Friday, October 28, 2016

#TeamAwesome

Happy Friday Friends!

Don't Friday's give you the best feeling ever? The feeling of friend hangs, maybe a few cold brews, sleeping in past 5:30am. Although weekends always feel so short by the end of them, they are a great chance to unwind, even just a little bit. I like to stay busy, but I also love napping. I think this weekend will be the perfect weekend for an afternoon nap on Sunday, mostly because I know I will probably be a little hungover from Halloween festivities the night before.

So, this post is called #TeamAwesome, and you may ask, what the heck is that! Well, it is a group of dedicated runners who will be running in the 2017 Ottawa Race Weekend! We are online champions of the race weekend, helping spread the word about the weekend, encouraging others to race, and sharing our training stories! It's an absolute honor for me to be apart of this incredible group of runners. As I have mentioned before, my running story only started a year ago. Being selected to be apart of this team is so encouraging, and I will do my absolute best to help others achieve their goals as well.

I have continuously trained for running. Some weeks are a little more lax than others, but I am always in the mindset of training; even though the race is about 30 weeks away! For the next 15 weeks, I am going to try to get one short run/hill sprints in a week, and one long run. The 15 weeks leading up to the weekend I will really only be focusing on running, running and running! I need to up my distances, as I have never run a half marathon. So this should be interesting!

I currently have an injury that is not allowing me to train at my best right now. My current injury is pretty funny actually, so don't laugh; I stubbed my right baby toe last weekend so hard that I am currently limping when I walk, it hurts so bad. I am worried I may have done some serious damage to it. No shoe feels comfortable and even walking hurts. I am currently taking it slow. Doing some short runs and still going to the gym 6 days a week. I am hoping to hammer out a long run this Sunday, but will have to take it slow.

SO, what does #TeamAwesome mean for me and this blog? It means I am going to be posting a lot about my training, group run opportunities, and trying to encourage all of you to get out there and run! It is the cheapest exercise you'll ever do, and it does so much to your overall health, why not get out there!

If anyone has any questions about the Ottawa Race Weekend, training for certain distances, or just wants to go for a run with me, shoot me an email at deniserollin@gmail.com! I want to encourage all of you to get out there and run!

This year's race is going to be EPIC, as it is Canada's 150 birthday! Can you believe it?

So, in the meantime, I am going to nurse this baby toe back to health, drink lots of water, and get ready for the best run of the year! WHO IS WITH ME!?

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

How low can you go?

Good Morning and Happy Tuesday!

I don't mind Tuesday's. They're not as horrible as Monday's and they get you a little closer to the 'freakin' weekend.

Today I'm going to talk about......WEIGHT LOSS. Last night at my soccer game, I had 2 old teammates re-join our team that have been busy with their lives for the past year. They didn't recognize me. I said hi when they walked up, they responded back, but not like they would have. One of them saw one of my tattoos and was like "Uh, DENISE?? I didn't even know it was you, how much weight have you lost?"

I have honestly been getting a lot of that lately. Not so much of "Who are you?" but more of a double take. This blog post I am going to be pretty honest with my weight loss, because there are SO many people out there that are currently where I was or know where I'm coming from.

K, all judgement aside beside because I'm going to be pretty real right now. When I weighed myself in February of this year, I weighed 212 pounds and was wearing a size 12/14. I never owned a scale before that, and started working out a few days a week in October, so who knows what my weight was a year ago today. I shed several tears that day and wondered how I had let myself go so much. I have played soccer once a week since I was 13, I ran about 5 times a YEAR, I tried to eat healthy, but where did I go wrong, when did I stop caring? I didn't work out much, but how did I get this heavy?

It was a wake up call for me, big time. I started going to a small City of Ottawa gym in October. I would use the machines, run on the treadmill for 10 minutes, do some squats, and call it a day. I never changed my diet in those months though, practically eating whatever came my way. I think I had learned to only look at myself from the shoulders up and telling myself, it's fine, everyone is different.

That day in February I was like, this is not my life anymore. I can't allow this to be my life anymore. I took my first class at Iron North the first day of March and never looked back. I struggled those first few months, let me tell you. It made me realize how unhealthy, out of shape and FAT I was. I had been the type in the past to always be in relationships and make them my priority, but I was now changing my life and not allowing that to be my reality anymore. I have been single for over a year now and it has been the best decision to just focus on me, my health and not shitty men anymore.

I had to do a complete overhaul of what I was eating. I now limit sugars, bad carbs and any processed foods. I tend to eat smaller snack type meals throughout the day, and stock up on proteins and vegetables. I cheat every now and then, don't get me wrong. But loosing weight is 20% working out and 80% what you eat, so I had to be honest with myself and what I was eating.

