20 + Teaser + 100 = Reasons to be proud!

Cryptic title, I know. I'll walk you through it.

First, the 20. Well, I did it. Last night, I jogged for 20 minutes straight. No breaks. Okay, one 15 second break after 10 minutes because I haven't quite figured out how to run and to drink water from a water bottle yet without smashing my teeth, so I hopped up on the rails for 15 seconds to hydrate a little. It wasn't a fast run, but it was kind of my standard jog pace I've been trying to do during Couch to 5k training, 4.1 mph. (I know, you runners out there probably walk at that pace). All in all, that is 1.67 miles, about, 2.7k. I'm officially running more than half a 5k at this point!

I've never run that long, that far, without stopping. It's a huge deal for me (obviously). I was really proud of myself for not quitting, as it crossed my mind a million times. At minute 8, I knew I was past where I'd done it before, and realized I still had that much and more to go! At minute 10, I remarked that I was half way there, and I could probably do all that time again. At minute 15, I figured I only needed to get through 1 more song. At minute 16, I started to think, "Well... 18 minutes would be a great accomplishment, too, even if it wasn't 20." At 18, I knew I could do 2 more minutes, but they were a loooooong 2 minutes. At minute 20, I thought, "Honestly? I could run another minute if I had to!" I didn't, since I needed to do a quick cool down before pilates, but it was really surprising to know I felt good enough that I could have done a LITTLE more....

The Teaser. I've been doing pilates reformer (the torture machine with springs and pulleys) in a group training session (3 core people, added a 4th a couple of months ago, and occasionally a 5th will add, so it's small and semi-private) for 9 months now. Our instructor, Maria, is awesome, and she continues to increase her own ability as a teacher as we've learned, as well. She keeps incorporating new things she's learning herself into our classes, most of it Reformer 3 and keeps challenging us to get to a next level in our own abilities each week. About 3 sessions ago, she started to encourage us to try, if we were comfortable, moving from one our moves to get into "Teaser" pose. (didn't do the moves after teaser, just getting into "teaser" was a big enough move for us to try). One woman was able to do it week 1 without a problem. I didn't even try. Last week, I tried, but there was no way in heck it was going to happen. Last night, with the best of intentions, I got up on the first try! Sure, I wobbled when I got there, and she had to spot me coming back down, but I did it again, and did it solidly. (here's video of someone else who clearly knows what he's doing, so you can have a visual of what I'm talking about.) It was a huge accomplishment for me -- such a demonstration of balance, strength and courage I hadn't really gotten to before in my pilates class. Also helps that I have such supportive classmates and an instructor along the way!

And, what does 100 mean? Well, this is my 100th post on this blog!! I can't believe it! I have to admit, I didn't really realize this until yesterday. I was reading someone else's blog and she was commenting about her 100th post, and I thought to myself, "that's a big deal... I should really have a sense of when my OWN 100th post will be." Imagine my surprise when I saw that my very next post would be number 100!

I was e-mailing with a dear friend recently about how important blogging had become to this whole thing. Sure, the diet and the exercise are the WORK of it all, but I really could not have done any of this without the blogging. First of all, of course there is the accountability. Knowing that I have people who will be tuning in to see what happens next, and seeing if I am following through on proclamations is honestly a big motivator, both from a "I have people I can share success with" and from a "I will feel guilty if I skulk away from all this and people know" point of view. (I guess those are the two sides of the accountability coin.)

The other aspect of why blogging has been so helpful is the intellectual and creative outlet it has been for me to be able to process these thoughts I have about all of this, the good and the bad, and be able to keep them all in check. Being able to look back and read where I've been, where I came from, different goals I've set for myself and achieved has been a tremendous tool. In that sense, it's really just a journal that I've happened to make public, if people want to read it, and there's obviously value in that exercise for me, whether or not there's an audience.

But 100 posts is incredible, especially since am not even 50 weeks into this yet. I don't know that I ever thought I'd hit 100. Not sure I ever gave it much thought. But now that I have, I'm really proud of this last of 3 accomplishments I wanted to share today.

I hope any one of these accomplishments in my little life help to inspire YOU to set a goal today worth achieving, and worth sharing your pride once you do!

Thanks for reading! (Thanks for reading 100 times!)