8. My ray-soul-mates are asking for me to come play. I can hear them calling. What, you can't?
7. Training for this is transforming my body and my soul.
6. Donating to a cause are AWESOME, but what's more awesome is backing someones physical actions and sacrifice while raising money for something they believe in is THE AWESOME-EST!
5. Cancer still really sucks!!
4. A work weeks worth of tall coffees from Starbucks in $10.15 (USD global average). If you donate $10.15 to my swim I will GIVE YOU five coffee filters and enough coffee for one work week. I PROMISE. You must supply your own coffee pot, water, mug, electrical supply, etc....
3. Everything anyone can do to make the world a happier, healthier place is flippin' awesome!
2. Getting up on a Saturday and jumping in the Atlantic Ocean to swim a
1/2 mile to raise funding cancer research really IS something to applaud!
1. Cancer still REALLY F-ING sucks! I think people alive today would be hard pressed if they couldn't think of one way they haven't been affected by cancer.
Won't you PLEASE consider donating and help me, by making waves, to help Doctors and researchers search more more effective treatments, CURES, and helping quality of life for all patients and caregivers.
Your dollars can make both my swim dreams come true and help with MUCH NEEDED funding for cancer research.
You can reed more about why I swim and how to easily make a donation by clicking this link.
I am prone to making something Al and I have come to call "Mighty Pronouncements." I state what I'm going to do as an absolute, there is no discussion if I SHOULD do it. I just pronounce and then go about doing it. What was the first mighty pronouncement I ever remember making, you ask? Telling Al, "buy me a plane ticket, I'm packing my stuff and moving up there...tonight." That one ended up working out pretty well. See...I may seam crazy, but I actually I really smart with them.
Here's why MP's work for me. 1) I'm stubborn as an ox. (I may come across as all happy go lucky, but when it comes to something I've really gotten my mind set on..good luck on getting me to budge.) This doesn't mean that I'm close minded, I'm just stubborn...there's a difference. 2) I would rather pull out my toe nails with a pair of pliers than fail at something and have someone say, "yeah...I didn't think you could do this."
This is why I DON'T fail at MPs!
The second I might a MP, I'm already coming up with contingency plans: if this goes wrong, then do this to stay on track. As someone once told me, "there are mobiles of organization in your brain." Yep, pretty much!
I've made two Might Pronouncements since the Spectacle Island 5K on Saturday, but I'm just talking about one of them today. I'll talk about the other in a few blog posts....
Mighty Pronouncement #1: I will run one 5K ever other month for the next calendar year, finishing where I started with the Spectacle Island 5K next June.
Here's what my schedule will look like. (Remember, it's a work in progress.)
Because for me it's a challenge. Running doesn't come naturally for me. Running one 5K was a major accomplishment, so just think what an accomplishment run to SEVEN 5K's in a year!
What are my goals?
Small picture... for each race...
1) NO WALKING
2) Don't be last
3) Improve your time from each race to the next
Big picture
1) Build some more character. (As if I didn't already have enough)
2) Push my body in ways it hasn't been pushed
3) Drop some more weight
4) Become more fit
5) Have some fun doing something I once thought was torturous.
It's official!!!! I (along with Reed Making Warrior) finished my (our) first 5K! I checked off all my goals as acually had fun doing it! Forgot my goals? Let me remind you....
1) Don't be last
2) No walking
3) Finish between 40 minutes and an hour
I finished at 50:04, so right in the middle.
It was a fantastic day & the weather chose to cooperate with us right at the last minute. The event was super well organized and well put together! Even more spectacular, considering that the organizers brought everything on the same ferry that RMW, the husband and myself took.
Now...sit back, relax and enjoy a tour through my day in photos.....
Waiting on the wharfs close to the Aquarium to catch our ferry to the island. Oh how New England was the weather!
Well, Reed Making Warrior's cover has been busted! Amy and I waiting for the race to start. We loved that our bib number were only 10 apart!
Heading to the start with the sky starting to clear.
Amy and I post race. Amy finished in the top 120 and was VERY pleased with her time. YAY AMY!!!!!!
A view of the Boston skyline over the Harbor and over the Spectacle Island dock.
I spotted some real life "Lobstah" fishermen setting their traps.
Just as we had boarded the ferry (AKA Whale Watching Vessel) the cloud really began to break. It made for a BEAUTIFUL ride back to the mainland.
The Husband snapped this picture as we approached Boston.
