95.8 Miles to go.

We found a local high school track to run on last night – my feet are happy about that!  Ran 2 miles in 22 minutes and 15 seconds.  That means my time is a little faster – nearly an 11 minute mile. 

My original goal with running was to just RUN an entire 5K by my 40^th birthday.  Well, things have been going well enough that I revised my goal to be to RUN the entire 5K in under 40 minutes by my 40^th birthday.  And I think I’m in pretty good shape to do it.  The truth is, though, that it won’t be as easy as a track run.  The course is on very different terrain where they recommend trail shoes.  There will no doubt be hills.  It is likely red dirt and maybe gravel.  So this weekend, we hope to run at a local lake where it is much closer to the racing terrain.   We bought trail shoes last weekend, so we’ll be taking them for a spin and we’ll see how it goes.

This is a photo taken by Alvin. B, courtesy of Yelp, of the lake where we plan to run Sunday.  Pretty!!

100 Miles to go. Wait, make that 97.8

I am doing a poor job of keeping up with this blog.  Fortunately, the same can’t be said about my running program.  That’s right; I’m still running.  In fact, on Sunday, I ran 25 minutes non-stop!  I logged 2.2 miles in that time and honestly, I think it was a little easier to just keep running (mind you, it was NOT easy), rather than walk for a minute and then have start running again.

G and I also started working out with personal trainers last week.  My trainer is focusing on developing my endurance as well as strength training because, well, that’s my weakness.  She told me I would improve more if I attended a spinning class.  I was not happy to hear that.

Years ago, when the husband was just a boyfriend, he convinced me to go to a spinning class with him.  I. Hated. It.  I hated every second of it.  And I thought I was going to either pass out, vomit, or both!  And I never went back.  Until, that is, this past Saturday morning!  That’s right, on a day when I would have LOVED to sleep in, I did it; I dragged my sorry butt out of bed and went to a spinning class.  And, wonder of wonders, I liked it.  I mean, it was hard, but I kept up.  I totally kept up! 

So now, I am definitely more fit.  My cardiovascular endurance has improved, and I am down more than 14 pounds since May 20 (due in part to the exercise, but also due to the diet program we are on called Medif@st).  I have between two and seven pounds left to lose and then I will start on the maintenance phase of the diet (the diet is a severely restricted diet as far as calories go and it is a restricted diet when it comes to fat and carbs).  I can’t WAIT to eat a piece of fruit! 

Please note:  These are NOT my running shoes, but happen to be the shoes I keep at work for walks at breaks and lunch time.

So now to the title of this thing… 100 Miles to go… I figure I will log my miles (only running miles, not walking) and label my blog posts based on how many miles I have left to have run 100 miles.  Now I COULD go back and see how many miles I’ve done in all my training, but those days I always included walks in between the running segments, so those don’t count.  Since I ran the whole time on Sunday, that’s why I’m including that first 2.2 reducing the number of miles from 100 to 97.8.  We’ll see how long it takes me to reach 100!

Mistakes, Milkshakes, and Macklemore PJs

Tuesday night we went to the gym that we just joined.  We got a tour, and then did our training plan on the treadmills because it was a rainy night.  I don't like treadmills. My foot was striking different, I didn't feel like I should be talking much to George, but that's how I keep my breath controlled.  I ended up singing under my breath -- the only song I could think of at the time was the Milkshake song (True, I don't know all the words.  And, no, I don't want to think about what the song means.  But I had seen a post on FB -- "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard").  I know. Mortifying.  But no one heard me and it did the trick.  And I survived.

Yesterday was an even stormier day and I had to work a bit late.  So we decided G would do his run at home on the treadmill since he would make it home first.  Then I would do mine when I got home.  It would have been fine if I had paid better attention to my training plan.  I mistakenly told G the training plan for NEXT Wednesday.  So basically, we both did twice the duration of running than we were supposed to.  Good news... we survived.  Bad news... for me, I just barely survived and in fact had to jump up on the rails a couple times.  Ugh! 

Today is another off day.  Tomorrow I will make sure we do the right training plan.  Saturdays are always walk days and Sundays are our ramp up days. 

My prep for the next treadmill run will be to have a CD player nearby to play upbeat music that I know the words to so I can sing along.  If we do it at the gym, I'll dig out my iPod and have it charged up to do the same.  Oh, and I need to get that Thrift Shop song, too... makes me smile every time (I know it has a lot of bad words in it, but still... )!  Macklemore was totally singing about my flannel zebra jammies (not from a thrift shop, mind you! And yes, the feet have zebra faces!)! 

See?

Running is hard.

I tip my hat to all the runners out there! 

I really want to like it.  But running is HARD. LOL.  The hardest part (other than breathing) is admitting that I am in such poor shape.  3 minutes. That’s how long I had to run; followed by 2 minutes of walking and then repeating that sequence four times.  The entire workout was a total of 20 minutes.  Seriously!  Just 20 minutes.  And yet today, I am sore.  It is an “Off” day, so fortunately I only have to go to belly dance class tonight.  And it’s a good thing, because I am tight everywhere!  Any flexibility I once had is long gone.  I really need to work on that, too.  Sheesh. 

