Just a quick note to let any interested parties know that I officially ran for 20 whole minutes today. If anyone had ever told me that I'd be running for 20 straight minutes, I would have laughed in their faces a month and a half ago. But today I did it! In the hot, hot sun no less. lol. And I have a nice little shoulder sunburn to prove it. Tip for future reference: Tank tops and sports bras with different styles of sleeves make for a strange and awkward sunburn... wear sunscreen next time. :)
I did it!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
I ran for 8 minutes... what?
So last Sunday I accidentally did the first run of week 5. I thought that it'd be fun to mess with myself - and try to get around my mental block of thinking I can't possibly run for 20 minutes - by going straight to day 2, instead of starting on day 1 when I went to the gym on Tuesday.
Short version - I ran for 8 minutes - twice! - and had only minimal doubts about my ability to complete it. I credit my endurance and my confidence to my decision to pace myself. Instead of running as hard as I can, I picked a comfortable pace that almost felt a little too slow. In order to finish the Disney Half-Marathon and stay qualified, I have to keep a 16 minute per mile pace. The treadmill at the gym has a 4mph option that feels nice and slow, and just happens to be a 15 minute mile pace. Woohoo!
I'm looking forward to running my first race in July and getting my first "race time" so I can see what sort of training plan to do next. Apparently you base your training plans on your previous race times so you can prepare for longer distances AND faster times. OooooooOOOoh!
Short version - I ran for 8 minutes - twice! - and had only minimal doubts about my ability to complete it. I credit my endurance and my confidence to my decision to pace myself. Instead of running as hard as I can, I picked a comfortable pace that almost felt a little too slow. In order to finish the Disney Half-Marathon and stay qualified, I have to keep a 16 minute per mile pace. The treadmill at the gym has a 4mph option that feels nice and slow, and just happens to be a 15 minute mile pace. Woohoo!
I'm looking forward to running my first race in July and getting my first "race time" so I can see what sort of training plan to do next. Apparently you base your training plans on your previous race times so you can prepare for longer distances AND faster times. OooooooOOOoh!
Monday, May 25, 2009
4th of July Race - Oregon Road Runners Club
I signed up for my first race! I will be running a 5k race on the 4th of July out in Wilsonville. The Oregon Road Runners Club is having their 10th annual 4th of July Run/Walk. In addition to the 5k, they'll also have a 10k and a kids 1/2 mile.
If you're interested in signing up for the race yourself, you can check it out here;
http://www.orrc.net/races/4thjuly/4thjuly_tba.htm
If you'd like to join Daniel and Ethan near the finish line to cheer me on, let us know!
Oh - and the ORRC is doing a coat drive for the homeless during this race, so if you decide to come - bring any of your old/extra coats and give them to a good cause.
Woo!
If you're interested in signing up for the race yourself, you can check it out here;
http://www.orrc.net/races/4thjuly/4thjuly_tba.htm
If you'd like to join Daniel and Ethan near the finish line to cheer me on, let us know!
Oh - and the ORRC is doing a coat drive for the homeless during this race, so if you decide to come - bring any of your old/extra coats and give them to a good cause.
Woo!
I finished week 4!
Just a quick update - I finished week 4 today... sort of. :)
I usually do my 3rd run of the week on Sundays, which I did today. However, instead of running the week 4 workout (which I published a couple posts ago) I accidently set my i-pod to the week 5 session. Oops.
It just to happens that I've actually been really intimidated about week 5. So it's amusing to me that I accidentally ran the first set and didn't worry about it. It just goes to show how much of training really is mental!
I am still a little intimidated by the schedule for this week, though. For some reason instead of doing the same workout for the entire week (like the previous four weeks), week 5 and week 6 have a different workout for each day. Here's what week 5 has in store for me;
Run 1:
Run 5
Walk 3
Run 5
Walk 3
Run 5
Run 2:
Run 8
Walk 5
Run 8
Run 3:
20 minute run... AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
It's got to be some sort of mental game to get you used to running longer times. Working on my mental game will probably mean there'll be some entertaining updates coming down the line next week. So stay tuned!
I usually do my 3rd run of the week on Sundays, which I did today. However, instead of running the week 4 workout (which I published a couple posts ago) I accidently set my i-pod to the week 5 session. Oops.
It just to happens that I've actually been really intimidated about week 5. So it's amusing to me that I accidentally ran the first set and didn't worry about it. It just goes to show how much of training really is mental!
I am still a little intimidated by the schedule for this week, though. For some reason instead of doing the same workout for the entire week (like the previous four weeks), week 5 and week 6 have a different workout for each day. Here's what week 5 has in store for me;
Run 1:
Run 5
Walk 3
Run 5
Walk 3
Run 5
Run 2:
Run 8
Walk 5
Run 8
Run 3:
20 minute run... AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
It's got to be some sort of mental game to get you used to running longer times. Working on my mental game will probably mean there'll be some entertaining updates coming down the line next week. So stay tuned!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thinking about Pledging?
