W2D2 C25K

 

Did I tell you that the 5k Crew keeps growing?

We met at Ocee to run last night. I was a little sore and my right calf was really tight. I should have stretched more, but the evening just came up on me and I didn't have time to do much.

Our group is growing and I love it. We have added Meaghan to run with us on Wednesday nights (she can't do Mondays or Fridays). She is thinking about doing the Color Run with us on October 19th, but isn't sure yet if she's ready for that commitment.

Everyone did week 2, but I'm on day 2 and Lesley is on day 1. The routine is the same, so we synced our phones and started at the same time. She and Jo ran together and then Stacey and Meaghan ran with me.

I felt bad because I was huffing and puffing and trying to focus on my breathing, and they were going slow (for my sake). I told them to go ahead without me and not to hold back on my account, but they said it was fine and they engaged in conversations while I did my best to breathe and stay alive.

We started right around 8 and finished at 8:35. I was really shocked to see that I head set a new personal best! Best pace and best distance! According to my C25K app, my total distance was 1.82. My walk distance was 1.26 with my walking pace at 17:34 and then my run distance was 0.56 with my average run pace at 16:03.

The app also gave me my total that I've run so far and it's 8 miles. Not too shabby!!

While we were running we talked about how hard running is on the body and how hard it is to do. Stacey shared that she had trained for a 1/2 marathon, but never had the chance to run it. She's hoping that maybe by running with us, it'll give her the push needed to train for it and really do it this time.

It's so inspiring to know that I am surrounded by people who have the drive and determination to keep runnning. My cousin Jessica is running in Michigan and training with C25K as well. She is doing it alone and yet is so determined to push through the "I can'ts" and just do it.

As much as I wasn't sure about running at night, it's now my preferred time to run. I like that I can come home and shower and just crash. It gives me time to think about my day and to just focus on me after having to focus on the boys. 

This morning I am sore. My right calf is really hurting. I've been doing stretches to help it. When I was running last night it felt like a cramp... so I don't know what I did, but as they say, sore muscles is happy pain.

So my Monday and Wednesday routine is pretty established. Not sure what will happen when Steve travels next month... but for now, it's good. I'm just trying to figure out Fridays. I don't want to skip my run because I love the two days off that the weekend provides. Not running on Friday gives too much time off between (four days). So I can't do that. 

I thought about getting up at 5:15ish and running from 5:15-6:00. It would only be once a week and would allow me to shower before getting Gus up at 6:30. I just hate getting up any earlier than I need to... and it's DARK at 5:30am. And my neighborhood is so hilly-- I like the flatness of Ocee.

I thought about going to the park to run with Hugh (I hate my single jogger though) on Fridays at 8:30am. If I had the Schwinn Tourismo that I want, I could do that on the Fridays that he doesn't have PT. However, his PT has been scheduling him on Thursdays or Fridays and for the rest of September, it's Fridays.

Another option is to go as a family to the park after dinner and run. Steve could walk with the boys and I could run. My running isn't much faster than his walk anyway. It would be good exercise for all of us, but then that makes Steve have to go and I know after a long week, he likes to just relax at home on a Friday.


My final option is to take Ned with me at 7:30pm. I don't really want to run with him, but I don't want to go alone and he's big enough that someone would (hopefully) think twice about attacking me with him next to me. 


So, I have some choices to make for sure. I'm just glad that my M/W routine is set and works well for me.

I definitely don't want to run at 5:30am.

A GOOD Run

Sometimes when I start to blog about my running, I ask myself, "Does anyone read this?" Not that it matters, since I'm writing this blog as a collection of thoughts for me. I am introspective and like to go back and re-read entries to see how far I've come. I learn a lot about myself through the words that I type, but it just crossed my mind and made me wonder.

Anywho-- yesterday was Day 1 Week 2 of Couch to 5K. The description of W2D1 is: Brisk 5-minute warmup walk. Alternate 1.5 minutes of jogging with 2 minutes of walking for a total of 21 minutes. 5-minute cool-down. Workout time 31 minutes.

