In the beginning...

On Saturday, I reached a monumental step in the evolution of my weight loss and fitness journey: I ran ten miles.  Can I say that again, but with more excitement?  I RAN 10 MILES!!!  Yes!  I can hardly believe that I ran mileage in the double digits, but somehow I did. 

Here we are after 10 miles!!  It took us 2:30 to run, which is a 15:00 pace,
but there was some walking mixed in there.

Here is some background about my story so that you will be excited about this momentous occasion too.  First, as of January 1st, 2010, I weighed a whopping 334 lbs.  That might be okay if I were a 6' 10" football linebacker, but sadly (for my former 334 lbs.) I am not.  I am  a 5' 8" tall literature teacher, so this made my weight uncomfortable, tiresome, and all around aggravating.  I had a BMI of 51 (normal range is 18.5-24.9).  I couldn't go on rides at amusement parks because the belts wouldn't fit over my lap; I couldn't sit in some restaurant booths because there wasn't enough space between the table and the seat for me to fit; I couldn't ride on an airplane because I couldn't afford to buy two seats (and I was pretty sure that they would ask me to once they saw how much my butt hung over the sides).  I knew I was really in trouble when I started having worse incontinence problems than my 68 year old mother.  A girl shouldn't have to worry about peeing her pants while walking down the hall at 30 years old.  So as of January 2010, my husband and I made a pact to lose weight.




Here is my 2009-2010 school picture to give you an idea of my pre-weight loss size.



Here is Corey and me doing what we did best.  I miss it a lot sometimes... Not the weight, but the food!

By January 1st, 2011, I had lost 94 lbs., which put me at 240 lbs.  Still way too heavy, but a lot better than 2010.  My friend Jodi told me about her experience running the Steamboat Classic, and I wanted to run it too.  Steamboat is a four mile race (which my parents refer to as a "marathon"- cringe), and I could barely run a mile, so I had a lot of work to do before the race in June.  On April 6th Corey and I started training for the race with a training group called Building Steam.  During training, we ran a set amount once a week.  We were supposed to practice this amount four times every week between training days, but sometimes we were more successful at our practices than others.  We would forget and not run any except for the two days preceding the training day.  Sometimes we were good and ran all our practice days.

Here is an updated school photo from 2010-2011.



Here is Corey and me at Thanksgiving 2010.  I was 240 lbs. and Corey was 268 lbs.


This training was really hard for me.  I have asthma, and it really bothered me in the beginning.  I would run/walk with the trainers, and by the end of the practice, I would feel like I was going to faint.  There were times when I actually got little black stars in front of my eyes when I bent down to stretch after the training.  I can remember crying and telling Corey in the car after training that I hated running, and I just didn't know if I could do this- I was okay with just being a walker.  Corey was always patient- more so than I would have been- and he always told me that I could do it.

The first race we ran was the Caterpillar 5K on May 14th.  A 5K is actually 3.1 miles.  I don't know why we have to measure things in K's since we don't use the metric system for anything else in this country, and consequently, the term "5K" was confusing for me.  I thought kilometers into miles was pretty much a 2:1 ratio, so I thought we were going to run a 2.5 mile race.  At this point, I was down to 208 lbs. and had been running/walking for about 5 weeks.  This was not enough because I had done the majority of my training at night when the actual race was in the morning.  Sunlight=hotter temperatures=more sweating=dehydration.  I kept getting the chills, even though it was hot and humid.  I found out later that the chills can indicate dehydration.  Since this was my first race, I had only taken a little sip at the one and only water stop at mile 1 and chucked the rest on the ground.  Grrr!!  To make things worse, the one and only hill was at mile 2.8.  I had also mistakenly worn a cotton T-shirt thinking that having a cute, Caterpillar colored outfit (yellow and black) was more important than wearing the ugly technical T I had considered but discarded that morning.  By this time, I was realizing that 5k must mean more than 2.5 miles, I was sweating buckets while simultaneously getting goose bumps, and I was in an agony to be DONE.  My cotton T was drenched and weighing me down as it retained all my sweat.  Finally, we came up the stupid hill and out to the last couple of blocks, and I could see the finish line in sight.  Corey and I crossed together, and amazingly, even though we had to walk part of it, we still had an overall pace of 11:35 (our goal was 11:30). 

