3 Years ago today

Thanks to a little app called timehop, your past social media posts are only a finger tap away. Funny that this one popped into my feed today.

Exactly three years ago an overly optimistic October Heather, signed April Heather up for a race two races. A 5k Friday night race and an exhausting 10k race Saturday morning bright and early.

You can read about how that went with the posts titled: Dear October Heather and one gem titled 9.2 Miles in 48 hours.

I say funny this popped up today because, well the thought had crossed my mind to do something similar, only instead of April the race would be in January! I do have the fact that weather will be much more on my side here in Arizona over the winter than it would have been back in Illinois over the winter (which was my lazy excuse last time) I've been throwing the idea around of starting to run, I'm not 100% feeling the snug clothes and I'm past the point of being able to say oh I just moved it was stressful, that's why I eat like crap and never go to the gym.

At the very least I will sign up for the 5k race, stay tuned. I might do something stupid like sign up for the 2nd day race too. You just never can tell here at North of 10th can you?! Also I need some way to kick my dad's butt on the Fitbit steps, that man is a beast! Anyone else fitbit? Oh and that #195 days.. it's 100 days less to prepare as of today #95days #DoubleEek

We've Been Here Before

Now that I've been in Arizona for a year now and have settled into a relatively normal pattern, it's time to focus. Focus on me and my health. I've done weight watchers two other times (3rd times the charm right?!) and I've had success with it then, as long as I was following the plan anyway. 

So here I am again. Last Saturday I joined my local Weight Watchers, I attended the 9am meeting, which is nice, not too early, not too late, and gets me out of bed on a Saturday! I was also able to replicate getting out of bed early for a second Saturday and made it to my meeting again this morning! It always seems a bit weird to go to the meetings, I imagine it's a lot like what an AA meeting would be like. We are all there for the same reason, food, but at the same time it's nice to know you aren't alone in the struggle. There are people from every walks of life and a varying group of ages. I am happy to report that after my first week, I am down -3.4lbs. (I would like to lose about 60lbs so that I am back into a healthy BMI range) Slowly but surely I will get there.

It's funny because since I've joined before and had all the materials, I kept telling myself, oh I can do this on my own and not have to pay for it etc etc. But it never stuck. I always succeed the best when I go to the meetings. I'll sometimes just remember in my head how many points the foods I've eaten were, but this time I am determined to physically write it down, it's not going to be easy but I'm all in this time.

The hardest part for me is deciding what to eat. It can seem overwhelming. I bought a nice planning calendar and plan on planning out my meals for the week and going to the store on the weekends and buying for the week. I won't lie, this will be the hard part. I might slip sometimes but I truly want to get my weight down so I look and feel better for myself. I'll search all the sites, pinterest and go into the cookbook archives to find good meals that I can make in a fairly quick amount of time.

Be prepared, this may turn into a what is Heather eating for dinner tonight blog. I've already had to fight the urge to not just order Papa John's pizza several times. (they have like 50% off every day or so, it's hard not to just order for a quick delivered meal) First step is the food, next step is the exercise, and that whole Planet Fitness membership I pay for but have yet to use... for shame Heather... for shame. I know... baby steps right?!

Wish me luck! Weight Watchers friendly recipes are always welcome! Feel free to email me any that you have tried and love! 

The Color Run

This past Saturday morning, bright and early (8am) my adventurous Arizona crew lined up at the starting line of The Color Run which calls itself the 'Happiest 5k on the planet!' and it sure did not disappoint! It was a bit breezy that morning which is unusual for us here in the valley and it was a bit chilly in the shade! 

The premise of the race is to start off clean and finish dirty, and new this year finish sparkly! There were five different color stations where colored chalk is thrown at you, Pink, Yellow, Blue, Orange and Sparkly! I should mention this was an untimed race as well aka we walked the whole way.

The Adventure crew before the race

look at that wind blowing those banners!

Do you see the unicorn? 

Pink station

Yellow station

Fun along the way

blue station (blue was the most stubborn to clean off)

Tutu and me

Orange everywhere!

The shiny sparkly finish

The rainbow finish line!

The colorful after party is tons of fun, color tosses every few minutes with a crowd of color everywhere!

We all had a colorfully good time and even have the medals to prove it! 

Free Chocolate milk fron the Nesquik bunny, sure why not! 

The leaf blowers are an attempt to clean us off (sponsored by Shout)

Post race food stop

The after after

It took a lot of scrubbing and washing to get all that color off. It amazed me that chalk could seep through all layers of clothing. I honestly still have a blue spot on the back of my neck in my hairline that I can't get un-blue and I think the sparkles will be around forever, in my hair, in the house and in the car! This was a great race and I would definitely sign up again! Who'd a thunk it that January I'd be running walking races in the desert! Have I mentioned I love Arizona!?

The First Day of 2015

As soon as I found out A.Drama and Marvin were going to be here over New Year's I knew I had to try and talk them into a New Year's Day hike. I had read about first day hikes in a news article. They are sponsored by the American Hiking Society in conjunction with US State Parks to get people out and moving and enjoying the state parks to start off the new year in a healthy way. LOVE the idea! I have been dying to check out the Lost Dutchman State Park and this was the perfect opportunity.

Wouldn't you know it, just as they arrived in town, the temperatures continued to plummet, the northern part of the state got like two feet of snow, and there were flurries in Phoenix! Not only that but today we broke the 1906 record for coldest high, it only reached 46°F in the valley. Brrr! That wasn't going to stop us!   

