Brookfield Zoo RunRun

I'm so excited that I'm going to do the Brookfield Zoo RunRun again this year!  Last year it was the first 5k I had ever done, this year it will be the third time I'm doing such a thing, and I'm hoping to beat my time from last year's.  I'm also hoping to beat my fundraising from last year.  I raised $40 for the CZS Conservation Fund last year, and this year my goal is to raise $100. 
The reason I think this is a worthwhile cause, can best told as a story about something that happened the first year I was a member at Brookfield Zoo.  One day, as I wandered through the Habitat Africa Forest, I noticed this beautiful animal standing in her habitat. The okapi is a graceful member of the giraffe family, who looks like a cross between a zebra and a gazelle.

The signage was very clear that she is a shy animal, in fact so rarely seen that she is a symbol of cryptozoology (the search for animals whose existence had not been proven). I stood watching her for several minutes while she just stared at me. I whispered how beautiful she was and talked to her for several minutes, and slowly she walked up to the edge of her habitat and began rubbing on her cage as if she wanted me to pet her. Obviously I could not, in fact, pet her, but at that exact moment I fell in love.  Sadly, the okapi is on the endangered animal list.
From when I first read that she was endangered by habitat destruction, I knew I wanted to do something to help these beautiful animals thrive in the wild.  They, like most zoo animals, aren't meant to be confined to the small areas that zoos are forced to accomadate them in.  One of the interesting things about the okapi is how they protect their young.  The mother actually spends very little time with her young as she hides her infant and then leaves it so that predators are more likely to follow her than to find her young.  But in order for her to behave as she does in the wild, she needs a large space so she isn't to close to her infant. 
For a long time I didn't really know what I could do to help with conservation.  I didn't know that the Chicago Zoological Society had a conservation fund.  I read about the Zoo RunRun in my membership magazine several months later.  It probably wouldn't have stuck in my head as something I could do, except that by then I was walking on a regular basis with my friend Leah as part of my weight loss efforts.  Leah had mentioned to me on one of our walks her desire to run a 5k, just days before I read about the Zoo RunRun, and so events collided, and together with our friend Pirate Dr. Nurse Katie we walked the 5k last year in 45 minutes.
Please help me save the African habitat of the okapi, as well as the habitats of the more than 16,000 animals on the endangered list by donating to the CZS Conservation Fund on my fundraising page http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/tinazastrow/brookfield-zoorunrun-2012.

Body Image Again

As part of my ongoing campaign to convince myself that I'm not actually a giant whale, I visited this website today. It was fun to make the model look as much like me as I could. Here are the pics I came up with-
My original weight (245)


My current weight (185)


My goal weight (145)


I don't really have anything else to say. Just that I wanted to show those pics to you.

Painy and Falugal

Painy [pain-ee] adj.- The way one feels after running one's first eighth of a mile for the night and feels like ones stomach and heart may jump out of one's body in protest while one's legs twitch uncontrollably in order to try to force one to STOP RUNNING DEAR GOD JUST STOP!

Falugal [fah-loo-gal] adj.- The experience one gets when running, just past "painy" and just before "passing out-y", the stomach and heart remain in the body, the legs no longer twitch and the burgeoning runner feels fantastic as if s/he can do crazy things like possibly consider training over the next year to run a half marathon (13.1 miles)

So you know how I've been like walking and stuff with my friends Leah and Sarah? And how I walked that 5k thing a few weeks ago? Well apparently I'm going to be running a 5k in the spring. And the thought of running the 10k at the zoo next year instead of 5 has crossed my mind. As has the thought of a half marathon, and then maybe someday, a full marathon. I had to coin a whole new word for the crazy things I think when I'm...running. Because I run now. Actually, I think the correct term is jog. I think I jog now. But I think I'm supposed to be running in the near future.

Zoo RunRun

So I just realized I never told the internet all about my first 5k and it was weeks ago! I had a great time even though we mostly walked it. It took the walkers (my team was made up of three walkers- me, Leah, and Katie and a runner- Amber) 42:13 to finish, which is...respectable I guess. I don't know I've never done one before. Also, I raised 45% of my goal. Next year I think I'll register earlier and work harder to raise funds.

There were a few "special" things. There was supposed to be water at the halfway point, but by the time we got there (about the middle of the pack) they were out of cups and were packing up. Then there was supposed to be water and bananas at the finish line. Again, by the time we got there, they were out. Then there was supposed to be a healthy breakfast we could buy afterwards, but they only had sugared fruit and white bagels (not actually healthy).

Leah and I are training to actually run a 5k in the spring (yikes!!) which pretty much means my body hurts ALL THE TIME, but I kind of like it.

Endorphins

So I promised myself I would keep all my diet drama on my other blog (since that's what it's dedicated to). But exercise isn't diet, so I can talk about that right? Anyway, I think I've become addicted to a drug, but it's endorphins, so that's probably cool right? I started working out about six weeks ago and I kind of hated it. I didn't like doing DVDs in my house, because sometimes my mom came home and then I felt all embarassed. I didn't like walking because it's in public and people can see me. I can't swim (still). And I didn't really know what else there was. But, I made myself walk anyway. I recruited a few buddies to walk with me once a week each and then I made a rule that I can't listen to my mp3 player unless I'm working out. So the first week I went for 2 walks. Then I wanted to improve what I could do when I was out with my friends, so the second week I went for a walk on my own too. Now I walk anywhere from three and half to SEVEN miles five days a week. On my first solo walk, I picked a good route and then started walking and for three weeks I was dying by the time I got home. Then I started to enjoy it. Today when I realized I was almost home I considered just turning down the side street I usually go down to start my walk and doing it all over again. Because it felt GOOD. But it was getting dark and I didn't think I'd make it back before full night fall. So I didn't. But as of tomorrow I'm changing my regular solo walking path from the 3.5 miles I'e been doing to a 5 mile path. Wish me luck (and endorphins!!).