I Work Out

I have been trying to get back into working out a little more frequently for the past few month or so. I kept putting it off and putting it off because I was too busy or we had just moved or we had a house guest that came to stay with us for 2 weeks unexpectedly. Before I knew it though, January was over and I knew my excuses were, too. I signed up for a free 5k mid March so I knew I had to do something or that race would be torture. With February looming in the not-so-far distance, I made a commitment to myself to get some form of physical activity for 30 minutes a day with ideally an hour of activity for at least 6 days a week.

With that, I started running again. I started slowly. I find that I (and most people, by the way), burn out if I try to take on too much at once. Every month our schedule changes and every month I have to adjust what I'm doing to work better around what Spencer's crazy residency is making him do. It's exhausting. I began doing the couch to 5k program again, but only intermittently. Soon, it was time for the 5k and even though I wasn't totally ready, I decided to give it a go anyway.

The 5k went pretty well for where I was in my training. Up to about a week before the race, I was only going at most 2.5 miles and that was about half walking and half running. I did a trial 5k a few days before the race and finished in about 40 minutes. On race day, I only walked at the water station and for about 1 minute going up a steep hill. I finished in about 38 minutes. My shoe chip was 37:53 and the clock showed 38:23--pretty good for where I was. I came in 650th out of 1956 finishers (there were walkers in there) and the results just made me want to try harder. A friend of mine had posted about the Disneyland 1/2 marathon and so with that as a goal, I started training yesterday for my first half marathon.

I am following Hal Higdon's novice 2 program. He has a plan for every day of the week. I started yesterday with the 3 mile run. Today, it's another 3 mile run. It is my intent to follow his plan as scheduled with a brief adjustment for a vacation at the end of April/beginning of May. Part of his plan involved signing up for a 5k at the 6 week mark which for me would be April 21st. I plan on running the 5k out in palm springs. It's my goal to get my overall time down around 30 minutes, and I think with consistent training I can do that. I don't ever stop because I'm out of breath. I usually only stop because my legs or feet or ankles are so tired and sore that they feel like lead. My muscles just aren't used to this but I guess that's the point. You have to train at whatever you are doing to get to where you feel comfortable and it becomes easy, then you push past that point and keep going. It's the only way you can ever have any growth.