I wasn't sure how this would go since it's an additional 30 seconds of running on top of the minute that I was struggling with last week. However, it was the allure of the two-minutes of walking that drew me in. :-)

The 5K Crew met at 8pm and Stacey joined us as well. I think I was the only one that ran on Friday, but no one else is really following the C25K app, except for Lesley, so she and Jo and Stacey set off to do W1D3, and Ann and I did W2D1. We all finished at roughly the same time.

I don't know what it was about last night, but I felt really good while running. I felt hot, sweaty, and a little tired at the end, but I didn't have pain with every step. My muscles weren't hurting as I ran, and I didn't have an inner voice telling me to stop.

According to my app, I ran 1.70 miles total. 1.16 was walking and 0.54 was running. My average pace for walking was 19:15 and my average pace for running was 16:42.

I think it also helped that this weekend I went through my music and made a running playlist to listen to. I was eager to hear which song would be next, and I think it helped push me.

I wore my Polar (finally got batteries) and it said I was in the zone 45 minutes (which is awesome) and I burned 600+ calories over the course of putting my watch on and taking it off. Not too shabby!

I'm so glad I spent the money on my Polar. I love that it keeps me safe (by telling me if my heart rate is too high) and it accurately calculates the number of calories I've burned. :-)

When I had finished my run, my body was on fire from being really hot, but I felt really GOOD. I felt accomplished, and happy, and really glad that I had successfully completed W2D1. I think I may double W2, we'll see. Week 3 involves running 1.5 minutes, walking 1.5 minutes and then running 3 minutes and walking 3 minutes. We'll see how I'm feeling on Friday.

I got home around 9pm last night (we finished our cool-down and still had 1/2 a lap to complete). I got in the shower and stretched and then I crashed into bed. I don't think I woke at all last night. 

When I woke up this morning, I wasn't as sore as I had anticipated (which is a great thing) and I feel good. Overall, I say that yesterday was a great run and I've learned from doing this before, you've got to really enjoy the great days when they happen, because the bad runs are a bitch.

 

Horrible Run

Friday morning was rough. I had asked everyone if they wanted to run with me and everyone had a reason that they couldn't. So I had a choice to make. I could stay home or find the motivation and go. 

I loaded the single jogging stroller into the car, loaded Hugh, and we headed to Ocee Park. It's now my favorite place to go and run.

We got to the park after fighting hellish traffic. I had stretched for about 20 minutes at home prior to leaving, so I felt good. I loaded Hugh into the stroller, got my music set up on my phone, and we set off.

Hugh wasn't sure what to think, but he seemed really happy. I was two cycles into my run when I noticed that my stroller was wobbly. Three cycles in and I started to hear a weird dragging sound, and when I looked, I noticed that not only did I have ONE flat tire, but I had TWO flat tires.

I had to continue, but it was brutal. Not only was it making a really horrible noise, but it was heavy and hard to push and steer. I made it around once, and stopped at my car to put Hugh back into his infant carrier and put him into the frame stroller.

He was quite unhappy to leave the jogger and head into the carrier. He screamed and screamed, and all the while, I was sweating, and tired, and sore.

I could have just called it a morning right then and there, but I decided to keep going and finish my run. Well, Hugh was not happy about my choice. I got 1/2 way around the loop and he was done. So I had to cut my run short and head back to the car as quickly as I could.

I finished by 9 and I had run just over a mile. I was exhausted from having to push Hugh and then change strollers and then deal with his screaming. It wasn't the best run, but as I drove home, I was happy that I at least tried. I am now free to relax until Monday night. 

I woke up this morning SO SORE. My arms really hurt from pushing the stroller. I guess muscle pain is a good thing because it means I'm doing something right!!

Pooped

I wasn't sure how it would feel to run at night. Usually by 8pm, I am relaxing before bed and playing Candy Crush or Hay Day. We decided to run tonight since Wednesday mornings are just too hectic for everyone.

After spending quite some time trying to determine the time and location, we settled on Ocee Park because they have a well-lit path and it's flat. PERFECT. I also like that there are a TON of people there for baseball games, soccer, and walking/running the path. So it's not like there's no one there and it's scary.

