Pugs and Mugs

A few months ago, I decided to look for a 5K to do in Boston, my old home, as my first 5K.  I figured that getting to go to Boston would be a good motivator for me since I love it there.
It was a choice between the PRoNE 5K or The Foxboro against Diabetes 5K, which were both this past Saturday, June 2.  I discussed with many of my college friends and we decided to do the PRoNE 5K because of its location; Castle Island.  The PRoNE 5K donates money to the Pug Rescue of New England, which helps rescue and support pugs in New England (if you can't figure that out from the title of the organization).

Race Map

It worked out great because the American Craft Beer Festival was also on June 2nd.  Cameron and I went to that 2 years ago with some friends and we all had a great time.  We were all very excited to spend the day together, running a 5K and then at the Beer Festival.  The name "Pugs and Mugs" was born during a conversation about getting tee-shirts made for the weekend.

Anyway, back to the 5K.  June 2 seems like a great day for a 5K, right? Especially in Boston where it cools down nicely.  Last time we went to the Beer Festival, I wore a strapless sundress and we spent all day outside beforehand.  So obviously, this time would be exactly the same... right?!

WRONG!

As you can see... Rain/Thunder = strapless sundress.  Crap.  My OCD self had picked out my Brooks Running shorts and my Sweat Pink tank top to run in.  I threw a pair of capris in my bag and figured I'd be fine in capris and the tank top - I run in tank tops as long as it is above 55/60.

Before the Race:
We all wake up on Saturday morning at 6:45 and its POURING rain.  Not only that, it's also like 53 degrees.  So Wendi, our very amazing hostess, gets out sweatshirts for all of us, including extra ones for after the race and we all get ready and head out.  We got to the event at 7:50ish, registered and got back in the car to wait.  It was freezing.  I committed to wearing Wendi's sweatshirt over my tanktop, which was a challenge itself because I'm very particular about what I work out in.

At 8:45, we climbed out of the cars and got ready for the race.  We took a couple pre-race pictures, but I look so horrifying, those will hopefully be deleted from Wendi's phone shortly. I put my arm band under the sweatshirt to keep my phone dry and set up my music.  We all lined up - my ex-roommate, Tim (ok, half of the people I ran with are ex-roommates, but he is the most recent one), started at the front and the rest of us gathered in the middle.

The Race:
At 9:05 we were off.  It was steadily raining and I had to dodge many people at the beginning.  Note to  anyone who participates in Run/Walks... try to position yourself appropriately.  I think I was positioned appropriately, but I had to run around people who were walking with 4-5 people in a row taking up the entire sidewalk.

About 7-8 minutes into the run, I was feeling pretty good and I hit a head wind.  The wind was literally pounding against me and I was just pushing through it.  I hit mile 1 running and was proud I'd made that with this wind against me.  If you look at the map, you can see that there is a little addition to the route outside of the circle to make it a 5K.  I ran down that and back up and then walked for about a minute, at which point one of my friends caught up to me and we talked about the ridiculous headwind.

We thought that was ridiculous... oh wait... it gets WORSE.

Between the mile 1 and mile 2 markers, the wind was brutal.  There was a causeway where the wind was completely against us BUT the rain, which was very hard, was coming directly from the right.  There were puddles (more like lakes) all over the route and my feet were soaking wet.  It literally felt like I was running through the Perfect Storm.  Except George Clooney was not there and it seemed like I would never make it to the mile 2 marker.

I ran the entire time over the cause way, although running might not be the most accurate word.  I did not walk.  I really wanted to, but I was trying to hard not to.  At one point, "I'm Not Afraid" by Eminem came on my music, which revived me.  I particularly like the lyric, "We'll walk this route together through the storm, whatever weather, cold or warm, just letting you know that you're not alone" as it made me think of all my friends running this with me and where they were at this point.  I pushed through and made it over the causeway.

I had been planning on walking after that, but I finally found the mile 2 marker and decided to keep running.  At this point, I'd probably been running for about 26 minutes.  Shortly after the mile 2 marker was the race photographer.  I remembered reading on someone else's blog to smile at the finish line so your picture is good, so I smiled the whole way to the race photographer.

Pretty good picture right?? You can see the causeway from hell directly behind me.

Not too soon after this picture was taken, a tail wind appeared!  Suddenly I was being pushed along, but because I was only 2.something miles into the race, I didn't want to expend all my energy and tried to run conservatively.  The rain had lightened up and there was a really cool military fort on one side of us.

