Week 9 Day 1

Hey, this post is not a mistake...I'm re-doing Week 9 because I never finished it last week. Today I was back on the treadmill doing my usual run, a lot like last week!

I am really happy that my stamina has increased so that I can run for 36 minutes straight to complete a full three-mile run. I'm going into new territory here. Not just longer distances and longer running times, but also the discipline to keep going, even though the sedentary arms of the sofa nearly grabbed me back and held me prisoner. I had planned to run several times last week, starting on Thursday night. Then Friday, Saturday, well...you get the picture. That old inertia is still lurking in my psyche, that's for sure.

That's why this week is critical. I don't want to fall into a pattern of excuses following my Monday run. I have to do some traveling this week for work, which means that it will be very easy for me to skip running. My very short-term goal is to complete Wednesday's run as scheduled. If I can do that, I will be very happy with myself.

Week 9 Day 1

I haven't been too consistent this week, I'm afraid. I didn't run on Monday like I planned, so I ran on Tuesday morning outside. We were leaving for MacWorld in San Francisco at 10am, so I started at 9am. Outside, in the real world.

I felt really good in the first part of the run, but then got too tired toward the end and stopped running before I made my 30-minute mark. When I downloaded the data from the Garmin (which is the fun part about running outdoors!), it turned out that I was running way too fast. When I'm on the treadmill I run a steady 12-minute mile (5mph), but when I ran outside my average pace was about 10:30-mile, so no wonder I was tired!

I also gave myself a case of shin splints, I think. My shins were really sore -- the first real soreness I've experienced since I started C25K. I used this soreness to postpone my Wednesday run from Wednesday to now Friday.

Carry on!

Week 8 - DONE!

C25K Week 8 is complete! I can hardly believe that I am almost done with this program. Monday's run was weird because I had to run at the gym -- the power was out at the house because of Friday's storm. It was very noisy and there were so many people around! Blech. But...I was one of those people who I used to admire -- you know, the person working out next to you who just keeps going and and going at a faster pace or steeper incline than you are!

Wednesday's run was back at home -- our power came back on Tuesday night. (Thank you and bless you PGE!!) I postponed and postponed, but I finally started my run at 9:00 pm or so.

Friday's run was a challenge -- I decided to try the distance recommendation rather than the time recommendation for the C25K program. So, instead of running for 28 minutes, I decided to try to run 2.75 miles, which I did in about 33 minutes. Which amazed me. It is like having a stranger within (a la John Bingham in last month's Runner's World) who is motivated to go running and do other good things for herself. This stranger, oddly enough, has the stamina and mental concentration to run for 33 minutes straight.

Anyway, I felt really good afterwards--not out of breath, legs not tired, just sweaty and happy. And the next day, Saturday, I felt great also, especially my legs. It was wonderful.

I'm on the trail of a cheap rowing machine that I am looking forward to using for my upcoming cross-training days. Wish me luck on Craigslist!

The stranger within says bring on Week 9.

Week 7 Day 3

Well, the power went out on Friday. The Chico area had high winds (40-60 miles per hour). The morning started okay -- rainy and windy but within normal bounds. This was at 6:00 am, when my alarm went off. As I lay in bed, contemplating getting up and starting my day (I don't really have to get out of bed till 7:00 am), the wind started to increase and my will to get up decreased even more. By 7:15 am or so the lights were flickering. By 8:00am it was clear that the power was going out for sure. And so they did. And they did not come back on. About 60,000 people in Butte County, California lost power.

Because I do my running on a treadmill, a power failure puts a major crimp in that activity. In skipped my scheduled run on Friday, but tried to run outside on Saturday. The weather was cold and windy, but not raining, so I gave it a try. And I discovered that running on real pavement is really hard! I wasn't able to run the 25 minutes straight that I had hoped to, but I did what I could and called it a day. It was a good inkling of what I'll be up against when I actually run in Santa Cruz!

Note to self: Schedule at least one outside run a week.

Week 7 - Day 2

Ta-da! I have completed another 25 minute run, much to my amazement. How is it at the age of 44 I can amaze myself?

Today I used a Podrunner podcast to run with, since I didn't need Robert Ullrey's podcast cues for when to start and stop running. I used a 143-bpm techno track to run with and found that it kept my feet moving, and moving, and moving. It was great.

Other news...I saw a pheasant in our backyard this morning. And I didn't run outside in the fresh air yesterday as I had thought I might. The couch potato rises again.

Week 7 - Day 1

I successfully completed Week 7 / Day 1 of C25K today, which is a 25-minute run, the same as last Friday. Having completed last week's run made it much more difficult to come up with a good excuse to not complete today's run, so I just kept running even though I thought about quitting.

Even with that, it was much easier to get started and keep running this time than last time. The last 8 minutes or so were hard because I kept thinking, "Geez, when is this run over?" I'm still using the Robert Ullrey podcast, but because these are straight runs now, I can conceivably start running to my own music.

I've been running exclusively on the treadmill since starting C25K. It's winter: the days are short, it's cold (to me, anyway) and I'm shy about running outside. Then I see these blogs from other people who are running in the snow, for heaven's sake, and loving it, which makes me feel like such a wimp. Well, so be it.

So I think I will try a short run outside tomorrow. On level ground and if the weather is nice. To commemorate the New Year. The new me. This stranger inside me who can run 25 minutes straight and not complain.