First Comment, New Program, and Hitting the Three Month Mark!!!

I would like to thank NB for being the first person to post on my blog. I felt a little sheepish when I linked over to their site marathonpreparation.blogspot.com and found out they were running a couch to 26.2 program. Hmmm makes me feel a little uninspired about my c25k program. Onward and upward I go anyways.

I convinced a buddy of mine to start running the c25k program as well and he currently is about four weeks behind me. The current plan is for me to keep running the 30 minutes a day until he finishes the program as well. After he is finished, we'll find a different running program that will last a little longer and hopefully add some mileage to our base. It will be nice to have someone I know working on the same program and week as I am. Competition tends to keep me motivated.

We talked about possibly running a half back in Boise in a year from now. The idea of running a half-marathon scares the crap out out of me, but I didn't think I'd be running a 5k any time soon either so what the hell, Ill give it a go. A goal that can't be completed til a year from now may be just what I need to keep motivated and stay on the fitness course. I'll update more on this as plans become finalized.

One final note. Yesterday, April 21st, marked the 3rd month of making up my mind to stop being fat and lazy. Here are some things I've learned along the way.

1. Weighing in daily works well for me. People say this is a bad habit and can be discouraging. I personally need the daily affirmation that I am on the right track or the instant negative feedback that I am doing something that is not good for my body.
2. Running outside beats working out inside any day of the week. I look forward to my running days a lot more than I do to the days I have to spend in the basement on the bow flex. I realize that lifting is important to help keep the weight off, but sitting in my basement pumping out sets is tedious.
3. Having someone go through the process with me has been invaluable. I'm not sure If I'd have stuck with this for three months if my cousin wasn't trying to lose weight at the same time I was. The competition to lose the most weight was and is still a definite success factor.
4. At the 3 month mark, I've lost roughly 23 pounds and 7% body fat. I'm not sure if these are good, average or below average numbers for three months time, but I'll happily take them.
5. My goal for the upcoming three months is to see the 160 lbs mark and see where I stand on the body fat percentages at that weight. I'd like to get to the 12-15% range. I'm not sure why I picked that number but I started at 26.5%, am currently at 19.5%, so 12-15% sounds like a good goal.

Well that's all for now, thanks again nb for the first post on my blog, you have no idea how exciting that was for me, kind of childish isn't it?

I'm running week 8 this week in the c25k program. This entails running for 28 minutes straight 3 days a week. I'm skipping week 7 which was 25 minutes at a time but I don't think the extra 3 minutes will break me. I'm doing this because I think this will better prepare me for the 5k coming up May 3rd.

Whatever you're working at, keep grinding.

6 a.m. wake up

Well let's see, exactly one week ago I was dreading a 20 minute run that was looming very large on my horizon. The morning of the run, I was so excited or wound up about the whole thing that I jumped out of bed at 6:00 am. I'm sure that a lot of people enjoy getting up on a Saturday morning and starting their weekend off right with a nice run. I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE. If I'm watching the sun come up, it's not because I enjoy a cup of coffee while I watch the sunrise, it's because I have had way too much to drink and I can't find my house. Now that I have told you exactly how I feel about early mornings let me tell you about my 6 am twenty minute run.

IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Have you ever seen a sunrise? Have you ever seen one sober, while your running? It's incredible. For the first time in I don't know how long, I started a weekend doing something positive and non-destructive. I hope its not the last.

The run went fairly easy considering I haven't run for that long since high school. At one point my heart monitor hit 209 and this really freaked me out but my doctor said that I probably wouldn't die when this happened and sure enough I didn't. After I slowed my pace down enough to keep my heart in my rib cage I settled back and enjoyed the run.

The first time I looked at my watch it said I had been running for fourteen minutes. I was expecting it to say five or maybe even six minutes if I was lucky, so I was quite shocked to see that I had already completed well over half of my twenty minute run. I did look at my watch a lot during the last two minutes of my run, but it wasn't out of desperation to be finished, it was because I couldn't wait to celebrate the fact that I had run for a full 20 minutes.

I have another run slated for Saturday and I can't wait to see if I wake up at six am again. I'm not going to set my alarm or anything crazy like that but part of me hopes that I wake up early again.

On a side note, I signed up for my first 5k. It happens at the end of week 8 of my couch to 5k program which means that I'll be running my first 5k before I finish the 9 week program but what the heck, right now I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Couch to five K

I can't believe it has been over a month since I posted my first and only post. I've found myself reading a few other blogs and I just don't know how these people find time to write and write and write. One of the reasons I wanted to start this blog was to work on my writing, communication, and computer skills. With that thought in mind I am going to commit myself to more frequent posts. Enough about that and on to the fitness stuff.

While searching for articles on fitness and health I came across a website called coolrunning.com. On this website I found a running program for beginners called couch to 5k (c25k). Essentially this program is designed to take a person from a couch to running a 5k in 9 weeks. I currently am in the middle of the fifth week and I love this program. I recommend it for anyone who is considering running but isn't sure how to go about doing it. It makes you progress slowly enough so that you should be able to avoid injuries. It is also challenging enough to hold a persons interest over the 9 week program.

There are two resources that I have found invaluable to progressing through the c25k program. First is a free podcast on itunes called "podcasts for running" by Robert Ullrey. These podcasts allow you to turn on your ipod and just go. Mr. Ullrey tells you when to run and when to walk so you don't have to constantly look at your watch. He also has set the podcasts to music selections that seem to have a decent beat to match your running tempo. The music may not be my cup of tea but these podcasts are so perfect for the c25k program that I cannot prop Mr. Ullrey enough for putting them out there.

The second resource is the message board on coolrunning. I found a few other people who started the c25k program the same week I did and it's nice to have other people to talk to about the successes and failures of going through the program. It seems like there are new groups starting every week so finding someone starting the same week you are should not be a problem.

I stated earlier that I was in week 5 of the program. There are three running days to each week. Today's run which was day two, consisted of a five minute warm-up walk and two intervals of eight minutes running and five minutes walking. I really didn't think I was going to get through the first 8 minute segment but five minutes in I guess I found my stride and finished the first interval strong. The second eight minutes was harder and there were moments that I thought my heart was going to explode. My Nike heart monitor watch assured me that my heart beat was under my max heart rate so I was able to just gut it out.

Day three's run is scheduled for Saturday. This is supposed to be a five minute warm-up walk followed by a solid 20 minute run. I'm looking at this day with a lot of nervousness but then I didn't think I would be able to finish day one or two this week either. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.