W6D3

I completed this run out of cheer will; looking back on it now, it wasn't so bad. My body may not agree though. I really need to do some yoga soon. I didn't even ride my bike to work today, which pains me. I am considering starting week 7 on Monday instead of Sunday since tomorrow will be hard on my body too with a trip to Disney and swing dancing at night. I hope I have the energy for all that.

I got my new watch yesterday and was really excited to try it out this morning. Yesterday was a crappy day in general, but as the evening drew near my right knee started acting up. I was upset that it might prevent me from running today. It wasn't very painful, but bothersome enough that I may not want to risk it. I iced it for a bit; I figured it couldn't hurt. My calves also ached. I am not sure why, except maybe from biking, but I only biked a total of 4 miles (2 each to and from work) at a leisurely pace.

This morning I woke up all achy and did not want to get up to face the fact I may not be able to run. As a result, I got started late and it was already rather warm. I was sweating within the first 5 minutes. I warmed up and stretched a bit inside, then took a 1/2 mile walk to warm up. My new watch says that took about 8 minutes. Then I started to run very very slowly. My knee felt fine, but I didn't want to take any chances. The watch kept beeping at me to speed up, so I finally turned off that feature. The funny thing is that towards the end I was speeding up and it beeped at me to slow down *lol* I think I am going to leave those alerts off until I get used to it, or set them to something custom that works better for me.

Anyway, I ran 1.63 miles in 25 minutes at an average pace of 15:22 with speeds ranging from 3.9 to 5.2 mph. This does not count the warm up and cool down that I recorded separately. Including these I covered a total distance of 2.65 miles in 43:36 and burned 190 calories (this seems low to me, is it?).

I may have covered less distance than the 20 minute run, but that was during a race and I had to estimate the distance, so who knows. I am thinking I may get closer to the 2 - 2.5 mile mark towards the last run of the week, but I am not going to worry too much about it. I'll try to push myself a tad each run to try to get there, but I was not about to do that today and risk real injury to my knee.

The watch worked out well. Read my review here.

Garmin Forerunner 305

This is my new running watch, the Garmin Forerunner 305 (which I got on sale at REI). It is a bigger than I thought, but not really too heavy (until you've ran for over a mile and a half and are ready to collapse). I love having all this data on my wrist while I run. It can track real time distance, time, pace, speed, and so much more. It can even map your routes and stores all this data for 1000 laps in the watch itself.

Using the Garmin Training Center, you can download the data for archiving purposes and to see graphs of your performance. You can also create custom workouts and the watch will alert you at each step. It comes preloaded with a ton of workouts already to get you started. The watch also has alerts you can turn on to tell you when you've reached a certain distance or time, as well as when you go above/below a specified pace or heart rate zone.

Here is a screenshot from today's run. Click on the image to see the details in the bigger version.

Fitness Update: -17.4 lbs in 98 days

Starting Weight: 152 (1/29/08)
Previous Weight: 135.2
Current Weight: 134.6
Weight Loss: -.6
Total Lost: -17.4 lbs in 98 days
BMI: 24.6
Current Goal: 130 (mini goal: 20+ total loss)
Lbs to go: 4.6 (2.6 to mini goal)

Not a huge loss, but not bad considering it's that time of the month, I ate out several times last week (Buca di Beppo, Sweet Tomatoes twice, Disney) and went to a BBQ. I only rode my bike twice to and from work since the last weigh-in, but continued with my every other day runs (C25K). I've been slacking on weight lifting and yoga, so I need to pick that back up.

I joined the Healthy You Challange and Up for the Challenge to help me in my journey. It is great to hear about the success of others and share mine. I think I am also going to do this Virtual 5K and we may organize our own at the Couch to 5K Community. What a great idea!

I completed W6D2 of C25K yesterday, my last interval run. From here on out, I'll be doing increasingly longer runs from 25-30 minutes (and beyond until I reach 3.1 miles). I am excited and anxious.

I decided to keep track of weekly goals and accomplishments. So here goes the first installment.

