Running Faster with Insanity

I ran my first half-marathon in 2006. I honestly did not care about time or pace and I had no flipping clue what PR meant. I was already able to run a 5k comfortably, so I decided to start from there. Instead of increasing my mileage by adding a mile every week, I ran ten minutes further than the last week. The goal for my first half was to finish, and my overall time was 2:02. And that's where my running ended. My family and I moved two months later, I began graduate school full time, was working full time, and I put running aside because life got in the way.

Then came the saddest, loneliest, and most challenging year in my life. It was 2009. My husband deployed to Iraq with the National Guard, I was in the midst of earning my Master's degree and started a new career on top of single parenting. I did not have family close by to help me, and was too embarrassed to ask anyone I knew for help. I was depressed and cried every single night asking God to help me make it through the day. I'm not someone to feel sorry for myself, but I felt so alone and helpless. In January of 2010, the year my husband was scheduled to come back, I made a new Year's resolution to start running again. I decided I was going to run a Marathon to show that no matter how tough life was, I could cross the finish line. The only problem was, my schedule did not allow me to properly train, so I finished much like the way I lived my days without my husband - crawling, aching and begging to cross the finish line.

Stubborn as I am, I felt I need to set another running goal - complete a half marathon in under two hours. I figured it could not be all that challenging given I came close on my first half without trying. In January of 2011, I had a misfortune that set me back 5 months and had to start running from scratch. I began to train hard, adding speed training and attending spin classes. In January of 2012, I ran the Vancouver Lake Half-Marathon and came close to my goal - 2:01:49. Three days later, I got the news that I was expecting my second baby. My pregnancy did not deter me from pursuing my goal and I was motivated to continue running while pregnant. However, my body was not as ambitious as my mind and had to give up running after the first trimester because it was too painful on my joints (I gained a total of 47 pounds).

I did not run after my third trimester or after birth when I was cleared to start running. It wasn't until Mother's Day of 2013 where one of my friends encouraged me to run a 5k. She was with me the whole way. I could feel the flab on my legs jiggling every time I moved my feet forward. My back ached, my lungs felt weak, and my overall time was 38:09 with a pace of 12:17.

Fast forward to June 2013, where I started Insanity from Beachbody. I followed the program and did not skip a beat. It kicked my butt from beginning to end. I had registered to run a 7k with a friend two weeks before day 60 of Insanity. I was scared because I was uncertain whether I could run 4.35 miles considering I had not ran since the Mother's Day 5k, and that was not a pretty run. Needless to say, I completed the race in 45:37, a pace of 10:29!!! I had not run a single mile since my 5k in May, and with only completing six weeks of Insanity, I shaved almost two minutes off my mile. Thus, I have decided to incorporate Insanity as part of my training so I can achieve my sub-2 goal. I've started running 4 days out of the week and am doing Insanity two days out of the week. While I have not registered for a half marathon yet, I'm hoping to be ready for one by the Spring of 2014.

Running is democratic, exercise your right to run today.

The Symbolism of the Sandwich

On a warm and humid Summer morning circa 1984, four adults and six children, ranging in ages from one to ten, woke up at the crack of dawn in honor of a very special day. It was not only the first day of school, but it was the first day of School in the United States of America. To celebrate the moment, I wore a pair of pants, a shirt which had USA '84 written across the chest, and two crooked pig tails to complete the look. The most exciting accessories were my large purple shoulder bag that served as a backpack and a Hello Kitty plastic lunchbox. Inside the lunchbox was a sandwich my mother made for me to eat for lunch. Now, this sandwich was a BIG DEAL. According to my mother, Americans loved sandwiches, and the creation I was toting in my box was to be symbolic of our desires to integrate into the mainstream culture. Prior to that day, I don't ever remember eating a sandwich. It seemed like such a simple concoction, but I don't ever recall seeing two slices of bread with anything in between them being served to me.

And so, with a very important sandwich in hand, I crossed the street to my school with my family of nine. Because I did not speak any English, I was uncertain what exactly was happening, so I just followed my mother, who took me to a room full of kids with missing teeth like myself. My mother walked away and I remember feeling scared. My teacher, Mrs. Rhodes, signaled me to sit. I clutched to my bag and felt the comfort of the lunchbox as I placed it on the floor next to my leg. I was not sure when I would be able to open it, but it gave me something to look forward to.

The time in between when I was dropped off and lunch time was very frantic. I could not express at the time how I felt, but the experience of not understanding English was like landing at an airport for a connecting flight where you have to find a gate located across the other side of the airport in a span of five minutes. The mental exhaustion made me hungry, and I was desperate to open my lunchbox and scarf down my sandwich.

Lunch time finally came. We were asked to line up and our teacher walked us to this very large room filled with very distinct smells that penetrated my nose and large tables with benches sprawled all over the room. It was noisy and just as chaotic as the airport scene I had described. My teacher pointed at a table and I assumed she was signaling me to sit. So I did. I carried my pretty pink Hello Kitty lunchbox and placed it on the table. There was already a group of kids seated around me, but neither I nor them acknowledged one another. I opened up my lunchbox with both refinement and intensity. Within a split second, a pungent sulfur-like smell escaped my box. Basically it smelled like farts. I snapped that lid so tight, it made a gator wrestler look like an amateur. I looked around hoping no one thought I was the one who released the smell. How could such an event, a symbolic event where I was letting all the American kids sitting around me know I was one of them with my sandwich make such a turn for the worst? To add insult to injury, I was starving. I pondered long and hard (it was probably only 3 seconds) about my next move and decided I needed to face this sandwich. I slowly cracked open the lunchbox enough to peek inside and get a glimpse of its content. My eyeball caught a large lump smack dab in the middle of the two slices of bread. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out my mother made me a hard boiled egg sandwich.

On that infamous first day of school in the United States of America, I became conscious of the relationship food meant to me and those around me. I never ate the sandwich, choosing instead to forgo hunger and risk making noises with my stomach rather than being considered the new girl who ate a fart sandwich. My mother gave up the effort to integrate us into the mainstream via food after both my sister and I returned home from school with an intact boiled egg sandwich. Because we qualified for free and reduced lunch, my siblings and I were introduced to a whole new world of foods by the cafeteria staff. Chicken nuggets, ranch dressing, sloppy joes, tacos, pizza, broccoli, grilled cheese, cereal, French toast sticks and pancakes were amongst some of the new flavor our taste buds experienced. Food was an introduction to our integration into the mainstream culture. Now, it's arguable whether the aforementioned list of foods are representative of the mainstream culture, but as immigrants who had never been exposed to said foods, we felt like we belonged.

Insanity Pictures

 Day 1/Day30/Day 60

This is where you can see a Major Difference!