Pump It Up!! 5K Goal

As apart of my new years goal to get healthier I registered to run a 5K at the end of April. I was going to run a different 5K when my sister in law reached out to me about this one. I read about it and thought this one would be wayyyyy more fun and more fun=motivation, right. Plus some of the proceeds goes to Breast Cancer research and stuff. Good cause. So we created a team consisting of myself, sister in law Tina, and her sister. We call ourselves.....the "Gator Gals."

Honestly I just made up the name, it has no special meaning behind it, other than my brother in laws 4 wheeler club is called the Gators. :) I am sure we will have fun with it and create some awesome apparel to wear.

As soon as I registered I had motivation painted all over me. I seriously went home that day and actually ran on the treadmill. I am going to keep you all updated weekly or every so often on my training process because I know there will be many points during this process that I just want to throw in the towel. Putting it out there keeps me accountable and I like being cheered on.

Here are a few things motivating me to do this:

-Lose the baby weight. I am not ashamed to put numbers out here because it will motivate me. I weigh in at 198lbs (that is how much I weighed when Roan was born, then I went down to 193 and have gone back up to 198, thanks holidays and lack of self control). I want to be 150lbs by the end of the year or sooner.

-Have more energy to keep up with my newly walking little one.

-Feel happier-I still have depression creeping in and out of me. I know when I am more physically fit I feel more balanced in this area. 

-Save $. Lars new insurance gives discounts if you participate in their health awareness assessment program. I am already onboard with them and have set my goals there and they are going to give me a follow up call in a month to see where I am with my short term goals.

-Have fun and meet people

Here are some tools I am using to get me there:

-I have 2 workout apps that I am using. 1-Zombie Run 5K training. It is so funny. As I run there is a story that is playing out. I have to run from zombies and accomplish a mission. It tracks my speed, pace, and is an 8 week training schedule. 2-Fitness Flow which plays workout videos that I can do at my own pace, it is free by the way, the Zombie run I paid a few bucks for. I have another app that I can record my meals on and monitor my calories but I haven't started that yet and am unsure if I will right now. 

-A commitment to eat better during this process. I had a coach tell me that you can't build muscles on marshmallows. LOL. I plan on cutting out soda, uping the fruits, veggies, and proteins, and cutting out free food. Free food is my weakness and makes me overeat because sometimes I have no self control and see food has currency. If it is free and I have lots of it I am flying high but really I am not.

-Time-I am making this a priority and will commit 3 days a week to running and 2 days to strength training. I plan to do most of this after work or during lunch. I am thinking about getting up early to exercise but maybe later. Roan still gets up at night and I get up at 6 am for work and I value sleep especially during training.

-Talking about it. I am not trying to become an obsessive exercise person, but I think putting it out there gets me pumped up and makes me accountable. I don't want to say I am going to do this and then do nothing and run into someone I was bragging to months from now and they see that I am still sitting on the couch doing nothing. Heck no!!

There ya have it. I am feeling strong today.

Todays Update:
Yesterday I walked/ran on the treadmill with Zombies for 32 minutes.
Today I walked 2 miles during lunch.
Free food was put out at work and I passed it up.

I am open to suggestions and thoughts? What has worked for you with training for a 5K? Suggestions or recipes for eating better? What time of the day works best for working out for you?

Love you all!!

Christmas 2012

Christmas was a lot of fun this year as it was Roan's first. I am sure he will have no memory of it. A few days before Christmas we went to Lars' Father's house, Ivan for games, delicious food, and a little gift exchange. Roan got some clothes and a Duplo train set. That night Ivan went to the hospital with gall stones. He spent the next few days in and out of surgery. He is on the mend now and we continue to pray for his quick recovery.

watching David Archuletta

Christmas Eve we survived a mini snow storm and went over to Lars' Mom's house to start the annual Christmas roll. We enjoyed pizza with his Mom and brother and watch David Archuletta sing with Mo-Tab. It was beautiful and Mom learned what Mo-Tab means (Mormon Tabernacle Choir). Afterwards we went to my parents house and I stayed up late with my Mom cooking casseroles and wrapping presents. One of the perks of having Christmas in freezing cold Utah is you can put all the casseroles and meats outside on the porch when you run out of room in the fridge and they will stay cold.

 Get this bow off me

I was excited for Roan's first Christmas so I didn't sleep well, but we managed to sleep inn until 7:30. Lars and I exchanged our own gifts, he got me a new fancy smancy Nexus phone and I got him a solid chocolate gun and a gift card to a gun range. Then we enjoyed watching Roan open his gifts and play with his toys and the wrapping paper. He was so cute. He wanted to be involved in everyone elses gift opening. We put the bows on his shoulders and he tried to bite them off.

 Roan got mad when we took them away.

Tim giving us a photo-bomb

 Brent's Family

 mmm

 The Dudes

The Gals

Then we went over to Lars' mothers house for the Barlow breakfast. Lars made ableskivers, in addition to that we had ham, bacon, velveeta eggs, christmas roll, juice, chocolate milk, and lots of other goodies. We enjoyed the family and exchanged gifts. Roan received a dinasour hand puppet. The highlight was when Lars' Dad, Rich, opened his gift. The gift tag said it was from "The Fire Department" (aka Lars). He was given a toaster. (a little background here, Lars' Dad has alzheimers and has been nortorious as of late for starting toaster fires in their super old toaster. A new toaster was needed to help in this situation.) We all got a kick out of this, especially Mom.

Nativity

Then we went to my parents house for the Stark get together. We had a delicious dinner and then had a nativity with all the grandkids. Roan played Jesus. He was very good and enjoyed watching and playing with all his cousins throughout the evening. Everyone loved having him practice his walking. I thought Roan was going to be pooped out by now and cling to us, but he had a ball checking out everyone. My siblings had a card gift exchange with a game. It was a lot of fun and I got a gift card to the Desert Star, or as my sister would say, the Death Star. I can't wait to see a show there. :) Roan got a cute pair of footie pajamas, a toy, and a toy organizer. We also enjoyed discussing some of our favorite Christmas memories and family traditions. We passed the rest of the evening with games and butterscotch pie that my brother made, it was sooo good.

All in all it was a happy Christmas. Honestly, I had a little hard time with all the mixed emotions. I was happy to be with my family but sad as I had received some sad news about the passing of a friend who was battling cancer that morning. I cried some of it out before my own family party but I was still hurting inside. So I stuck with Roan the entire time and enjoyed Christmas through his eyes. Being with him makes everything better and for that I am thankful.

For New Years we had 1 or 2 friends over and ate lots of food, played killer uno, stayed up late, and laughed a lot. Good times. 

CHEERS