Shamrock Shuffle Recap

I didn’t sleep well the night before the Shuffle. Part of it was nervous excitement and part of it was fear that I would oversleep. In order to get to downtown Lexington in time to park, pick up packets and get in position to Shuffle, my running buddy and I needed to leave Richmond at the unholy hour of 6:45 AM. I set my alarm for 5:30.

While I was getting ready I heard ran outside my window. Oh noes! I ran and checked both my weather apps. Decided that rain had moved or was moving quickly out of Lexington. Whew.

We arrived in Lex-town and parked without issue. Packet pickup was a breeze as well. (Am I the only one who always fears that their name has been somehow left out of the packet box?) We hustled back to the car, pinned on our numbers, stashed our packets and headed back to the line up. But first, we asked a kind fellow Shuffler to take our picture:

This was the first race that I’ve been in that tried to organize people by their finish time. No doubt this is because it was the LARGEST race I’d ever attempted. In front of me was literally a sea of people, the majority who were wearing green. My buddy and I lined up in the back of the “Under 21 Minute” pack directly in front of the thread that seperated the runners from the “Strollers, Walkers and Shufflers”. The sky was overcast and it was cool. I was glad since I hadn’t brought sunscreen or taken my sunglasses out of the car.

Then we were off! With Steve Earle’s “The Galway Girl” kicking off my playlist, I started to run. And the people of front of me…didn’t. Clearly, there were plenty of people who had no intention of running in the “Under 21 Minute” grouping. Suddenly, my buddy and I were dodging dogs, toddlers, strollers and walkers to make our way through. I understand it’s that kind of race; everyone is welcome But by the same token, I certainly didn’t go stick myself in the middle of the faster groups. Just sayin’.

One of my friends who is an experienced runner and who is currently training for her third marathon told me that on race day, I would find something in myself that would surprise me. I would be able to run the whole thing, she said, even if I hadn’t done it before in training. This turned out to be true. I found that I didnt’ want to stop running. I wanted to keep up with my buddy. I wanted to keep up with the other runners. I wanted to pass the walkers. I just wanted to GO.

I was thankful that the course was flat. I almost slipped once on a relecting strip in the middle of the road. I tried to be aware of puddles. I tried to be aware of little boys who enjoyed splashing through the puddles.

The course wasn’t marked and I didn’t read the map well enough to even know what the course was. I had no idea how far along we were but the end of my playlist signaled to me that the end must be near. We rounded a corner and I saw Krissie B and Nathan. I yelled at her and they gave me a cheer. She also took this picture.

One of my friends would later compliment my stride. That made me happy.

As I approached the finish, I felt a slight panic. OMG! We’re at the end! I’ve ran the whole thing! I can’t run the whole thing! I must be dying! I must walk! And I did, I took about a ten step walk break. Then, I got my head straight and picked back up. I shuffled by a clock that read 23:20.

I’m going to be honest. I just wanted to finish under 24 minutes. I was happy. Then my buddy reminded me that our chip time would be even better. And it was: 21:34.

I’m no speed demon, no. But I did it. I ran. And I will run again.

And then I ate what was possibly the world’s best doughnut:

The Road to the Shamrock Shuffle

My road to the Shamrock Shuffle has been paved with good intentions. I’ve written before that I have sort of a love/hate relationship with running. Like so many other things in life, I want the end result (to be a runner) but I could do without the work necessary to get there (the actual running).

I’ve done several 5k run/walks in my life and I’m at a point where walking a 5k is not challenging yet I haven’t trained sufficiently to run a 5k. I wrote about that here. 

I don’t even remember when I declared when I was going to do the Shamrock Shuffle 3K but my reasoning was that I could prepare for it and then ease into running an entire 5k. I could also get a taste of the fun that my friends have when they dress up for 5k races since costumes and fun wear are encouraged at the Shuffle.

So here on Shuffle Eve, I must admit that I am not fully prepared. My training was hit and miss until the last three weeks when I really made it a priority. I can run a mile without stopping but then I take walk breaks. I am not sure I will be able to run the whole thing. One of my friends who has been running for years tells me that the adrenaline will kick in and I’ll surprise myself. Maybe it will. I don’t know.

I will do my best. I will look fabulous in my green (red hair, blue eyes, I’m a natural). I will have fun. And I will run as much as possible. I’m really excited which is a feeling I’ve never experienced before a race. And I’m really grateful for all of the support that I’ve gotten through my friends whether they are local or on Facebook and Twitter.

I’ll have a race report later in the weekend. I have a new runner’s pack so I’ll be toting my phone around for pictures.

Luck of the Irish to you!

 

Goals for the Week: Be the Unicorn

Saturday night, after a chat on Twitter about getting back on track fitness wise, my friend sent me this via text:

I thought it was the cutest thing. I love hippos. I don’t want to look like a hippo and I don’t think that I do but I love the message. And it gave me a new catchphrase. I love a good catchphrase.

