Ready or not, it's coming.

If you haven't noticed, my first 5k is looming. --->
**looks over at bright red ticking count-down to race time...**

You'd think that with my very first race less than 30 days away I would be training like a mad woman. Instead I went on vacation for ten days and came back just in time to catch a cold that wiped me out for another whole  week. Between all of that not a whole lot of training has been going on recently.

I got back to my workout grind last week but I'm paying for it with sore muscles this weekend. This girl needs a massage in a serious way.

So here's hoping the next nineteen days are enough to get me through my first 5k. I feel like it's looming ahead of me!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...

...until someone grabs a camera. Busted! ;)

I'm on the left, my BFF on the right.

It's only 7 am right now, but tonight I'll be a bridesmaid in a wedding for the very first time. A bridesmaid in Vegas. Surrounded by good friends I haven't seen in years. This is definitely the recipe for Pure Awesome and I can't fucking wait! =) I can't believe the day is finally here!!

Side Note: I flew into Vegas last night after spending the day both at work and at the dentist. My wisdom tooth is impacted which has caused an infection in my gum-line. After getting my teeth cleaned on Tuesday I spent two hours in the chair yesterday having as much of the infection as possible manually scraped away with a sharp metal hook-looking thing -- and then they handed me a prescription for antibiotics to clear up the rest. And guess what? You can't drink alcohol while taking antibiotics. Good thing I'm not much of a drinker (alcohol aggravates my Crohn's) or that could have put a damper on my wild and crazy weekend in Vegas.

In blog related news, I took another progress photo earlier this week but never got around to posting it. Here's a fun 2-week comparison:

Click the pic to view full size

I've been working out regularly since January and have lost a total of 49 pounds. I've been strength and endurance training 6 days a week for 7 weeks now and it's finally starting to visibly pay off. I'm loving it!

The 1st Step -- Training for my first 5k.

After I finished my run this morning (okay, it was a brisk jog with short intervals of power-walking the steep incline blocks, but 'running' just sounds better -- sexy, even...) and mapped out my route on my DailyMile profile, I found that I had gone 1.76 miles in 30 minutes.

Technically, that gives me a 17 minute mile (ugh) but there really were some truly epic inclines that worked me HARD. And then there was the 3 minutes I waited for the 'WALK' sign while crossing a busy street. And the 2 minutes spent waiting to get through a road block being set up for a parade I had no idea about.

Today was the very first time I've ever enjoyed myself on a walk/jog. I'm no longer struggling to breathe and I can power up steep hills and jog longer than a few minutes at a time. By the time I made it back to the house thirty minutes later I had made a decision -- I am going to train for my first 5k.

I haven't yet signed up for a race, though I would love to do the 5k Zombie Obstacle Course this summer. In my head it would be the most mind-blowingly amazing thing I've ever done. But the cold, hard fact of the matter is that I'm just not in that kind of shape.

Besides, whenever I decide to register for my first race I intend to enjoy the challenge, not hate every second of the entire experience.

I believe I'm finally conditioned enough to re-start the CT5k training program I failed so miserably when I was over 200 pounds and severely out of shape. Tomorrow will be my Day 1, Week 1.

I'll be sure to keep you posted!