So, I am now officially down 56lbs and am a size 4. I have gained a lot of muscle mass, but I am happy where I am. I would LOVE to get down another 16lbs, but it's tough when you're weight training a lot. My weight fluctuates between 152lb and 157lb during the week.

God. I cannot believe I'm publishing that number. The number that scared the shit out of me so much that I decided to overhaul my entire life. Wherever you are in your weight, nothing is impossible. When I first started at the gym with my monthly membership I thought, wouldn't it be nice to loose maybe 20lbs? Be able to run a 5km without dying? Maybe lift heavy? Now, my goals are different. I signed up for the Ottawa Race Weekend Half Marathon yesterday, I want to be able to do pull ups without a band, I want to deadlift over 215lb (my old weight, really) and I want to be able to do Spartan next summer! All of these things were never in my range of sight last year, but they are now, and I'm so excited to conquer them all, because I know I can!

Thanks for reading this and not judging me, because we all need that one push, that one thing to start us, right? Mine, was reading 212lb on my scale.


Friday, October 21, 2016

RUN FORREST, RUN!

Hey Everyone!

I haven't posted in about a month, but life got pretty busy and overwhelming, so I took a break!

I started a new job at the beginning of the month and was thrown into probably the busiest week ever. We had two giant events during my only 2nd week here, 1200 people through the doors in 10 hours with a small team of 6 was a HUGE undertaking, but it went super well and I am very happy to have a prestigious event like that under my belt.

NOW; the title of this entry is Run Forrest, Run! So if you didn't get that I was going to talk about running, go back to bed. (Sidebar: I'm the most sarcastic person you'll ever meet ever, so don't ever take an "insult" on here as so.)

I've always wanted to be considered a "runner". About every 6 months in my 20s I would go out for a run, die in the first few minutes, walk a bunch during my run, and come home to only realize I went 2km. I never stayed on it so I never got better. About this time last year I went through a breakup, and ran the 5km race during the Ottawa Army Run the next day. It was probably the most perfect thing to do right after a breakup. It wasn't what I wanted to do only 12 hours after, but I was doing it with a friend and knew I couldn't back out. I ran the 5km race in 37:50, which at the time I was so proud of. I remember thinking after my run "I can do this, and I should do this. I should really stop ignoring all this weight gain and actually try to do this." I think that day was my turning point in becoming healthier, I truly believe in that 37 minutes was when my mindset changed to wanting to be healthy. A year later, I am in the best shape I have ever been in my entire life, and continuing to have better endurance, get stronger and run faster.

Fast forward to a year later, and I can run 5km in 25 minutes flat. :|

In the last year, I have committed to running a few times a week. Starting in March, I started training for the Ottawa Race Weekend 10km race. I would run between 5km-8km 2 times a week, and would do a 10km run on Sunday's. The first time I ran 10km took me 1 hour and 11 minutes. My time with running 10km has fluctuated a bit, running it in 1:06 during the race weekend and being just under an hour when training. The organizers almost had to cancel the race weekend due to the extreme heat, so I am just happy I finished with that time. About two weeks ago I ran 10km in 55 minutes. So, almost 10 minutes down from my race weekend time.

I am finding everytime I run, I get a new PB. My fastest time only occurred last Sunday. Sunday's are usually my rest day, but by 7pm I was antsy to exercise and move around. I decided to go out for a brisk 5km and start off strong. I ended up finishing 7km in 35 minutes, so having ran the first 5km of that in 25 minutes. I was SO excited about this time. I have been trying to get closer to a 5 minute pace time forever. My pace is usually between 5:25 and 5:45, so to finally have hit 5 minute kms successfully was a big moment for me. I realized I just had to really push myself.

I have now signed up for the Ottawa Race Weekend half marathon. 21.1kms. I am very excited for this race and have no real expectations for myself just yet. I am going to continue with my running program (1-2 times a week) and really try to stick to that through the winter (Ahhh, winter running!). By the time March comes around I'm going to increase that, increase my distances and hope for the best come May!

I have realized in the past year that running is definetly a passion of mine that I will continue with. I am not a crazy runner, I don't have all the right gear, I don't always produce the best times, but it makes me happy so I'm going to keep running and continue to get better!

I will close this off with the most flattering photo of myself that I have (not)! This is my crossing the finish line of this year's 5km Army Run. Which is when I could really see how far I came in the past year (10 minutes better, to be exact)!