I’ve been off track lately with my eating. I’m ready to get back on track. I AM back on track. Originally, I said I would start Monday. I decided to start Sunday. Two days down, and I’m golden so far.

Goals for the week: Track my food on WW online, exercise at least 150 minutes, meet at least 3 of the 6 Healthy Checks on WW (water intake, veggie servings, multivitamin, exercise, healthy oils, dairy servings).

How will you be a unicorn this week?

Paula: Big Hair, Big Ego, Big Disappointment

I first heard of Paula Deen back in 2003 when during a girls’ trip to Hilton Head, my friends and I made a day trip to Savannah, Georgia. Paula was not a household name at that time. An appearance on Oprah had given her enough claim to fame to cause us to have to stand in line that morning to get on the reservation list for dinner at nine. Her eatery, The Lady and Sons, was good; delicious country cooking not unlike what I was raised on in Kentucky. I remember the sweet tea was good but I don’t really recall the rest of the food. The most memorable thing honestly was that a waitress burst out into a beautiful rendition of “At Last” while we were dining.

Later, when Paula became a Food Network Star, I really enjoyed her show. She was laid back and her food was not complicated. Most of the recipes she shared were not original and were the type of foods you’d find in a church sale cookbook. Nonetheless, she seemed authentic and was fun to watch.

As her fanbase grew, it seemed everything else about her did as well. Her Southern drawl became so thick it was hard to pick out ingredients among the “y’alls”. Her hair became huge, her fake tan glowed orange but most of all, her food became over the top. Salad or entrees that could have been slimmed down if you so chose were traded for ridicilous items liked fried macaroni and cheese or a cheeseburger slapped between two glazed donuts. (Really, would anyone eat this?). As time went on, every show seemed to be giving the bird to anyone who dared try to eat moderately healthy. It was bigger food, more butter and Paula laughed all the way to the bank picking up endorsement deals at every opportunity.

Last week, Paula announced that she has Type II Diabetes. It was one of those things that is hardly shocking news. I watched my grandmother suffer from diabetes for the entire time that I knew her. To many people, it’s a disease that simply limits your ability to eat sweets. That is the tip of the iceberg. Blindness, kidney failure and amputations are all frequent results of diabetes. It is not a mamby pamby sickness.

I was hopeful that perhaps Paula would use this opportunity to be honest with herself and her following. Maybe admit that donut cheeseburgers weren’t such a great idea. Maybe go back to her old ways or perhaps even explore lighter versions of her recipes [Note: Her son has a show on Cooking Channel based on this premise. He is even more intolerable than she is].

But no, instead Ms. Deen latches on to yet another endorsement opportunity. This time it’s peddling medication to treat diabetes. And she makes misleading statements: “I can still have a piece of cake, just not the whole thing.” Uh no. There is no magic pill to fix diabetes. Diet and exercise can help control it. But chasing your cake with a pill is not going to help. And it sends the wrong message to millions of people struggling with diabetes and obesity.

Years ago, when she was challenged for her unhealthy recipes, Paula said something to the effect that she was a cook not a doctor. I wish she would remember that, sit down get to a gym, and take care of herself instead of chasing a dollar to promote medication that is not going to save herself from her bad habits and lifestyle.

But where’s the money in that?

Weight Watchers or Spark People?

Like millions of other people, I am recomitting to a healthy lifestyle as the new year begins. For me, tracking my food is essential for maintaining my weight or for losing these extra holiday pounds. Until a couple of days ago, I was sure my best option would be to cancel my Weight Watchers online subscription and use Spark People which is free. I told myself, I would use the savings to buy more organic food. Now, I’m not so sure about that decision. Here’s the breakdown as I see it:

Spark People

Premise: It’s calorie counting plain and simple.

History: I started using Spark People faithfully in January 2010. I lost about 18 pounds. I didn’t follow their meal plans but rather made up my own which seemed to work fine. I stopped using it toward the end of 2010 and ended up gaining about 8 pounds back.

Pros: It’s free. The blogs/discussion boards/members are friendly and positive. There’s a seperate recipe site that has good recipes. The tracking system for your food, exercise, weight and measurements is solid. It allows you to track any and all nutrients and not just fat or calories. Want to know how much sodium you are taking? As long as you enter the info, SP will track it. Also, has a tracker for your daily water intake. The app for it is good but not great.

Cons: Doesn’t have a tool to track the number of veggie servings, dairy servings or whether or not you’ve taken your daily vitamin like Weight Watchers does. Sometimes the nutritional information that has been added by other members is incorrect or incomplete so your best bet is to enter everything yourself which can be time consuming.

Weight Watchers

Premise: Uses a points system that awards every food a number of points. Each day you are given an allotment of points plus bonus points that can be used over the course of a week. Stay within your points and you’ll lose weight, that’s the plan.

