10 Songs to keep you running!

Along with the summer comes the great weather to get out there and hit the pavement!  What better way to keep those feet moving than with a motivational and upbeat playlist!

Love my little pink shuffle, if you haven't gotten one yet this is a must for every runner girl!

Here are some of favorites tunes currently keeping me going on my ever changing playlist:

1. Party Rock Anthem  (LMFAO)
2. Sunny Side Up  (Martina McBride)
3. Miss Independent  (Ne-Yo)
4. Dirty Dancer  (Enrique Iglesias ft. Usher)
5. Starstrukk  (3OH3  ft Katy Perry)
6. Pretty Girl Rock  (Keri Hilson)
7. Till I Collapse (Eminem feat. Nate Dogg)
8. Where Them Girls At  (David Guetta feat Flo Rida & Nicki Minaj)
9. End Of Time  (Beyonce)
10. Keep Your Head Up  (Andy Grammer)

For me it always motivates me to get out there and run when I add some new music to my playlist!  The more awesome music I have to keep me going, the longer I run and don't realize when I've hit mile 10!  I've heard of runners who run without music and I just don't know how they do it.  I've had my ipod die on me around mile 3 of a 6 mile run and I just couldn't wait for it to end. I was bored to tears and so tempted to stop and just walk home.

What's your favorite running song and if you don't listen to music what keeps you going when your out there?

Turning 30

At the Royal Rumble (yes I still watch wrestling, don't tell anyone lol)!

Jan. 30th 2011 I entered my 30's in the best shape of my life and with the love of my life. It couldn't have been a better day or a better month. Got an e-mail from ticket master showing what events were happening in my town and I was like omg I've always wanted to go to the Royal Rumble and it's on my birthday! I forwarded the e-mail to Dave and we made plans to go he got the tickets, we invited our brothers to come along and had a blast!

It's was fun!! Those were taken before all the fun started in the ring anyway!!

I got to blow out my candles and turned 30. Everyone always said turning 30 would be scary, because I'll be old and being 30 means you have be all adult like and what not. Well for me turning 30 was AWESOME! It was the best birthday I've ever had in my life. Turning 30 for me was full of happiness and joy and will be some of best memories ever! I am having the time of my life and those times have only just begun.

I've come to the realization that there is this big 'ol world out there and I have only yet to see maybe even a quarter of it. I want to see all there is to see and then some. Sometimes it feels like I finally awoke from a really long sleep. As if I were only half living my life and when I did, life became this place of wonder and full of entirely new experiences. I am doing things I never thought I would be able. Running a single mile was something 4 years ago that never crossed my mind. Setting my goals on running a marathon was something I never in my entire life thought was something I could accomplish, but I will. There are so many opportunities I have opened myself up to, so many things I used to think if only I could loose the weight maybe just maybe I would be able to do that.

You never really understand how hard of time and how many things are closed off to you when all you think about is the weight. Is someone going to say something or make some snide comment, am I too heavy for that ride, will I be able to walk that long and will I be able to fit in that seat. There are so many things that you close yourself off too and in turn you isolate yourself. When I finally realized I wanted to be free of the prison I had enclosed myself in I opened up a whole new world. I can truly say I have never been happier (most of that goes to having the best guy any gal could ever ask for) but the rest goes to the choices I've made to change myself. Not only the changes in how I look, but how I think and feel about myself. Turning 30 couldn't have been any better and turning 31 will just be the bestest. I can't wait to experience the rest of what life has to offer!!



Theme song for my 30's: She's a Butterfly, By Martina McBride

Our first time...

Our first time running a half marathon that is...

I thought we were ready run and finish, clearly Dave (that's my Sweetie!) had other ideas.

It all began, when I realized I could run further and further and I wanted to run as far as I could and then thought what next. Well a race of course, what else could we do. I had been reading a Boston Marathon training guide among others, and had heard about the Hyannis Half Marathon. I set my sights on my goal and asked Dave if he would join me on this scenic jog HA! He agreed, but who knew this winter would be ridiculous and training would be pretty non-existant. Oh yeah the Hyannis Half Marathon is in Feb, the 27th to be exact. So training was during the winter, well I love the winter and absolutely love running in the cold so all the more reason to pick a winter half marathon.

We tried to train as much as we could, I had joined a gym by this point so would get in treadmill runs alongside my cross training. I must admit though treamill running will NEVER compare to running outside with the scenery passing you by, the whir of the machines and the smack of sneakers not really the same (plus you don't smell all the sweatiness as much when the wind blows it away). I kept thinking even if we didn't train as much we would be okay, what was 13.1 miles; that's NOTHING. So my longest run put in was around 9 miles and by this point Dave's longest run was around 5 miles. Yes, we both know this is not so good when you should have at least run 12 miles two weeks before the half marathon. We still knew we were going to run, there was no changing my mind and I kept the motivation alive!

