You're going back and doing what Updated 10/3 10K

[jenn-]

I wish I could say my inaugural run on the new treadmill was a pleasant one. Instead I had to work my butt off to make sure I finished my full 4 miles. I am trying to force my body into the whole wake up and run concept. Day 1 didn't work well.

I was awake at 6ish but told myself I would roll over for a few more minutes before getting up to eat breakfast and run. Yeah well 730 I rolled back over and startled myself awake.

I quickly ran into the kitchen and scarfed down a low carb granola bar and grabbed a glass of water. I took my water back with me while I got into my running clothes. I started up my Big Brother episode from last night and hit start on the treadmill.

The first mile went okay. A little slower than usual, but I wasn't trying to push myself much. Slowly but surely the wall started creeping up on me. The first wall to hurdle was that nasty self doubt that felt like it needed to rear its ugly head. Surprisingly enough, self doubt had pretty much shut up at the gym. I think it helped seeing other people around me going slower (I just ignored the speed demons). The second wall was the "your fuel tank is empty you crazy fool" wall. This wall was a lot harder to scramble over. At 2.5 miles I was nearly done in. I actually gave myself permission to stop at the 5K mark. At the 5K mark, I told myself I would see how much farther the 4 mile mark would be after that run session. Turned out to only be .5 miles, so I climbed the wall and pushed on. I finally finished my 4 mile run in 53 minutes. That is a 13:09 pace. Quite a bit slower than I have been, but better than I need. I hope as I adjust to the early running, my pace will go faster.

I do need to find the manual for my handy new toy. I think I can set up individual users on it. Whatever the default is, they lost used a lot of calories. This makes me think they are using a heavy male as the default. Us females aren't that lucky.

I am going to do some easy walking on my off days. I am going to try barefooting it. I will let you know how that goes whenever I get started. Tomorrow is going to be a little hectic, so I might have to wait until Thursday.

 

[jenn-]

Yesterday's run on the new treadmill went better than the first. I made sure I got up in time to eat breakfast (2 pieces of toast with peanut butter) an hour before I got on the treadmill. This helped tremendously with the energy issue.

Unfortunately the self doubt guy was still living in there, but I made the full 4 miles in 51 minutes which gave me a 12:48 MM pace. So definitely faster than Monday's run.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 5K race, but as I don't have a race set up to run, I am just going to try pushing myself a bit faster on a 5K distance. That is assuming my ankle is feeling better. Right now it is tight and kinda painful.

 

[ljcrochet]

Jenn you are doing great on the treadmill. Once you perfect your routine you will be amazing.
I realized I have not updated all week.
Sunday was supposed to be my long run, but I knew I would not have any time. I squeezed in a run Saturday morning. I ran in my community. I prefer to run in a park. But i knew I did not have the time to go to the park and come back with a run in between. I did a 37 minute run but runkeeper was acting up so not really sure of the miles. It was not the long run I had planned though.
Tuesday was my next run day. Runkeeper was still acting up. I did 27 minutes. Runkeeper said it was 1.92 miles with my pace being 14:07
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 12:17 -3
2 16:01 4
But I know according to mapmyrun and gmap-pedometer(i think that was the website i used) this should be 2.05 miles, or 2.1 depending on how I cut the corners.

Wednesday I did strength training followed by 44 minutes on the bike. I want to come up with a great upper body workout to do on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I have to see which leg exercises I should do as well. Wonder if I should do that on running days?

Thursday - I can't believe that was only this morning feels like days ago. I woke up around 7:30 got out of bed to get my run in. I filled up my water bottle and then proceed to leave it on my steps. I made sure that runkeeper had a green GPS symbol and at 7:40 I was off. I forced myself to do a fast walk on my block to warm up. I have a tendency to want to run without doing a warm up so I'm trying to make sure I do a 4-5 minute walking warm up. I did almost 32 minutes, 2.06 miles with a pace of 15:32.
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 13:54 -7
2 16:55 5
3 18:23 1
I did a slightly different loop this time. I repeated a block and skipped a block.
Did I mention it was very humid out?

Tomorrow should be another strength day. Saturday is rest and Sunday is a long run day. I will have to get my butt to a park.

