Running

To say that running changed my life would be an understatement. A combination of things occurred that prompted me to finally start running. In the fall of 2015 my husband and I had a discussion one night about how time goes by so fast and we felt like our time after work wasn't being spent as meaningfully as it could be. This led to a discussion about hobbies and how as "adults" it is so easy to fall into a rut of neglecting old hobbies and/or not taking the time to explore new hobbies.

Shortly after this conversation I decided to go for a run after work one night. It was rough. Much more difficult than anticipated. However, I told myself that I wasn't so out of shape that I couldn't do one mile. So, despite some complications I ran 1 mile. A few nights later I ran just over a mile, and kept building from there. Starting the hobby of running in December in New England probably wasn't the best idea. Running was difficult in the beginning and combined with the winter weather my running was sporadic between December 2015 and March 2016.

December 26, 2015 Rich and I got engaged! This was such an amazing time and I wanted a long engagement so we could enjoy the planning process. In early March 2016 we went to Portland, Maine, for my birthday and visited a few places in hopes of securing a wedding venue. We ended up falling in love with Oxbow Blending & Bottling, a brewery/bar that we had visited before and thought the space was amazing. As we were driving home from my birthday weekend in Portland a huge wave of reality came over me with the realization that I would soon be walking down the aisle in a dress with 100+ people looking at me! This reality terrified me and I knew I needed to make some drastic changes. So, I joined Weight Watchers, bought a new FitBit, and increased my running from sporadic to 3x per week. I ended up doing at least one 5k race a month, and in November and December of 2016 I was doing 3-5 races per month since the themed races were so fun! I had definitely caught the running/race bug.

Between March 2016 and June 2016 I lost 20 pounds and I ended up maintaining this weight until Rich and I got married. However, after the wedding was over, Rich and I really "let loose" and enjoyed not having to plan a wedding/spend money on a wedding and spent many a weekend indulging. This is when Whole30 came into our lives. We needed a bigger more permanent lifestyle change and luckily Whole30 has become just that.

This is all a very long story to say that yesterday was my first 5k of 2018 and my first race since the half marathon I ran in November 2017. With my crazy schedule it has been difficult to find time to run at all, even on a treadmill, so it felt so amazing to run 3.1 miles outside on a gorgeous day. As a bonus, my husband and my mom joined me for the race! We all did a great job and felt so good getting this exercise and experiencing such a fun race. Once my crazy schedule is over mid-June I cannot wait to get back into my regular routine of running 3x per week.

As an aside, before starting round #3 of Whole30 my husband and I said this round would be a "modified" version as we had a couple of events that we wanted to possibly eat off Whole30 during, one of which was my parents coming down to visit and run the race. Well, we're both so motivated to keep losing weight that we decided NOT to do the "modified" version we discussed and just stuck to the Whole30. After the race we skipped the after-party (which included free beer for runners) and just went home to grill all kinds of yummy Whole30 compliant foods. My parents were happy with the food too and it allowed Rich and I to stick to this round of Whole30 like we did the first two rounds.

Only 9 days left of this round! I can't believe it has gone by so fast!