My Journey to 50 miles (2nd attempt)... (comments welcome)

[disneygpa]

Good times at PT last night

Pretty much the same exercises as the last few sessions.
My time is growing short at PT. I only have two more sessions scheduled.
My therapist has asked me to go run a couple miles before she releases me.
My plan is to run Saturday afternoon on a relatively flat surface. I'm a little nervous because I haven't run more than maybe 80 seconds at the most in the past 4 months.
Goal will be to try and run a couple 12 min miles. We'll see... but that is my goal.
Also, my therapist is trained in evaluating running forms. She has agreed to watch me run and evaluate if I need to make any changes in my form.
I'm really gonna miss her.

Today is a day off. Though its date night with my wife, so I expect to get a fair number of steps in and if carrying shopping bags counts as a workout, I'll still be getting some sort of workout!!

 

[disneygpa]

Saturday's run was a success!
I found a nice flat loop. I'm not really a fan of running out and backs, so I always try and find loops to run.
My back felt pretty good for most of the run. I was tentative and didn't try to push myself too hard.
Came home and put the TENS and ice on. I actually feel pretty good. I'm certainly not 100% yet. But I'm better than I was 4 months ago.
My goal was to try and keep the miles under 12 min. Super excited to say I was well below that!!
Here's how the splits went.

mile 1- 10:35
mile 2- 10:54

Really felt like I could have gone longer. Maybe could have done another mile or so.
I'm trying to be responsible with my recovery.
But, honestly... how will I know my limitations if I don't start pushing the comfort zone a little bit.
Taking today(Sunday) off. Tomorrow will be a run day with DW.
Will be running our 3 mile loop. Looks like we'll be running in the rain for the first time... certainly won't be the last time this winter.

For the first time since my accident. I feel like I might actually be able to work my way up to the Dopey. I've still got many, many miles before I'll be ready. But I feel like I can make it with continued hard work.

I'm thinking about starting a private FB group with friends and family that will call me out, encourage me and hold me accountable when I don't post updates about training. Thoughts??

 

[JennysSeven]

You have made an incredible amount of progress in a very short time! Combine that with your obviously strong motivation to succeed at this with over a year still to train for Dopey 2020, and you've totally got this!!

 

[disneygpa]

You have made an incredible amount of progress in a very short time! Combine that with your obviously strong motivation to succeed at this with over a year still to train for Dopey 2020, and you've totally got this!!

Thanks for the encouraging words! Felt so good to get out and cut loose a smidge!!

 

[disneygpa]

So, my Sunday "off" ended up being a 7 mile walk around our little town. I was trying to relax and watch some YouTube videos about marathon weekend at Disney World. Well, because of a crappy internet connection that kept freezing and my inability to sit still for very long I decided I needed to go for a walk. No one else home, so I couldn't go play with the grandson.

Figured I'd go out and walk a different loop I've been considering for running. Walked about 3 miles and came to a fork in the road. To the right was home, but to the left was uncharted territory. I decided to go left and continued my walk. After another 3 miles I was back to the same intersection and decided to head home. Yup, 7 mile walk, about 1:45 felt pretty tired when I got back. Slept like a rock last night!!

Learned something important to make note of, even when just walking my energy levels start to drop after about 50 min or an hour. Luckily there was a little store along the way and I happened to bring my wallet. A bottle of water and a protein bar and I was feeling better in no time.
Maybe two reasons for this, normally I have a snack before I head out. I like Dave's whole wheat bread, toasted with peanut butter. But since I figured this was going to be fairly short I didn't eat a snack. Also, after weight loss surgery I don't always feel hunger. And if I wait too long my body tells me I'm running low on fuel. I can't remember when I ate last before I went out but it was probably longer than I should have waited. Next time eat a dang snack before heading out!!

Have to run alone tonight but my DW has dinner plans with her girlfriends.

 

[disneygpa]

Nice relaxing run tonight. Almost 4 miles.
I did 5 - 1 min runs within each mile. May have done 6 during the 2nd mile because I lost count.
Also, rain held off! So, dry feet! Gotta run on Halloween, weather man says it's gonna be wet. I hope he's wrong!!

mile 1 - 13:32
mile 2 - 12:55 (may have slipped in 6 runs here)
mile 3 - 13:12
mile 4 - 13:35 really only .93 miles

total miles this week 3.93 miles

Came home and put on the TENS machine and the ice pack. Back is feeling good only a little fatigue.
PT tomorrow.

