Motivation

June 2, 2019

I find that my motivation comes and goes quite drastically. For months I will be so dedicated and consistent. Then, with a minor bump in the road, I find myself going months with no desire to step foot in a gym. A month ago, I was in one of the “dedicated and consistent” stages, self-motivated to wake up and get going every morning. I was in the gym for 1-2 hours every day lifting and then on the road running for another hour to get my cardio in. Then I went on vacation for a week and gave myself a break. When I got back, I gave myself another week of rest before I hit the gym again. When I finally started again, I found myself not as motivated as I previously was. I was sleeping in longer which led to a shortened gym session since I have to finish earlier to get to work on time. Sometimes I would over-snooze and just skip altogether because I didn’t have enough time before work. Some days I just wasn’t feeling it. What happened?

This was actually what I was afraid of too when I was on a runner’s high last month. I kept going because I was afraid that if I fell off the wagon, it would be hard to find motivation to get back on. But at the same time, I knew I did want to eventually stop running for the summer season because it’s just too damn hot to run outside and I find it extremely hard to stay on the treadmill long enough before I get bored and want to jump off. I’m going to try and get a few more weeks in before the summer is in full swing and then put a hiatus on my outside running til the fall/winter season where I want to start training again to build stamina and endurance for next year’s Princess races.

RunDisney Princess Half Marathon

March 4, 2019

It’s been a minute! I’m back from the half marathon weekend and I have so much to discuss. Where to start?!

I’ll cut to the chase of the race results first. I completed it! (Obviously.) I finished the race in about 2 hours and 47 minutes, according to my official RunDisney results, although if you’ve ever ran these races, you’ll learn it’s not that exact, give or take 5-10 minutes due to a variety of factors, which I’ll go over. But this isn’t too far off since when I trained, the farthest I ran was 20 km in about 2 hours and 30 minutes time. The half is 13.1 miles, which is about 21 km, roughly. I placed 6115 out of 20100 total finishers, and 4818 in the gender place out of 17106 women who finished.

I can’t begin to tell you all the emotions I went through that day. From the start to the finish, every thing felt like a whirlwind. In retrospect though, I’d have to say it was quite the experience of a lifetime. It really does move you to see what you can do, what you are capable of and everyone around you motivating you as you push forward. It’s an amazing feeling.

Morning of the Race

I woke up feeling so anxious. Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t really get any sleep that night at all, maybe an hour if I was lucky but I felt like I was up the whole night trying to fall asleep and then gave up at a certain point and just got up to get ready and warm up with my resistance bands for glute activation. So I didn’t wake up, per se, more like I got up at 1am since I had to be on the buses by 3am. The race doesn’t officially start til 5:30am so it was a long morning. I had a banana and a protein bar for breakfast on the bus although I wasn’t feeling very hungry but I knew I was going to need it as race fuel later on. You don’t want to run on empty. I was also racing with one of my best friends, which helped a lot to keep each other company during the long wait, since the beginning of the race took forever. It officially started at 5:30 but they launch in corrals and I was corral F so I didn’t get to start until nearly 6am.

My poor sisters also woke up in the dead of the night to make the mecca with us to the start line. Looking back, they didn’t need to be up so early, but now we know for next time they can just meet us at the Magic Kingdom checkpoint instead. I feel bad making them get up so early but I really appreciate the dedication to being my cheerleaders for this weekend. They were a big part of my trip and helping me push through it and I had such a great time because they were with me in body as well as spirit. They even made posters and held them up proudly. Just them being there and running to each checkpoint, screaming my name out, saying “YEAHHHH THAT’S MY SISTER!,” texting me throughout the race to check in with me and how I was doing, taking all my photos, well, it really did mean A LOT to me. It takes a lot of love to do something like that and it really meant something to me that they took the time out of their lives to come out for me.

Products I Used (for the makeup enthusiasts)

I read a few blogs regarding makeup specifically for races because I knew that regardless of how people warned against wearing makeup during races, I was going to do it anyway so I wanted notes from other racers who had done it. I’m vain, we know that, so let’s get that out of the way. I did my makeup, locking it in with primers before applying anything and then setting the finished look with Urban Decay’s All Nighter Spray, which is why everything still looked intact despite the humidity and my face feeling like it wanted to melt off, for those asking how I was able to cross the finish line still looking like a princess, hahaha. Using both primers to start and a setting spray to finish was double insurance.

I looked into a lighter coverage foundation than my usual full coverage to lessen the damage that might incur from the combination of foundation and sweat clogging up your pores and causing breakouts. I bought Dior’s Dreamskin cushion, which I ended up loving. It’s light and feels great on. It still covers up my freckles, albeit lightly, and I love that it just looks like an enhanced version of my natural skin, similar to a BB cream finish. I used a more natural looking color blush as well, as opposed to my traditional bright pinks. I tried to stay in neutral tones closer to my natural complexion, so that if I did sweat and my makeup started to melt off, it wouldn’t look a complete hot mess. I did choose a nice bright Barbie pink liquid lipstick though with a layer of glitter on top for my lip color. I wanted a punch of color to match my race outfit. Liquid lipstick I highly recommend for long wearing color. A lot of blogs also highly recommended waterproof mascara which I definitely can attest to its recommendation since regular mascara will definitely give you some raccoon eyes after a few miles. I opted out of false lashes for the race though to avoid the lash glue melting if mixed with sweat and getting in my eyes.