 

[jenn-]

Looks like I forgot to update about Friday's run. I decided since it was only a 5K, I would give the ankle a try. It didn't really hurt after I got going. I also figured since it was a shorter run I could get away with eating 1 peanut butter toast slice and then get something afterwards. What a mistake! Mental note to self, I HAVE TO HAVE FOOD! Yep, hit the stupid negative calorie wall about mile 2. I pushed on and managed to complete it in 38 minutes. That averages a 12:21 minute mile pace. I made sure I stretched really well after my run. Unfortunately now my ankle hurts again. I may have to take a couple extra days off before my next run. That's assuming I can beat back the "crawling out of my skin" feeling I get if I don't get regular runs in.

 

[ljcrochet]

Glad you ankle was feeling better on Friday and you got to run. I hope it is better so you are able to get a run in today or tommorrow.

I realized I didn't update my run from Sunday. I went to a local park to run. I went to the hilly side of the park. There is a nice shady running/bike trail. I think it is over 6 miles from start to finish. Of course then you have to get back to your car. :lol
I planned on doing about 4 miles which is what I did. I did the 4 miles in exactly an hour. I started out great. When I felt the need for a walking break, I would count to 30 then start running again. After I turned around to come back to my car, my walk breaks got slightly longer. I was a little worried about how my time was since i mostly walked the last mile.

Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 12:42 -34
2 14:17 -35
3 15:58 33
4 17:58 30

 

[jenn-]

Sounds like you had a great run on Sunday Lisa. I held off running on Monday, so now I will be running here shortly. I should have looked at my training schedule before I went to bed though, because I was only mentally prepared for 4 miles, not 4.5, and I have somewhere to be this morning. Hopefully I get that extra .5 in. Today is the first day I have gotten up early in order to get my run in. Although being awake before the kids is kinda peaceful, being awake just sucks.

 

[carissanboys]

Very excited to follow along on your adventure!

 

[jenn-]

Very excited to follow along on your adventure!

Welcome to our report!

Yesterday's run turned more into a walk. I was going good right up until my DH called. Luckily it was not to important so I was able to get off the phone before my walk session was over. I think I got one more run session in before the phone rang again. The call was much more important so it took a lot longer. I stayed on the phone walking for about 10 minutes. At that point I was cooled down enough that I gave up starting again. Not to mention that second call changed my morning schedule and I was out of time. In the end I did 3.3 miles in 50 minutes. I think I will wait and run in the afternoon tomorrow, but we shall see.

 

[ljcrochet]

Very excited to follow along on your adventure!

Glad you joined us!

I can't believe I never updated on Tuesday. Monday afternoon both DH and I had a weird yet similair upset stomach. Nothing major but we both felt out of sorts. Of course I had salsa chicken cooking in the crockpot. Both DH and I went into the kitchen and thought the chicken smelled good then got queasy. We made the girls eggs for dinner and we had toast. Woke up feeling fine, so didn't really thing any of how I was feeling Monday. Tell I started my run.

I have been doing my short runs in my neighborhood. My neighborhood has 5 long curvy blocks and 6 little straight blocks. If I run the whole thing it is 2 miles. I was doing the third curvy block and I felt dizzy. I tried walking still no go. Figure it would not do to fall so I cut my run short and headed home.
I wound up doing 1.38 miles in 0:21:58.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 14:09 -8
2 20:19 5
Of course I get home and a neighbor is outside and I had to say hello and talk before I could go inside.

Today was my second short run day. I decided at the least minute instead of running in my neighborhood I would run on the streets around my area. Funny that a big loop on the outside is the same miles as the streets right around my house. Kind of reminded me about how our intestines are all folded.
So instead of the many turns i normally do I only had 6 turns (and I stopped at the mailbox to drop the netflix movie off).
I did 2.21 miles in 0:32:08.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 14:11 2
2 14:17 -3
3 17:02 0

I'm going to do my long run on Sunday, just trying to decide if should aim for 4.5 miles or 5 miles? What do you think?

 

[jenn-]

I did 2.21 miles in 0:32:08.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 14:11 2
2 14:17 -3
3 17:02 0

I'm going to do my long run on Sunday, just trying to decide if should aim for 4.5 miles or 5 miles? What do you think?

Looks like you had a good run today. As you have been running shorter 30ish minute runs during the week, and a longer run on the weekend, you compare closest to the Jeff Galloway's half marathon training schedule. As you did a 4 miler last weekend, it looks like you should have 5 for this weekend. If you look at his first 3 weeks, you will see it is pretty close to what you have been doing so far.

Today I said "screw it" to the idea of morning runs. I don't have a race scheduled any time soon, so there is no reason to get my body used to running at some ungodly hour. I mean do you realize how early 8am is?!? Seriously, I am not a morning person.

