My Life on Water

It occurred to me the other day that I have never really gone into what I do, or why I "run on water". I can't go into ALL the details (non-disclosure agreements being what they are), but hopefully what I can discuss will be interesting.

I work for a well known comedy theatre, doing contracts on a well known cruise line's various ships. As someone who has loved comedy and travel their whole life, this is an amazing job and it has been a life-changing opportunity.

It got me out of a desk job that I hated (and didn't belong in, frankly), it helped Greg and me realize that we wanted to get married, and over the last year (although I've made excuses to the contrary up until last year), it has also given me the time and the means to focus on losing weight, training for the races we've done, and getting fitter in general.

Now, I say I made excuses. Those excuses packed about 40 pounds onto my body in about 4 years. It went up and down, but the end result was me running the Princess Half literally 40 pounds heavier than I was when I started doing ships. That was frustrating. I had started running partially to lose weight, but the weight just wasn't moving.

I blamed the food. I mean, people who go on a a cruise gain an average of 5 to 7 pounds in a week, and I'm here for 4 months at a time. How did I stand a chance?

The first thing that I had to change was my relationship to the job. Everyone around me was on vacation. I was not. They could afford to cut loose, eat the "naughty" food and drink the yummy cocktails. I could not. They could take the week off from the gym. I'd never been a big gym-goer. So everything had to change, or I could not change at all.

We have access to the gym on each ship, and now we've made it a point to work the gym into our schedule every day, even if it means forgoing time ashore. When we first started going to the gym a couple of contracts back, it was very basic, then we started using Jillian Michaels' programs. But all the while, we would see people following an impossible looking video on their computers.

They were doing P90X.

It may be old news to a lot of people, but it keeps mading the rounds on the cruise ships like a secret handshake. Once you know what it is, you see it everywhere. A group of dancers here, a customer service guy there, an officer over there... They all look impossibly fit. The workout seems impossible and moderately terrifying.

And so we started.

Greg completed the 90 days the first time we attempted the program on our last contract. I got 60 days in before other health issues threw me off all my training (both P90X and training for the Disneyland Half Marathon). But I could see and feel a difference even through the health garbage I was going through, and I ended up running a 10K when I got home at a pace that I thought was a pipe-dream goal at the time.

And so here we are again. No race to train for (which is still freaking me out a little), but I'm 4 weeks into P90X and feeling stronger than I have in a long time.

And thanks to the head start I got from Weight Watchers, and the ongoing accountability I achieve using MyFitnessPal, I've lost over 20 pounds since the Princess Half in February 2012, at least ten of which have come off while we have been on the ship these last 4 weeks.

I'm proud of that.

I'm also proud that I did a running experiment this week. I'm an interval run/walk/run Galloway gal - you know that. But this week, since I haven't run in almost a month, I thought I'd try something new. I warmed up and then put the treadmill at 5.5 and just ran straight. I wanted to see if I could get to a mile.

And I did. In 9 minutes 30 seconds.

Awesome.

My nemesis. Legs and Back.

Love/Hate

This week has been a lesson in the delicate balance that is the love/hate relationship.

I love working on ships, I hate that I tend to get a case of "ship lung" almost immediately, lately.

I had hoped to begin running again this week, but I was still coughing up a lot of grossness, so I took one more week off. Frustrating, but in the end, with a good round of Mucinex I am now breathing clearly again.

I hate taking a lot of pills and eating a butt-load of salad, but I love the results our Trader Joe's Complete Body Cleanse and the healthy eating that goes along with it. Between that and the workouts we're doing, I've dropped 10 pounds in 2 weeks.

And of course the love/hate extends to dear old Tony Horton and his band of fitness freaks (dammit, Drea - why do you have to be such a kiss-ass?) in the P90X videos. What a terrible/wonderful work-out program. I'm burning 800 - 1000 calories a day doing these stupid, jerk-face work-outs. Which is amazing.

And there's lots of love for the myFitnessPal app, which has an amazing database of foods, even when we're at sea and I'm not able to utilize the full online version on my iPhone.

Mostly, I LOVE the results I'm getting...

This week. Running again. For realzies.

Success!

Today is a "Home Port" day, which means three things:

1. Starbucks
2. Mall
3. Apple Store Internet

If you're ever in a town with a cruise ship port, and you walk past an Apple Store with a bunch of people hunkered down with knapsacks and a desperate look on their face... that'll be us.  We have a few hours to get our week's errands (and downloads) done, and we stretch those hours to the limit.

While I wait for my iPhone update to download, (and since all my Walking Dead episodes are already in the bank) what better time to update my blog?

Chicago week was great - but cold. We had a look at the weather forecast before we left home, and opted not to bring our winter jackets. After all, we were headed to Florida and ports south. Why bring heavy coats?

Big mistake.

