Journey to 5k - Day 3 (Happy 4th of July)

Well I'm not really sure where to begin so let's just say that Day 3 was definitely an interesting one. It all began with me waking up at 6:30am. Not the usual wake up where I hit the snooze 10 times then just sleep another hour before actually rolling out of bed. I woke up, wide awake and ready to start my day. I was so confused with myself that I sat there for 30 minutes staring at the clock in disbelief before actually leaving the bed. For those that don't know me, I love my sleep and waking up is usually the hardest part of my day and I don't do mornings very well.

On to work and our daily wellness walk. We go outside to the front of our office building to meet up for our morning walk. My lovely friend (I've still yet to come up with a fun nickname for her in my blog) and I start our "Runtastic" application on our phones to calculate our time and distance. Remember, I set the goal of a 15 minute mile walk. We've yet to get a "real" calculation of the distance of our walk because my app (android) and her app (iPhone) measure the distance differently. Her's gives us a longer distance. We'll say it's around 1 and 1/10 miles and we have been walking around 17 minutes for that. So there was my tangent taking you all around the story before actually getting to my point...get used to it. We start our apps and I pause mine because we were still waiting for others to join us. She can't find a pause button she we begin our walk without waiting for the others. About half a mile into our walk we're doing good at 7 minutes and something seconds and this is where the road splits. We usually take the first street to continue around the block but since we left the others behind and we were making great time (I believe we may have actually met the goal) another friend (who is "training" with us for the upcoming 5k) decides to ask if we want to take the long route. Quick decision made and off to the end of the street we go. Did I mention it was very humid from the rain the night before? It was a nice temperature but the humidity in a normally dry heat area is enough to throw anybody off. So adding an extra half mile to our walk, the humidity and our fast pace were enough to seriously turn me into Sweaty Betty. Seriously I was roasting more than a pig at a luau. When we get back to the office I was looking foward the air that is usually on and freezing me out but no. No a/c, add in the sun shining through my window and yes, it literally took me an hour to cool down. Let me share my facebook post from after our walk yesterday as well as said picture referenced.


I really dislike sweating. Naturally its warm & humid outside so these heffas decided to add an extra half mile to our morning walk. :-/ I saw something that said sweat is your fat crying. Well if that's the case my fat must be ready to slit its wrists.




Now as you know from reading my previous post (Journey to 5k - Day 2), just nod and agree if you jerks haven't read it yet, that my Journey to 5k actually should be on day 9 (if you count from the day I began running - ok, ok trying to run. Well Day 3 by this point of the day had been going great. Then came lunch time. Around 1pm I began to get the urge to take a break and head outside. Since the first two days went so well I have no idea what I was thinking that it was going to be the same for the rest of the days. So I clock out for lunch. Yes, substitute with food. Don't judge me. Anyway, later in the afternoon I began to get a craving again so I tried to distract myself by talking about working out. Being that it was July 3rd and we are off work July 4th but work again July 5th we decided to have a barbeque at a friends house and do some fireworks for the kids. I knew this was going to be a tough night but we'll get to that later. So I knew that it was my long pilates video night because it was Tuesday and I wouldn't get around to doing it because I was going to a barbeque, duh, we just went over that. So I message my still unfunnamed friend asking if she wanted to go for a quick run after work. Who was I kidding? But I was motivated at the time, you see where this is going right? Needless to say I didn't end up doing my video or running. I did, however, drink wine and eat.

Random thought - I have noticed that I get motivated when I talk about the upcoming 5k runs that I'm registered for. Weird, but I strangely get it.

I knew in advance that this evening was going to be a true challenge for me. When you add in the factors, I was basically setting myself up for failure. Food, Friends (that smoke), Fireworks, Alcohol. I did great for about the first hour. Then as the conversations went on, the food was on the grill, the wine was poured my cravings began. I stayed strong at this point. We talked about my sudden unplanned quitting, how I had a carton on top of my fridge waiting for me, the running being my motivation. We also talked about in younger days how a couple of the guys would play football while smoking on the sideline and still running touchdowns on others and so on. After we ate dinner and had another glass of wine my cravings began to get stronger. While doing the fireworks is when it really hit me. I tried to keep myself busy lighting sparklers for the littles, helping the 2 year old with her sparkler and keeping her on my hip while watching the fountains. When the wind became stronger and we all headed back inside I wanted a cigarette so bad I could taste it. While heading to the backyard again so the others could smoke I was literally salivating. I could also feel it in my throat. As strange as it sounds, imagine craving your favorite food/drink/dessert so much that you could taste it. Sitting there fighting the temptation to grab my friends pack from the table and light up I grabbed my phone and sent a couple texts. Thank you to those that were texting me non-stop keeping my hands busy so I wouldn't give in and light up. Y'all are the best for that! Yes, even the one that challenged me when I tried to convince us both that only having one wasn't bad. BRAT! But like she said, I'm stubborn. I can't believe I even mentioned that maybe I should quit drinking also. YIKES! I would probably end up on America's Most Wanted. As the texts slowed, my mouth rambled. If I could make it through the night, the temptation and the conversation we had at the end of the night without lighting up then I think I can seriously accomplish this. I seriously struggled numerous times but I stayed strong even when I didn't think I could. The funniest quote of the night was when a friend was talking about a time she previoulsy had quit and was so unhappy. "How can people who don't smoke ever be happy?" I was laughing so hard when she said this but I totally "got" it.

So all in all, no workout (aside from wellness walk across the Saraha), no cigarette, great friends, food, fireworks and wine. I think it evens out pretty well and I can say that overall it was a great day. Now let me get off my rump roast and get some sort of workout done.