W5D3

I struggled with what title to give this entry. This entry has soo much for me.

• First time to run twenty minutes straight
• First time to run a complete mile
• First time to cry at the gym
• Tiger woods congratulated me on my best mile ever

Tuesday I was suppose to run my first full 20 minutes and I was scared. So on Tuesday night, I cleaned house like a mad woman and did the weekly grocery shopping. In other words, I tried to keep myself busy so that I didn't have to do it.

Wednesday rolls around and I know it is now or never. My Mini is giving me smack and the weight of the fear is worse than not even trying. I mean, in reality, if I have to start walking in the middle of it, who cares? How many times did I stop in W2, when 90 seconds seemed too hard, or during the three minute runs, I felt as if my legs were going to give? It happened too many times to count. So at 10pm, I got up enough nerve and went to the gym with my family. ( I love 24 hour gyms).

I got on a treadmill, decided I was going to do the run without the C25K prompts on a podcast or on my Iphone application, changed the TV in front of me to Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and started. The warm up was usual and then I started to run.

My pace was 3.3 on the treadmill. Believe it or not, the first 7 minutes were the hardest to run and I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it. To take my mind off the minutes, I started to read the closed captioning on the TV and before I knew it, it was 12 minutes into the run. I remember looking down at 14:51 minutes (this is the girl that died on the 90 seconds and now 171 secs go by and I don't even feel it.) I felt amazing. Because it was dark outside and the blinds were open, I could see my reflection in the mirror...I looked like a runner. When I hit minute 15, I knew I could do this. Mentally, I was saying, 5 minutes is nothing. Two weeks ago, 5 minutes seemed like so much to me. I am getting better and I am loving it.

At 19:01 minutes of running and the treadmill was at 1.21 miles, I hit my first big milestone. I had run a complete mile. I started to cry and yelled out "I just ran my first mile". Thank goodness the only people in the gym were me and my family. Oh, no, I was crying so much that I couldn't catch my breath and I was still trying to run...I had 50 seconds left. I felt great but just couldn't catch my breath. But I did it. I finished my run. My family heard me yell and they saw me crying so they gathered around me to congratulate me.

But you know what was my proudest moment? When I was looking at the reflection of the gym in the glass window, I saw my daughter behind me on an Arc trainer. She was watching me and smiling. Every once and a while, she gave me a thumbs up. And when she came over to my treadmill, she said, "Mama, I am proud of you. You did it." My husband said he was proud of me. He said he remembers me dying on 90 second runs and now through patience and perseverance, I am able to do twenty minutes. Even Tiger Woods congratulated me on my best mile ever.

This gal, whose comfort zone was the fact that she was too big to run, just ran 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it. I didn't stop when I got tired and pushed through. It felt good to run. It no longer was a struggle.

Running has given me back my confidence. Who knew I would become a PR junkie? I have to be honest with you. I have seen those initials everywhere in magazines and didn't know what they meant. They mean Personal Record. Yes, I am a PR Junkie. I also started biking and I want to Kayak. These are things I didn't think I could do and the Kayak thing scared me last summer. Now, I can't wait to try it.

Week 5 Day 1 and Muddy Buddy

It has been a really long day, so I will start out with the good. I was in Dallas, on business, and dropped by the state park that is hosting the Muddy Buddy. Here is a picture of the terrain for the bike portion of the event. I will definitely need a mountain bike. Where are the paved roads or the dirt paths that I am accustomed to riding? This is full of rocks and hills and rocks. Did I mention rocks? Well, Dallas is 5 hours away so we can't train on this trail. We are looking for some in the area. However, the Gulf Coast is pretty flat so I will have to do the Kemah bridge for hill work.

Now the bad. I went to the gym today for my consultation. We just joined the gym last week and the consultation is free. I found out that I am over 50% fat and that I can do 9 sit ups in sixty seconds, my cardio endurance is good and that my flexibility is poor. So basically, no surprises. My work on Couch to 5K has paid off. But I knew I was in poor shape...which is why I started C25K and why I joined a gym. I have spent the last month working on that and I have made some great improvements.

So why did this trainer talk to me as if I was a lazy a$$ and was pretty much hopeless?!?!? He was shocked at how well I did on the treadmill test. He waited for me to break down when he mentioned that I failed all the other tests and kept repeating over and over again "that" while pointing to my percentage of body fat, was too high, life threatening, really bad, horrible, scary and that I would have to change my eating habits. When I said I had started, he said, not enough and that it was hard and he wasn't sure I could do it. Say what? And he kept asking me if I was okay? OH, and after he spent 40 minutes telling me how horrible I ate and how fat I was, he decided not to do the fitness test. He said that I would fail and probably couldn't handle the results? Can't handle the results? I knew I wasn't fit. Why else would I join a gym? Nonsense...lets do the test....that is when I failed. Hey my measurements said I had failed and my physical tests said I had failed...at least I was consistent.

He kept saying over and over, "Geesh, you are taking the news pretty well. I expected you to break down and cry." I simply said, "No, why should I? I know where I stand, it is my fault and now I need to make some goals. But I already started that with Couch to 5k.

I finished my day with my W5D1 run. I did pretty well. I was able to complete the 5 minute runs. During my second run, I did stop for about 20 seconds. On my third run was better. I felt like stopping but I noticed I only had 14 seconds left so I continued. I even did a second short run after completing C25K ( I usually stay on the treadmill for about 10 minutes after it).

Here is how I did:

Duration: 38'50"

Distance: 2.11 miles

Average Pace: 18'23" minute mile

Calories burned: 401

Max HR: 171

Average HR: 154