Once we disembarked, we headed to The Landing for celebratory Sam Summer's!
BEWARE!!! One CAN get sunburnt through the clouds...HELLA SUNBURNT!
I really can't wait for the race to post photos from the day on their website! That'll be pretty cool!
As I said in an earlier entry....this was a big f$cking deal for me!!! I honestly could not be more proud of myself. Not that I was totally footloose and fancy free while I was runny, but I did manage to have FUN! More than fun, I was just really proud! But there was one thing I was really not prepared for....
I wasn't prepared for how emotional my husband would be when we met after I crossed the finish line. He was in tears. Al is not a tears kinda fella. Honestly...I can honestly say that I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him cry in the almost 11 years we've been married. Al only cries when, "sh^t gets reall"...good or bad. Needless to say I was really, really touched! I remember telling him, "no, no...you stop, or I'll REALLY get started!" You see, I'm an uber crier.
I was really, really touched though. It was in that moment that I REALLY knew that Al understood just how much that whole thing meant to me.
Kathleen, "What's next?"
I'm already registered for my next 5K and it's VERY close to home, but more on that in an upcoming entry.
Up
until nine weeks ago, those the only acceptable reasons for running
further than a block. (I reserved the "Block Rule" for catching an MBTA
train. There is a utility pole on my street that I use as my cut off
pole.) You see, I never really understood running. I don't really
understand it now, but I certainly don't mock it anymore.
Oh
yes, I would mock running! "Can't you just achieve the name thing by
walking really fast?", I would think to myself. I think there's a deeply
rooted reason I never liked running, but more on that later.
On
Saturday I'll be doing something SO our of my character this Saturday,
that it caused the following conversation took place between Al and I:
Me - "Can you believe I'm running a 5k?"
Al - "No."
Yep. Me neither.... But this Saturday myself, along with Reed Making Warrior will be running the Spectacle Island 5k!
Spectacle Island is one of the Boston Harbor Island. It was a resort
island for the wealthy to escape the city heat during the summer, then
it was an industrial area, a dump, and then was capped and reclaimed
by dirt from The Big Dig, and then turned into a city park. How freaking
cool is that!?!?!?
Two times around & I'm done!
I've been using the Couch to 5K app
to train, and it's been pretty awesome. I've been using the Drill
Sargent as my "coach", he's been pretty cool. The training hasn't been
"easy", but I wouldn't exactly call it "enjoyable". I haven't feel like
puking or dying yet. Which is good, being as that my goal for Week 1,
Day 1 was, "do not die."
It's week nine, and I'm still alive...so I'd say that's progress.
I haven't actually run 5K yet, but if I keep moving my pace up and I incrementally move up each run like I have...I'll hit 5K on the day of the 5K.
I have three goals for myself for the race...
1) NO WALKING.
2) Finish with a time between 40 minutes and an hour.
3) To not finish last.
I think the thing that has caught me a little off guard is how emotional I've been in the past few days entering the week of the 5K. Holy shit! I'm really doing this. For me, running a 5K was about THE LAST thing I would every see myself doing.
I was the chunky kid in elementary school that would always finish the mile last, that chunky kid is no WILLINGLY running two laps around an island in the Boston Harbor. Point to the underdogs.
Not only am I proving MYSELF wrong, I'm sure I'm proving some other people wrong. Even after losing 57.6 pounds, I am still overweight. Running at any size (I'm sure) is work, but running at my size is far from pleasant and far from easy; that's what I'm doing though, that which is hard to makes one more ripe with character. At this point, through my life...I'm one freaking juicy Character Berry.
The amazing part to me about all of this isn't really the running, it's the doing what you think you can't do...or aren't ready, and doing it anyway. Don't wait to be this way or that way before your do it...do it anyway. Cellulite and excess skin on your thighs? Put 'em in some running shorts. Flabby under arms? Put 'em in a tank top so you don't overheat. Scared your boob will bounce too much? Put them in a regular bra, top it with sports bra and get over yourself. They're gonna bounce some. So what? Boobs bounce!
Look what scares you or you think is beyond you straight in the face and do it. Don't wait to be "perfect", "enough" or "ready" for a specific thing. You already are. (Well, I mean...you have to train, let's be logical here.)
I so very much look forward to those tears of accomplishment when I cross that finish line.
As Ben Folds said, "Do it anyway." (You better believe it's on my running playlist!)
