I ran 3 miles for the first time!

Yep, I did it! 

It was hard.  It was mentally hard.  It seemed like it took forever.  Like for……ev…..er……..

My legs felt pretty good.  I did walk several times but for no longer than a minute at a time.  I played with the speeds, some too fast which resulted in huffing and puffing and walking.  I did finish strong though.  I am happy with my time.  I think I am averaging 11:00 miles.  I immediately iced my shins and ankles and took some ibuprofen.  I was amazed at how well that helped.  My body felt like it ran 3 miles, but it wasn’t painful.

I am impressed with myself.  I think I need to get a better playlist of more upbeat songs.  I also wonder if I held a slightly slower speed, could I run for longer intervals? 

I also need to be aware of my diet.  Somehow I have let myself eat whatever and whenever just because I’ve been running.  I’m goin to try to be better about this.

Two miles on Sunday with a chest/arms workout.

 

I’m doing it!

Friday is no running, but I did have a leg workout.  My calves and below were super tight. Lucky for me, I was able to get a massage and I asked the therapist to work extra on my legs.  She said I get the award for tightest calves!  It really made a difference.  I went into my leg workout feeling pretty good.

I’ve told a couple of people what my intentions are and now I kind of wish that I didn’t.  It’s more pressure than I wanted. I don’t really want to give status reports all the time.  What if I don’t finish?  What if I want to quit?  People knowing adds a level of accountability that I wasn’t thinking of.  DEAL WITH IT.  Who are you doing this for?  MYSELF.  So it doesn’t really matter what you do or don’t tell people.

3 miles tomorrow.

I’m tired.

Wednesday night, I am pooped.  My oldest son had a football game and I didn’t get to bed until 10:30. I already knew that I wouldn’t want to get up at 5:15 to run on my treadmill before work.  I decided that I would do my scheduled two miles in the afternoon/evening after work.

Now this throws a whole new scenario into play.  Prior runs took place in the morning with only coffee in the gut.  An afternoon run would mean that I would have food in my stomach and will have worked all day.  It’s still early in this game, so I thought I would still go for it and see how it worked out.

I had a meeting, then lunch.  For the most part, I try to eat healthy.  I would say that healthy to not healthy would be  60%-40% respectively.  I consciously didn’t eat my whole meal (chips and dip to start, turkey sloppy joes with fries, and peanut butter cup pudding), but probably had to much of rich, not clean food anyway.   A few hours later I would decide that I would try my run outside.  Such a risk taker I am.  Mixing it all up.

I planned my route out on mapmyfitness.  I decided that I didn’t want to carry water, but I wanted to time myself so I had to carry my phone.   Note:  I need to figure out a way to carry stuff.  Weather was beautiful (77) so I headed out.  Five steps in, I realized I forgot my ipod.  I immediately noticed that I could hear my breathing.  Don’t like that.  Focused on breathing.  Felt like I wasn’t breathing good.  Got mad at myself, I was breathing fine, think about something else.  I also noticed that foot impact on sidewalk is totally different than impact on treadmill.  Don’t like that either.  Area under calves friggin hurts.  Feels like calves are rocks.  Don’t like that.  Tried to focus on other things.  Started to get tired like I wanted to walk right before one mile mark, but made myself go the full mile before walking.  11:04 at the mile.  Hmmm…am I slower? I walked for about 30 seconds and ran again.  Held pace for a few minutes, but my right calf is painful.  I can feel impact in my shins too.  Walked a little.  Jogged again and passed a teenager jogging.  She made it look so easy.  She made it look easy and fun.  She also had her phone playing music out loud.  Damn, why didnt’ I think of that?  Walk again, and turn music on my phone.  Ok, this is better.  Jog again. Pain again.  More walking, more jogging.  Getting close to the two-mile end, I sprint without looking at time.  Did I improve?  Start walking home, look at time and its 23:13. UGG!  Slower.  I’m kinda bummed, but after thinking about it, I’m not that bummed. 

I had a whole bunch of different  things going on. 

1. End of Day run
2. Food
3. Outside
4. Painful area under my calves.

I’m just going to take this one as a starting point to compare my next outside run to.

Came home and looked up how to stretch area under calves (amongst other things).  I believe the area I am complaining about is my achilles tendon.  The stretch I learned feels really good on it.  Overall, my legs are sore, but not unbarable.  Three days in a row running is kind of an accomplishment for me….I’ve never done it before this.  (In early workouts a couple of years ago, I may have run every other day or a couple of times a week, but for only 15 mins or so.  I mentally burned out on it, and have only half assed cardio for the last year or so.)  So, I’m kind of tired, but looking forward to the results of my first 3 miles on Saturday.  Oh, and of course, can’t wait for Leg Day tomorrow!!

Ok, number 2

Wednesday morning I slept a little later, 5:45.  I got the kids up and planned to go to the gym to do my two miles.  I knew Jo Ellen would be there, and that she would give me the training plan.  Yes, a training plan.  A map and directions of what I should do to prepare to run 13 miles.  I waver between excited and completely ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? nervous every time I think about it.  So, don’t think about it.  Just run.  And that’s what I did.  Got to the gym, turned on the ipod and ran. The area under my calves above my ankles felt pretty tight and I felt sore in my abs from yesterday.  Nothing terrible, just noted.  I started off slower and tried to keep a slower pace to see if I could run past the one mile mark.  I got to the one mile and I think mentally I decided that I earned a walking break.  Looking back, I think I could have kept running at that pace for longer, but I let myself walk.  I walked at a pretty fast pace and started to feel guilty.  I wanted to try to beat my time from yesterday, but I wasnt going to accomplish that if I kept walking.  I started jogging again, this time faster than before.  I kept that pace for a few minutes and felt that my breathing was hard.  Like uncomfortable hard.  So I walked again.  I continued this routine until the end of my two miles.  I did beat my time from yesterday 21:19.  I like that I improved my time, but I don’t think that I could have handled a longer distance with that level of interval.  I made sure I took some extra time to stretch.  The area under my calves are pretty sore at this point, and I worry that it will create an issue for tomorrow’s 2 miles.

