Sunday, September 20, 2009

Week 7, Day 2: To walk or not to walk?

Week 7, Day 2 completed today, 2 miles in 28:12, a 14:06 pace (and NO bathroom emergencies today. Yay!). I'm almost under a 14:00/mile pace! I took quite a bit of walk breaks on today's run, at no planned intervals or for a planned amount of time. I just walked when I felt like walking, and made sure to start running as quickly as I felt it possible. The end result? A faster time than the W7D1 run. I definitely felt myself running faster on the second half of the run (which is when I started taking the walk breaks).

I remember from my former life as a runner the age-old debate of walk breaks. Proponents of the walk break, namely Jeff Galloway, say that it's a good thing because it allows your body enough of a rest to be able to run faster & longer. Opponents say that if you need a walk break, you're probably running too fast, and slowing your pace down a bit will yield the same results. Then there are those elitists who are anti-walk break for the sole purpose that they are RUNNERS not WALKERS but for the intents & purposes of the walk break discussion in this blog, their opinion is too far out there to even be considered. So what do people think about walk breaks? And has it ever been suggested in the C25K program that we will be running a 5K without walk breaks? I'm interested to hear your opinions.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Week 7, Day 1: Cat Stevens, are you mocking me?

I felt good going into Week 7. I actually thought about the week and how I would attack it. I made two small adjustments. First, I cleared all the songs from my ipod and then made a 45 minute mix of songs that I wanted to hear on my run. I even put them in a logical order to try to match my psychotic moodiness. The order of the songs ended up being perfect, for reasons I'll explain later.

The second adjustment I made involves the timing of my runs. I decided that I would do the 5-minute warmup walk as a separate part of my loop, and then start my watch again when I started the run. I basically walk 2.5 minutes away from my house, then turn around and come back. The new route I've been running is exactly 2 miles from the top of my driveway, so doing the walk separately lets me actually RUN for 2 miles, and it allows me to time myself just on the running so I can compare my pace from day to day. The week 7 workout is the same every day: run 2.5 miles or 25 minutes. (Really? How many Couch to 5Kers are running a 10-minute mile?!) So I'm a 1/2 mile short on my runs, but that's pretty consistent with the whole program up until this point so I'm not sweating it. Today's 2-mile time was 28:40, which is a 14:20 pace. I'm resisting the urge to make a comparison here (thanks for the advice, Gift of Isis) so instead I'll just say that 14:20 sounds like a great starting pace upon which I can improve.

As my cousin Lisa says, I'm not afraid to talk about the good, the bad, and the poop. Brace yourself people, because it's time for another poop story. So the new 2-mile loop that I'm running is all residential. There are only 2 tiny wooded areas on the run, which are within 1/2 mile of each other. These are my only bathroom options, and neither of them are very appealing. I think one is a swamp, and the other one, I found out today, is a thicket of thorns. I passed the first bathroom option, willing my body to keep it together until I got home, but when I approached the second bathroom option, I knew it was now or never. There was one tall pine tree, and it was surrounded by a tall thicket of thorns, which I didn't realize until I got really close. My only option was to crawl underneath the branches of the pine tree to get behind it and hopefully out of sight of passing cars, kids waiting at the bus stop, people walking their dogs, etc. I was literally on my hands & knees scooching under branches. At one point, my headphones got snagged on a branch and got pulled off my head and then when I turned around to retrieve them, my shirt got caught on another branch. I'm lucky to have gotten out of there alive, people. Let me tell you, the suburbs are a very scary place. So anyway, I got far enough in to do my business, then had to crawl back out. LUCKILY, I'm fairly certain no one saw this 240-pound woman wearing sweatpants and lopsided headphones crawling out from underneath the pine tree. If they did, I'm dying to read the blog post they are writing right now. But wait! I have to tell you the best part! While all of this crawling and pooping was going on, the song on my ipod was Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty", which apparently is so dirty you need to spell it with 2 r's because that's the sound you make when you're doing dirty things, like crawling underneath a pine tree to take a dump. So that's pretty funny, right? Well it GETS BETTER. The very next song on my ipod that starts playing is Cat Stevens' "Can't keep it in", whose lyrics go, "Oh, I can't keep it in! I can't keep it in, I gotta let it out." How perfect is that? And more importantly, how did I not see the irony in these lyrics before? I've never made the connection in the hundreds of times I've listened to the song, but today, I swear I could see Yusuf Islam sitting on his prayer rug laughing his ass off.