Someone posted a great question on the SloSerb Fundraiser post - how much is a typical pledge? Here's my response - in case anyone else is wondering as well.
That's a great question. I guess you could figure out how much maximum you'd be willing to give and divide that by the number of miles I'm hoping to run. I'm shooting to log 30 miles in June. So you could pledge $1 per mile if you want to give $30, or $2 to give $60, etc. If you're really rolling in dough that you'd like to part with for the Kingdom's sake... you could pledge $125 per mile and send a whole team member to Slovenia/Serbia if I reach my goal. Haha.
Let me know! I'm going to create a little tracker to help me keep track of how much people are pledging, too. And if you're the first to pledge... I'll run a free mile in your honor. :D
That's a great question. I guess you could figure out how much maximum you'd be willing to give and divide that by the number of miles I'm hoping to run. I'm shooting to log 30 miles in June. So you could pledge $1 per mile if you want to give $30, or $2 to give $60, etc. If you're really rolling in dough that you'd like to part with for the Kingdom's sake... you could pledge $125 per mile and send a whole team member to Slovenia/Serbia if I reach my goal. Haha.
Let me know! I'm going to create a little tracker to help me keep track of how much people are pledging, too. And if you're the first to pledge... I'll run a free mile in your honor. :D
Week 4... Working on my mental game
Yesterday I finally started Week 4. Usually I run Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Last week my weights routine was a little thrown off and I ended up doing legs on Monday (instead of on Fridays so I know I'll have a rest day before running again) and doing the workout that Trainer Dana gave me. She warned me that if I did the workout like I was supposed to, I would have trouble sitting. She wasn't joking! Dana gave me a set of exercises to do on some sort of reclined-on-the-floor-on-your-back leg press thing to help me build muscle endurance in my legs. She calls it Triple Sets. I do 20 regular squats (upside down, mind you) at 60lbs, 20 froggie squats at 40lbs, and 15 one-leg squats on each leg at 20lbs. I have to have someone take the weights off because I'm not allowed to stop in between those sets, except to change the weight. And I'm supposed to do all of that three times. Poor Daniel was on weight-switching duty and got his own upper body workout by unstacking and restacking my weights. He's a trooper. He kept asking if I was okay... apparently my "focusing really hard to finish what I started" face looks a lot like my "holy crap I'm going to pass out and throw up" face, which he saw regularly when I was pregnant with Ethan.
After that lovely booty-kicking workout on Monday, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to run on Tuesday. Should I take a rest day and let my muscles recover? Would running count as not resting? I'm still learning a lot about cross-training and how our bodies work to get stronger. So I chose to skip the gym on Tuesday, which turned out to be a bad idea. What I should have done is at least do some sort of cardio to keep the blood flowing and my muscles loose. Why I did instead was baby my legs - lots of sitting and napping and such. By the end of the day I was so stiff that I was shuffling everywhere and grunting whenever I went to sit down. Lesson learned: recovery does NOT equal opting out. Opting out = cramping and looking like a ninny.
When I finally got around to my run on Wednesday I was so "itching" to run that I got off to a pretty aggressive start. My easy jog is about 4 mph at this point, and when I'm really warmed up and feeling good I usually work my way up to about 5 mph. I started into my first running interval right at 5 mph after a not-so-impressive warm up and quickly reached my "this is uncomfortable" point somewhere in the middle of my first set of 3 minutes.
Here's the intervals for week 4:
5 Minute Warm-Up
3 Minutes Jog
90 Second Walk
5 Minute Jog
2.5 Minute Walk
(Repeat 3/90/5/2.5)
5 Minute Cool Down.
Having only a minute and a half to walk before the "big scary 5 minute jog" was really messing with my head. When I finally started into the five minutes the "ohmigosh we can't do this we're going to pass out and fall off in front of all these people" voices started immediately. I've discovered that the thing I say to myself the most often during runs is, "quit thinking about how far/long you have to go and BE HERE NOW." When I'm watching the clock or counting down in my head the mental game gets so much harder. It's actually easier for me to sort of tune everything out and just focus on my breathing. I've found myself following a sort of 3 step rhythm, three steps while breathing in, three steps while breathing out. The only sound I focus on is the sound of my breathing, and I focus on that. Just keep breathing. Just keep moving. That concept sounds a lot like the child birth tips we heard in our birth class. When I was constantly being prodded and talked to and nagged at during labor, it made the whole process seem so much more painful. But in the few moments where it was just me and Daniel and I could focus just on breathing and moving (I was rocking for a bit) the pain seemed much more manageable. When we have our next baby, I look forward to using these principles to help me stay focused and present for an unmedicated labor. As well as the whole, "I CAN do this, I AM doing this" message I've been using for running as well.