I habitually wore 7 layers to rehearsal every day to stay warm in the super-cold snap that hit Chicago. But somehow we made it through the week without getting sick. I went to a local Weight Watchers store to weigh in on my usual day (Thursday) and was a bit bummed out that I had gained 2.2 pounds, despite my careful eating. I didn't let it get to me, and we enjoyed our usual favourite foods for the rest of the week (Al's Italian Beef Sandwich and a pizza from Lou Malnati's)

Week One on the ship was also a lot of fun. We are lucky to work with some wonderful producers and directors, and this time around we had a real pair of firecrackers, and our cast was right on board for the work and inevitable shenannigans that occur as well. We had a successful, low stress week of work.

I did, however, catch a mean case of "Ship Lung" almost immediately, which left me coughing for over a week. I tried to sleep as much as possible, and didn't work out at all for the whole first week on the ship in an effort to recover. Between the lack of exercise and some pretty rich meals (and a few beer) I put on another couple of pounds that first week.

Week two was better. I started P90X with Greg - although the first workout was very difficult since I still couldn't take a full, deep breath without coughing - and we started our semi-annual cleanse (using a supplement kit from Trader Joe's). Along with the cleanse, you're meant to follow a clean eating plan, avoiding dairy, red meat, sugar, processed foods, alcohol, simple carbs like potatoes or rice... you know - everything on a cruise ship... Between that and keeping track of our calories on myfitnesspal on our iPhones we both dropped a lot of weight this past week. Like, 6 pounds for me. So now I weigh less than I did at home at my last Weight Watchers weigh-in. Hooray! This is a first for me. Two weeks on the ship and weighing LESS than I did at home? Unpossible. 

But I did it.

Now that my lungs are almost back to normal, I feel like I can start running again.

I will officially be "Running on Water" again.

I can't wait.

And We're Off

Once again, I run on water...

Meanwhile, enjoy trying to identify what this weird bubble in our window looks like.

Don't Panic!

Source: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog

No one is perfect.

No matter how hard you try, sometimes you get thrown a curve-ball, or you get served an upset that is, well, upsetting.

Like gaining 2.2 pounds in a week.

Yuck.

But, it's how you handle those curve-balls - be they extra, unwelcome pounds or the knowledge that your planet is going to be demolished to make way for an hyperspatial bypass - that shows you your progress as a person.

Today I learned that despite getting farther away from my goal this week (I wanted to hit my 5% weight loss), it wasn't the end of the world. There was a time when gaining THAT MUCH weight in one week would have derailed me mentally and emotionally, but today I just shrugged it off.

I knew there were extenuating circumstances (some lady-related, some salty-travel-food related) and I had to make allowances for that. I spent a second blaming the wobbly scale at the Weight Watchers Store, too.

But when it comes down to it, no amount of negative thought, or panic is going to get rid of those extra 2.2 pounds.

So like Arthur Dent, I'm going to keep my towel handy.  Not ready to throw it in yet.

Where has this newfound calm come from? Perhaps the knowledge that I am about to reach the age where I will learn the answer to life, the universe, everything.

On Sunday, I shall turn 42.

This is, definitively, the nerdiest thing I've ever written.

Being a Marathon Spectator

After running the Walt Disney World Half Marathon on Saturday, it was time to change gears from "athlete" to "spectator". My amazeballs husband, Greg, was running the Marathon in his pursuit of completing the Goofy Race and a Half Challenge.

Now know this. We are not long-experienced runners, or experts in any way. We saw the amazing 20th anniversary Marathon medal and thought it was really cool. I thought it was cool, as in "Hey, look at that nice, shiny thing". Greg thought it was cool, as in "Me want". Then when he heard you get an additional Goofy medal for completing both the Half and Full Marathons in the same weekend, well... He Want.

So, without really considering all the implications, he registered.

He had a nervous conversation about it with Jeff Galloway at the Disneyland Half Marathon while we were there to get our Coast to Coast completion last year (we are bonus medal whores), and Jeff managed to allay his fears. Jeff told him, "You're going to make it. You wouldn't believe some of the people who do it, who look like they shouldn't be able to - you'll be fine. Just walk the half, then take it easy on the full. You get the same medal, no matter what, so make it fun."

To be fair, I'd been telling Greg the same thing, but it sounds better coming from a former Olympian, I suppose.

Flash forward to 3:15AM on Sunday. For this weekend, that was actually considered "sleeping in". I honestly don't remember if I saw Greg off. I'd like to think I did.

Rachael and I got up after he left, and did the whole "quick, light breakfast" thing, decided what to wear (our Half Marathon shirts, medals and Sparkle Skirts with our ChEAR shirts and clappers in my runDisney Coast to Coast shoulder bag) and made our way to the bus stop. We opted to wait till 4AM, since the runners were supposed to pretty much all be gone by then. Even so, we saw a few runners hustling to the bus with their bibs on and getting in line behind us. We urged them to the front to make sure they got the first available bus seats.

