The scale has not been showing me love but there are other ways I've been able to measure my success lately. First, I just took my inches today. I hadn't taken them in a few months. I was happy to see that my upper body trimmed up quite a bit. I lost 2 more inches on my chest and an inch off my waist. My hips and calves stayed the same or got bigger but I think that's my muscles exploding from becoming a runner. Boom! Which leads me to my next big news....
I RAN MY FIRST OFFICIAL 5K!!!!
When I finished the couch to 5k in August, I decided that I would sign up for my first race. I had to do it! I needed to make it official. I signed up for a Halloween fun run. It has been great because it gave me the motivation to keep running as the weather started to cool off. I also knew that I wanted to get one under my belt before the snow fell. In September, I also convinced my friend L to join me. It was her first time too. 5k virgins!!
How did I feel before the race started:
- Excited.
- Worried my heart palps would get the better of me. (they didn't)
- Worried the mucky, slippery limestone trails would make me fall. It had rained the day before. (I was okay)
- Ready to get going!
How I felt during the race:
- Excited to be amongst other runners who looked the part. The run was at night so we had headlamps on. Kind of badass.
- When I started feeling tired and sore, I reminded myself how far I've come and that I could do anything with everything I've pushed myself to do this year.
- Worried that L, who had a chest cold, would feel like she had to push herself more than she could to run with me. She wasn't sure she could go full out with her cold. She was a rockstar.
- Stoked that "Pump Up the Jam" came on at the 3.5 km mark. I was starting to lose steam. It got me going again.
How did I feel after the race:
- Relieved it was over.
- In the last 3 minutes, when I just wanted to quit, I could hear the cheering around the bend and it fuelled me to keep pushing.
- Happy to see my family when we ran across the finish line. So glad my kids could see me achieve something so important to me.
- I felt like if I could do that, I could do anything. ANYTHING!
- Excited to eat my complimentary smokie and s'more. Yeah, I tapped that hard.
I finished with a time of 39:06.
I had an odd moment that night too. L and I wanted to take a pre-race picture so we tapped this lady on the shoulder to see if she could help a girl out. When she turned around, I realized it was someone I had gone to college with. I immediately said "D?" She said "yeah. Wait... I know you. Don't tell me..." Well even after telling her we went to school together, she couldn't remember my name. This was both partially exciting and defeating. Part of me thought it might be because I look very different and she may have not recognized me 30 or 40 lbs lighter (I don't remember what I weighed in college but it was significantly more than now). The other part of me thought "oh, the pretty girl didn't remember the fat girl because the fat girl was invisible." Society has a way of letting us blur in the background. Even some of my closest friends in college can't remember that I majored in journalism and was in most of their classes. Yeah. Invisible. Maybe it was because I didn't really want to be seen. Verdict is out.
The good news is that I've always had a bigger than life spirit even if the fat girl unknowingly created camouflage for it. But now my heart and soul are exploding all over the place. It's impossible not to see me! And I like that. I'm not interested in being invisible anymore.
Every time I check an item off the list of things I thought I'd never do, I know I'm creating a life I can look back on and be proud of. It's not super official yet but there is talk that the production company I wrote a documentary for last year may want me to write, produce and host a cooking show which will potentially air nationally in Canada. It will be a healthy cooking show which I am so excited to talk about. I want to show people how cooking good, nutritious, clean food without the smoke and mirrors (aka fat, sugar, processed crap) actually tastes WAY better. Say What?!?!
When I went to college, my intent was to become a TV news host. I eventually let go of that dream because I didn't think anyone would ever hire the fat girl to be on TV. Maybe my time is coming after all.
Not so invisible anymore.
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