May 12, 2010

I apologize to my faithful followers about not getting this out sooner. I got food poisoining on Wednesday evening and into early morning on Thursday. My sickness lasted until about Sunday when I felt okay to drive, go to the dropzone, and actually upgrade from soups to sandwiches. And no, I didn't jump. I'm still not 100% and it's Monday. Stupid Chef Ding Chinese food delivery. But the good news is...I'm well on my way (quickly) to losing weight. I am not sure how much I dropped, but I can see it already in my stomach. I guess going a couple of days with just crackers and a few spoonfuls of soup will drop that weight in no time. And I still haven't gotten up to a full meal just yet. Also, good news...my boobs stayed in tack. Usually those are the first to go when you are losing weight. However, now everyone thinks I'm pregnant. I am not.

Wednesday started out as a good day. The week was getting more and more bleak that I was going to have to run on my own (hate it) or just blow off the week. Then, Jodi came a calling like a cowboy to a prosititute. We decided to meet up at Bear Creek Park again, but this time, we had a new addition. No, Amy has still not graced us with her presence, but my good friend, Jules did. She is a Firefighter and Skydiver and used to train for marathons, but hasn't ran in a long time (especially now since she has had major foot issues). Consequently, she fit right in. Eventually we will be a foursome (don't get any sick thoughts), but for now, we are truly a threesome.

I introduced Jules and Jodi (J squared...er...I'm working on it) and we got to our stretching. After the stretching, we started our warmup walk and then kind of gave Jules the rundown of what we do out here on this track. Pretty much, we are awesome and everyone around us bows at our Awesomeness. Wait, what? Who wrote that? It must have been some evil spirit that took over my body to type that to make me look bad, but it could happen. Our walk was alittle longer to get Jules used to everything. A soccer ball flew right by Jodi's head, but she survived. Then, we started to pick up the pace. It's still a light run for me and especially Jules. We didn't run a full mile all at once. This was more run, walk, run, walk, because we didn't want to leave Jules behind even though she begged us to. Most of the time, Jodi and I would run ahead of her and stop at a certain point. Jules would immediately catch up, because her walk is as fast or faster than our run. She's like a super walker. In the middle, I had to make a stop at the bathroom for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the girls had to hear about my tummy issues of the day and then, I just had to show them proof. We needed something to talk about and I thought that a good long talk about poop would be the perfect way to blow through a mile and it was. We all had our takes on it. Turns out my issues were food poisoning, but I won't divulge anymore information.

After our emergency bathroom break, we started our walk back up again. Jodi and I ran to the deck to do our post workout stretching. For the last 100 ft or so of the run, we really picked up the pace. I was informed with no excitement from myself that this would be the pace that we use during the 5K. We will then pick up the pace even more for the half marathon. Jodi could be one of those evil trainers that I hate to love, but she's a damn fine motivator. Thank God, she is my friend first.

Our stretches lasted for about 10 minutes with this weird guy watching us. But we weren't done yet. We wanted to add strength training to our runs like the guide tells us too. So, with Jodi's martial arts background and my little stint in mixed martial arts, we just laid out some of our workouts that we used to do before we got to the actual sparring or training. Most of it was on memory, which you know what that means. "It's like this...wait, no it's like this. Now, follow me. I think we did this amount of time. What did I say again?" But we all learned a great deal of new ways to beef up our abs and endurance. Our next step is for Jodi and I to come up with a list of our workouts that we have used in the past and kind of pick the best ones. Then, we can rotate other ones in, because we don't want to kill ourselves doing everything. My workouts had more time, but less activities. Jodi's had less time, but way more activities. So, we are going to come up with something. I was hoping by tomorrow, but I doubt it. You know, I think I still have those videos from Bam Bam Martial Arts (great place to learn mixed martial arts in the Houston area by the way).

So, this week ended up being a total wash for me. Jodi and Amy ran on Sunday morning, which I didn't have the energy to participate. Our next planned run is tomorrow depending on my energy level. But I am pretty sure that I can at least walk if nothing else.