The Color Run

Have you heard of The Color Run before? I hadn't until this year. Once my friends and I learned about it we scurried over to their website to sign up for the DC run, just to find it was sold out. Whomp, whomp, whomp. So we did the next best thing and road-tripped to Richmond to take part. It was so much fun!! I mean, you run (or in my case walk, due to some medical stuff I've got going on right now), get colored corn starch thrown at you, and act like a crazy fool. What's not to love?!

Luckily, I'd bought Charlotte a waterproof digital camera a while back. I figured if it can survive 14 feet underwater it can survive a Color Run. I was right. So here are some (unedited) shots during the action:

Now the run itself is fun, but as you can see, our shirts ended up being just a slightly more pastel version of their formerly white selves. Boring! So into the after party we went, where participants get to throw packets of color in the air. Or in each other's faces. Your choice. :)

We stayed in this hue-filled mosh pit for about half an hour before we headed to our cars, dusted ourselves off and went back to the hotel. We met Charlotte and my mom there (thanks Mom for watching her!) and Charlotte didn't even recognize me. Not that I can blame her, given that my face was completely purple.

I'm psyched at the thought of signing up for this again when it comes back to town next year!

Couch to 5K: Progress

Two months ago my sister and I started the Couch to 5K program. Nine weeks and a couple dozen runs later I figure it's time to check in and let you know how it's going. We're midway through week 7 of the program now. We should be finished, but opted to repeat a fews weeks along the way. I'll admit, it's been harder than expected. We started our first day feeling ahead of the curve. We figured that, even overweight, we're naturally athletic and would have no problem with the early runs. Boy were we wrong! We got just seconds into the first part of the run and realized that we had our work cut out for us. But, just as the program promises, things got better and we got more comfortable as the weeks went on. That's not to say we didn't have bad days. We did. There was a stretch there where I felt like I was the queen of stopping early. I'd stop a bit early on each round of running and ended up way behind the others in our group. Some of it can be blamed on a wicked cold, but most of it was just laziness. But I pushed through and yesterday we completed a 25 minute run, covering just over 2 miles, without stopping. Go us! We still have a ways to go before we hit our goal (we want to get a full 5k done in less than 30 minutes), but we're getting there.

Have you been doing any exercising lately? Or taken on any long-term challenges? Or put a really unflattering picture out there for the world to see? I'd love to hear about it!

P.S. For those who don't know... no, we're not twins. We just look a lot alike. Especially when sweaty and out of breath. ;)

Couch to 5K

If you follow me on Instragram (I'm explanationrequired), you saw that a over a week ago I bought the Couch to 5K app for my phone. This is a pretty big deal for me. All the way up through high school I was super fit, taking dance classes 4 days a week and playing lacrosse my senior year. I was never skinny, but was definitely lean and trim. Over a decade later, I've put on 50 or so extra pounds and haven't exercised more than a handful of times. I've been considering different exercise regimens and diets for years now, but never really had any determination to take that step and really commit. But now I'm ready to go. I'm not sure what made me decide that now was the time, but now is the time.

So I dragged my sister into it (in all fairness, she's totally willing to be my running buddy) and we're starting the program today. Mark asked me what my goal is in exercising - what weight loss, size change, etc I want to reach. I didn't have an answer because I don't have a number in mind. Maybe that's a problem and I should make a goal for myself, but honestly I just want to feel comfortable with my body and I'll know when I am when I get there. So my hope in putting it all out there on the blog is that I'll actually stick with the plan. I don't like to fail, which is probably why I never started an exercise program in the past. But the fact that I'm starting now means I'm bound and determined to get healthy. I hope you'll cheer me along!