First 5k

Sorry it's been a month since I've posted. My littlest one got sick the day I posted the last post and was in the hospital for a week. After that I've been working 50 hour weeks and it's been insane. Because of that I haven't been running much (or at all) the last two weeks. But I went and did my 5k this morning anyway. I just told myself that I would just do my best and try to keep moving. That's exactly what I did too. I don't know my exact time yet since they're not posted yet but I did chip timing so I'll look it up in a few days to see. I do know it was less than 50 minutes though. ****edited to add that the final time was 49:13**** Not awful considering. Not only had it been 2 weeks since I'd run at all, I've NEVER done 3.1 miles before in my training AND I had my two oldest kids with me. The teenager complained half the time and the 10 year old had to pee from mile 1. lol

Other than that I've been doing well on my diet since I've lost weight. This morning I was down to 239.9.  :)

I've also got the race bug!!! I came home and registered for a Santa Run for Dec 4th and a St Patrick's Day 4 miler March 10th. I think having those to work towards will help keep me focused. I really need to keep it up if I'm going to do my half marathon June 2nd. I want to do a 10k at some point in April or May too. I just feel like I need the experience of running a longer race before the half.

To prepare I'm running as much as I can in the coming months. The half is just over 6 months away and I think I need every bit of that time to train. I bought a 3 month membership to the community center gym near my house so I can use that when the weather is bad. It's still nice now but in a week or so it could turn! It'll be good until Feb 24th. By then the weather should start turning the other direction.  I plan to start Saturday with the bridge to 10k app on my phone. I'd started it before but I think I need to start over. It's a 10 week program so I should be done by the end of January. At that point I'll start my half training.

October Goals

I have already shared my goals for the next 12 months so I wanted to break it down into monthly goals as well. Since it is now October I'll share them here now. At the beginning of November I'll share how I did on my October goals and make new ones for November. You get the idea!

OCTOBER GOALS

1. No more than 1 soda a day.
2. Run at least 3 times every single week all month.
3. Stay vegan 80-90% of the time
4. Lose 10 more pounds
5. Bring lunch to work every time
6. Register all of us all for the Thanksgiving 5K

A Week in Review

Okay so it's been more than a week since I posted. I wanted to. I really did but life kept getting in my way! So here's what I've been up to since then . . .

Last week I completed week 2 of C25K and it was lovely. No problem. Then Sunday night at work I fell and hurt my back. To be honest the first thing I thought about was that it was going to derail my running plan!!  It's amazing that just two weeks in and I find myself looking forward to it!

I left work early on Monday morning because it kept hurting more and more and I went to the ER that the occupational health nurse told me to go to. I was there for a little over an hour and all that got accomplished was that a doc who thought I was drug seeking and didn't even properly examine me gave me scripts for V.icodin, Ibuprofen and a muscle relaxer. Grrr. I didn't fill them. I called the occupational health nurse back and she told me to go to one of their clinics that handles all of their worker's comp. cases. That doc was very helpful and did x-rays to make sure I hadn't broken anything before he gave me a course of steroids and a muscle relaxer. I also saw my wonderful and fabulous chiropractor A that day and she helped me a lot too. Other than seeing three doctors on Monday I did nothing but lie on the couch and rest and sleep. Sitting was painful and I was drugged. Tuesday was more lying around and babying my back.

Wednesday I felt so much better. Those meds, the chiro and two days of rest really helped a ton. I even decided to go attempt week 3 day 1. I promised myself that I could quit if I needed to but I didn't need to.  I felt good. Thursday I went back to be adjusted again and I felt even better. Friday when I did day 2 I noticed that I had a lot of pain in my SI joint (pelvis-hip region) on my left side so I FB'd my chiro and asked for advice. Ice, rest, stretch. Did that and felt up to another run (week 3 day 3) Saturday before work!! It feels so good to be through 3 weeks of this program. I'm a third of the way there!! I'm feeling ready for week 4 (jog 3 min/ walk 90 sec/ jog 5 min/ walk 2 1/2 min  x2) since it's not a huge jump from the 1 1/2 and 3 minute jogs I've been doing in week three but then there is the dreaded week 5. After that it gets harder and harder every week. Like a lot harder. Here's how it looks:

Week 5 day 1:    jog 5 min/ walk 3 min/ jog 5 min/ walk 3 min/ jog 5 min
Week 5 day 2:    jog 8 min/ walk 5 min/ jog 8 min
Week 5 day 3:    jog 20 min

WHAT?!

So you're telling me that I will go from being a person who's never run more than 8 minutes at once in my life and then suddenly I'll be able to jog 20 minutes straight? Talk about taking the training wheels off! I have been reading through blogs where people like me document their C25K process and they all are about where I am right now on week 3 and they are all able to do it. I guess I will just have to have faith. I think this is where the idea that running is about 40% physical and 60% mental.

I'll be sure to document it here how that all goes! I'm not expecting anything too drastic on week 4 since it's not a huge jump. I found this week that I wasn't even getting to where I needed to look to see how much time was left until 2 minutes so I think the jump to 5 minutes won't be huge. I hope I'm right.

Another thing I've got rolling around in my head is that when my aunt Sandy (who was a runner and inspired me to reach this goal) died 3 1/2 years ago I swore to run a marathon by the time I was 35. Well here I am 4 months into my 35th year and I'm running 3 minutes. So I've altered it a bit to run a half marathon at 35. There is a half marathon here in town that's pretty big around here and it just happens to be about 2 weeks before I turn 36. So if I train for 8 months I think I might be able to do it. So that's my big goal that I'm not ready to shout from the roof tops just yet. I'll keep it close for a while. I need a couple 5k and maybe a 10 k under my belt before I'll feel like it's really going to happen but that's the goal I'm reaching for.

Goals

These are the goals I have set for myself for the next 12 months. I plan to update them as I complete them.

1. Quit soda -by January 1
2. Begin strength training program -by January 1
3. Run 5K -by January 1
4. Train at least 3 times a week -cont.
5. Run 10K -by March 1
6. Become strictly vegan -by March 1
7. Cholesterol below 200 -by March 1
8. Run half marathon -by June 1
9. No more depression -by June 1
10. Lose 100 lbs. -by Sept 1

On the first of every month I will update my progress on these goals and add more goals as I check them off!