The busses were moving quickly and efficiently, and before we knew it, we were dropped off at the Epcot parking lot. I thought about running into the Race Retreat tent (I'd bought the Platinum ChEAR squad package, my sister bought a Gold at the expo) to grab a couple of bagels (it really was a very light breakfast), but we had no idea how long of a wait we could expect at the monorail to the Transportation and Ticket Centre, or from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom, and Greg was in Corral B, so we figured we'd better get a move on.

Surprisingly, we were able to get right on the monorail, and we settled in for our trip to the TTC. There was a lot of shuffling, a lot of confused people who didn't know where they were going, and so Rachael and I bobbed and weaved our way through the doodle-doots (our term for people who seem to just meander, aimlessly, humming "dooooodle-ooot-dooooot") and quickly glanced up to see a large crowd heading up to the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. Another glance to our left showed us that there were only about 10 people waiting for the ferry, and it was on it's way.  Off to the ferry!

Standing by for the ferry - see the castle waaaay back there?

We made it to the Magic Kingdom and hustled our way up Main Street, past the heaps of people waiting along the course, shoulder to shoulder. Immediately I was glad we'd bought the ChEAR packages because I knew we'd have a reserved cheering area in a "premium" location.

But of course, there was time for a couple of photos on the way.

Rachael and the Castle - still lit up for Christmas.

And ME!

The reserved viewing area was indeed "Premium". It was right, smack-dab in front of the castle. There was coffee, tea, hot chocolate and cold beverages available. We had received blankets as part of our packages, which I didn't bring along since I didn't think they would be useful since it was so WARM, but when I saw people sitting on the ground on theirs... well.. duh... We cozied up on the blanket-less pavement with some hot chocolate and waited. I wasn't entirely sure what Greg's pace was going to be today, so we were at the mercy of the runner tracking via text and email. I knew his start time, but that was it.

When around 45 minutes past his start time passed, and I hadn't received his 5K split yet, I started to worry. I realized shortly after, the splits were, of course, in MILES. That's when it really hit me how far a Marathon is.

Now, people who come so early are dedicated and devoted to their runners. Some. optimistically so. We had to negotiate a temporary space swap with a couple of people whose runner was in the H corral so that we could be up front to see Greg when he came through the castle. I mean, their runners had barely just started at this point but there they were, right up front... Cute.

Here's our front row view!

Before we knew it, here came THIS guy! (He'd also texted us a little along the way with his progress.

Ok, you can barely see him.

He's a BLUR, he's so fast!

Somehow he totally missed that I was trying to get him to go to the race photographers and get his photo done, but I didn't want to keep him, so we checked in and sent him on his way. He was doing GREAT!

We tried to catch him on the roadway past the Polynesian, but realized when we got there that it had taken too long (but I did see Heather from Running with Sass and her husband, Bobby! Lookin' good, you two!) 

We hustled to catch the Animal Kingdom bus. It was pretty full, and the driver warned us that it might take 45 minutes to get there (DARN), but somehow we made it just as Greg was entering the park, and we negotiated yet another front of the line spot with a family whose runner came through just before Greg.

Here he comes!

He's taking a photo of me...

And I'm taking a photo of him... which Rachael took a photo of.
So meta.

We were torn at this point. Greg had reached the halfway point in about 2.5 hours. He'd been pushing to get as far as he could before the sun came up, and planned to slow down a bit now that it was heating up.

I was curious about the Mile 20 "surprise" that Disney had planned, and we thought about heading to the Wide World of Sports to try and catch Greg there, but then I was worried about  making it to the finish line in time if there was gridlock out that way.
So far the transportation had been amazing, but I'd never taken a bus to the WWoS, and I didn't want to risk it, so we headed straight back to Epcot.

We knew we'd have some time to kill, so Rachael waited at the finish line in the reserved area for ChEAR package holders to watch the runners come in while I went over to the Race Retreat to try and snag us some snacks. Surprisingly (and this is my only complaint) the food was not available. I mean, it was out, but it was all covered and staff were shooing people away.  People who included some (from what I could see) pretty hungry runners. Not cool.

I hiked back to the finish line, hungry. I noticed a cupcake truck and purchased our second breakfast there. A peanut butter chocolate cupcake. Boo-hoo. Poor us. We ate it in the shaded area behind the ChEAR bleachers where there was cold beverages, private portolets, tables and stools, and materials to make cheer signs.

We weighed our options at this point. We knew Greg would be over an hour, and we were entertained at the finish line, but EPCOT was right there. And so we went! We hopped on the  new Test Track (Test Track goes Tron, in my opinion) and then made our way to Sunshine Seasons to get something for Rachael to eat. On our way in, a nice lady congratulated us on our medals and gave us a pair of Soarin' tickets she couldn't use.

