Week 5, Day 3 - Oh, what a feeling!

Last night I was really excited to do this morning's run.  I kept thinking about my route and the pace I would start at.  I was looking forward to putting my headphones on and losing myself in the audio book I am halfway through.  I went to bed astounded that five weeks in from the starting line, I was about to go for a 20 minute run and I wasn't dreading it.  In fact, I have 2 races on my calendar now - a two mile race that is right up the street from my house and a 5 K on September 11.  I can't wait either.  And I can hardly believe that I am doing this.  It is a most amazing physical and mental transformation.  Go me!

My run was no let down either.  I took a nice almost mile long walk to get me warmed up and then I started in on my run.  About 8 minutes in, I stopped for a few seconds to stretch my calves out as they were getting really tight and starting to hurt.  I went right back to it though and never once was I feeling like I couldn't go on.  I just ran, listening to my book, concentrating on my breathing and posture and felt great.  I didn't look at the time again until it had been 22 minutes and I couldn't believe it.  I ran for 22 minutes and I could have kept running.  I didn't.  I slowed down and walked strong to give myself a good cool down.  I felt amazing and proud and strong.

I don't know how I could have gone so long without feeling like this.  I am excited to get through week 6 so I can put the interval running behind me.  I liked just running.  I need to complete this program in its entirety so I can say I am a graduate of it, so I can have that sense of accomplishment and follow through.  If I didn't need that, I'd be throwing interval running out the window and going for it.

Monday morning I am going to repeat W5D3 with a little bit of a quicker pace.  I will be leaving that morning to make the trip down to San Francisco with my kids and will be flying to Boston the next day at 6:00 a.m.  My husband is staying home, so I'm on my own with the two kids, so it's a pretty busy and hectic schedule and for that reason, I doubt I will have the chance to blog about my run.  Rest assured, I will do it and I will update the Facebook C25K to make it "official".  I'll be doing my runs in New Hampshire for the next three weeks though and will blog from there.  So, look for the next update on Wednesday.  In the meantime, continued luck and encouragement goes out to all my C25K comrades!  I did it.  If I can kick W5D3's ass, then you can too.  I'm going to be a runner.  I'm going to run in races.  I am going to be strong and healthy.  I am going to teach my children how to do the same.  We can all do this.  You can do it and I CAN DO IT too!

Week 5, Day 2 interval 2 - program alterations and being chased by a dog

The plan this morning was to drive my car to the car dealership for servicing and then jog home.  I spent a good deal of time online last night plotting out the route I would take so I could get an ample amount of walk time before and after my run.  I had it all figured and had decided to shorten the walk time to 3 minutes between my two 8 minute runs.  I was going to need to have my pepper spray with me this morning as I would be going on the street where the loose dog had scared me once before (which I haven't jogged past since).

So, off I went this morning, dropped the car and started on my way.  First obstacle:  a road that appeared to go all the way through neighborhoods on the map did not, and I had to turn around and find another way through.  No problem.  I can handle that!  I ended up heading back up a way further to a cut through I've taken many times.  As I made my way out, about 2 minutes into my run, a HUGE German Shepard rounded the corner all alone.  I stopped dead in my tracks and watched.  In an instant, the dog darted in my direction and started toward me barking.  Shit!  I forgot to grab the pepper spray.  I turned and ran toward a driveway and came around the back side of someone's SUV.  The dog stopped on the other side of the car, watching me, growling.  I was ready to jump on top of the car if I needed to when an old man came around the corner.  I yelled to him and asked if this was his dog and he said, "yes, don't worry, he won't hurt you."  The hell he won't.  I have had far too much trouble with animals in the last few weeks and this was the final straw.  I just unleashed on this guy.  I started to yell at him that if he has an animal that would chase someone and growl at them, then they are capable of hurting them too.  I told him that if I had a phone, I'd be calling the police.  He apologized, but that was not enough for me.  I said that everyone thinks their dogs are the nicest and would never hurt anyone, but dogs do hurt people.  Dogs, no matter how much we love them, are animals and are therefore subject to erratic and unexpected behavior and THAT IS WHY THEY HAVE LEASH LAWS!!!!!  "Get your dog on a leash!" 

He dragged the dog off by his collar and I took off running, my body surging with adrenaline that I didn't want to waste.  Boy was I pissed off.  I ran for 6 more minutes at a very fast speed and then slowed down to recover a bit.  I didn't want to walk a full 5 minutes again, so I shortened it to 3 minutes and then started running again.  This time, that last eight minutes was really good.  In fact, I ran a little more than 9 minutes.  I had decided to forgo the podcast this morning and ran listening to my audio book (it is a really good one and I've been listening every minute I possible can).  The segments are long enough and I've done this enough times now that I know when I need to check my time.  When I looked at the clock at the end of my run I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only had I finished, I had surpassed my goal!  A great feeling to have just before the 20 minute run.  I feel very encouraged and actually excited for this.  I think I'll enjoy it.  I hope so anyway.  But today's run melted my doubts away and has lifted my confidence.  Saturday morning, I will run for 20 minutes without any walking and for the first time since this all began, I feel very sure that I CAN DO IT!