History: Lost weight with WW in 2004. Gained most of it back. Returned to WW in March of 2011 and lost almost 20 pounds bringing me to my lowest adult weight.

Pros: Having done the program for so long, it’s like second nature to me. Website is easy to use and the app is superior to SP’s. Recipes are good. Site allows you to track veggie servings, dairy servings, exercise, vitamin intake and water.

Cons: It’s not free but not terribly expensive either (either $12.95 or $14.95 per month, I can’t remember). The discussion board participants can be snarky to each other.  Only tracks points and not other nutritional components. Can sometimes cause members to focus only a food’s points value and not it’s actual nutrition.

At the heart of this, I suppose, is what my head can wrap itself around the best. Let’s say I eat a banana, which I do every day. If I track in Weight Watchers, it’s a points free food. If I track in Spark People, I will have to count the calories which could be over 100 for a large banana. Will I eat the banana at a “cost” of 100 calories or will I say, “Gee I’d rather have a 100 calorie pack of Cheez-It!”? It’s hard to say. I did a really good job of eating my veggies on WW because 1) they were free and 2) I’m goofy enough to enjoy checking them off the tracker each day.

So, for the next few days, I’ve decided to track in both systems. It will be sucky and time consuming but I think it will help me determine what works best for me.

Do you track your food with any type of system?

Jamie Oliver Project: Baked Carrots in a Bag

This year, my husband and I hosted a Christmas dinner on the Friday before Christmas for my family. My family is tiny at best and due to the holiday falling on the weekend and messing with people’s work schedules, it ended up just being my parents, my hubby and me.

“You are not going to make them eat some healthy meal, are you?” One of my friends asked. Since my dad’s heart attack five years ago though, my family has seriously changed the way they eat. Even on the holidays, they try their best to not go completely overboard. After factoring in my husband’s pickiness, the menu turned out like this: beef roast with gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, roasted brussel sprouts, Jamie Oliver’s Baked Carrots in a Bag, rolls and store bought cake.

I had never made brussel sprouts before and this was a new Jamie recipe for me to try. I loosely followed Jamie’s recipe for a beef roast but didn’t really include it as a “project” recipe. The carrots though I followed through on per his instruction.

Like most of his Food Revolution recipes, the carrots are simple. Chop them up (I used about a pound), and place in a foil pouch. Add garlic. A slice of bacon all chopped up. A teaspoon of orange marmalade.  Some orange zest. Some juice from said orange. A couple of pats of butter. Seal that up into your pouch and bake at 400 until the carrots are soft enough to your liking (he suggests 50 minutes, I”m not sure mine took that long). It worked out well because I could roast the sprouts at the same time and knock out two side dishes at once.

The end result was some tasty carrots. There was just a hint of orange flavor. The bacon and the butter gave them a similiar taste to carrots that have been baked in with a roast. My husband who like my niece only eats “cold carrots” would not try them but both my parents and I liked them. I would make them again as a side dish for really any meat.

Resound11: Home

When did you feel most at home this year: in your life, in your space, in your career, in your skin? What factors make that situation feel like home? Do certain comforts make your space feel like home? Does being with certain people make you feel complete? Is there an activity in which you excel that makes you feel like you’re doing what you were meant to do?

This is your life. Where do you live? Where is home?

How will you resound?

The idea of home means a lot to people. We typically think of home as where we grew up, and where our families are. Working on a college campus, you hear home a lot.

“When are you going home?”

“Where is home?”

“I’m homesick”

Over the years, home has come to mean more to me than just where I grew up although that is certainly the home that will forever live in my heart. It’s where so many wonderful childhood memories were made, where I can sit on the deck and watch squirrels play, and where the first cup of coffee with Mom is still the best part of the day. It’s where I’m forbidden by Dad to use the turkey baster after an unfortunate incident that projected hot turkey broth all over the freshly painted kitchen wall.

Home is also the life I share with my husband and our two spoiled cats. Where sometimes there’s food cooking on the stove and sometimes pizza boxes on the table. Where 9pm television shows are DVR’d and watched on the weekends because I can’t stay awake to see the end (ok, I’ll be honest, I don’t always make it to the end of the 8pm ones). Where covering up on the couch with a blanket is acceptable even in July. Where we can spend hours in complete silence with him playing a video game and me reading a book yet we would be totally lost if the other one wasn’t there in the room.

And home is where my husband grew up, where I’ve been accepted as part of the family and community. Where my sister in law and I will always find some humor in comments that no one else catches and it’s a given that if a box of Cheez-it is in the house, I’m going to have an arm stuck in it. It’s where I’m still graciously asked to play in every game of Rummy even though after five years I still don’t know how to play.

Home is with our friends whether we are dressed up to see a show or decked out in full maroon for a tailgate party.

Home is not just a place but also the people who inhabit it.

I love my home.