I kept running and "Edge of Glory" came on.  As many people know, I strongly dislike Gaga, but I really love this song for some reason, and it's a great song to run to.

About a minute into "Edge of Glory", I turned a corner and could see all the tents and the finish line!  But I'd just passed mile 2!  How did I get to the end so quickly??  I passed the mile 3 marker and sped up to the finish line.

The official results:

I finished in 33:37.1. I had been hoping to break 30 minutes before the race started, but honestly, between the sciatica and the weather, I was just happy that it wasn't more than a minute above my best practice run (which was during ideal conditions).
I DID IT!  I finished my first 5K!

After the Race
Once we all finished, Tim had to collect his prize... because... oh wait... I forgot to mention... Tim WON! This is why he went to the front of the pack in the beginning.  He ran it in 18:08.  He got a heart rate monitor, which is cool.  We were all hoping for a pug, but nope.

Tim: the winner!!

There was lots of free baked goods - we took some brownies and bananas and headed out.  It's a shame we didn't stay for the rest of the race, but the weather was miserable. All of us were drenched.  Completely soaking wet.  One of my friends had to wring her sweater out.  I wanted to make sure to get a picture of myself in my SweatPink shirt with my race number, so I forced Wendi to take one while we were all dripping in the car.

We all showered and changed and then threw a load of our wet, gross clothes into the washing machine.  Thank goodness Wendi has a free washer/dryer!  To reward ourselves, we went to my favorite mall, the Natick Collection and shopped for a little bit.  I actually didn't buy anything, but I love the Natick Collection and was just happy to pay it a visit.

At 4:00, a bunch of us headed to the American Craft Beer Festival to wait in line.  We wanted to sit under cover and wait for the 6:00 start.  We had a great time at the Beer Festival - you get to try lots of different beers and we all just hung out for a very long time.   It was a very nice way to conclude the day and we had a very fun filled day!  Sorry, no pictures of the Beer Festival - with the rain, my hair was super frizzy and I didn't wear makeup.

Thoughts on the Race
When we got back to Wendi's, Cameron looked up to see if the mile markers were accurate.  We found that they weren't - the mile 2 marker was at least 1/3 of a mile too far.  That made sense because I was most frustrated during "mile 2".  Besides the giant storm over the causeway, I also thought I was running the slowest mile I've run in months, which really frustrated me.  I also was trying to conserve energy and actually pace myself because I thought that I was not even halfway through it.

I am very proud of all of my friends, because we all got up on our Saturday together and ran in the cold pouring rain and wind.

I want to work on finding a GPS for my phone that is more accurate than the ones I currently have.  My phone has perpetual problems finding signals, so a lot of times, I run and when I stop the timer, its like, "You have run 0.0 miles! You burned 0 calories!"  Annoying!  However, if I'd had the GPS working, it could have told me that I had gotten to mile 2 and my attitude might have been different.

I'll run another race and I loved going with everyone.  Mt. Washington was Summer 2011, PRoNE 5K was Summer 2012.  What does everyone want to do Summer 2013?!

Last note, we all put the pink SweatPink shoelaces in our shoes to run together.  It was GREAT!  It was so easy to find each other because we looked out for the shoelaces.  Love them!

Have you run a race in brutal weather?  Has it effected your time?  What should my friends and I try in the Summer of 2013? 

Exercise and Anxiety

Let me just start by explaining that this has been a post 2 weeks in the making.  I have a lot of thoughts about this topic, so there were many directions I could take.  Please remember that this is my opinion based on my experiences and facts I have researched.  I do understand that there is a lot of information that I have not come across, and that everyone is different and what has happened in my life may not happen in everyone's.

I recently read an article on Well and Good NYC about the effects of exercise on anxiety as compared with anti-anxiety medications, specifically benzodiazapenes.  This article got me thinking about my life.  Over the course of the past 10 years, I have been diagnosed with many different acronyms: ADD, OCD, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), PAD (panic attack disorder), etc. etc. etc. Just having to list all the things that are "wrong with me" is enough to make someone a little nutty! I spent a lot of time looking for a reason why I was "not normal" and why I had so many idiosyncrasies.

Xanax - miracle drug??

I took Zoloft and then Lexapro for about 4 years.  When I tapered off of Lexapro (with support from a psychiatrist), I was beyond excited to be medication free. Unfortunately, I had everyday stresses that I had a hard time handling.  I was in the midst of finishing up my last year of graduate school and I was working with a co-worker who made it very clear that she did not respect me or care for me.  And I got little support from the administration or validation that my concerns were real. Like many people in this New York Magazine article, I started carrying Xanax in my bag in case something got too stressful and I couldn't escape it.  In order to cope with my challenging work environment, I took a Xanax occasionally, which drowned out the background anxiety and allowed me to focus on my life.  Basically, it made me feel less anxious without having any other effects.  Honestly, it really did work... short term.