Week 5, Day 2 - Too much of a good thing?

Ain't nothing gonna break my stride

Nobody's gonna slow me down

Oh no, I've got to keep on moving

Ain't nothing gonna break my stride

I'm running and I won't touch ground

Oh no, I've got to keep on moving

Those are the words that went through my head as I started my first eight minute segment this morning. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started out this morning, but I quickly felt that I was hitting my stride and was enjoying the run. For the most part, I have been running the same route the couple of weeks. I do it in part because there is a good amount of dirt roads and paths and I find it much easier on my body to run on dirt. Also, I like being able to see how much further I am running as time goes on. It is another way for me to measure my success.

What's funny is the fact that though I am seeing the same scenery day to day, I am always seeing something new as well. Sometimes it is something like a bird's nest I didn't notice before or a nice yard with pretty flowers that I am enjoying for the first time. Other times, like today, I see new people walking their dogs, letting them take care of business on other people's lawns and leaving it for the homeowners to clean up later. I know you all know how much I love bad animal owners and if you knew me personally, you'd know how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut this morning. Obviously, it would be unwise to confront someone when I am all by myself and there are hardly any other people out and about yet, but some people really need to hear how lame they are!  I can only hope that my disgusted gaze burned some self-awareness into John Q. Lamo's  thick, inconsiderate skull.

But I digress...eight minutes went by really fast and then my 5 minute recovery walk began. And here's the thing: three minutes would have been enough and five minutes was too much. Once the next run began, I felt it was much more difficult to carry on than it was last time after a three minute recovery walk. I am very happy to have found this program and am grateful to it for the progress it has helped me achieve, so forgive me for being critical, but I don't understand why such a long recovery walk would be built into the workout when the very next day in the program more than doubles your run time without any walking break at all. I don't understand the logic. Shouldn't we be gradually adding more running time and less walking time? I am going to repeat this day once more before moving on and I think I will try reducing the walk time. I'll let you know how it goes. Until then keep thinking positive. I know you can you it just as I know, I CAN DO IT!

Week 5, Day 1, version 2 - Booya baby!

I did it!  I mapped out my route in advance and made a goal to make it the entire 2 miles regardless of how long it took me.  I figured I would be really tired because I didn't know what my pace was, but I was pretty sure it was slow and that I wasn't really hitting the distance marks.  So on Sunday morning, I got up early and set out. 

As I usually do, I started with a short walk and then some stretching before I kicked into my 5 minute warm up walk.  Then the running began.  So far, W5D1 is my favorite run.  I find the run times to be challenging, but not defeating and the walk times in between to be just enough.  It is amazing to me that as I am moving along, watching the scenery go by, running further than I have in a great many years, I find myself actually feeling stronger by the minute (as opposed to weaker like I did in the beginning).  And do you know what I found even more amazing???  I hit the 2 mile distance marker 20 seconds before the last 5 minute interval was over.  I know it is only 20 seconds, but to me, it was so much.  It told me that I was stronger than I had been giving myself credit for.  I really felt so full of pride and accomplishment!!!!

Once I returned home, there was little time to relish my milestone.  It was Father's Day, after all, and I had a breakfast to make for my husband (eggs Benedict), food to cook for a potluck, children to get ready and day bags to pack.  I barely had time to squeeze in a shower and get myself ready, never mind sit down to write my blog.  It was a wonderful day though...and while I may have eaten and drank more calories than I ran off during the party, it was a really fun and special day.  More running to do in the morning and less food to consume over the course of the day, so hopefully the scale will tip the other way!  Tomorrow, I move on to W5D2.  I will be running for time and then I will repeat the day and run for distance on Thursday.  That gives me until Saturday to mentally prepare for W5D3, the dreaded 20 minute run without any walking.  No matter how good I am feeling, that run still seems like a giant leap...I will be prepared though.  I am doing now what I though impossible a few weeks ago, so why not 20 minutes?  I can do it.  I CAN do it.  I CAN DO it.  I CAN DO IT!!!