We picked 8pm and it was me, Ann, Lesley, and Jo. I told them that I was sore still from Monday, and I couldn't promise how fast I'd be able to go, but at least I was there to run.

I did pretty well. I had to walk one cycle because my heart-rate was too high (didn't want to die today). But I did 1.73 miles and spent 32:23 exercising. I walked 1.22 and ran .51 and my average walking pace was 18:12 and my average run pace was 15:50. It's not perfect, but I am so proud of myself for going and doing it.

I kinda feel bad for the others because they would run ahead of me and then when it was the walking cycle, they walked back to where I was. I told them to go ahead, but they kept coming back. At the end, when we were doing the five minute cool down walk, Ann and Jo ran ahead.:-)

I finished and I was a hot, sweaty mess. I am now home and ready to get in the shower.

I'm so thankful to have people to motivate me and keep me going. It would be so easy to skip out and not go, but I'm really glad I went tonight. We had Arby's for dinner and I felt like it was too heavy before a run. Next time I'll be sure to eat something a little better for me before a night run.

I'm praying that I'm not horribly sore tomorrow. I did stretch tonight, but I don't know if it was enough. I will say that my body didn't hurt like it did on Monday (I was hurting at the 1/2 way point). Today I started to feel sore at the cool down walk. 

Making progress maybe?

I'm not sure what the plan is for Friday. No one wanted to run at night (can't blame them), but maybe we can do Friday at 9am. I don't want to miss Friday, so I need to make sure it happens. Gotta keep at it!!

Nite!!

I Forgot How Hard It Is

It's funny. I have been looking at 5k races and getting myself all excited to run one and I was thinking, "it's 3.1 miles... I can do 3.1 miles." I even signed up (and paid) for my first 5k with the 5k Crew and I was super excited to get out there on Monday and run.

I got a text from Leigh Anne saying that because of the rain, she didn't want to take her twins out and have to deal with them and the rain. I can't blame her. So she said she'd train on her own later in the day and she'd catch up to us another day.

Lesley and Ann were still game for W1D1 of C25K, so we met at the Haynes Bridge Greenway. It wasn't raining too hard (yet), but it was sprinkling. We started out and it was good. I'm not sure when I started to realize how hard it was, but I definitely did.

I had forgotten how hard it is to start up again. All the sore muscles, the burning in the legs, all forgotten. Then I mentally started to beat myself up. If I had just stayed with running over the summer last year, this wouldn't even be an issue today. But I didn't. I stopped because of the weather (it gets SO HOT in the summer here) and because I was afraid to run at 5:30am by myself.

We finished our training and we were soaking wet, but I felt good. I was happy that I had successfully finished day one and we went a total of 1.6 miles (I ran .6 and walked 1.0). I was feeling good and then when I got home, I sat on the couch and tried to relax.

That's when everything started to hurt. 

Today, I am hurting.m My back muscles hurt, my abs hurt, my inner thighs hurt, and my hips hurt. 

 

So I decided to read back to when I started this blog back in May of 2012. Surly, the pain I'm experiencing is similar to the pain from the first time I started, right? Well... what I discovered kinda amazed me.

Yes, the pain is the same. It's normal and as I was reading, I realized that the pain WILL go away eventually, and the first time out is REALLY hard. I've done it, and I can move forward.

What excited me though, is that I ran W1D1 as expected on the app. I ran a full minute and walked 1.5 minutes. After reading past posts, I realized that when I started last year, I did 30 seconds of running then 45 seconds and finally worked my way to 1 full minute after like a month. 

I am proud of myself. I am happy that I got out there for the first time in over a year and I survived. As I told Lesley, "I can do just about anything for 30 minutes."

In other news, my brother Dave and/or his wife Heather have said they'd like to join me in the Turkey Trot, and my dad is thinking about it. So it will be me and Jessica for sure and then hopefully a few others in my family too. I am really excited, but a little scared to run in such cold temps. Jessica said she's going to talk to someone about how to prepare ourselves for the cold, so we don't injure ourselves.

