Author: Sensa User, Wendy Bassett (WLB101092)

Wendy Running the 10K

Hi Sensa Fans!

My name is Wendy but most of you will know me as WLB101092 from the Sensa Forums ! I have been using Sensa a little over a year now. So far I have lost over 70 lbs. My life has changed in Sensa’s hands over the last year. I have challenged myself to try new things. I hope I have inspired others to do the same! I have always loved the following quote, “If you shoot for the moon and miss, you are still among the stars!”

So I would like to tell you a little bit about my recent trip to the moon! Ok, not exactly the one in outer space, but still as far as you can possibly get from where I was 12 months ago. Last Saturday, March 27^th, 2010 I jogged in a 10k race (Tyler Azalea 10k). It was the first race I have ever jogged in and it was further than I had ever jogged on a single day. So I will back up now and outline quickly how I got to the moon without ever leaving earth!
I started walking in September 2009 when my department at work initiated a Step Challenge program with the goal of reaching 10,000 steps per day over a 6-week period. I sit at a desk all day and rarely made over 2,000 steps by 5:00 pm each day. Meaning I had to really move a lot after work. At first, I could rarely get to 5,000 steps a day, then I got closer to 7,000 but almost never 10,000, unless on the weekends!  I stuck with it, even after the challenge ended and I never got close to the goals the program had. I enjoyed walking in the late evening when it was cool and quiet outside and I would listen to audiobooks on my iPhone. It was very relaxing really. I had a few blocks mapped out in my neighborhood and I would make the lap as many times as I had time for, which considering how slow I was walking most nights, meant I was getting roughly 2 miles most nights and maybe 3 on the weekends. I was walking only a few nights a week and tried to do walk at least once each weekend, weather permitting.

As it started to get colder outside, I realized I didn’t want to be outside as long anymore. After laughing at a number of recommendations about jogging, I finally started to listen. I started Couch to 5k jogging program at Thanksgiving. That is a program designed to take you from walking to jogging a full 30 minutes in 9 weeks. I completed that program in mid January. Most people thought I was a little crazy out jogging in the middle of winter, granted Texans don’t really have much of a winter, but still it was pretty chilly in the evenings many nights. But I had thought it out… if I could learn to jog before the Texas heat got bad, then maybe, just maybe I would be able to jog once the weather got hotter over the summer.

After completing the C25k program, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I couldn’t actually jog 5k yet. The program doesn’t really help you with speed, so even though I was jogging for 30 minutes, I wasn’t going 5k. Still, I didn’t have a reason to jog anymore or training schedule mapped out beyond the C25k program. So I started looking for a 5k race, thinking I could stay motivated if I had something to train for. I ended up picking a 10k race to run with only 8 weeks to train from 30 minutes to 90 minutes of jogging (based on my average mile per hour pace).

At the beginning of February, I tripped while out jogging and fell. I cut up my hands and bruised my left knee badly. I was lucky though; I was able to get back jogging on the knee in less than a week. Then in early March right after having finally jogging 5 full miles, it seemed I had strained my right foot. I saw the doctor for the stabbing pains and then I spent 2 weeks not jogging to try to heal it fully. And as of race day I had yet to jog the full distance of 10k (6.25 miles), but I had gotten up to 75 mins/5 miles the time I strained my foot and one time after my foot issue. So I was hopeful that adrenaline could carry me the last mile!!!!

I just knew if I could do this… it would be a victory we can all claim for Sensa and ourselves!!!!! I also had so many supports counting on me between friends and family and all my extended family on the Sensa Forums!!!  I even had a t-shirt made for the race that said “Be SENSAtional!” and I wore all the SENSA armbands I had! I wanted any pictures I had taken to be clear as to my reason for success! Even the bib number I got assigned I thought was clever, though it was assigned alphabetically. I have about 31 more lbs to loss to get to my goal weight!

So on race day, I got up and ate what I half expected to be my “last supper” or breakfast as most people call it. I felt so sick all morning from nerves! I got there, checked in and got all set with my iPod and my killer playlist of all my kids favorite Disney Channel pop music and I was ready to go. Even as I crossed the start line that morning I was ready to cry from the overwhelming sense of “____” (I am still not sure what the reason was.) I managed to fully jog the race at the pace I had practiced. I wasn’t fast, but I was steady. Kinda like that turtle we all know. There were people walking in front of me that stayed in front of me the whole race, which gave me 6.25 miles to decide that I need to start training next to jog faster, but that is another topic. Finishing and jogging the full length is all I was shooting for, but it was still a little annoying to be passed by some walkers… LOL!

Wendy with her girls after the race

Final Results

473 out of 494 = Total 10k Participants
47 out of 48 for my age bracket- 35-39 (but I did beat the 48th person in my bracket by 20 minutes) LOL!
Electronic Time=1:29:59.1
Gun Time= 1:30:26.0
Average Mile 14:31

I was only hoping for 15 minute mile average and I got better than that! In my pictures I know I look like I might be in pain or something, but please note that all the pent up emotion of the day came flooding out when I got close enough to the finish line to see my little girls jumping up and down at the sight of me and calling my name. It still brings me close to tears just to write about it.

So on that note I will close. I can’t say what I want to do next just yet, but I am confident that if I keep my heart and eyes open, something extraordinary will present itself! In the mean time, I will just have to be content to train to jog faster than others can walk! “Thank You SENSA!” for my little trip to the moon and for changing my life!

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Posted in Main at April 1st, 2010 by Guest Blogger

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