Goals for the upcoming week:
- Run 25 minutes without walking (C25K Week 7)
- Run 1.5 - 1.75 miles without walking
- Bike at least 16 miles (4 days to/from work)
- Light weights at least 2 days
- Do yoga at least 1 day
- Do kickboxing at least 1 day

Accomplishments this week:
- Workout Log
- Food Log
- I weigh less than 135 lbs (I am no longer overweight)
- I fit into size 4/6 pants (down from 10/12)
- I can run a mile without walking
- I ran 20 minutes without walking (~ about 1.5 miles)
- I finished a 5K in less than 42 minutes (ran ~ 1/2 - 3/4 of the race)
- I continue to inspire people to start C25K or their own exercise program

W6D2 - Last Interval Run

I just completed my last interval run of the program; from here on out, it's all running, all the time! Yay! I am so happy and amazed I've come this far. Today's run went really well; Combined with the warm up and cool down walks, I covered 2.5 miles in about 40 minutes (I usually just cover 2 miles in about 30-35 minutes). This is slower than my 5K, but I took that first 10 minute run and the cool down walk very slowly. I covered 1.5 miles during the interval portion (10-3-10) in 23.5 minutes.

I got really sick of the podrunner podcast music on Monday, so I decided to use my own music today and use my crappy Target watch (that doesn't even have a countdown timer) to keep time. I was worried this may make the run harder because I'd have to keep looking at my watch and agonizing about how long I had left, but it worked out well. I walked one full loop for the warm up (.5 miles) then reset my watch. I knew the loop takes me 7-8 minutes to complete, so I did not look at my watch until I completed the loop. This meant I only had to keep looking at my watch for the last 2 minutes or so and I wasn't really dying to look at it all the time either. The runs felt pretty comfortable.

My new GPS watch (the Garmin Forerunner 305--still on sale for $164.99) should arrive tomorrow, so I'll have it in time for my 25 minute run on Friday. I am really excited because I'll be able to focus on my running and breathing and let the watch focus on my distance, pace, and time. This will hopefully make running those long times and tracking my progress easier as I work up to comfortably running 5k and then train for a 10k.

W6D1

I wasn't feeling well this morning so I was going to postpone today's run until tomorrow. It would give me 2 rest days after the 5K and because I have a buffer day, W9D1 would still coincide with my next 5K. I was feeling better so decided to give it a try tonight once the sun started going down.

First of all, what the hell is up with the music in this day's podrunner podcast? The warmup song was awful. I couldn't stand that guy saying that line over and over and over. I was so glad when the chime went off to start running so I'd have something else to focus on. Once the intervals are over, I am using my own music.

Anyway, I decided not to take my watch today. I wanted to focus on getting through this and not worry too much about time. That worked out pretty good. I probably won't do that too often, but it's nice every now and then. The runs went well and not having the watch helped me focus on the run instead of how long I had left.

I also tried out the running skirt tonight. It was ok, but I hate feeling my thighs rub together. I wore Blister Block so there is no chafing, but I don't think I will feel comfortable wearing it again until my inner thighs slim down.

Just one more interval run to go, then is all running all the time! w00t! I've come a long way.

Meatless Monday - Day 2

I had another successful Meatless Monday:

• Breakfast: quaker oatmeal bar, banana
• Lunch: white rice, tuna and pesto sauce
• Dinner: Steamed Snow Crab and veggy salad

I snacked an awful lot during the day, but I don't feel like listing them all. They were all meatless though.

One advantage of meatless Monday is that it usually leads to at least one meatless meal the next day from leftovers. So maybe there is something to this starting the week off right thing. Not to mention, it is going to force me to try new things so I don't get bored with Tilapia and tuna every week :)

interest vs commitment

There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it is convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

- Kenneth Blanchard

I saw this on lilhlfpint's journal and I just had to repost it. It is a great quote!

Race Report: Disney's Go Red for Women 5K (W5D3)

Today was my 2nd 5k and W5D3. I treated this as another workout day and began the race walking very briskly for 5 minutes. The truth is, I was itching to run but wanted to pace myself so I could run to the finish line.

The 20 minute run went great. I started slowly and sped up towards the end, but not too much because I knew I still would have over a mile to go after I finished the 20 minutes. I was going to keep running until the 2 mile marker, but I did not know quite where it was (it was about .1 miles from where I started walking). I am kinda kicking myself for this because if I had just slowed down to a slower jog instead of walking, I am sure I could have run the entire thing. After catching my breath for a song or two, I ran for another song then walked a bit more, then ran about half a mile to the finish line. Once I could see the clock, I gave it my all and started sprinting. As I was nearing the finish line, the clock was quickly turning to 43 and I pushed even harder to try to beat it (I missed it by 2 seconds) then I stopped and I got this rush of feeling over me as I struggled to catch my breath. I felt like I was going to cry--you know that feeling you get when you are crying so much you can barely breath? It was that kind of feeling minus the tears.

