Finished a 60 day challenge at the gym with a 15 pound weight loss and 7% reduction in body fat and maintained muscle mass. Kinda beat up my body the last 3 weeks and the scale (up 4 pounds again) and my pain level shows it (more on that later....let us just say July is kicking my ass). But still super excited with the progress.
So... what did July bring?
July 3rd- Kayaking for the first time. It was really great for about 75% of the trip. Knocked out of the kayak by tree debris twice, got it righted and back in twice. The 2nd time was when our group hit a strainer. In addition to knocking me out, it also resulted in 4 of our group of 6 losing their kayaks. Spent a bit longer than I was comfortable with alone on the river and worried about the rest of the group. Thankfully everyone remained calm, the Fire and Rescue launched boats and all was safe. (4 kayaks lost but all humans were unharmed.)
July 4th- underfueled and probably dehydrated I ran for the first time in over 6 months. 8k or for you non-metric people it was 5 miles. This showed where all my lifting and rowing has changed my body! Had my first sub-14 minute mile and PR'd the course by almost a minute from the previous time.
Had to take most of that week off as the kayaking (kayaks fill with a lot of VERY heavy water when the flip....righting and emptying is a lot of work). Did some light cardio and rowed a 5k. Wishing I could run as fast as I row.
Had a crazy week after that that should have been about fueling and hydrating for the next run. Well, as we all know life does not follow your plans and I worked too much, ate off my plan and did not drink enough.
7-16 was running again. 4.5 hours of sleep. Underhydrated (anyone sense a theme). But did the Rock N Roll Chicago 10k. Thankfully the weather Gods were kind and it was upper 70's and moderate humidity. The years before it was hot and humid as hell. The knee told me after the first mile it was NOT going to let me hit the pace I wanted so instead slowed a bit and took a few pics and got the knee and leg to calm down and moved on. Pace ended up 15:30 per mile average and 2 minutes faster than last year.
This week nutrition was bad, either under or overeating and hydration was not back on track til Thursday.
What have I learned through all this?
Kayaking is awesome! Until the rain slows I will likely stick to lakes but definitely will do it again.
You can train to race and have a decent pace without running at all in training. My cardio is pretty much all rowing and doing HIIT (weights while keeping reps and exercise mix enough to keep heart rate elevated.)
My knee/quad really are not fans of running but can handle speed walking so if the weather cooperates will start trying to get some land miles in to work on improving the short stride method as it helps protect my knee.
I don't miss running in my training but I miss racing. This means I will probably keep running 2-3 races a year that have meaning to me but space them at least 4 weeks apart to allow better recovery.
Most importantly? I really a learning to love my body and what it can do! I am hitting weights in the gym that are amazing to me.
Had a discussion with someone on "if you didn't need to work for a living what would you do?"
It took me a while and it came to me. I would want to help train and inspire those "like me". To be able to offer free or low cost training to my fellow Chubby girls and help them find the workouts and food to help them live their healthiest life. Skinny is not a goal. Fit, healthy and strong is.
Now to just win the lottery.
