Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Step up


Sometimes you just have to step up your game.  If you’re not getting it done on your own then change the plan.  Lucky for me, I have trainer Scott to help assist with this.  I had a migraine when I got to the gym last night and was feeling terrible but I knew I had to step up and push through it.  I got through my cardio and weighin, which went better than I expected it to.  Then Scott threw down the challenge for Molly, myself and our friend Julie.  It consists of logging our food, staying in our calorie budget and getting a minimum of 15,022 steps a day.  Doesn’t sound too hard…unless of course you have desk jobs like we do.  If one of us doesn’t meet the goals, the others have to run for an hour straight while Scott tortures the one who didn’t make it in strength training.  This is a game he likes to play when he thinks we’re not being accountable enough to ourselves.  He makes our consequences punish others.  It’s a tactic that has worked on us many times.  If all three of us log our food, stay in our calories and hit the 15,022 steps a day for the next seven days then there is a tie-breaker and that will be most total steps.  Oh, and there’s a prize.  And I’m extremely competitive and really love prizes so no pressure at all on this challenge.  Ha!  Making the other girls run if I don’t meet my goals isn’t an option so I’m stepping it up to get it done.  There are no freebie days.  I must be on good behavior for the next week and knock it out like a champ, so at 8:30 last night, once dinner was done and the kids were settled down a bit, I headed back to the gym with Rob and his workout buddy and did another hour on the elliptical.  Steps for the day?  Almost 20,000 and I burned over 3600 calories.  That’s the fun thing about Scott’s challenges, he wants you to think it’s all about the steps but in reality, he just knows you’re going to have to shake your tail to get it done and you’re gonna burn and not be sitting still eating food.  He’s wicked sneaky and smart like that.

I will have to be careful this weekend with my food.  We are going out of town to do the Alive & Running suicide 5K.  I will be eating out Friday night and breakfast Saturday so I’m going to have to make super smart choices.  I’ve recruited Rob’s help in helping me while we’re gone.  It’s going to be a super emotional weekend for me which will only make it that much tougher.  For so many years, food was my comfort and solace and I have to remind myself this weekend that food is my fuel.  My comfort will be running this 5K with my family in Kirk’s honor.  It will be sitting around the hotel and sharing stories and memories of him. It will be wearing our green t-shirts proudly.  It will be sending a lantern with a message of my love to the heavens for him.  My comfort will come in the love and arms of my family and knowing that he would be proud of the changes I have made in my life.  I know there will be a lot of tears thinking about his short 26 years with us, but there will be so much laughter too.  Listening to my dad, brother and Mark tell stories of their wrestling trips and Kirk’s shenanigans always brings a smile to my face and for a moment, fills that empty little space in our hearts with joy.  We will stand strong together at the finish line Saturday morning because, well, we’re Hagebakke Forever and that’s what we do.  Kirk’s death was one of the things that spurred my lifestyle change and I like to think of this as just another way my cousin is pushing me to get better.  If the race road gets rough on Saturday morning, I know that Captain K will be cheering me on, and that’s all I need.  It’s like having little angel wings on my tennis shoes. 

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