 

[disneygpa]

PT last night = spent

I've never been as exhausted after PT as I was last night.
Summary:
8 min run on treadmill(videoed, more on that later)
2 sets of
30 sec quick feet
30 sec squats
30 sec squat and hold (all three in succession) Thought for sure my legs were going to fall off after the second set!!

2 sets of
15 Swiss ball hip extensions
15 Swiss ball hip raises
15 Swiss ball hamstring curls (at this point my hamstrings were shedding real tears)

2 sets of
20 hops on the sled from one leg to the other

2 sets of
15 leg kick backs on the sled

3 sets of
20 calf raises each leg

2 sets of
5 hip stretches

2 sets of
15 man makers(look them up, it was brutal)

finished up with 15 min of ice, wasn't sure I could get off the table when the timer went off.

Back to the video taping, I think I mentioned earlier that my therapist is trained in evaluating running form. So she took some video and reviewed it. We watched it in slow-mo and she pointed out that overall my form was good except that I crossover in the front with my foot placement. This is more pronounced with my left side, but I do it on both. She gave me some hip stretches and said I might want to concentrate on foot placement in the future. But, lets be honest here, I'm old and set in my ways. I'll try and focus on it but I probably won't change at this point. I really did appreciate her evaluation and it was kinda cool to see myself running in slow-mo!!

Only one more scheduled day of PT. Then I'm going to have to keep this up on my own. I really hope I have it in me to not only continue, but to continue with intensity!!

 

[disneygpa]

Last nights workout didn't go as planned. Original plan was to do 3 miles with 5 1-min run intervals per mile. Turned out to be a journey to the local Bartell's to try and find vampire teeth for my grandson. The teeth we got for him didn't workout, so last minute we decided to run down and see if they had some. They didn't... bummer. We stilled managed 2.17 miles with 7 or 8 run intervals thrown in there. Overall not a terrible night, just not what I had planned. PS... I ate way too much candy! I'm a sucker for Reese's ANYTHING!!

 

[jennamfeo]

Last nights workout didn't go as planned. Original plan was to do 3 miles with 5 1-min run intervals per mile. Turned out to be a journey to the local Bartell's to try and find vampire teeth for my grandson. The teeth we got for him didn't workout, so last minute we decided to run down and see if they had some. They didn't... bummer. We stilled managed 2.17 miles with 7 or 8 run intervals thrown in there. Overall not a terrible night, just not what I had planned. PS... I ate way too much candy! I'm a sucker for Reese's ANYTHING!!

I, stupidly, put a bowl of candy on my desk today and cannot keep my hands out of it. Oops.

 

[Jules76126]

Last nights workout didn't go as planned. Original plan was to do 3 miles with 5 1-min run intervals per mile. Turned out to be a journey to the local Bartell's to try and find vampire teeth for my grandson. The teeth we got for him didn't workout, so last minute we decided to run down and see if they had some. They didn't... bummer. We stilled managed 2.17 miles with 7 or 8 run intervals thrown in there. Overall not a terrible night, just not what I had planned. PS... I ate way too much candy! I'm a sucker for Reese's ANYTHING!!

Impressed that you were still able to run. There were kids everywhere in our neighborhood and didn't make it very convenient to run. WE went to the gym instead. We do not have kids so no candy for us.

 

[disneygpa]

Impressed that you were still able to run. There were kids everywhere in our neighborhood and didn't make it very convenient to run. WE went to the gym instead. We do not have kids so no candy for us.

We took off right after they got out of school and got back before they had started trick or treating.... Only a few kids to dodge and they were surprisingly cordial and moved out of our way.... Also gave us high 5's as we ran past!

 

[Kazrak]

I, stupidly, put a bowl of candy on my desk today and cannot keep my hands out of it. Oops.

I have had no candy yet.

However, first of the month is my check-in day for my weight tracking, so I was trying to be good yesterday.

Now that I've had today's weigh-in...well, I'm typing this from my favorite burrito place. I'm taking today as one of my two monthly cheat days. Once I get home, there's candy.

 

[disneygpa]

Last nights PT went something like this.

8 min on treadmill

stretching, glorious stretching!

