My first 5K

This is team Justice. For 4 of us this was our first 5K ever.

Yesterday was the Friends for Life 5K Walk/Run to benefit the Pregnancy Resource Centers of Central Oregon and yes, my FIRST 5K. We awoke to a beautiful cool, crisp, sunny, fall morning. What a great day for my first 5K! When we arrived at the park we saw there weren't very many people there. If there were 200 I would be surprised. I caught myself letting out a sigh of relief. Whew! That emotion was a little surprising. As we began to run I found the tension slowly leave my body. I was surprised when we arrived at the half way point because it seemed to come so quickly. I was the last runner to finish. That was a little disappointing but I didn't dwell on it. I went on to celebrate the success I just had. I'm sure it helped that I had my own little cheering squad at the end. I couldn't dwell on anything negative because they were all so excited for me. I was beaming! It felt so good to accomplish something that had always seemed so impossible. In 3 months I have gone from 302.5 lbs and sitting on the couch all the time to 256.5lbs and running a 5K.

One thing that surprised me was with the anticipation of the run came self soothing through food. When the run was over I spent the rest of the day rewarding myself with food. Wow; really?! When am I going to get this? You would think after 3 months I would have this down. In fact, I didn't even realize what I was doing until this morning. Friday night I was super nervous. What if we haven't been running 4 miles and the 5K feels so much longer? What if I can't do it? What if the terrain is really hard? So I self soothed with cake and cookies. When the race was over and I realized what I just accomplished I began to reward myself with food; all day long. This morning I woke up feeling sluggish, grumpy and a little queasy. I think one of my goals for the next 50 lbs needs to be finding what my triggers are, how to recognize they are happening and how to work through them.

I only have 4 lbs to lose to reach my first short term goal of 50 lbs. I would love to see a 4 lb weight loss this week. My rewards at 50 lbs were new pants and a picture, so I can see my progress. The problem with those rewards now is I've already purchased two new pairs of pants and had a few pictures taken in the past two weeks. I'm still excited though!! This will be a huge milestone and take me to my next 102.5 lbs. In my mind I can't think about the next 50 because I still have 4lbs to go to reach my first 50. My brother Steve told me if I lose 50 lbs in less than 6 months, the length of time it took him to lose 50 lbs, then he'll give me $100. If I can take 4 lbs off this week then I have definitely beaten him and get my $100!

I'm not sure what rewards I will give myself at the end of my next 50. I'd better start thinking that one through because I'll be starting on it shortly. If you have any inexpensive ideas reply I'd love to hear them.

So onto training for my first 10K, I guess. We are running a 2 mile fun run on Thanksgiving Day and then hopefully running in the Jingle Bell Run. We’ll see what other kind of trouble I can get myself into soon.