To Succeed We Must Begin.

Libby

Harrisburg Half 2011

If you are following my blog it is not any secret that my fitness journey hasn't even started. Every week I read my colleagues posts on driven. and I must admit I was a little envious of their progress and that I was making excuses for not making any of my own.  I was giving myself grace because our lives had changed so quickly and so drastically by taking on 4 children temporarily.  Those 4 little blessings have left our home and I am refocused on my health and fitness goals for myself and my family.  

This is my new start.  I have made this start many times, was excited, convicted, hopeful.. and then.. I failed.  So what is different this time?  Fundamentally nothing.  Support wise  everything.  Let me explain...

Since I have tried and failed many times I have all of the equipment I need to succeed.  To start preparing my mind, I have to open the trunk...

....with all of my weights and bands in it.  Then I dust off my sneakers and break out my running gear.

Running is not new to me, my sister and I used to run together all the time.  I actually really miss spending this time with her.  I stopped running, got out of shape and just have not been motivated to get back into it.  When I was thinking about writing this blog today, I pulled out my old running shoes, they had these sneaker charms on them that my sister and I bought at the Marine Corps Marathon expo a couple of years ago and reminded of me of how I felt before during and after the races that I ran.  Before the races I am always nervous, are my pants going to stay up? Is my music going to cooperate, will I have to go to the bathroom?  Should I pee one more time before the gun goes off?  Then during the race a whole range of emotions are going on, from exhilarated, tired, oh my goodness, where is that mile marker?, water table? WHERE's the water table?  exhilarated again, I am almost there, I can do this.  I need my go to power song and then I am there crossing the finish line.  I find my sister and we walk around post race, I feel accomplished, tired but good tired, and happy that I stuck it out and finished STRONG. 

I have had both of these sneakers for the same amount of time, not at the same time though.  Notice how worn the sneaks on the right are.  That is because I ran in these, hard.  I ran miles in these, I pounded pavement, moved my body.  The ones on the left were bought with great intentions, but those intentions faded into something I felt took priority over my well-being.  

When I got the sneakers out I changed my charms over to my new sneakers and plan on adding more.  I was nostalgic about the races I trained for and ran.  These races always felt like an accomplishment for me.  I have a picture of a few of the races I ran over the past 5 years and an introduction to the support part I mentioned above.

Harrisburg Half 2011 and 2013

5k races and a future race

The difference this time is the support that I have.  Normally when I am doing these healthy lifestyle changes my husband is not really on board but he has agreed to run the Philadelphia Rock and Roll Half with me on September 18, 2016. (That is the confirmation from the race in the bottom right corner of the picture.)  This will be my 3rd half marathon and his first. He plans on training with me using Couch to 13.1k app.  I will map my runs on map my run and post my progress on here.  We are also cleaning up our diet.  

Chanon's blog talked about a documentary call Fed Up.  Miguel and I watched it on Netflix, he was surprised at what the report said about the food industry.  When it was over we got called into a kid scuffle, Miguel looked at me during the kid drama and with a serious look, he said, "we are done poisoning our children." It sent a shiver down my spine.  

 We started implementing  changes in our diets that made a difference, like, less eating out, more whole foods, and way less prepackage items.  After watching Fed Up, we realized we need to take it to the next level for us and our kids.  My husband and I need structure so we are starting with the Haylee Pomroy fast metabolism diet.   I have experience with this diet, I lost about 12lbs and it is awesome! It is not really a diet but a lifestyle, a new way of eating.  

.Click here to find out more about Haylee Pomroy

Last but not least I have my Driven. community.  My Driven ladies-Chanon, Amy, Denise, Donna, and Michelle all provide each other positive and motivating support and advice.  We also provide each other accountability as well as writing this blog does for us.  We want to post progress and success, but this blog is all about being real and well life happens.  I guess my hope is that what they say is true that all the great successes had many failures before they finally reached their dreams.