I spent most of the day reading a blog.  (Yes, I was supposed to be working.) It’s called Ben Does Life and I would totally link to it if I had readers and if I knew how to link to it.  If you haven’t read it before, it’s a chronicle of Ben’s life from the day he promised his grandmother that he would change his life and get healthy.  Ben was almost 400lbs and in a pretty dark place.  He took control of his life and at 300 something pounds started running and exercising.  He started off running two miles and has never quit.  Three years later he has run countless marathons, triathlons, Ironmans and a crazy amount of 5ks.  He lost a tremendous amount of weight and by the looks of his ongoing blog, he’s happy.  Happy and accomplished.  He made a commitment and followed through.  He, without even intending to, became an inspiration. 

With my head filled with ‘if he could/can do it, i sure can’, I decided to go hike at Thunderbird Mountain Park.  My friend from work went with me and we took a trail that took us about 45 mins.  The trail had a couple of gradual inclines and one she called a ‘wicked’ incline.  On the ‘wicked’ incline, I noticed that the area under my calves was super tight and kind of uncomfortable.  We made it to the top and I made her take a picture of me.

On the way down, I also noticed a dull ache in my left knee.  Finished up and felt pretty good.  That was two forms of cardio in one day.  I felt pretty proud of myself.

Jo did give me the training plan.  Three miles on Saturday.  ALREADY?  I have never attempted three before.  But I tell myself Saturday is a few days away and to think about tomorrow’s two miles instead and look forward to Friday’s rest day.  Yeah, rest day.  Um, not so much.  Friday already had a workout scheduled, and guess what?  Its leg day.

It begins…

So after Monday’s workout and new-found commitment, I go home and make a plan.  I’m kind of excited.  Can I do this?  Why can’t I?  I plan to wake up way earlier than normal and do my first two miles on my treadmill at home, before getting kids up for school.  I don’t even know how long it will take.  Wait, you may be wondering why I am a novice runner and I own a treadmill.  I told you, I tried it before,  and I didn’t like running: see first post, but I digress.

Tuesday morning, 5:15 a.m. = I’m up.

1. Coffee
2. change (put on sports bra, c’mon), grab water bottle and iphone and head to the treadmill.
3. Get my tunes going.
4. RUN

I jogged the whole first mile without stopping.  YES!  I was pretty impressed with myself.  Time was a little over 11 minutes.  Not terrible for a Newby.  I let myself walk for around 30 seconds and I started jogging again.  I played with the speed and went faster for 3-4 minutes and let myself walk again.  My legs felt pretty good, but my breathing is sketchy.  Probably because I varied the speeds too many times. 

I finished!

first run 10/04/11

I felt accomplished afterwards.  I didn’t feel tired or sore, I actually felt energized. I got kids ready. I got me ready…now a day of work and football.

Totally positive, I get to do it again tomorrow.

The Mission

So, Monday October 3, I was working out; I do this a few times a week and have been for the last couple of years.  My trainer, Jo Ellen, expressed that she was going to do the PF Chang’s Rock and Roll Half Marathon.  I thought, “wow, that’s 13 miles!”  I immediately admired her and started wishing that I could run 13 miles.   But immediately gave myself a thousand reasons why I couldn’t.

Me in my head: 

1. You don’t even like running.
2. You’ve tried before, and its boring.
3. You don’t like the labored breathing thing.
4. You got shin splints last time you tried to become a “runner”.
5. You don’t even like running.

Then a couple of my workout partners showed interest in the half marathon, and that’s when Jo asked, “Do you guys want to do it with us?” 

Omg, could I?  I felt nervous and excited at the same time.  I had a conversation with myself in my head.

1. You’ve never ACTUALLY trained for anything EVER.
2. How do you know if you can or can’t, you’ve never really tried.
3. You give up on everything.
4. You have too many things going on to commit.
5. You can make a thousand excuses, but the truth is, you really do want to try.

So, within those few minutes of self-doubt and curiosity, I decided to accept her invite along with my workout partners and train for this half marathon.  Jo Ellen says, “Great, training starts tomorrow with 2 miles.”  Holy shit, tomorrow?  She said she’d give me a training plan too.  Perfect amount of time to train…12 weeks.  We’ll see.

 

Important details to note:

1. I have never run more than 2 miles…..EVER.
2. I have never run in a race setting.  Except for high school, but that was so long ago.
3. Did I mention I don’t really like running?

I am inspired to try though.  I am really curious to see if I can commit and give myself the possibility of succeeding.  What’s the worst that can happen?  I will train and not complete the marathon?  Ok maybe, but I can’t see that as a failure, because I will have trained and pushed myself harder than I ever did before. 

So the plan is to document my world whilst training for this thing.  I don’t promise to not bitch and complain.  And I don’t promise to not give myself an abundance of praise either.  I have never committed to anything like this before, so we’ll just see what happens.  It may be fun to look back on in the future.

 

The Mission:  Don’t give up.