I took the kids to the park and to Walmart this morning. Then we all had lunch. It ended up a lot later than I had planned, but we were fed. I planned to run at 2 thinking I would have 2 hours to digest (we normally eat at 1130-1200). I got done eating at 1, oops. At 2 my intestines were feeling great, and I really thought about skipping the run. My guilty mind persevered though and I got into my running gear and hopped on the treadmill. My stomach settled down pretty quickly, so I am glad I went ahead and started the workout.

I did a quick 3 minute warm up while I was setting up my iPod. Then managed 5 minute run intervals with 1 minute walk intervals for the majority of the run. When I hit 44 minutes though, my walk intervals dropped to 2 minutes. At that point I was just happy to still be going, and I was willing to do anything to get to that 4.5 miles on my scheduled run. I managed to make it to 4.5 in 58 minutes 28 seconds. That gave me a 12:59 minute mile pace. That was good considering I was shooting for a 13:00 MM. Barely squeaked in under that. I made sure I had a pretty solid cool down and stayed on the treadmill until 65 minutes covering a total distance of 4.8 miles. Then I stretched and hit the ice.

My long run will be sometime this weekend. This will be a first for me in a really long time. Usually the weekends are my rest days, as DH gives me funny looks while I run. This weekend is supposed to be 7 miles! That will be my longest distance to date. I had DH add a movie to the iPod to see if that can distract me enough to go the distance. I definitely miss watching Ellen at the Y during my runs. Something that makes me laugh takes my mind off of what I am doing. Hopefully my next update will be after my successful 7 miles.

 

[jenn-]

If you would have told me just a few months ago, I would be able to do 7 mile runs, I would have laughed at you. I was struggling to get 3 miles done at that point. Yesterday proved I was stronger than I think.

In typical Saturday morning fashion, we were busy as all get out. First we went to the small farmer's market for some locally grown produce. Then we wandered over to Academy Sports on the hunt for some compression socks for myself. I struck out. I had hoped to try to find them at Dick's Sporting Goods, but we took too long getting out of the house and we still had to go to Sam's, so no compression socks for me yet. Off to Sam's we went. $350 later we were on our way home.

By the time I got the kids their lunch and ate my own it was 130. I knew I needed an hour to digest, and it would take at least 90 minutes for my run. At that point I nearly scrapped the run. Then I remembered the extra carbs I had ingested for breakfast and lunch, and knew it was now or never. Just before 3 I got on the treadmill.

DH was kind enough to transfer the movie Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs on to my iPod. I was looking for something I hadn't seen yet, and would hopefully be funny. I knew music alone wasn't getting me to 7 miles. Having the brain tuned into the movie really helped that evil self doubt creature that lives in my head from rearing his ugly voice. He was too busy chuckling.

From the beginning of the run, I decided to try out 5 minute run/2 minute walk intervals. I knew from my week day runs that about the 40 minute mark, I was having to go down to the 2 minute walk breaks. Since this was supposed to be an "easy" run, I just started off with the slower pace.

Before I began the run I broke open a bag of Jelly Belly Sport Beans . According to Coach Charles in the Princess training thread, any run over 90 minutes probably needs some fuel added in. I figured I would give these a try first because they are jelly beans, and I love jelly beans. The thought of ingesting carbs like that was nearly enough to make me not use them. I live a fairly low carb lifestyle, so that was my first dip into real "candy" in nearly 3 years. If I want to be able to run for 13.1 miles though, I know I will have to have fuel, so I did it. I paced myself on the sport beans throughout the run and guess what... they work! I never hit that "outta gas" wall. I won't be adding them into my everyday run, but definitely good for a long run.

The movie was over a little before the end of my run. My time was 93 minutes 7 seconds for an average 13:18 minute mile. I am happy with that. After stretching once and icing twice yesterday, only my hips seem tight today. That's one spot I have a hard time icing.

Next week my long run is 8 miles. It doesn't scare me. I know I can do this now.

 

[carissanboys]

Great job, Jenn! Today I did my first real run outside (3 miles) and I was amazed at how much faster it went by than when I run on the treadmill. The longest I've done on the TM is 4 miles. Kudos to you for running 7! I'm going to try and do most of my long runs outside if I can. I'm not one who hates the treadmill, but after today, I can understand why people enjoy running outside more. I've quickly run through this thread, but can't remember - have you done any training outside?