Running is hard, but I’m not giving up.

Here's a running quote form my dear friend, Anonymous:

 
"No matter how slow I run, I'm still faster than my couch."

Ain't that the truth?!

Hit the road running...

Yep, once again it has been months since a post.  And a lot has gone on.  Most of it boring.

I have not been to Bikram Yoga since October and the 100 pushup challenge ended shortly after that last post due to an untimely sneeze during pushup #7 that injured my shoulder.  Bikram, while a fantastic form of exercise, is just not a great fit for my life due to the time requirement (basically 4:30 PM - 8 PM on yoga days, which they want to be every day). 

So... on to the new thing.  Running.  My baby sister and my mother both decided to start running this year.  I figure, if they can do it; I can do it.  Well, I jumped the gun a little and George and I tried to run a 5K at the National Harbor.  Without training.  Without even doing basic exercise for months leading up to it.  Okay, so truth be told, we really didn't PLAN to run... but we got there late due to CRAZY traffic and wanted to try to catch up with friends. 

At the Glo Run at the National Harbor in DC

So now I am starting a 5K training program.  I know, I am shaking my head at myself, too.  How could I have gotten so out of shape that I have to TRAIN to run just 3.1 miles? But the reality is, I have NEVER run... like, ever.  Except when playing flag football in college, but that was sprinting very short distances. Oh yeah, and it was more than 20 years ago.

To do this right, I am being guided by a pro.  My trainer is Carrie Grote of Oliverunning.com, and she just happens to be a dear friend from college.  We had lost touch, but reconnected a smidge via FaceBook (meaning I read her posts, and look in awe at her beautiful family photos).  Carrie looks amazing.  And she is a remarkable woman.  And I really hope we get to truly reconnect soon.  But back to running, because Olive it. hee hee.  Carrie has developed a training plan for me so that I can run an entire 5K before my 40th birthday in August.  Race Day is July 28.  Training starts tomorrow. 

The thought is that I will post a little here and there about how it is going.  Wish me luck!

Yoga Lesson

I went to class last night at 6 and it was great.  James led us through a wonderful 90 minute moving meditation and I realized how unfair I had been to go into a yoga class with expectations of anyone other than myself.  I still hold that perhaps he shouldn't have positioned himself as close as he did, but I should never have expected anything of his practice.  That's not how yoga works.

The reason last night's class was so good, I believe, is that James really kept us focused on our breath.  He was patient, encouraging, and focused.  And no, I don't think he ever opened the door, but I didn't notice the heat as much as usual and I didn't drink as much water throughout the class as usual, nor did I douse my towel with water to cool myself (both are habits we are encouraged to let go of).  So there it is, I learned one of the lessons of yoga.  Let go of your expectations -- even expectations of yourself... the only goal you should have when you practice yoga is to be present and do your best.  Not a bad goal for every minute of each day, whether practicing yoga or not, wouldn't you say?

And yes, I completed my 100 push-ups yesterday.  Two days down, 98  to go.

Since I have no yoga-related images, I'll show you a pic of the kitty we adopted about a year and a half ago to torment Hans and Tinka (ok, not the goal, but he's awfully good at it!).  Here he is... our little Gatsby when we first brought him home in May of 2011!

No Yo

I didn't go to yoga last night.  I know.  I'm a little disappointed, too, even though it was my decision.  It's just that I am SO tired at work because I don't get home from yoga until 8 PM or later, then I have to change clothes, eat, take care of laundry or whatever, prep my meals for hte next day, wind down and hopefully get to sleep at a decent hour.  Which I don't.  Especially on nights (like Tuesday) when my husband works until after 11 PM.

SO instead I got on the treadmill.  I had to do SOMETHING, but I just didn’t want it to eat up my whole night from 5:15 PM until 8 PM, like yoga does.  And I accepted a 100 push-ups for 100 days challenge by Commit and Conquer in Pueblo, CO.  I used to go to C&C for Boot Camp classes, so when I saw them issue this challenge, I was excited to sign on for it.  Now every day (starting yesterday), I will do 100 pushups.  By the time January 17 rolls around, I will have done 10,000 pushups! Pretty cool, huh?  Let me know if you want to join me!

Unfortunately, while doing my second set of 25 push-ups, I sneezed and tweaked something in my neck.  Between yoga tonight and the massage I have scheduled for tomorrow night, I figure it’ll be feeling much better soon, and it didn't keep me from finishing my 100 push-ups.  Tonight’s 6 PM yoga class is with the guy I was talking about yesterday, so maybe I’ll go to the 8PM class since I can sleep in tomorrow if I want. 

Hmmmm… What to do? What to do?