I finished the run! I ran all the parts I was supposed to, and walked the parts I was supposed to. For some reason afterwards instead of the usual "runners high" that I've enjoyed so far, I actually was feeling a sort of "runner's funk." I think pushing myself to run so fast in the beginning pushed me so far outside of my "good burn" zone that I was stressing myself out. When I lowered my mph to 4 for the last 5 minutes of running, part of me felt disappointed. After talking this out with Daniel, I decided that critiquing my runs is just as much a part of the mental game. I did what I set out to do. So I'm not going to beat myself up for what I "could have" done better.
I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm critiquing myself a little too harshly in other areas as well.
After that lovely booty-kicking workout on Monday, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to run on Tuesday. Should I take a rest day and let my muscles recover? Would running count as not resting? I'm still learning a lot about cross-training and how our bodies work to get stronger. So I chose to skip the gym on Tuesday, which turned out to be a bad idea. What I should have done is at least do some sort of cardio to keep the blood flowing and my muscles loose. Why I did instead was baby my legs - lots of sitting and napping and such. By the end of the day I was so stiff that I was shuffling everywhere and grunting whenever I went to sit down. Lesson learned: recovery does NOT equal opting out. Opting out = cramping and looking like a ninny.
When I finally got around to my run on Wednesday I was so "itching" to run that I got off to a pretty aggressive start. My easy jog is about 4 mph at this point, and when I'm really warmed up and feeling good I usually work my way up to about 5 mph. I started into my first running interval right at 5 mph after a not-so-impressive warm up and quickly reached my "this is uncomfortable" point somewhere in the middle of my first set of 3 minutes.
Here's the intervals for week 4:
5 Minute Warm-Up
3 Minutes Jog
90 Second Walk
5 Minute Jog
2.5 Minute Walk
(Repeat 3/90/5/2.5)
5 Minute Cool Down.
Having only a minute and a half to walk before the "big scary 5 minute jog" was really messing with my head. When I finally started into the five minutes the "ohmigosh we can't do this we're going to pass out and fall off in front of all these people" voices started immediately. I've discovered that the thing I say to myself the most often during runs is, "quit thinking about how far/long you have to go and BE HERE NOW." When I'm watching the clock or counting down in my head the mental game gets so much harder. It's actually easier for me to sort of tune everything out and just focus on my breathing. I've found myself following a sort of 3 step rhythm, three steps while breathing in, three steps while breathing out. The only sound I focus on is the sound of my breathing, and I focus on that. Just keep breathing. Just keep moving. That concept sounds a lot like the child birth tips we heard in our birth class. When I was constantly being prodded and talked to and nagged at during labor, it made the whole process seem so much more painful. But in the few moments where it was just me and Daniel and I could focus just on breathing and moving (I was rocking for a bit) the pain seemed much more manageable. When we have our next baby, I look forward to using these principles to help me stay focused and present for an unmedicated labor. As well as the whole, "I CAN do this, I AM doing this" message I've been using for running as well.
I finished the run! I ran all the parts I was supposed to, and walked the parts I was supposed to. For some reason afterwards instead of the usual "runners high" that I've enjoyed so far, I actually was feeling a sort of "runner's funk." I think pushing myself to run so fast in the beginning pushed me so far outside of my "good burn" zone that I was stressing myself out. When I lowered my mph to 4 for the last 5 minutes of running, part of me felt disappointed. After talking this out with Daniel, I decided that critiquing my runs is just as much a part of the mental game. I did what I set out to do. So I'm not going to beat myself up for what I "could have" done better.
I'll try to keep that in mind when I'm critiquing myself a little too harshly in other areas as well.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Week 3... OWNED!!
I have officially completed three weeks of 5k training. Woohoo! Today's workout was with Heidi and Sheri, a couple amazing friends from church who I recently learned are training to run as well. It's a huge blessing to push myself in their presence, to feel their support and to support them as well. It's a very healing experience, since I opted out of connecting with other people over physical fitness back in junior high. LOL.
Jesus is really something... He can even redeem junior-high inflicted PE wounds. He's not messing around! :)
I'm already excited for week 4, which I will officially start on Tuesday. It will consist of;
3 minutes running
90 second walking
5 minutes running
2.5 minutes walking
And then all of that twice... WOOT!
Jesus is really something... He can even redeem junior-high inflicted PE wounds. He's not messing around! :)
I'm already excited for week 4, which I will officially start on Tuesday. It will consist of;
3 minutes running
90 second walking
5 minutes running
2.5 minutes walking
And then all of that twice... WOOT!
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