Hard Work, Support, Results and Milestones. What a Week!!!!

This week has been a huge one for me.  I reached 2 weight loss goals, set a new longest distance run and longest time run, made it into the local paper and also realised how lucky I really am.  Add to that, I also bought my first pair of size 36 jeans and for the first time actually felt like I was a skinny person.  All round HUGE week.

This will not be in chronological order of what happened this week, but that is because I want to make sure things don’t get glossed over and the biggest parts of my week are those that I am focusing on.  Sorry to those OCD people that read this and need order to be restored in their lives to function, my weight loss journey and everything surrounding it do not work that way, so why would my blog.

Monday night I went for a run. No big deal really, so I should as it is cardio day after all.  I was determined to go for a bigger run though as I had another rest day on Sunday due to crappy weather.  I decided I would try and improve on my PB of 10.74 kms, which would have me running for approx. 1 hour 10 mins.  I had my heart set on 11kms minimum.  When I started running I had no idea exactly where I was going to run to, just get out and run.  Whilst out there I was pleased with my pace, so decided I would see how far I could push myself. At the 7km mark I thought, why not go for double and there it was, 14km became the target.  I had no idea whether I could do it, how fast I would do it or how wrecked I might be at the end, but I am a little compulsive when it comes to trying to improve and raise the bar of late.  I got to the 12km mark and my phone battery died.  SH!T, BUGGER!!!!  I still had 2kms to go, but luckily I had my heart rate monitor so I would have a total time run, even if I didn’t have it all on GPS. 

Worst part was I had no music for the last 2kms, which meant I had to push through the pain barriers with all those messages going on in my head to stop, you have improved on last time, you can do the 14km next time.  Like HELL!!!!! I didn’t run this far to stop so close to the end goal.  I knew how much I would have hated myself if I didn’t get there as much as it was hurting my legs.  Well now I sit back and know that I ran 14kms in 1 hour and 34 mins.  That is 2/3 distance I will need to run when I tackle my first half marathon in July. I am a RUNNER!!!!

Wednesday saw weigh in day.  I was a little apprehensive about this, not because I was worried if I was going to have a loss, I knew that was going to happen because I am a serial weigher, but I wanted to hit at least 1.6kgs as a minimum.  Why that number?  This would have given me a total of 40kgs lost since I started this program and 50kgs over all since the start of 2012.  I jumped on the scales to reveal that I had dropped 2.1kgs.  I was officially 40.5kgs lighter than when I started this program 42 weeks ago.  Add to that the 10kgs I had lost in the first 6 months of 2012 and I have now lost the same amount of weight as my 11 year old (5 foot 4in tall) son weighs.  I am in awe.  I am so proud of myself for getting to this point.  This is a huge milestone for me along with my run on Monday and now to shoot for the double digits.

This morning's weigh in. Didn't get a picture yesterday and dropped another 500grams.

I also just want to mention a subject that is important to me and every week it is highlighted more and more in the forums and the facebook groups.  Plain and simple it is support.  I am lucky that I have the most amazing support network around me, which without I would not be anywhere near where I am now.  This starts with my wife.  She is constantly teling me how proud she is, encouraging me, allowing me to go out for long rides, runs etc.  Following on I have amazing kids that let us train every Saturday morning in our garage with our garage crew and rarely interrupt us. Then there is the garage crew.  What can I say about these people?  Not all of them are current 12WBTers and some have never been but they are the most supportive bunch of people.  Some have become very close friends, others are just awesome to train with, inspiring to watch how they tackle different obstacles due to fitness levels and injuries but most of all, they constantly encourage and support each other through every session.  Even when we are not training together, there is a constant stream of support, confidence boosting posts and feedback/discussion on our Western Warriors facebook page.  This extended family is amazing and without that added network reaching these goals would be a lot more difficult task.

I know that ultimately your results are through your own hard work and the effort you put in.  I am constantly telling people on forums and facebook, you only get out of it what you put in, which is 100% true, but without the amazing support, friendship and camaraderie it would be a lot slower and more difficult path to tread.  Thank you Julie, kids, Warriors and all of the people that read this and give me support.

Finally, I just want to touch on something dear to me.  The Ride to Conquer Cancer.  Last year I completed the Melbourne ride raising money for Peter Mac Hospital.  This year I am doing it again.  I am also doing another 5 rides in 2013 (6 in total) each of 200kms and each over 2 days.  This is 1200kms in 12 days raising money for hospitals in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Auckland.  I need to raise $2500 per ride which is no mean feat.  I was fortunate enough to have an article in the local paper to highlight my rides, which the photo appears below.

 

I just want to thank all of those people that have donated, but in particular one lady Tania Burhala.  I have never met this lady, and she will probably never read this blog, but she is a friend of one of my trainer/running buddies Bridie Krull.  She decided to make a donation to my ride last night.  This donation was of an amount that I was over the moon about.  This morning this amazing lady sent me an email to tell me that her sister in law was having her own battle with cancer, she was inspired by mine and Bridie’s efforts in losing weight and my efforts in raising money and riding and proceeded to make another donation which was quadruple the initial one.  She is my single biggest donor to this point and an amazing lady.  She also said that because of Bridie and myself she is signing up to the 12WBT. 

Now you can see why I said it was a huge week for me.  What more can I say.