But is taking Xanax a long-term solution?  It wasn't for me.  If I needed medication to handle my stress, I probably needed to be back on an SSRI that would modulate my anxiety on a daily basis, rather than having an emergency back up.  Thinking about it now, it's like my asthma.  I have the rescue inhaler, but is my asthma really well controlled if I need to use it every day?  Xanax was my rescue inhaler and my anxiety was not well controlled. (Note: I never took Xanax every day, its just a comparison.)

Fortunately, I found a long-term solution to that work issue; I left the job and took one at a wonderful pre-school as an interim step before I moved to NYC.  It was a fantastic move, and one can never underestimate the power of a change of scenery.

When I moved to NYC, I began having all my little issues creep back up.  It was a very tough transition for me, and also the first time since I was 18 that I was not regularly seeing a therapist. Then it dawned on me... am I going to either be in therapy or on medication for the rest of my life?  None of these options sounded viable to me; I want to have children one day, so at some point I will have to be pregnant and not take SSRIs, and I'd rather not spend thousands of dollars a year on therapy.

Last spring, my fiancee, who was in the middle of a master's program in Social Work, gave me a book about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  I decided to find a professional who specialized in CBT.  Through work with her and lots of my own homework, I dedicated months to looking at my life differently.  Last August, my friends and I climbed Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, and that was really my big test.

I went into the climb very negative (ask any of my friends), but about 15 minutes in, with some support from my amazing friends, I thought to myself, "OK, this is still actually happening, I may as well suck it up and make the best of it." So I did.  I ended up having THE BEST time because I changed my attitude.  And once I was able to change my attitude, I was able to see how exercise can benefit me and I was able to feel this "high" from succeeding.

Me and my friends at the top of Mt. Washington.  We did it! (I'm the one furthest on the left)

While the CBT allowed me to look at the experience differently, I also think my therapy would have been incomplete without that experience and the subsequent months.  After climbing Mt. Washington, I had a surge of self-esteem and pride.  I was motivated to work out and change myself.  I also stopped making millions of excuses to get out of something that might be slightly uncomfortable.  Hey, I climbed a mountain and survived, so a little run on a treadmill should be nothing.

I agree with the Well + Good NYC article.  I think exercise has been better for me for my anxiety than Xanax or Lexapro or whatever other medications are available.  When I'm exercising, I'm thinking in the moment.  What is the point in thinking about what has happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future?  It does me no good - I need to concentrate on getting through that moment and tackle challenges as they come up, not speculate as to what might come up.  And that has really carried over into the rest of my life as well.

One of my favorite quotes: "You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." - Albert Camus

What relieves your anxiety? Do you have a favorite activity that relieves stress?  How do you live in the moment?

Re-energize myself!!

This past week was kind of a discouraging week for me.  I went to the gym on Monday and then on Thursday I ran home from work.  I did cut 2 minutes off my previous time, getting that 5.5 mile run down to... an hour and eight minutes. Yes, it is still that long.  I am running more though, but I think when I walk, I walk even slower.  So I walked probably about a mile total (which for me, is really amazing), but that mile really adds on at least 10 minutes, if not more!! Anyway, I was proud of myself on Thursday for this accomplishment because it was a good run and I can actually see progress.
However, I was pissed off because I am supposed to be taking a different class every week, and that has been tougher than I realized.  I signed up for a 3 day trial at Equinox, and they are supposed to contact me, but they haven't yet.  I was hoping to have done that this past weekend.  The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago when I tried to sign up for a Kettlebell Kickboxing class.  They take so long to get back to me that I've missed that workout in my schedule and it is hard for me to get back to it.
OK, fine, so one of my friends emails me this Urban Girl Squad link to a boot camp + seminar on how to eat right when exercising.  SAVED!  Equinox fell through, so now I have this boot camp thing to try out!!
Well.  It rained and the boot camp was cancelled.
Bummer.  Very discouraging... how can I take new classes when they make it so difficult???
Fortunately, my friend found a community class at New York Yoga instead, so we went to that instead.  So it was a pretty good recovery all in all - I've taken so many Hot Yoga classes, that I didn't really learn anything new, but I absolutely love going to new Yoga studios, so that was a nice adventure for me.  I'll review the class in a separate post.
All in all, I felt kind of frustrated because I didn't realize this goal was going to be so hard to do.  I knew the exercise part was hard, but I wasn't anticipating having to coordinate things so delicately and so far in advance.  So I was left kind of frustrated and cranky.

