I guess I run now

My Goal Date is May 18th, when I will run in the 26th Annual For Women Only 5K Run/Walk

Day 12: Week 3, Day 4. So I put off running all day & focused on the major & responding to papers (only half way through the papers) & didn’t get on the treadmill till after my lovely 2 hour break to watch Biggest Loser. What I guess I’m saying is, running at 10:00 at night after a day that thoroughly kicked my @$$ is not a very good idea. But I did it. 3.0 for all the walks but the last, 4.0 for all the runs, 3.5 for the offical 5 min cool down & 3.3 to 3.2 for an additional 10 minutes. I keep thinking I’m not ready for week 4, but I think I can be if I just cut the speeds down a bit & ease them back up again. Anyway, I should probably try to run on Thursday so I can get one more run in on Saturday before I leave for a 9 1/2 hour road trip to see hubby. Then I can run again on Monday at his rec center & first thing Monday morning, I doubt I’ll run into too many students. Yeah, that sounds like a plan…so walking and weights tomorrow and Friday, running Thursday and Saturday. Day 11:Week 3, Day 3. Okay, so I said I wanted to up my speeds & quit wussing out & I at least accomplished the first part of that promise to myself…I’m still a huge running wuss, but I’m getting better & braver, I think. So I did the walks (excluding the last cool down) at 3.0 and the runs at 4.0 & lived to tell the tale. Did the final cool down at 3.5, an additional 14 mins at 3.3, and 2 mins at 3.0 for a total of 42 minutes. I could’ve easily done without the last 2 minutes, but I did 42 minutes for Friday’s training, so I wanted to see what kind of difference my increased speeds had on my calories and distance. Friday’s calories burned were 303, today’s for the same time were 337; Friday’s distance was 2.32, today’s was 2.36. So, I’m burning more calories, but traveling practically the same distance…obviously my stride while walking is a lot longer than my stride while running….given my lack of grace while running & my comfort with walking (been doin’ it my whole life, don’tchaknow), this make sense. Anyway, I’m happy to have finished the run & thinking one more day on week 3 might do me a world of good. We’ll see how I feel on Tuesday, though. Day 10: Week 3, day 2. Not bad; not bad at all. Oh sure, I was still struggling with the 3 minute runs, but I also knew I could plow through it, so that helped. It’s the not knowing how bad it’ll be that gets me. Did the walks at 3.2 and runs at 3.6, 5 minute cool down and additional 5 mins at 3.5, then 12 more mins at 3.2. Nice thing happened today (and I can’t believe I can say that). I got totally stressed with work…one of those work things that hits on a Friday & suddenly you realize that while your long agonizing week has finally ended, a long agonizing weekend of work has just begun. I won’t bore you with the details, but my impulse was to grab a pack of cigarettes & smoke the stress away. I quit smoking 3 years ago after decades as a pack-a-day smoker. Did it cause hubby gave me a reason to want to stick around till I’m super old and super wrinkly. Anywho, I quit, but when the stress days hit, my pattern is to buy a pack of smokes, smoke 3-7 in one sitting, run the remaining pack under the tap, and hate myself (and my lungs, head, throat, and smelly apartment) in the morning. But today the stress hit & I realized that pattern wouldn’t work. These runs are hard enough with clean lungs, I can’t imagine doing them with smokey ones. So instead I indulged in two WW chocolate toffee candies (60 cals each). & I was able to run tonight to burn them off. Maybe one day I’ll be addicted to running as a stress reliever? Okay, now that’s just crazy talk! Day 9: Week 3, Day Ugh! So I started on week 3 today…finally. Not bad. Least ways, the 3-minute runs make the 90-second runs feel like a cake walk….mmmm cake! I love cake. Anywho, the first run hurt some…I could feel my chest closing up (years of smoking is the cause, but the pain’s a nice reminder of why I don’t want to go back to smoking). I kept it slow: 3.1 & 3.2 for the walks & 3.6 & 3.7 for the runs. Wimpy, yes, but the goal was to finish the thing once so I’d know I could do it. & I did finish it. The run/walk is only 26 minutes long (including his intro), but I stretched it out to an even(?) 45 minutes today, doing the cool down walks at 3.1. Friday I’ll up the speed a bit, but I’m also taking it easy on Thursday to give my aching muscles a little rest. So the new schedule is C25K Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday; YMCA for walking and upper body on Monday & for walking and lower body on Wednesday; Thursday taking it easy (treadmill or neighborhood walking only); and Saturday off. It’s a plan & clearly I like any kind of plans and planning that will lead to pruning some of this fat away from my body!Day 8: Which is actually day 5, week 2. That’s right, I stuck with week 2 for another day. I’m just starting to feel myself after the whole stomac thing all week, so I figured I wouldn’t push it yet. Although, once I got going, I realized I needed to push a little. So for runs 2-6, I did 2 minute runs and 1 1/2 minute walks rather than the other way around. But I limited my speed on the cool down. Last 5 minutes of the official run at 3.4 & then another ten minutes at 3.2. I’m getting Indian takeout tonight since it’s Easter (right, so any excuse will do, clearly), so I probably should burn an additional 100 cals after dinner tonight. And I need to start psyching myself up to do week 3 on Wednesday or I’m afraid I may never move ahead with this training. Stepped on the scale this moring…do this every morning, but only record once a week so I don’t end up on the roller-coaster of plus and minus tenths of a pound. Anyway, it read an even 177, which would be a 6 1/2 pound loss in barely more than 2 weeks. Probably a fluke, but it was nice to see anyway. Day 7: Day 4, Week 2 I figured I’d need more time to improve my stamina before moving along to week 3 anyway, but the stomac ache I’ve been battling since Wednesday morning really helped me to see the wisdom of postponing the next step for at least one more day. The stomac thing sucks, but the yahoo group is working beautifully. When I don’t feel like I can run (how can I possibly fit it in, what with all these Law and Order reruns to watch), I just hit the yahoo group discussion & get motivated not to let the group and myself down. So, it’s day 4, week 2 only, but the run was easier today, I increased my speed, and I tacked an additional 12 minute cool down (5 mins at 3.4 & 7 mins at 3.2) onto the end. Feeling pretty good, especially since I’ve discovered that the endorphins keep the stomac pain away, at least for a while.