I woke up this morning and saw on Facebook that there was snow on the Superstition Mountains! What an extra treat! Little did I know that it was a HUGE deal, people were losing their minds. NiBo and I had been out that way just a week or so ago on our way up to Tortilla Flats and there was maybe 10 cars on the road with us. Not today. Everyone in their brother had their camera's out and tripods set up along every open inch of the shoulder on the route that leads to the park. I never said that Arizonans were a smart bunch and they just continue to demonstrate their lack thereof. 

Thankfully we were able to make it past the gawkers and into the state park. I was hoping that less people would be willing to pay to get into the park, nope. Way wrong. There was hardly a spot to be found, luckily we found a spot just as someone was leaving otherwise I don't know how long we would have been looking.  

The trails were jam packed with people climbing up to see the snow. I was surprised at the amount of people that had very small children with them that they were dragging up the mountain. Lots of people had dogs too.

We decided to take the Treasure Loop Trail, which is a 2.4 miles loop with an elevation gain of 500 ft. The trail is described as moderate difficulty and I actually didn't even think it was that bad. When compared to the Grand Canyon trail we hiked, this seems like literally a walk in the park ;) 

 

The mountains in the background are almost completely white from the snowfall. The higher elevations got much more snow, up to 17" in some places!

The farther we got towards the top of our route the closer and closer we got to the snow. We actually timed it just about right, the sun was hidden until we got close enough to play in the snow and then it came out and let us capture some nice pictures with a pretty blue sky peeking through. The snow was melting very quick and you could already see the little streams starting flow.

Some had already played in the snow before us! Hello Olaf!

We made our own mini snowman so we could say we built an Arizona Snow man! 

Without even being in search of Arizona Winter, I definitely found it. I had to search for Fall, but winter came to me! Arizona has had a weird weather year in 2014 from historic flooding to giant dust storms, I was there to see it all! Hopefully 2015 doesn't have too many surprises in the weather department. Next week (just in time for A.Drama and Marvin to leave) the temperatures return to a more normal temperature in the lower/mid 70's. I will welcome them back with open arms.

Check back for a final look back at my 2014 and what's in store for me in 2015! I hope everyone had a great New Years eve and a great start to their New Year! 

St. Jude Warrior - Help Sponsor the Fight!

You may remember the Warrior Dash... I have completed two of them one in 2012 and the other in 2013. It's a crazy thing to pay money to do, you go through obstacles and jump over fire, it is tons of fun too. Here let me remind you...

I survived two Warrior Dash's and vowed to never return unless I was in shape. Because let me tell you... it's no walk in the park! I sat out the 2014 race (let's just say it's because I moved) 2015 hadn't even crossed my mind.... that is, until the ROC race. Tutu had so much fun that she ended up talking me into the 2015 Arizona Warrior Dash which just happens to be April 11th. UGH! 

This means I have some work to do in the coming months (more on that later) but also this time I have decided to run this race as a St. Jude Warrior and have a fundraising goal of $300...

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is the global leader in finding cures and saving children from cancer and other deadly diseases. This is why I am competing as a St. Jude Warrior at Warrior Dash. I am going to crawl through mud and jump through fire in order to support St. Jude patients. Will you join the fight with me?

I need your support to help me raise the funds for the kids of St. Jude.

How your donation helps:

• Thanks to donors like you, no family ever receives a bill from St. Jude.
• Every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists can use that knowledge to save thousands more children around the world.

If you would like to donate you can visit my fundraising page here. There are plenty of ways you can help me succeed if you choose not to donate monetarily.  I'm going to need lots of encouragement to keep myself accountable to get into shape and let the warrior within come out! 

Flashback Friday: Illinois Marathon Weekend 2013

Remember last year when October 2012 Heather thought it would be a good idea so sign up for the Mini I-Challenge and do a 5k and a 10k back to back nights? Yeah.... that was fun wasn't it? I still have blisters... ok not really but the marks are there still! 

This weekend is the Illinois Marathon weekend back home and all the Facebook posts about it make me kinda sad I didn't get to do it again, would I have been ready for it? H-no, but it's the thought that counts.... so take a walk down memory lane with me to last years' 5k and 10k Runs walks. Read the whole post here for the play-by-play.

Which brings us back to present day, and Houston we have a problem. It's called pizza... pizza is a problem. Since beginning the whole moving to Arizona adventure back in November (applying for the job, waiting, waiting some more, getting the job, relocation, moving, packing, driving, settling etc etc) I kinda started packing on the pounds again (you know after I had been doing so good working out with a trainer like 6 days a week and eating good and lost a good amount of weight) and it sucks. 

My new job requires me to be up in front of a classroom and out from the hidden comfort of my desk. It's amazing how being up in front of a group of people makes you suddenly very self aware, weird right? 

So what do I do now? Obviously it's time to get started, no more pizza for sure (even though it's soooo easy) I've been on Pinterest trying to pin healthy recipes, it's weird that when you pin them, they don't make themselves. 

Yet again here I am, finding myself on the starting end of getting the whole weight thing under control. Being lazy is so hard to change, but we've all got to start somewhere (again) right? If you know of any good single serving easy healthy meals send em my way! You can add to the comments or use the handy link at the top of the page to 'Email North of 10th' Wish me luck!