2 sets of
30 sec quick feet
30 sec squats
30 sec squat and hold (all three in succession)

2 sets of
15 Swiss ball knee drives
write the alphabet with elbow on Swiss ball(challenging and kinda fun)

2 sets of
30 sled hops from one foot to the other(added an extra band tonight it was tough)
15 kick backs each leg on sled

Side steps with resistance bands on ankles and knees, down and back in the gym
Partial squat forward steps with resistance bands, down and back in the gym

2 sets of
15 each leg, one legged hip thrust

2 sets of
3 different ab(core) exercises, don't know what they are called. But you start on your back bring your legs up and put your elbows on your thighs. Then try to drive your elbows into your thighs and hold for a 5 count. Also, two other variants of this position.

Spiderman crawl down and back in the gym(they always have something new to torture me with... these were tough for me!!)

I'm so sore today, I can barely put my t-shirt over my head. Traps, triceps, lats, abs, quads, hamstrings.... holy smokes!!! Really enjoy feeling sore in the right way!!

This was potentially the last time I need to go to the therapist. She says to take a couple weeks and do my own thing. After those couple weeks, if I feel I need to go back we can schedule more appointments.

 

[disneygpa]

Early morning run! Check!!

Got up early-ish. Technically sleeping in for me.

Today was 5 1-min runs within each mile.

mile 1 15:59
mile 2 15:45
mile 3 15:40

Total distance 3.22 miles

I feel great! Back is a little stiff afterwards but I'll do some stretching throughout the day.
DW is exhausted!
Monday will actually be easier. We are starting the C25K training.
It is 5 min walk, 8 1-min miles split up with 90 sec walks and finished with a 5 min walk. Overall distance will be shorter but runs should be a little faster. Goal is to run a 5k in mid December.

 

[Simba's Mom]

DH ran the Dopey for the first and only time in 2016. He'd always wanted to ever since a friend described it (can you believe it sounded "fun"?) but he didn't feel he had the time to train properly until he retired. He trained for almost a full year, and his final test was to run the Dopey (the 4 distances on the 4 consecutive days) to prove to himself that he was ready. He's always said that was the best thing he did. However, as part of his training, he never got up as early as he had to for the actual Dopey, and that was the hardest part of it-the getting up at 3:15am 4 mornings in a row. One fun thing was the panel discussion we went to at check-in day. Tips and stories were interesting.



The only reason it's probably the last time is that he's almost 70 yo now, and although he does marathons or 1/2 marathons, he no longer feels up to training for another full Dopey.



One small thing that helped him was that while he was training, he deprived himself of french fries. After he got done, we went to B&C for a meal with french fries, and No Way Jose sundaes.

 

[disneygpa]

@Simba's Mom so your DH was in his mid 60's when he ran for the first time!? That's amazing and fantastic! I'm only 52, will be 53 by race time and I'm super nervous about being able to complete the Dopey.

Congrats to your DH! What a great story and inspiration!

 

[Simba's Mom]

@Simba's Mom so your DH was in his mid 60's when he ran for the first time!? That's amazing and fantastic! I'm only 52, will be 53 by race time and I'm super nervous about being able to complete the Dopey.

Congrats to your DH! What a great story and inspiration!

Yes, he was 65. I think there were several people older-the oldest participant, I think, was in his mid-70s.

 

[disneygpa]

Yes, he was 65. I think there were several people older-the oldest participant, I think, was in his mid-70s.

Very impressive! I hope to still be running in my 60's and beyond!!

 

[disneygpa]

Started couch to 5k last night.
Splits:

mile 1- 14:52
mile 2- 15:24

I thought the split times would be better, but then I realized the walking portion of this run is more than we've been doing.

Warm up walk 5 min, run 1 min, walk 90 sec, repeat run 8 times, walk 5 min cool down

I expect them to get better as the running parts start to get longer.

Tonight, first workout on my own (without therapist) though my DW will be joining me in the garage!!
Sure hope I can keep up the intensity that I was able to have at therapy. I have to rely on myself and DW to keep pushing hard!

 

[Kazrak]

Started couch to 5k last night.
Splits:

mile 1- 14:52
mile 2- 15:24

Those are better splits than I'm getting from my son on the week 5 runs (run 5m/walk 3m). Nothing to be a shamed of there.