Well, ok!

So we rode Soarin'.

Once we were done, I started to get antsy about the time, considering I'd have to walk all the way back to the finish line, so I left Rachael to grab her food and I made my way to the reserved viewing area, grabbed a bottle of water and waited. I got the notice that Greg had just passed 20 miles, so I settled in. Before long, Rachael found me. We made some Cheer signs, and watched the runners stream in.

Some ebullient, some in agony, all of them awash in joy.

One runner in particular scared the crap out of me. He was coming along at a good clip, when he suddenly stopped about 20-30 feet away from the finish line. He started moving in a very strange way - it looked like he was starting to do a jig, or trying to do the moonwalk. At first I thought "Ha, go dude!" but suddenly that turned into a "Oh no, dude!" as he collapsed to the ground, felled-tree-like, stiff as a board. I was a double barricade away from him, helpless. I looked up at the booth (he'd dropped right in front of it) and I thought I heard them calling for a medic. For what seemed like and eternity, he just lay alone on the ground. No other runners were coming in, so it couldn't have been that long, but suddenly a couple ran to him, each putting one of his arms around their shoulders, and they carried him across the finish line. His legs below the knees were twisted inwards, his calves obviously cramping up terribly. Then, just as suddenly, the couple ran back across the finish line to the stands. They'd leapt the barrier to help this runner complete his race.

Wow.

About 10 minutes later, I got a text from Greg that he was close and before long I saw him jogging into view. Rachael and I hoisted our signs into the air and cheered. Greg high-fived Goofy and then continued on in his runner's daze.

We ran after him, on our side of the barricades (you can only access the runners in the chute after the finish line if you have access to the reserved ChEAR Zone) and yelled his name till he turned around. We congratulated him and arranged to meet over by the Race Retreat tent.

Rachael couldn't come in with her Gold package, so she and I planned to meet soon after at Mission: Space, she snapped a picture of Greg in all his glory, and Greg and I did the post-race chat in the Race Retreat.

So much BLING!!

He was pretty exhausted, blissed out and emotional. And proud. We were both very proud. I focussed on making sure he ate what he could, and drank water and Gatorade, and sent him back to the resort with instructions to take an ice bath as soon as he got there.
I had a momentary pang of guilt for not going with him, especially after he told me that a gentleman had collapsed on his bus on the way back. But he got there fine, iced up, and had a nice jacuzzi session and a nap.

Yeah, dude!

If you ever find yourself at Walt Disney World during any of the runDisney events, I would recommend making it a point to get up early and watch at least part of the race. It's fun, inspirational and exciting.

If you find yourself there WITH a runner, I thought the runDisney ChEAR team package was pretty fun. I liked the reserved areas, I liked the beverages, I thought the T-shirts, clappers and blankets were cute, and if I were by myself I would probably made more use of the Race Retreat itself. Again, I wasn't crazy about the fact that food wasn't available right away when runners were coming in, but that's my only complaint. It was a nice perk.

So... Now What?

2012 was quite a year. I went from wondering if I could ever run as far as 10K, to running two of them, and 3 half marathons. (And then another half in January of 2013). We were lucky, we managed to line up our ship contracts in a way that happened to coincide with the races we wanted to run.

This year, things are different. We are heading back out to sea on February 17 (my birthday, no less) and will be working on a ship doing western Caribbean runs, followed by Bermuda runs for 4 months.  Then we'll take a month off, then back out for another four months.

For those of you counting along at home, that happens to be, essentially, race season.  I haven't been able to narrow down a local race during my month at home.  If our budget works out, I may be able to justify the trip to Florida for the Space Coast Half Marathon in December.

DECEMBER!!

So, suddenly, all my focus on training and all my forward looking goals to keep me on track have disappeared. I am a rudderless ship.  Soon to be ON a ship, surrounded by buffets and dollar beers.  The self-same environment that has helped me pile on about 30 pounds over the last few years.

Am I worried?

You betcha!

I love races because the training programs give me a tangible set of day to day goals, as well as an actual, hard deadline that I can't just wave off like other self-imposed deadlines. If I don't put the work in, I won't get to the finish line. And let me tell you, there is something truly empowering about reaching that finish line.

It's a lesson I'm working on applying to my daily and professional life, but for now, I'm working on perfecting it in my health goals.

I'm worried that if I don't have that race to work towards (which serves as a deadline, but also as a reward), that I'll just stop. I don't want to stop, but a habit is a habit, and my habit of sedentary behaviour is older and more well-worn. The habit of running and health is something I'm still breaking in.

I want to spend some time working on my speed. I would love to get my 10K time down by 10 to 15 minutes. But I also really want to race.

So... Now What?