Running. Living. Believing. Finishing.

running.living.believing.finishing.

It seems that as of late – I’ve been getting a few questions about running. I intend to answer those questions in detail at some point or another, but today’s post is directed at the source of the issue with running.

I must note that I took up running just this year and that there are many more experienced runners out there that know much more information about running.

What I give is what I know to the extent of what I know about it.

I love running. It’s refreshing. It’s relaxing. It’s a sedative for the chaotic world around us. It does not change. It’s challenging. It’s freeing.

But it is not all of those things for everyone…yet.

It can be.

The source of the issue is that people simply don’t think that they can do it. This can go beyond running into a variety of life’s situations; the fact is that people do not believe in themselves enough to follow through. I can’t count how many people have started their weight loss journey only to give up already. They felt that what they had deprived themselves of had something more to give them. That’s their story and it doesn’t have to be yours.

When I run – I believe that I can finish. I believe in myself knowing that I can do it. I exercise follow through. I believe with everything that I have that I can complete the task at hand. If it’s one mile, two miles, five miles, a zillion miles – I believe that I will give my very best effort to complete what I set out to do.

And I follow through.

It’s not always easy. It’s tough sometimes. It’s physically and mentally challenging. My vision gets clouded. My path gets crooked. But I believe that no matter what gets in my way – it will not stay in my way. I can push through the pain. My body and mind work together on one front – believing and knowing that I can do it…and I do it.

Running is the exercise of freedom. It tests you. It pushes you. Only you can run for you. Believe that you can do it…and you will.

8.5k Run. Run Picture. I Need Your Help!

5.3 mile Run (8.5k)

Today is 5k Tuesday.

Why stop at a 5k though?

8.5k would be better.

I decided that today was a great day to go for the longest run to date. After Saturday's 5k race - I knew that I could go further than I ever have. The decision was made. I would run. One minute into the run I think I swallowed a bug. Other than the bug - my run was smooth. I tried to change my stride a little bit in order to make what could be a long, painful run into a long, pain-free run. I shortened my stride and lowered my impact point (make sense?). It allowed for less of a harsh landing. Whether it did anything or not - I completed the run and didn't stop running. It felt so good. My breathing has been very smooth while running as well. I tried to guess at the distance that I was going because I didn't map out my route (as I have suggested before to do). Here's a map of today's route for you to see. I completed the run in 1 hour 48 seconds.

I Need Your Help.

Fit with a purpose is a place where you know what you are going to get. It's been set up so that you can come and know what to expect and hopefully leave with something positive.

Today, I need your help. I want to know what you want on this site? Is this site missing anything?

Let me know what you think. I would definitely like and consider your suggestions. Thanks!

Challenging Day. Race News. Weigh-In Picture!

Challenging Day.

Today has been a mentally challenging day. It's been raining all day and Carol and I made a hard decision yesterday in regards to our moving (which takes place in just a little less than a month). I currently teach and work part time at a church. We have been offered a full time position with the church and I accepted. We have been searching for a house and thought that we found one twice - but each time something has prevented it. The first house fell through because of the inspection - the second because of pride. We are moving to plug into the community and we found a house that was really cool and we liked it, but it was far out of town and not the best fit for us now. I know I may be crazy to pass on that house, but getting that house was defeating the purpose of reaching the community. My ego would have definitely been puffed up with this house - but that house would consume our purpose. I am crazy. :)

The decision to pass on the house mixed with the gloomy, rainy day has produced a gloom attitude. It's been a long day. Something else will come up though!

Moving on to some better news.

I will find out tomorrow where I placed overall from the 5k race where I set my PR and placed 1st in my division. I am pretty excited to see how I did with everyone's time. It's all still new to me. I have some more pictures that will be uploaded that were taken of me with a couple of students of mine that also ran the 5k. They both beat me! An 8th grader ran the 5k in 21'30" (exact second?) and a 7th grader in 24'53". Both of them placed first in their division as well!

Hopefully, I will have that information for you tomorrow!

Now for the weigh-in this week. It was a success. I have consistently lost the weight with a healthy downward trend. The best part about this week, besides the 5k race, was that my father in law saw a picture of me and he didn't recognize me. He asked Carol who the two guys in the picture were (one was a guy from church and then me) and she said, "That's Seth dad!"

He said, "Thaaat's Seth?!"

We don't get to see them that often as we live in different states. I liked that compliment. Made me smile!

Back to the weigh in. I weighed in at 195.6 lbs. That's a loss of 2.4 lbs. I'll take it. I wasn't sure how this week would turn out because I tapered my running and workouts for the race. Apparently, the change in my workouts confused my body and it has responded with weight loss.

Enjoy the picture!

What is your favorite part of your body?

Tell me. Take a picture of it and post it on your blog.

