I’m in Week Seven! Below will be my reports for this week’s runs, in chronological order, as they are posted on those days. To see what the Couch to 5K program is about, along with links to other resources and podcasts, check out the C25K site. To see my prior weeks’ reports, you can navigate to their individual pages either to the right or at the top of the page. Thanks for coming by!

Shannan

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Day One of the Final 3rd of the Program!

October 13, 2008

I got a workout TODAY! It’s two days after the 25-minute run that was on Saturday. It had been the first time I had done 25 minutes straight, and I think my legs wanted more time to recuperate. Thankfully, I was so distracted during today’s run that the fatigue I felt at the beginning of the warm-up walk, even, went to the back of my mind while I was trying to calibrate my Nike+. I’m not so sure that went well. I was calibrating it to my treadmill and was going to run 1.0 miles at my normal pace. At the end of the mile, I ended the calibration and got the message that it was successful, but the display showed that it was for 400 meters, which is roughly 1/4 mile. I know I started out selecting 1.0 miles, so I’m going to have to retry this at a later time.

My legs just didn’t feel like working so hard today, and I can feel it even now. I’m considering doing my 2nd run on Thursday this week, to allow an extra day of rest. I think part of this is that I did a lot of lifting and carrying of heavy things yesterday, and my legs got a real workout when they should have been resting. Since all week is 25-minute runs, I’m not looking at an increase on day 3 this time, so a second rest day might be what I’ll take.

I’m so excited to be in the last third of the program! This is heavy stuff to me!  🙂 This is the point to which I wondered if I’d ever reach. I’ve been looking into different programs to do after I finish the C25K. I’d really like to be able to go off on my own without having a schedule that someone else has charted out, but I also know that without the schedule, I might not have the discipline or the knowledge to increase my running abilities properly. I just fear getting stuck in a 12-week program and getting bored with it halfway through, doing too much too fast and getting injured or feeling like I don’t want to do that particular distance on a particular day. I really would like the freedom. What I might do is go it alone for a few weeks, see if I can maintain a regular schedule of some kind on my own, and then decide if I need to follow a strict plan. I might end up using another plan as a guide, but keep the freedom of changing things around. I also really like my C25K and OHR group on RunningAhead, and would like to stick around even if I’m not doing the OHR. Will you all let me stay?  😛 I know some of the folks there have graduated the C25K and gone on to programs besides the One Hour Runner. I’ve gotten some ideas from them about other programs to look into.

Wow, I feel so good after finishing a run, stretching, cleaning up and eating/rehydrating, and knowing that it’s not a sporadic thing I do once in a while. I can’t believe I didn’t start years ago. I’m also glad I didn’t wait longer to get going. I guess things just fell into place and this was the right time. I recall looking into the program a couple of years back and wanting to start running, but thought that I had to start out fast, and I’d try running on some of my walks, but get tired out within a minute. I’d give up and think that running’s just too hard. I never realized that there are ways to build up to running long and fast. I just thought that either you were born being able to run or you weren’t. When I was in grammar school, my neighbors and I would have races down the block or sprints to the third house down, and I’d always beat them. I was good at sprinting, but longer runs — like those around the track in high school — were always tough, and I’d end up walking. In my mind, to be able to say I just ran 25 minutes is like telling you that I just climbed Mount Everest.

Okay, I’ve gone on and on again. Thanks for letting me ramble. Sometimes it’s just easier to write this stuff out, and knowing that someone is out there reading it at least doesn’t make me feel like I’m talking to myself.  😛

Have a great week, everyone!

Shannan

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Day Two of Week 7 – A Day Later than Usual

October 16, 2008

Okay, I did today’s run. I waited an extra day because my legs were just feeling like I did too much too soon for my first run of the week. I had done two 25-minute runs within 48 hours of each other, but it had been the first two times I’d run that long. With a busy day between, I just didn’t get the rest I needed, so I decided to do Monday/Thursday/Saturday this week. I feel fine, and I feel confident that I can do my third run of the week on Saturday, getting back on schedule.

I had a good playlist today, too, and found songs that are close in BPM to my pace.

There’s a new poll feature on here that I’d like to try. I won’t abuse the feature (I hope – maybe I’ll make one a week), but I thought it would be fun to give it a shot today. I’ll make the first one about music and how you get through your runs (for my running visitors), so here it goes…Thanks for coming by today!  ~~ Shannan

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Finished Week 7 on Saturday

Posted October 20, 2008

I start Week 8 today (28-minute run), but the weekend was so busy that I didn’t have a chance to write about Saturday’s run. We were planning on going to estate sales again, so I had to start early. I was doing my warm-up walk by 7:05am. I don’t really remember much about the first half of the run, but I know that at about 16 minutes I started getting distracted, and my breathing rhythm got messed up. I had to try to zone out again just to stop thinking about it. If I think about my breathing, it gets harder. It’s not even that I’m so tired that I’m out of breath, because I’m not. It’s just that my breathing pattern gets jumbled, which makes everything seem harder, even moving my legs.

As usual, after I’ve gotten to the end of the run, I feel that I can still keep going. I can’t say that’s how I feel when I start, though. It depends on how much real rest my legs got on my rest day, which is hardly any most of the time. Saturday-to-Monday is the toughest, since the weekends have been filled with carrying heavy things, belly-crawling in our pebble-covered crawl space (now lined with plastic sheeting – YAY!) and climbing up and down things. My workout clothes are in the dryer as I type this. I’m doing a later-morning run today. I’ve eaten about 150 calories at breakfast, and I’m just waiting now.

I’m going to polish my playlist on the iPod, too. It’s a good list, but I need to move things around. Speaking of music, I got some responses to the poll above that asked what you listen to on your runs. I’m going to post a new poll today when I report on today’s run. Thanks to those who responded to the first one. It’s still open, if you’d still like to vote.  🙂

I’ll be posting later on, on a new Week 8 page.

Shannan