From left to right: some unknown person's back (oops),
Corey, Kathleen, Jodie, Sammi, and Polly

Skip to Steamboat on June 18th.  My mom and dad came up to see Corey and I cross the finish line.  This was a really big deal for us since we had so recently been way too big to participate in anything like this event except as spectators.  We ran the race with Jodi, the friend who got me into this craziness in the first place, and a couple other teachers from my school.  We ran the entire four miles without stopping (although I am not sure why people are so opposed to a little walking- more on that in a later post), and finished with a pace of 11:26.  Corey and I actually crossed the finish line holding hands so we had the exact same time.  (Don't say "How sweet!"  You know it was a mile stone for us, so cut us some slack...)  You can go to http://www.raceresultsplus.com/sites/raceresultsplus.com/files/RSLTS4M_4.HTM and look us up.  We are numbers 2400 and 2401.  My parents never saw us at the finish line; some firefighters ran in all their gear, and my folks were looking at them instead of us (but who would you rather see cross the finish line, honestly- firefighters or a couple of really sweaty, extra-large people?).  Thank goodness someone recorded the finish so my parents could see us at least on youtube!  Check us out at 6:00.  Corey is in orange shorts and a white top and I am in gray shorts and a pink top. 

Since Steamboat, Corey and I have made it our goal to run a half marathon, so this is why I get up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning to run miles and miles out into the country.  This is also why I ran four miles every day on my vacation in Chicago last week, and why I didn't gain a ton of weight, even though I ate pizza and Chinese food while we were there.  The whole diet has kind of been put on hold, unfortunately.  It seems really difficult to concentrate on losing weight and training at the same time, so I have hovered around 198-200 for a few weeks now.  Hopefully, writing this blog will help get me back on track and make me more accountable for my weight again.  It shouldn't be hard to lose weight while training for a half marathon (you would think!), but I have the idea that I ran four miles this morning, so I can eat that extra serving of chips or that Rice Crispie treat, right?  No!  This is why I am hovering... Sigh...

Here I am in Chicago.  I'm not in my running gear, but I thought I'd show the view
we got to see every day as we ran along the lake-front trail.  It was pretty incredible!

So now we come back to the ten miles I just ran Saturday, and the reason for the name of this blog.  Who wears short shorts (but probably shouldn't)?  It's the Smallwoods.  Yes, both Corey and I own and wear a pair of short running shorts that look hideously embarrassing on our still plump frames (my BMI is now down to 30, but I am still in the obese category- overweight is 29.9-25).  I saw some members of our branch and was embarrassed but amused to see them stare at me running in front of their car with my running shorts and singlet on.  My singlet is a Nike tank top with a racer-back, so my flabby upper arms are exposed.  This outfit seriously looks so bad on me, but it keeps me fairly cool in the Illinois heat.  Even better- on runs in the country, I also wear a hydration belt, which is like a fanny pack with a water bottle on it.  Looks really cool, let me tell you.  Oh well...  It keeps me from getting the chills while I run, and the pack is really convenient to carry my cell phone, just in case I get attacked by a random deer or something out in the country. 

I am amazed by how much stronger I am now than I was just five weeks ago.  This is the great thing about running.  I have really tested my physical limits, and I have found that I can meet the challenge.  Where four miles was a big deal five weeks ago, now it is part of my short runs that I do three times a week.  Also, five weeks ago, the training group would do "slope work" by running up small inclines in the park.  Now I run multiple large hills in my daily runs since I have been running in the country where the scenery is much better but the terrain is much steeper.  I just go at the hills slowly, but I never walk them because I know I am just getting stronger every time I run them.  I have to admit that I usually have the lyrics from the chorus of Christina Aguilera's song "Fighter" running through my head every time I run at a hill, and I am sure that I look as hunched as a grandma by the time I am through with some of the really big ones at the end of my run, but I feel great- like I could face anything.  No more crying and saying how much I hate running!  I actually have started to (gasp!) love my runs, and I get a little runner's high now and then.  Thank goodness, because I don't think Corey could have taken much more crying!

Looking foxy in short shorts! Haha!!

So I say "Love it or shove it!" to the haters who think short shorts should only be worn by the uber-fit.  Those of us "Clydesdales" and "Athenas" (runners in higher weight classes) still have to be comfortable while we run- there should be some perks to getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning, so if you don't like it, don't look.  Who knows?  Corey is turning 40 this year in October, so we've talked a little bit about running a marathon to celebrate- you may get to see our meaty thighs for a whole 26.2 miles.  Lucky you! Hee hee!!


Here is Corey strutting his stuff in short shorts and water fanny pack!  You go, hon!!