Embrace your body.

My First 5k! Crazy Runners. Satisfaction.

The race came and went. I was nervous about it because I had never ran an official 5k race. I didn't know what the whole environment would be like.

I thought to myself, am I crazy for letting someone put me on a bus and drive me out 3 miles so that I could just run back in?

Yes - I am crazy.

This is probably the only time that I would not be upset that someone drove me out to a spot and told me to run home -- and I did it without complaint. Ha! We runners are crazy. Some more than others.

Of course, after completing my first 5k today - it makes me reflect on what this past year has brought.

How about some 'Before' Facts?

I had never participated in any type of organized race.
I was 60 pounds heavier one year ago than now.
I ate whatever I wanted.
I gave advice to people on how to lose weight, but failed to follow that advice myself.
I got tired after one pickup basketball game to 15.
I couldn't run 5 minutes without stopping for good.
I gave up often, but disguised it as generosity to let someone else play.

I sweated in the winter.

Some 'Now' Facts.

I have placed in my first 5k.
I am intentional with my eating.
I am 60 pounds lighter.
I live my advice.
I outplay the teenagers in a pickup basketball game.
I can run 43 minutes without stopping.
I don't give up - I push forward.

I still sweat in the winter. :) (I am actually doing something now)


AND NOW FOR THE RACE RESULTS.

I finished my 5k with a time of 26'24".

In my age division - that was good enough for FIRST PLACE!! I won a gold medal in my first 5k ever! I'm pretty stoked. I know that with more competition that the 26'24" would not get me a gold -- but I am stoked about the time!

I pushed, I pushed, I pushed!

I succeeded.

Enjoy the pictures!





Thanks Jess and Ashley for sending me the awesome signs...I'll post what I can tomorrow! To all the others that wished me luck - THANK YOU TOO!

Awesome Non Scale Victories. Search Worthy.

Search Worthy.

I have to start out with what I found on my Feedjit live stream. Feedjit is the thing that you see on the lower right side of my page that shows me where people are coming from. This is one of the ways that I can track and see what parts of the nation, continent, and world people are coming from to visit fit with a purpose. It's fun to see some of this. I don't check it that often, but love to see how and when someone gets there from a search in Google.

Google has been my friend lately.

I copied and cropped three of the searches that are pretty recent so that you could enjoy them with me. Check them out below. You may have to click on the picture to see it clearly.



If you are the owner of any of the searches -- Welcome! It's great to have you. Fit with a purpose is a relaxed environment. You won't be seeing a very skinny man doing push-ups though, but rather a man that is getting skinny by doing push-ups. :)

Awesome NSV's.

I had debated as to write a post tonight due to being tired. I got to bed late last night and today has moved by rather slowly. That is what we are usually wanting though isn't it - for it to seem that we have more time? That just registered - I had a nice long day. Moving on.

Today, I just wanted to send you all in the direction of a few people. I don't have any Great Non Scale Victories of my own, but these people do. Go send these people some of the encouragement that you get from all of us!

Kelsey over at fatgirlconfessions2.0 has been having a rough time lately. As for the NSV - she might not realize it, but her determination to keep going through the rough times plays huge in her success. She is rather new to the weight loss world and could really use the encouragement. She needs you all right now to show her some lovin.

Jer over at Jer is Losing it... just found out not too long ago that she is going to be featured in a magazine! It is the KC FITNESS magazine that I love so much too! How crazy is that? She has lost 100+ lbs on her journey and just got some photo shoot pics back. Go check her out and show her what encouragement looks like!

Last one today.

Mac at Get Fit Slowly. I've mentioned Mac a few times on this site and you may already read him, but if you don't -- go check him out. He just ran 26.2 miles. He ran a marathon. This guy had trouble going up the stairs in the beginning. Go look at him now!


I hope you all had a great day!

What is it about the blogging community that you like the most?!

Inspiring Wife. My Make-Over Pictures.

It seems that most times we, who are or have been previously fit, knew or know the proper way of eating and the different avenues of exercise. We do, did, or use to love to talk about the way, but failed with the follow through. I do feel though that we get better with follow through when we stick with our plan and reach for our goals. What does this have to do with my wife being smart? Let me tell you.

Inspiring wife.

My wife has tried before with sticking with a weight loss/fitness plan, but like many of us have done – we exited that strategy when we didn’t see instant results. My wife is becoming successful and is sticking to it with me this time. It’s great to have that by the way. Someone asked her what she was doing with food. She gave a reply to that person and I wanted to post it up on here too.