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which is my crazy day. Hugh has a baby playgroup at 8:30am, so I won't be able to train in the morning. Instead, we're going to try to run after the kids are in bed, so we'll meet at 8pm. The good news is that it's without kids, and later, so should be cooler. The bad news is that it's the end of the day and I'm afraid my motivation to train will be gone. We shall see. The good news is that by tomorrow night, (HOPEFULLY) I won't be as sore and I'll be feeling better.

I'll post again after tomorrow!

Back in the Saddle Again

Aint that the truth?

Okay, so the important thing is that I'm starting back up. What prompted this?

Well, a few months ago, Steve approached me about doing a 5k walk/run with his work in memory of their co-worker that died from brain cancer. I said sure, and we got a double-jogging-stroller. We used it in MI and IN and it's perfect (I like it better than my single). Anyway, we're doing the 5k on October 5th.

I'll be 37 on October 2nd. I think there's no better time to run my first 5k than just after my birthday. I stopped running last year because it started getting hot and I was afraid to run by myself early in the morning. Then the summer came and went, and then it was fall and we were in the middle of preparing for Hugh's adoption and I just had no motivation and no one to run with me anymore.

Fast forward to this past week. I'm not sure what got me motivated, but I decided that it's going into fall, cooler weather, and there are a lot of 5k races coming up. Why not?

I asked a few friends in my MOMS Club if anyone wanted to train with me. To my utter surprise and delight, I've got four other friends who will be training with me and we're going to do 5ks. We are the 5k Crew.

We have a FB private group and we've been discussing races that we want to run and what ones look fun. We found one on October 19th that's a Color Run (not an official part of The Color Run, but a knock-off race). I signed up today and I am registered for this race.

I am so excited and hopeful. I CAN do this. I WILL do this. I will run my first "real" 5k and I can 't wait to start preparing.

We will start training on Monday and do MWF mornings. I am aware of how hard it's going to be to start all over, but it will only get easier.

So be looking forward to more updates from me. I have been watching what I eat and using my FitBit and I've lost a total of 8.5 pounds. I'm happy to see numbers going down and with more exercise it can only help things.

I emailed my family to see if anyone wanted to run the Turkey Trot which happens before the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. My cousin Jessica, she is so awesome and supportive, wants to run it with me. So if no one else wants to do it, she and I can do it together. I am so excited for that one. Ever since I went to the parade for the first time, I wanted to do it. I'm really excited to think that I might get to make a dream come true.

Admit it, you missed me!

Guess what? I think I'm ready to register for my very first 5K!! Don't get too excited yet, I haven't been running in quite a while (it's been so frigging hot here, and Steve's morning routine changed and I'd have to get up extra early or run with Gus mid-morning- neither were options I was willing to do). However, it's cooling off and once Steve gets back from London, we've talked about training for a 5K after dinner/before bed.

So this morning I was looking through my email and I saw something about registration opening today for the Johns Creek "Night of the Running Zombies 5K Run." I immediately got excited about it and looked at the website to see more information. Here's the cool part: it takes place at 7pm. I think it sounds so fun!

I've sent an email to a few of my friends to see if they'd be interested in joining me and hopefully some will. Lesley said she'll think about it and she said she's not up for running it, but she'd walk it. I emailed Steve to see if he wanted to do it with me and maybe we could bring Gus. I don't know if it'd be too scary for him (probably not). We can put him in the jogging stroller and he won't even notice what's going on around him.

So that's the latest. I am excited about it and hoping that at least one other person will want to run it with me. I am not ready to run the full 5K, but I know I can do the run/walk combo for sure. It might take me an hour to do it, but I know I can do it. All my training runs were over 1.5 miles and it took me about 30 minutes to do them. I'm pretty certain I can double it.

The best part of this race is you have to specify if you'll be running as a zombie or as a human. The humans start the race and two minutes later, the zombies begin (as if the zombies are chasing the humans). You're not allowed to touch anyone (thankfully) so there's no real chase happening, but it seems like a lot of fun. I will be running as a zombie. What fun is it to run as a human??? LOL

I'll keep everyone posted on things... it's less than a month away, and I've got until the 15th to register and pay the lowest registration fee. Hopefully Steve will want to do it too and we can do our first 5K together!!