So to turn my frown upside down... I am officially signing up for my first 5K tonight!
It is the PRoNE 5K which benefits pugs in New England.  The course is seen in this map below.

it is a cool course through Castle Island in Boston on June 2nd.  I'm very excited to do my first 5K in Boston and with some of my best friends from college.  Also, afterwards, we're going to the American Craft Beer Festival, which we went to a few years ago when we lived there.  It's going to be a great weekend and I'm counting down the days.  Giving myself something to work towards and also something to look forward to really motivates me and gets me off my lazy butt!

What motivates you?  What event are you looking forward to? 

Stand up for yourself!

Since I've begun exercising, I've found that I'm a lot more comfortable with myself.  I don't mean with my body image, but more my self-esteem and perception of myself.  I've stepped outside my comfort zone in life, and guess what? I survived!
I could go on and on about all the different things I've done that have forced me outside of my little bubble, but I really just don't feel like it.  Plus, this post is about this past weekend, not about the last 6 months of my life, or everything I was afraid of before that.

So Cameron and I went to Florida and saw some of our dear friends and then drove to Red Sox spring training in Ft. Myers.  So on Saturday night, we get to fake Fenway and go watch BP from our favorite left field spot (where I once met the great Mariano Rivera).  I then realize I'm an idiot, and the map of the ballpark where it looks like you can sit on right field makes no sense and you can't sit on right field. If you look at this map... we're supposed to be standing in the little purple triangle on right field.  Except its actually standing room below the upper deck.  OK, fine, I'm an idiot, I make my peace with mis-reading the map.

So Cameron and I go over to that area and we're told that our tickets are not for that area... they are for the lawn.  OK.  Now look where the lawn is.  That kind of sucks, but we'll make the best of it... We get to the lawn, and the guy sends us to the back of the lawn, and then we are BEHIND the base of one of the lights.  We actually cannot see anything.  At this point, I went nuts.  I was so pissed off - I bought these tickets on stub hub and they were listed for "Right Field Picnic Area" and I paid over face value for them because it seemed cool to sit on the field!
Now in the past, I either would have done nothing and sulked the whole time, OR I would have called stubhub and raised hell and screamed at them.  I'm not exactly the best at letting things go.
I decided to call stubhub and talk to them calmly.  I very calmly explained to the representative what happened and how the seats were misrepresented and I felt that we deserved some kind of compensation.  She came back with 25% off the next tickets.  I explained that that was a very nice offer but I felt like it was not enough considering how much I paid to stand behind the base of a giant baseball stadium light.  So then she offered me 100% off the next tickets.  We got a complete refund for the tickets we were currently using, which we used to buy tickets for Monday's game.  I felt very vindicated.  I was calm and forceful, and explained the issue very clearly.  I felt like I was able to get what I wanted out of the conversation without having to be combative.  Overall, I was very proud of myself for tackling the issue head on so quickly and calmly.
After everything was resolved, we decided to get some yummy Fenway franks and walk around the stadium for a while before standing next to the lawn on the other side.
THEN some guy comes up to us, looks around, then stops and offers us seats on the Green Monster!!  Now for those of you who don't know anything about Fenway, the Green Monster is a giant wall in left field that is very unique to Fenway.  At the real Fenway you can sit on top of it.  At the fake Fenway, you can sit on top and also there are seats IN the Green Monster.  Sure, we'll take free tickets.

View from the green monster

Me and Cameron on top of the green monster

So all in all, the night turned out to be a huge success!  I'm not one for karma, but I do feel that having a good attitude helped us get the bonus Green Monster tickets.  If I had been my usual sourpuss, I don't know if that guy would have offered us tickets.  In the end, it made me realize that yes, I feel physical differences as a result of exercising, but I also feel some mental and emotional differences.  I feel more resilient.  If I can push myself for an extra 2 minutes on the treadmill past my breaking point, or run home 5 miles, I can do a lot of other things too outside of the exercise world.

Now to leave you with a few pictures of some real athletes we saw over the weekend.

Curtis Granderson running the bases

Brett Gardner at bat, Joe Mauer catching (one of my favorite non-Yankees!)

Saltalamacchia of the Red Sox