 

[jenn-]

Great job, Jenn! Today I did my first real run outside (3 miles) and I was amazed at how much faster it went by than when I run on the treadmill. The longest I've done on the TM is 4 miles. Kudos to you for running 7! I'm going to try and do most of my long runs outside if I can. I'm not one who hates the treadmill, but after today, I can understand why people enjoy running outside more. I've quickly run through this thread, but can't remember - have you done any training outside?

I was running from January to April outside. At the start of May our temperatures skyrocketed and I stopped running altogether. I figured I would pick up once it cooled off again. I'd still be waiting. Luckily we signed up for the Y to get swim lessons for my kids. I used the free minutes to hop on the treadmill there and begin running again. Since I have mentally committed to run the Princess 1/2 I have not been able to run outside. My goal is to run outside for my longer runs whenever the weather cools down. Right now that isn't looking to good. We've had over 100 degree heat indexes since the beginning of June. It has been a very hot summer.

 

[carissanboys]

I was running from January to April outside. At the start of May our temperatures skyrocketed and I stopped running altogether. I figured I would pick up once it cooled off again. I'd still be waiting. Luckily we signed up for the Y to get swim lessons for my kids. I used the free minutes to hop on the treadmill there and begin running again. Since I have mentally committed to run the Princess 1/2 I have not been able to run outside. My goal is to run outside for my longer runs whenever the weather cools down. Right now that isn't looking to good. We've had over 100 degree heat indexes since the beginning of June. It has been a very hot summer.

We've had very similar here, but thankfully the past couples of weeks have cooled off a bit (been averaging mid 80s). At least you already know what to expect with running outside. I ran outside one other day before today and I was so sore afterwards. I'm never sore running on the treadmill so it showed me that I use some very different muscles when running outside. I also found my pace to be faster running outside even when I felt like I was going very slow.

Hope it cools off for you soon!

 

[jenn-]

We've had very similar here, but thankfully the past couples of weeks have cooled off a bit (been averaging mid 80s). At least you already know what to expect with running outside. I ran outside one other day before today and I was so sore afterwards. I'm never sore running on the treadmill so it showed me that I use some very different muscles when running outside. I also found my pace to be faster running outside even when I felt like I was going very slow.

Hope it cools off for you soon!

Right now I am so comfortable on the treadmill, I almost fear going back outside. I remember loving being out there most of the time, I think. The brain is a little blurry in memories. I am determined to add hills into my treadmill running soon. Right now I am still nursing a tender Achilles tendon. My foray into barefoot running did more damage in 5 minutes than all of my other running combined.

 

[ljcrochet]

Today was supposed to be my long run day. Notice how I said supposed to be. Yesterday morning, I noticed my big toe nail was split pretty bad, before I could decide what to do with it a big corner of my nail fell off (probably more than a 1/4 of the nail).
I put a baid-aid on my big toe before I put my sock on. Turned out that was a mistake.
Just like last weekend I drove to a local park that has a great running path. I had planned on run/walking 5 miles. Didn't turn out that way. About 7 mintues in my toes was killing and I notice my shoe lace was starting to open. I stopped to retie my shoe. Looks really funny on the runkeepr graph. I went from running at a pace of 6 (which I know is way to fast) to a pace of 16. Guess that is the bad thing about pausing the runkeeper app.
It was also getting hot and I left my water back in the car. I decided I could go back to the car and finish my run afte my drink. I ran/walked a little bit more then turned around to head back to the car. At some point in my run/walk I got a notification on my iphone that it was my turn in words with friends (fake scrabble) which put my phone to sleep. Runkeeper was still working but I could not see what I had done or what my pace was. At this point I was back at the car. I paused runkeepr to take my water and look at my toe. The band-aid did not like being on a sweaty toe and it opened and it was now rubbing on the top of next toe.
The finally milage was 2.6 miles in 0:40:46 for a pace of 15:40.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 12:51 -23
2 15:52 -21
3 19:56 39

Now my big question is do i just do a 30 mintue run on Tuesday or do I try for longer?

