Jul 3

Jul 3 5K...Weekly Weight Update

This week’s weekly weight update is going to focus on one day and that is Tuesday. The rest of the week would be rather mundane for those regular (or not so regular) readers of this blog. It was a very simple week (wake up, go to work, come home, work out, play with Cece, go to bed, rinse, repeat). However, on Tuesday of this week my company signed up to run/walk a 5K as a firm. It was interesting.

Several months ago the managing partner of my accounting firm received what was essentially spam that advertised a brand new 5K race that geared towards corporate events called the Corporate Fun Run. He forwarded the email to a few of us in the firm. I thought it was a great idea to have a corporate event that involved something other than drinking and eating so I pushed to have us join the race. I didn’t have too hard and before we knew it we had registered a team for the race.

Tuesday rolled around quickly so we made our way to Burke Lake Park to prepare for the race. The event was taking place at 6:30pm so we had to leave plenty of time because the traffic in Northern Virginia at that time on a Tuesday night must rank as some of the worse traffic in the country if not the world. It took well over an hour to make the 20 mile trip but that was to be expected. What couldn’t have been expected when we signed up for the race were the massive storm clouds that loomed overhead.

Around 6:00pm the lightning crashed and the old mother cried (get it?). Everyone made their way to shelter with the hopes that the storm would pass quickly but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. About 75 people huddled under the awning of an administrative building at the park for at least an hour while the rains poured down. The director of the race would come out every five minutes or so claiming that the rain was going to stop in five minutes and we would start the race.

Most of our team had made it to the race before the storm. There were two that didn’t make it to the admin building. One of them made the trek from the parking lot through the rain to the admin building. The other was sitting in his car waiting for the storm to pass. It was starting to get hot in that cramped space and I needed to get away from the claustrophobic atmosphere.

Around 7:15pm the skies cleared up and the director declared the race would be starting in five minutes. As we made our way to the starting line I was looking out for our missing co-worker since he was waiting in the car. Since I was the contact for the firm I had his race bib and needed to get it to him before the start. Calls and texts ensued but I didn’t see him coming to the start. The gun sounded for the race to start and I still couldn’t track him down. I waited about 2 minutes after the start before handing the bib to the director and taking off myself.

Unfortunately for me I waited too long to be timed. The staff of the race had already disconnected the mat that would officially track my time. I was angry that I wouldn’t get an official time but at least I had my brand new FitBit with GPS so I could track my own time accurately during the race. I pushed start on my FitBit and took off like a bat out of hell. All the other participants had a 2 minute head start and I felt like I had to catch up to at least some of them.

I was feeling pretty good when I caught the walkers with relative ease. The course was filled with rolling hills and very limited flat areas. I tried to take advantage of the downhills going hard but still tried to maintain the best pace I could on the up hills. I was catching up with more and more people as the race went on and when I hit the 1 mile mark my watch said I just ran an 8:55 mile.

I was ecstatic. I had only run a sub 9:00 minute mile twice before in my whole life and both of those times were only running a single mile. I didn’t think I could keep up this pace for very long but I kept pushing as hard as I could. It was at this point that the managing director of my firm came running towards me.

To try and give some perspective this race was an out and back. That means that it was supposed to be about 1.5 miles out then you turn around and run back. Passing my managing partner at this point of the race meant I was only about a quarter to a half a mile behind him. That was exciting news to me but I guess I should explain why it is exciting.

You see, the managing partner of my firm is an avid runner (although he claims to hate running). He will often run 5 miles at a time four or five times a week. He is in his mid-60s which makes him much older than I am but he also routinely wins his age group in 5K races. Everyone I’ve ever known that has run with the guy talks about how fast and how far he runs so to be this close after he had a two minute head start made me kick it up even more.

I hit the turn-around point and start pushing as hard as I could. The sweat was pouring down my face making my eyes burn. I just kept looking ahead hoping to catch a glimpse of my managing partner in front of me. As I mentioned before there were lots of hills so it was possible that he was right over the ridge at any moment. I kept pushing and it was about at the 2 mile marker that I finally saw him about 400 yards in front of me.

I took a glance at my watch and I had improved my time on the second mile to 8:40. I couldn’t believe how fast I was going and seeing my managing partner in front of me gave me to boost to push even more. I figured I had a little over a mile to catch him so I tried not to gas myself so I wouldn’t have anything left at the end of the race but still kept my pace up. I was closing in when things started to look too familiar too soon.

I started to recognize the terrain from the start but this couldn’t be, could it? My watch was telling me that I’ve only gone 2.4 miles. I still had half a mile to make my push and overtake my nemesis. My watch read 2.5 miles and the finish line was right in front of me. My managing partner had already finished. The clock at the finish line was ticking towards 24 minutes.

I hit stop on my watch as I crossed the finish line confused and a little disappointed. I grabbed water as I checked my stats on my FitBit. My watch was telling me that I had just run 2.62 miles in 22:55. I had mixed feelings because (1) my average mile time was 8:45 which is by far the fastest I’ve ever run in a race so that made be happy but (2) the race seemed to have been cut short so I couldn’t get a real time for my effort. I found out later that I wasn’t the only one disappointed by the distance and my FitBit was the accurate measure. The course was measured incorrectly by the staff so the distance was about 2.6 miles.

At the end of the day I didn’t quite catch my managing partner but since he had a 2 minute head start I like to think that I would have beaten him had I started on time. I also didn’t get the real 5K time because the course was cut short. Either way, I still feel like this was the fastest I’ve ever run in a race so it was a successful day.

After the race everyone grabbed some food and beer to celebrate. We didn’t get to celebrate for long before the sky opened up once again and started dumping rain down on all of us. I chugged my beer (if you want to call it beer since it was Bud Light) then started sprinting toward my car which was a good 1000 yards away. By the time I reached the car I was soaked but I guess I got in that last part of the race so I ended up running a full 5K.

Other than that race my workouts and eating were pretty consistent. I did have a few work lunches out but I think I kept myself in check so I wasn’t too concerned when it was time to hit the scale. I climbed up on the scale and my current weight registered at 203.4. That is a loss of 2.2 lbs this week. That makes the total weight loss 64.4.

I didn’t stand a chance this week against the mighty Rizzo. She is gearing up for her Avon Walk next week and school is out for summer so she can work out every day even if she is with Cece. Mid-week represented the end of the June Bring It On! challenge and without question #TeamRizzo kicked my ass. It wasn’t even close. I shouldn’t even have tried as hard as I did to get any miles at all. Rizzo finished the week with 46.1 miles compared to my pathetic 38.7 miles. For the month of June Rizzo had 215.6 miles (which pretty much means she didn’t stop moving ever) compared to my minuscule 184.9 miles. Congratulations Rizzo and enjoy your day at the spa. I’m sure you will win again in July since you are participating in the Avon Walk next weekend and training for a 20K. I might as well just lay on the couch and drink beer.

P.S. Here are some pictures from the week just because.