Do the Couch to 5k running plan

So I participated in my first 5k event this morning!

Lots of fun, and looking forward to doing another one, with better time!

Not only did we finish week seven this morning, but we even managed to increase our speed by two-tenths of a mile per hour!

: )

So my sister and I went out yesterday for our first 25 minute run. It was 85 degrees, and I’d slept 3 hours the night before. I’d also been too busy to think much about food so I’d consumed 500 calories all day.

1. slept three hours the night before
2. ate 500 calories all day (honestly just got busy & didn’t make time to eat)
3. it was still 85 degrees when we went out at 10pm

Lesson learned: take better care of myself!

Today was a solid 22 minutes running, officially my longest run ever. I never would have believed just a few weeks ago that a 22 minute run was a possibility.

This week took a lot of tenacity, especially since I didn’t run at all last week while I was on vacation. Note to self: Don’t skip a week of running again!

I’m hoping that by next week I’ll be back in the groove – finishing today did feel pretty awesome, though. Bring on those 25-minute runs!

It has just occurred to me that I am three short weeks away from running a solid 5k, four times a week.

There really is no way to put into words just how major an accomplishment that is for me – it’s a feeling. A feeling of surprise and admiration and self-respect. Of excitement and the realization that, if I can morph from the girl who gets winded taking the stairs into the girl that runs 5k, I can train my body to do pretty much anything.

It feels like freedom, like possibility. It feels really really good.

Ok, so I hadn’t run in ten days thanks to quiet mornings on the dock and quiet evenings at dinner and just not really feeling like getting all sweatied up in my running gear.

Then last night came and I knew it was the day of reckoning. Either I was running with AwesomeSister or I was admitting failure and falling off the wagon again.

And so I ran!

She did Week 6 last week while I was working on my tan, snipe that she is, but she’s doing it again with me this week because she’s awesome like that.

So while I huffed and puffed away in the sweltering heat and felt every moment of penance for slacking all week, she sailed along beside me breezy and free as a bird. Lucky devil.

She’s the best running partner ever, though, and when I felt certain I coudln’t make it she encouraged me onward and I finished the whole run.

Last night we did Week 5, Day 2, with the eight minute runs. I had been quite nervous going in, that I wouldn’t be able to make it. I made it without stopping at all, but when we got down to the last minute of the last run, neither AwesomeSister nor I had anything left to push for that last 60 seconds.

Tomorrow we finish Week 5 with one solid 20-minute run. We’ve decided that next week, since I’m on vacation and our running third didn’t make it this week, we’re gonna repeat Week 5.

Finished Week 4, Day 3 last Wendesday, and started Week 5, Day 1 last night. I was a bit apprehensive, since so much time had elapsed between runs.

But we did it!

The three five-minute runs were a push, and I’m eternally grateful that it was such a cool night last night – not sure what I would have done if it had been hot and muggy. We decided to try and push for the last minute like I did on Wednesday. I have to admit, by the last minute of our last run, I didn’t have much left to push, but I found something somewhere and gave it my all.

AwesomeSister had more to give on the last minute than I did, and she ran on ahead for a bit.

I feel like I need to include the caveat that we might possibly be the slowest ‘runners’ known to man. But, you know what, we’re doing it. And there’ll be time for speed training later.

I am so incredibly surprised at myself and proud of myself for this goal and the progress AwesomeSister and I have made in the past five weeks!

It’s a good thing that Awesome Sister and I run four times a week rather than just three, because I missed Friday (fourth run of week 4) and Sunday (first run of week 5) due to Tropical Storm Joey.

BUT… becase we schedule four runs a week, I can still do week five today Wednesday and Friday and we’re still on schedule.

I’m a lil apprehensive about starting week 5, becuase it is a pretty major step up from week 4, but we’re gonna subdue that beast!

Onward and upward!

Tonight was my third run through Week 4. It still feels hard, and I still get some pretty good muscle pain during the runs, just down around my ankle.

In any event, I was coming down to the last minute of the last 5-minute run, and the podcast told me to “really push it.” Each time I’ve run before, by the time I got to that point, just finishing took everything I had. Tonight, I was tired and sore but I felt like I could push harder if I really tried, so I just started hauling butt, running as hard and as fast as I could, and left my running buddies behind.

I hung in there until the end, although that felt like the longest sixty seconds of my life. It felt awesome.

I really feel like I had a breakthrough tonight.