I estimate I ran at least 1.5 miles straight (during the 20 minute run) and a total of at least 2 miles, maybe more. Not too bad considering 6 weeks I could barely run more than a minute. I can't wait until I get my forerunner watch so I can know exactly how far I run. I improved my time greatly and finished under 42 minutes. I will definitely aim to run the entire time at the next 5k in 3 weeks and finish under 40 minutes.

Running at Disney was very cool because I knew the area and could easily see my progress. They even had music blasting so I could have done without my ipod, and we got a cool goodie bag and finisher's medal. I definitely want to do the Race for the Taste 10k in October.

Stats:
Distance - 5K
Chip Time- 41:46 (Clock - 43:02)
Pace: 13.47 minutes/mile
Overall Place - 1119 / 1796
Gender Place - 998 / 1632
Division Place - 994 / 1627

Fitness Update: -16.8 in 91 days (3 mo)

Starting Weight: 152 (1/29/08)
Previous Weigh-in: 136.2
Current Weigh-in: 135.2
Weight Difference: -1
Total Weight Loss: -16.8 in 91 days (3 mo)
Current Goal: 130 lbs (5.2 lbs to go)

I am no longer overweight! Yay! Actually, I miscalculated and anything below 136.4 is normal for my height, albeit on the high end. Since I am so close to my 135 lbs goal (and I actually weighed less than that at one point this week), I'm setting a new goal of 130 lbs, with a mini goal of 20+ lbs total loss.

I think I may stop posting weigh-in updates (or do them less often when I show a significant loss or meet a goal); I need to put less stock in these now that I am more active and building muscle. I need to focus on inches instead and the fact that I can now wear size 6 pants (depending on the store, I can also wear size 2 and 4). I used to be a size 10/12 when I started this, so this is awesome.

My activity since last weigh-in: C25K 2mi run/walk every other day, 4mi bike 4 days, lift weights 2 days (I've been slacking on my strength training, so I need to do a bit more here).

Tomorrow is the next 5k at Epcot, and I am so ready! It will coincide with W5D3, in which I run 20 minutes straight. I am actually looking forward to this and a day at Disney afterwards.

Read W5D2 Update.

W5D2

I did it! I ran 2 8-minute intervals and I survived; I feel amazing! I can hardly believe I am running 16 minutes! I remember when one minute seemed like an impossibility, but now I am going to tackle 20 minutes in 2 days.

The run went great; the weather was beautiful. It felt a little cold and I almost wore long sleeves, but I am glad I didn't because I worked up quite a sweat by the time I was done. Now I wish I hadn't wussed out and tried out the running skirt.

I ran the first 8 minutes fairly slowly. I wanted to get used to running that long first and have enough energy for the 2nd run. Just before I began the 1st run, I realized that it should take me about one loop (1/2 mile) to run the interval; so I told myself not to look at my watch until I was at least close to were I started to run. When I completed the loop and looked at my watch, I only had about 30 seconds to go and I still felt good. I walked the 5 minutes faster than usual and breathed a lot, though I was not really winded from the 1st interval.

When the 2nd interval started, I picked up the pace a bit. This actually felt easier than my snail pace, though a tad more tiring of course--but totally doable. It was just a nice stride and I think I was in the running zone for at least a short while. My biggest problem when I pick up speed is that I have to get used to taking shallower breaths to keep up, but I managed it fine. I know this will come with time. I kept looking at my watch 5/6 minutes into it, not because I wanted it to end, but because I wanted to sprint the last minute. I gave it my all for that last minute. It was great. I realized that I finish these runs winded because I sprint at the end, not because I can't keep up with the long runs.

I am feeling really good about running the 20 minutes at the 5k on Saturday. I plan to bring my own music to help the time go faster. Since I know I'll have to walk part of the 5k, I'll still start with the 5 minute brisk walk (or a very slow jog), then tackle the 20 minutes. I'll probably run the 1st 10 minutes at my snail's pace and then pick up a bit for the last 10. I'll walk briskly and catch my breath for 5-10 minutes, depending on how far I have to go to finish the 5k and how winded I feel. I estimate I'll be at least half way through by this point. If by some miracle I've cross the 2 mile marker, then I may walk less. I'll try to jog some more after I catch my breath for however long I can and then alternate running and walking until the 3 mile mark, then I'll sprint to the finish!

I am beyond excited for Saturday to be here already! I really want to finish in less than 40 minutes, but I'll be happy with anything between 40 and 43 minutes.