“Thanks Megan! I have been eating about 6 small meals a day. breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and maybe a snack if I'm hungry later. My snacks are either an apple or a banana. My regular meals are smaller portions than I used to have. I don't get seconds. And I allow myself one sugar snack a day so I don't feel deprived and binge. So mostly it’s portion control & keeping my metabolism up. Other than that I make sure I workout to either my Jillian DVD or I do yoga with Seth on his P90X. And If I don't feel like it was enough I walk a mile on the treadmill. I feel more comfortable with the 1 to 2 pound loss a week. I would get discouraged if it was up one week and down the next you know? Haha. This may have been more than you asked for but there it is! Nothing fancy :)”

I really liked this reply because it is simple, doable, and it works. My wife is inspiring and helping other people on their route to weight loss success too! I love it. I do.

Make-Over Pics.

I really enjoy “Make-Over” week on the Biggest Loser. After seeing tonight's episode, I felt inspired to give myself a makeover as well. I had fun with it. By the way, I couldn’t believe that Sam reached his goal weight on campus with a couple weeks still yet to go on the campus. Crazy. Enjoy the pics. Yes, that is the same shirt that I wore in a pic the other day. I like it, I feel good in it, it works for me.

I normally end with a question for you – but not today. I want you to do your own make-over.

go crazy!

You may ask why? The answer is because you deserve to see how far you have come! You are worth every bit of the hard work that you are putting into bettering yourself…and I want you to show everyone your hard work. Let’s see it.

Be sure to come back and let us know where to go to see your makeover pics!!!

Race. Iny Mini Miny Mo. Weigh-in Picture.

I posted earlier today about my energy and how motivated I was just to enjoy the day. It carried on through the rest of the day. I still need to do my P90X Yoga-X tonight (which is 1 ½ hours long), but still feel really good. There are a few things that I want to hit with this post tonight. Let’s start with the upcoming race.

Race.

I am feeling pretty good about this race. If you have followed my blog for any span of time, you know that I enjoy running. Approximately 70 days ago I added a countdown timer on the right side of the site. It’s exciting and scary at the same time. There were many times that I did not even know if I would be able to participate. We have been able to fight and bounce back from injury and the mental games associated with running. I say we, because I really do feel that you guys are a part of this journey with me. We are all getting fit together – and the best part is that we are doing this intentionally. Don’t you just love that you are able to accomplish what you set out to accomplish. Crazy cool huh?!

The race is on Saturday. I’m pretty excited. I saw a comment somewhere on another post and the person said – “why not be in it to win”. If it was you that said it, tell us. I have pushed and pushed myself to be able to complete this 5k with no stopping and have surprised myself with endurance. Why not be in this one and try to place? This takes nothing away from our other goals to simply finish the race - (that was my original goal before I started training for it). I am a competitive person and I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t want to win. As for my time – who knows what it could be – I’m shooting for under 30 minutes. Any time will be my personal best. I do know that I will give it what I have and leave it all out on that course. :)

Iny Mini Miny Mo

Sticking with the running theme of the post – I ran 4.31 miles in 43’18”. That's a pace of 10'03".

I did not look at the watch until 39 minutes. I was trying to guess where I was on time and had guessed 45 – 50 minutes. To my surprise it was only 39 and I kicked it up a notch b/c I only had a little left. During my run, I just went where I pleased. I tried to make it simple, but just ran. It was nice. I actually got behind the “runner” around town. I’ve talked about him before where he is always running and never looks tired. I was behind him and tried to sync pace with him. His pace worked with "iny mini miny mo". Each step is the beginning of each word. It may sound weird…but when you say it smoothly as when you read it…that was his pace. I used that for the duration of my run. I did not do it the whole time -that would drive me crazy.

Weigh In.

I managed to produce another loss this week! It was not quite as large the loss as the previous weeks, but it was bigger than any number below it!!!

I lost 1.2 pounds. I am starting to see a pretty good difference in definition in my body. Check for yourself. Go here to see a pic like this from January.

Give me ONE word that summarizes your workouts!

Mine is…"Mental"

Awake. Energetic. Definition.

All of the Above.

I am awake today. There is nothing sluggish in me right now. My body woke up naturally with that aid of an alarm clock on time and feels good. I have already weighed in for the weigh-in post tonight – that went well. :)

I have been struggling with keeping up with reading all of the blogs lately; I am busy. This post is just a precursor to what is coming later. I don’t normally do multiple posts during the day, but have decided that today – with my excellent energy level – deserved an extra post.

The heightened energy may be in part because of the upcoming race on Saturday. Maybe it’s the continued weight loss I am seeing. It might be because I am starting to see definition of muscles in my pictures. Or, it could be because it’s teacher appreciation week at our school – so that means goodies! I can’t quite pin-point the reason – but to be honest, don’t really care too; I’ll just take it and run with it.

Check in later for an expanded post!

What is one thing that has brightened your day on this Awesome Monday?!