Week 5, Day 1 - Restless nights and early mornings

The first words I uttered in my head this morning were, "No Excuses."  I had many for not wanting to get out of bed:  up many times last night with a distraught toddler who has 5 new teeth arriving all at once; a stuffy nose and itchy throat from the brutal allergy season; still feeling salted about the Celtics loss last night.  But alas, I dragged myself, bleary eyed and bitter, out of bed and dressed myself.  My blood was slow to start moving.  I walked for several minutes before the yawning subsided and I felt at all ready to fire up some Chubby Jones and begin the power walking.  Once I did though, it all started to click into place.  I always stop mid walk, be it at the beginning  or during the so-called recovery walks, to stretch my legs, calves, and lower back a little more.  It amounts to about 30 seconds, but it makes all the difference to me.  I have yet to experience any shin splints (which I always have in the past when I run) or cramping in my legs, so I stick with it religiously. 

Once I started running, it felt really good.  I found today's intervals to be much easier to finish than last week's.  I'm not sure I am quite hitting the total distances the program calls for, but I think I am pretty close.  I discovered a website that allows you to enter your running routes and then it calculate the exact distance.  I was going to check out my total mileage this morning, but the site is down until tomorrow.  If you're interested, the address is www.gmap-pedometer.com.  At any rate, it felt good and I think I am going to run W5D1 once more with the goal of hitting the distance mark.  The cool thing about today's run was that for the first time since I started this program, I really did feel that I could be running 5K.  I mean, up to now, that always felt so far away.  And while I have been positive about this C25K thing, it has still been hard for me to even imagine myself running for 20 or 25 or 30 minutes without stopping.  Even last night, thinking about day 3 of this week, I felt nothing but dread, but now, I know that while it may be hard, I will be able to do it.  It's like the more I say it, the more real it actually becomes.  My hard work, my commitment, my mindset, and the support of friends, family and fellow C25Kers - it all adds up to the wonderful truth that I know deep down:  I CAN DO IT!!!

Week 4, Day 5 - The real deal

Since I haven't actually run since Saturday morning, I was quite fearful that I would find myself out of shape and unable to run this morning.  I was afraid that 4 days without a run was going to be the undoing of all my hard work.  I was, I am happy to say, a bit of a Chicken Little in this regard, as the sky did not fall and I was fully able to run my last week 4 workout without too much difficulty.  I was sucking air pretty hard that last five minutes, but I made it.  In all honesty, the last of the week 5 workouts scares me, but the first looks very doable.  In fact, I think that I'll prefer three 5 minute runs to the varied run and walk durations of week 4.  We shall see. 

I realize after this little hiccup I encountered how important the routine is in physical fitness.  Each day away from it seems like a exponential leap from the last.  And while I did walk on Monday, it didn't have the same impact on me as a run would have, and as a result, I felt miles away from Saturday morning in my head.  On Monday evening, I laid out my clothes intending to do my run Tuesday morning, but a bad night of sleep with a teething baby and a stuffy nose had me rolling back over and going back to sleep.  Now, I know this is hardly the end of the world, but that one break from the routine I had established also altered the mindset I had established about it - NO EXCUSES.  I have to say all this and cement this idea in my mind because in two weeks, I am travelling back to the east coast to stay with my family.  I'll be there for three weeks and if I wasn't totally sure of what my commitment level had to be and didn't have my attitude about carrying on the C25K program set, then I can see how easy it would be to slip. 

We've all said it before, but so much of the success of this program, or really, any fitness program, is dependant on attitude.  It is mental toughness as much as physical toughness.  I must stay committed to my routine and the program and to myself. No excuses, I CAN DO IT!

Week 4, Day 5 - A day late and a dollar short

I had just an amazing weekend!  Starting with the arrival of a good friend and his kids and ending with a great wedding and a fun night camping.  I was so glad I got up early and ran on Saturday before we left.  It was a far better run than the last and I felt energized by it.  I had a ton to do so we could get out of town on time, so I couldn't sit and write (much anyway).  My plan was to write yesterday, but I returned home with the most unbelievable allergy attack I think I've ever had.  I couldn't breath.  I couldn't stop sneezing and my nose wouldn't stop running.  My sinuses were stinging and swollen and I hated life.  I was in no mood to sit and write anything. 

Despite this, my resolve to stay on track had me doing the normal nightly preparations for my run and I set the alarm to get up at 6:10 am.  I got out of bed, still feeling pretty crummy, dressed and left the house.  All started well, but as soon as I started running and breathing heavy, I thought I was going to DIE.  The sinuses were burning and I felt like my temples were going to burst open, so for the first time since I started this program, I abandoned my mission.  I could not go on.  I walked the entire route I normally would just to go through the motions and not feel like a total loser.  Providing I feel better on the morning, I will try it again.  Since I am not feeling great and now I missed a day, I am going to do W4D5 one last time before starting week 5.  If I am still illing tomorrow, then look for me on Wednesday, but I really want to jump right back in before I lose my momentum.

I remain committed and have my goal locked into my view.  This day is but a small setback and I am choosing to focus on the positive that I still got up and tried.  I want this, I need this and I am determined to do this.  So, watch out, I'll be back and I know that I CAN DO IT!