We soaked up as much as we could on running a half marathon and I'd get questions like, ummm why aren't we doing a 10k or a 5k first. Well I just figured why not grab the bull by horns do the long run first and then we do the 10k's and the 5k's they will seem like a breeze. I liked my logic, it made lots of sense to me. Tons of people thought I was crazy, especially since this was our first race ever. We read so much on how to train, what to eat and you what we ended up with BEING TOTALLY CONFUSED. There is wayyyyyy to much information on this stuff and everyone has different thoughts on what to eat, how many miles to run and how to do this properly. We pretty much picked and choosed amongst all the information what worked for us.

So finally as Feb. 27th was fast approaching and Dave arrived, we did a short 3 miler in the rain as a pre-race run. Then we rested, ate and packed up for our overnight stay down on the cape. We went saturday picked up our bib numbers and I started to get really excited, scared not me. I couldn't wait to start running!!! I just kept telling Dave that we'd make it and we could just walk whenever we needed to for a rest but we would be fine and cross that finish line.

And so we ran!!!

The race itself was beautiful, it did snow a bit but the weather was perfect (at least to me). Unfortunately I realized my nervousness of running a race comes out by having to use every single bathroom stop available (TMI I know, but that really eats up time). So when I would stop to go, Dave got a rest break. We did walk for at least 2/3 miles of the entire race, and we finished around 3:15. We were just happy to finish our first half marathon!! It was an awesome experience and I was so happy to not do it alone. Having my Sweetie right there running with me made the experience 20 times better and helped so much just to have him grab my hand when I needed to walk for a rest and to just know he was there was worth the soreness and pain after we finished!

WE DID IT!!!

In the beginning there was food...

It's been about 4 years since my journey began. When I saw these pictures from our family trip to TN I was shocked, I didn't see myself the way the camera did. This was my wake up call. I thought to myself, how could I let this happen? How did I let myself become this huge person? I was content with my life; I had a good job, my own apartment and I had food. What more did I need?

Food was both my best friend and my enemy. Food was the one thing in my life I could control or so I thought, more often than not it controlled me. I constantly thought about it and would at times not eat at all in hopes I could just ignore the thoughts of the chocolate mousse or truffles and they would go away. I would go out of my way to make sure no one knew just how much I ate, so more often than not I ate at home alone. I could eat an entire cake and a pint of ice cream, that would be my dinner. It made me feel better at least for a little while. It took me a long time to realize that I was not happy with how I looked and was not happy with my life. If I wasn't happy with myself then what could I do to fix it.

It took someone telling my I needed to treat myself and this started me on my way to see what I could do to make myself look better on the outside and try to stop placating the inside with food. I started by buying a couple products from Aveda (this addiction will definitely have to be another post love their products) as a treat and then I started a few work out dvd's (which I did off an on) and I replaced over eating with video games. I would work out at home and try to eat the best I could, but still over ate. I did loose weight over the course of a year and a half I lost about 70lbs and got stuck at around 225lbs. I just didn't know how to portion what I ate. But, whenever I would feel like I shouldn't eat and knew I wasn't hungry I would play a game. This helped a lot, when I found an awesome group of people to play with online using my xbox.

Once I started to feel better about the way I looked on the outside, it internalized when I would hear someone say "You look great!". I then had to learn how to accept the comments. That was hard at first, to just learn that it's okay to say thank you. I am still learning that, but after so many years of being the big girl and not getting complimented ever even now it can be hard sometimes to just say thank you and not make a joke about it.

But on to happiness; the gaming in turn helped me find the love of my life who has been my biggest supporter and will never know just how much he has helped me not only find happiness but figure out that there are no limitations in life and you can do just about anything you set your mind to. Around the time I plateaued at 225lbs was when I met my awesome man, and he mentioned in conversation that he and his mom went running (I don't think he realizes he was the one that sparked my interest in the sport). Well this made me think, huh running I wonder if I could do that.

One day when I couldn't find those reebok easytone sneakers at citysports in my size I figured you know what let me just try that whole running thing. I walked over to marathon sports got fitted for running sneakers and downloaded a 4 weeks to a mile program for my iPod and began. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, my first week out I realized that I wasn't as strong as I thought I was and my knees told me so. After so many years of carry lots of weight my knees were not happy with this whole running thing. They told me so, in many painful ways. Lets just say that little 4 week program to a mile turned into 6 mos. I finally ran my first mile without stopping August 2010 and haven't stopped since. Running has given me a whole knew way to look at life and the way I live it.