my running programme (I’m doing the couch to 5K programme). Day one left me questioning my fitness but two days of biking to work this week made me feel a bit more hopeful.

So today I went for my run before walk. Mornings are good for me as I’m not a morning person and my mind isn’t awake enough to notice that I’m doing anything.  So today I was meant to run for 8 then walk 5 then run 8 again.

So I set off.

I felt OK so I wondered what would happen if I did 10 instead (I’m meant to be doing 20 on Sunday so thought I’d ease in gently). So I headed for the 10 and suddenly I had done it and I thought, well 12 is doing able then. So 12 done so I aimed for 15, then thought I may be able to do the whole 16.

And I did.

I felt elated and hopeful. What I’ve noticed is that once I’ve hit my rhythm then nothing really changes. My breathing is rhythmic and I don’t feel any worse and nothing really hurts. Sure I feel knackered when I stop but it actually isn’t too dreadful.

The other part of my training involves the bike to work. It’s only 7ks but it’s hilly and it feels like a workout. I love the downhills and I love that I’m not scared of being out of breath anymore.

It seems like I’m really beginning to feel excited about this. I hope other people are too.

The long stretch

Last time I wrote I was on a high as a beginning runner.  I was feeling so chuffed with myself. I had managed those 16 minutes jogging and it was like completing the New York marathon for a couch potato like me.
But obviously there were many more lessons for me to learn.
I had the attitude that stretching was for wusses. Well that's not quite true. I always thought that people that stretched were either a) proper athletes or b)tossers or c) a bit pathetic.
My body, the well oiled machine that it was (cough) did not need such exhibitionism to run.

It was at Coyle Park, Pt Chev, where the universe decided that it wasn't being obvious enough in getting me to learn.
Running on the grass was very different to my normal hard and unyielding footpath.
I felt the pain in my Achilles and kept going but it was too much in the end and I walked.
Note - still no stretching.
I thought it would get better if I ignored it but after a week people having to put up with my endless poor me whining, I was encouraged to take myself to the Physio.

Rachel, the lovely physio said that my Achilles was all crunchy and inflamed and that I would need to take two weeks off! I was horrified. I had turned into one of those people that didn't want to miss a work-out. Now that was a shock.
She gave me some stretches to do
Naturally I didn't do them
I tell a lie, I did them on the days that I was going back to see Rachel.

Finally she said I could go for a run again. Just a jog though, she said. Which made me laugh as I had never managed more than a wheezy, shuffly jog at the best of times (saying that - I was so pleased that she actually believed that I was a runner and capable of running. She had more faith in my wobbly body's abilities than I did!)

Anyway, I went for a jog.
But - because I am the queen of self-sabotage, I jogged after a day of wearing high heels at work. So I took my shortened calf muscles and my sore Achilles out, without a decent warmup and with only the minimum of stretching.

As anyone that has read my facebook updates will know, it went something like this.
jog - jog - jog -jog - jog - jog -jog - jog - jog - SNAP
Hmm...I felt like a rubber band had snapped behind me and so I turned to see which cheeky sod had pinged elastic at the back of my leg.
There was no one there and the pain told me that actually this was my body being cheeky at me.
I was so disappointed that being headstrong had caused me to be injured twice in two weeks.

Rachel the lovely physio, told me that it meant another two weeks off with no biking or swimming either.

It took this much for me to learn that I had to stretch.
I missed two weeks worth of training.
I missed the ideal opportunity of the school holidays to really beef up my routine.
All because I was too proud or self conscious to stretch.

The danger for us newbies, or those out of practice, is that we can get so excited that we forget to do the basics. We need to look after our bodies because they really want to get us across the finish line. So if looking like a try-hard stretching at the park is what it takes, then watch me pose because this lesson has been well and truly learnt.