Here's to hoping for a sub-14:00 pace and no bathroom emergencies on the next run.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Week 6, Day 3: Guess who's back?

That's right, bitches, Effie's back. (Sorry, that was rude.)

I completed day 3 of week 6 today, a 25 minute run with no walking. I did walk for 1 minute at about 22 minutes into the run, but that was on a short uphill and I purposely kept the walk to only 1 minute. For the past couple of days and up until the minute I left the house this morning, I've been indecisive about what workout routine I would do next. (Side note: I just realized I may have had this conversation with myself before. I am sort of alarmed that I didn't notice this until right now.) Anyway, I didn't think I was ready to do 25 minutes, and somehow I got off schedule for the past 2 weeks where my day 3 run is occurring on Monday morning which really messes me up. But as I started walking this morning, I decided I'd just do the 25 minutes, or the best I could in trying to do it. I think walking for 1 minute is pretty damn good. I also ran a new route today, which I think helped me mentally. The new route is 2 miles total, so I'm still coming up short on the distance since I'm supposed to be running 2.25 miles, plus the distance of the 5 minute warm-up walk. I'm excited for week 7 because every day is the same, so I'm planning to run that same route and hopefully I'll see an improvement over my total time by the end of the week, and then I can increase the distance for week 8. Yep, I'm definitely back.

Today's time: 30:40 including warm-up.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Week 6, Day 2: The Bad and The Ugly

I finished today's run as written: 5 minute walk/10 minute run/3 minute walk/10 minute run, but I don't feel pride or accomplishment or relief. I feel fat and slow and like I could be doing permanent long term damage to my knees. I haven't lost any weight since I've started, and my running pace hasn't gotten any faster. I'm running slower than most people walk. Part of me thinks that even if I quit today, I wouldn't be disappointed in myself since I feel like this whole program is not worth it anyway.

I'm not fond of this post, but I'm leaving it in anyway because I said I'd blog honestly about each and every run. Here's to hoping the 25 minute run on W6D3 will be awe-inspiring.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Week 6, Day 1: Redemption

Today was attempt #2 at Week 6, Day 1. I did it, but I sorta cheated, but also possibly made it harder than it was supposed to be. The workout called for a nice symmetrical pyramid of 5run/3walk/8run/3walk/5run. I did the 5run/3walk but then stretched the 8run into 12run, but skipped the second 3min walk. Basically, in the middle of the workout, I decided I wanted to just go home, so I ran all the way. I finished 4 minutes shy of what was supposed to be the total time, but 3 of those 4 minutes were walking minutes. It's not really worth debating if this is "ok" or not. I did it, I'm counting it as a completed workout, and I'm moving on. I don't know why I sound so defensive right now.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Week 6, Day 1: Pity Party for 1

Today sucked. I was supposed to do 5 run/3 walk/8 run/3 walk/5 run, and instead I did 4 run/20 walk. I felt fine physically, but mentally I had a lot of self-doubt going on. I was disappointed in myself for something else (I don't even remember what it was) so somehow decided that I should rob myself of any kind of personal acheivement. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find a shrink.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Week 5, Day 3: Don't Stop Believin'

I DID IT! The 20-minute uninterrupted run! I did it, I did it, I DID IT!!!!!

Just like Jan, and Nike, and everyone on the C25K program says, you just do it. My legs felt exactly like they did on the W5D2 workout, and that is, SORE. After the first 5-8 minutes of running, I really wanted a walk break, but I knew it wasn't an option, so I just kept on going. I also knew from W5D2 that at 18 minutes, I felt like I got my second wind. Of course, that was after a 5 minute walk break, but it didn't matter. I told myself today that once I got to 18 minutes, then it would be easy. And it was, sorta. My legs felt better and the urge to walk was greatly diminished. Plus, the last half mile of my route is a gentle down hill. It's also remarkable that no matter what song comes on my ipod at this point, it's always the BEST SONG to run to. Today it was Journey's Don't Stop Believin'. Oh my god, all of a sudden I was powered with piss & vinegar, and a whole lot of cheese (not like cheddar, but like, 80's hair band cheese.) For that last half mile, I had a stupid grin on my face, and I may have even high fived myself at one point. I finished my loop in 25:29, which means I ran 29 seconds more than I needed to, and honestly I felt like I could have run for another couple of minutes, or at least until the Journey song ended and John Denver's Sunshine on my Shoulder started.

YAY me!