 

[jenn-]

Today was supposed to be my long run day. Notice how I said supposed to be. Yesterday morning, I noticed my big toe nail was split pretty bad, before I could decide what to do with it a big corner of my nail fell off (probably more than a 1/4 of the nail).
I put a baid-aid on my big toe before I put my sock on. Turned out that was a mistake.
Just like last weekend I drove to a local park that has a great running path. I had planned on run/walking 5 miles. Didn't turn out that way. About 7 mintues in my toes was killing and I notice my shoe lace was starting to open. I stopped to retie my shoe. Looks really funny on the runkeepr graph. I went from running at a pace of 6 (which I know is way to fast) to a pace of 16. Guess that is the bad thing about pausing the runkeeper app.
It was also getting hot and I left my water back in the car. I decided I could go back to the car and finish my run afte my drink. I ran/walked a little bit more then turned around to head back to the car. At some point in my run/walk I got a notification on my iphone that it was my turn in words with friends (fake scrabble) which put my phone to sleep. Runkeeper was still working but I could not see what I had done or what my pace was. At this point I was back at the car. I paused runkeepr to take my water and look at my toe. The band-aid did not like being on a sweaty toe and it opened and it was now rubbing on the top of next toe.
The finally milage was 2.6 miles in 0:40:46 for a pace of 15:40.
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 12:51 -23
2 15:52 -21
3 19:56 39

Now my big question is do i just do a 30 mintue run on Tuesday or do I try for longer?

Sorry your run wasn't what you were hoping for. Isn't it horrible that our sport can be sidelined for a stupid nail. I know that sweaty feet on a too close cut toenails is painful. I hate to think of how much missing 1/4 the toenail would be. I know some people swear by soaking feet in Epsom salt, so if you have some, make yourself an Epsom salt bucket up for the toe.

As for Tuesday's run, stick with the 30 minutes. According to Marathoning for Mortals, a missed run is just that, you can't make it up. Running long on Tuesday would mean your run schedule would all be off. You should heal up that toe, take it somewhat easy this week, and gear up for another attempt at that 5 miles next weekend.

 

[ljcrochet]

My computer does not like me today. First I got the blue screen of death. Not sure what was up with that. took forever for my computer to restart. Then I started to post here and lost what I was writing.

Monday and Wednesday was my strength day followed by the bike. Tuesday was my run. I was a little distracted when I started. I might have to cut my trip shorter and only do the weekend. So I started trying to sort through everything in my mind. Not a good way to start. I then had a good speed going till I got to where I should do the 6 little blocks. I just didn't want to do the short blocks, so I redid some of the long blocks. I did 2.2 miles in 0:31:19
Splits
mi Pace (min/mi) Elevation (ft)

1 13:08 -7
2 14:50 10
3 16:13 -5

I remembered to turn off the push notifications before I started my run. Sunday I didn't do that and I got a notification that it was my turn in words with friends. Which put the notification on top and then iphone went to sleep. Runkeeper kept on recording but I could not see what I was doing (pace, time and distance).

I have to figure out when I'm going to fit my run in tomorrow. I signed the girls up for a program at the library that starts at ten. I don't know if i will have time to get my run and shower in before hand. Unless I set my alarm and get up early.

 

[jenn-]

I guess since I am supposed to run today, I should fill you in on Tuesday's run and yesterday's cross training.

First up, Tuesday's run. As I was gearing up for my run on Tuesday I thought back to my Saturday run. I had wrapped my right leg with an Ace bandage to help with my shin/Achilles tendon issues, and it really helped. So I figured if it made my injured leg happy to be wrapped up, my non injured leg would feel wonderfully happy being wrapped as well. Well 22 minutes of pain later, I stopped the treadmill and ripped off the Ace bandage from the left leg. It immediately stopped hurting. Lesson learned, don't fix what isn't broken applies to running as well. After the painful beginning, the run went fairly well. I finished my 4.5 miles in 59 minutes for a 13:01 minute mile. Not super fast for me, but still okay.

Yesterday I finally broke into the cross training realm. Apparently you are supposed to exercise all your muscles to be a runner, and running just doesn't do that. It took a bit to figure out what kind of cross training I could do. I've never been really great at following an aerobic video, so I needed something slower. I took a look at yoga, but that was a little too slow (well at least the ones on Netflix streaming that I could find). I settled on Pick Your Level: Weight Loss Pilates. In the video they have 3 ladies doing different levels of similar moves. I followed the level 1 lady. The level 3 lady made me sick. I made it through the video fine. My form was not the greatest I am sure, but I survived. I felt it actually went to pretty good. Then I tried going to bed. OMGs!!! I was in pain. My shoulders (more armpit region), sides, upper back, and spine all HURT!!! I guess I should have thought to ice my upper body, but I totally didn't feel it until 12 hours later. Luckily my legs aren't hurting, so hopefully I will still be able to get my run in today.

 

[carissanboys]

I hadn't even thought to check out Netflix for workout videos I could watch instantly on my TV! Great idea!