Training Results & Reflections

February 18, 2019

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed in myself because I am. I was able to get down to 105 lbs for my birthday. It wasn't easy last time either but this time around felt even more difficult. I didn't change much of anything and I kept my cutting diet the same. If anything I was only increasing my cardio to do longer running times/distances to train for the half marathon, but I was still keeping up with lifting because I was so scared of losing all the progress I made since cardio tends to make you lose everything. I love how sculpted my body looks through lifting. But for the life of me I couldn't reach my goal of 105. I'm stuck rubberbanding between 107-109. I know the number on the scales shouldn't matter but for me, they do. I'm still a slave to it. One of these days I'll wean myself off of stepping on the scale so much. I can't tell if my plateau is from my body getting used to what I've been doing or if it's because I've reached the point where my weight loss is in equilibrium with my gains. Or both.

Although at the same time I can't be entirely mad. Regardless of the scales not budging, my body has definitely changed in the last 4 months in small but noticeable ways. I bought new jeans during Black Friday sales since I was swimming in my old ones and now I find myself swimming in those too! Great for me to still be melting some inches off but sucks to have wasted money again. 😅 Or this is the universe telling me to stop buying pants already even if it's just one pair to have on the side. I rarely wear pants but I do like to every once in a while to look "normal" when out with the boy to spare him the embarrassment of my wacky fashion sense.

I definitely love how I look more so than I did 4 months ago so I definitely welcome all the minor changes as my body fine tunes itself in this stage. But maybe that's also it. The pounds don't come off as easily anymore because it's all fine tuning at this stage. My body is trying to cling on to whatever I have left as I fight to lose more. At this point I need to relax and just celebrate the little wins. I do need to learn to practice being kinder to myself, I think. You’ll always be your own worst critic, and sometimes, you’ll never be enough for yourself. But this is how it happens. I look back on old photos of myself and wonder why I used to think I was “so fat” way back when. I was harsh on myself then. But nothing has changed. I definitely think I’ve improved since I started working on my fitness and I’m really proud of how I look right now, but I still think it’s not enough for some reason. Like my stomach isn’t as flat still as I would like to have it. My waist isn’t as small as I would like to have it. I have issues. My vanity does not allow me to not have body image issues. When will it ever be enough? I look at the selfies above and I feel really good. I'm loving what I've done. But then I step on the scale and I'm like there's more you can do. There's room for improvement. 😑😑😑

But I do recognize that I've come a long way since last year. Last year I could barely do skull crushers. Running for more than 5 minutes was torture. Planks were torture. I could barely do a push-up. Everything was terrible. But slow by slow, the progress came. Eating clean everyday was really hard too. Having to come up with quick and easy meals everyday for work and slowly shrinking my stomach down to get used to smaller portions and eating more frequently was hard. But it was doable. It took more than 21 days (so that do something for 21 days and it will become habit thing is definitely a lie) but I finally can say it's finally become habit after a year. I still can't wake up for the life of me but it's routine now for me to get up and gym as the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. I don’t fight to go to the gym, I actually look forward to going everyday, even after I finish a workout. And I find myself eating clean more often out of my own choice even when I'm not working on a goal. It’s subconscious decision making now.

But I’d also being lying if I said I’m not terrified of what’s to come this week for this week's challenge of my first race ever. My nerves have got me on edge for the past few weeks playing worse case scenarios over and over in my head in case freak accidents happen. I know it'll probably be fine but this anxiety is still looming over my head. I’ve already had bizarre nightmares about it. I know I’ve been training for a long time and I’ve gotten past the hump from my knee setback and then in the past month pushed past 10, 15, 18, and now 20k in my training, but for some reason I’m still really scared about not finishing. What if I don’t finish? What if someone trips me? What if I twist something? What if I injure my knee during it? What if something crazy happens? What if I'm feeling off that day? How embarrassing would it be after all this time? But then again, what if all goes well? What if I cross that finish line no problem? I need to start thinking the opposite way. If I can dream it, I can do it. I need to not let the fear take over me. Because honestly, what have I not been able to do? I have no idea why I still allow these things to hold me back from greatness.

It IS a scary thing to think about though. What happens if I complete it? What if it IS everything I’ve dreamed for it to be? What do I do then?

Maybe it’s because I’m afraid to dream bigger once I see this dream through. Set bigger goals, bigger mountains, more great things. Why? Why am I afraid to dream a little bigger, darling?

I'm done with training though. I leave Thursday so I'm just lifting and doing short runs and taking it easy until I leave. And carbing up and increasing my hydration. So I'm definitely too terrified now to look at the scales and make my nerves even worse. I got up to 20k though for my final long run in my training so I'm leaving it up to Sunday to earn that medal for the full distance. I'm excited and nervous and all sorts of emotions. I still have yet to pack though. 😅 Some things never change.

As terrified as I am though, I'm determined to give it my all and see this through. 🤞🏼 And I'm so happy for the company that's coming with me to be my cheerleaders as I speed towards the finish line of this goal I set for myself a year ago!