Back to the Couch...

...for now. As suggested by one of my doctors, I am letting my knee heal before I attempt Week 2 again (or Week 1 if I have to).

In the meantime I've started taking chondroitin/glucosamine for my joints and am staying motivated that I will try again as soon as I can. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me soon... Thanks for all of your support!!

Week 2 Day 2 - Move along, nothing to see here...

If you read my last blog, you remember that my knees were hurting, specifically my left one. Unfortunately this has been the reason we have not trained since Monday.  :-\  Today the pain wasn't as bad and it was pretty much only in my left knee, so I figured I'd give it a shot and hopefully once my legs were warmed up the pain would subside... Well that didn't happen!

I could tell during the warm up walk that I wasn't walking the way I normally do and it wasn't comfortable. When we started jogging the pain was bearable, but slowed my jog down considerably. I kept pushing hoping I could just make it through the 30 minutes, but at 17 minutes just as we were supposed to start jogging, I took the first couple of steps and it felt like my knees were going to give out on me... FAIL!

So needless to say I'm not a happy camper right now, especially because I know I can do this!! I'm making the cookieface right now, and all that know what that looks like knows that is not a good face...

And Away .... We... Go....

So we survived week one-YAY! Wait a minute that means week two is next! Grrr....
Well I learned from some of my my mistakes from the previous week such as..........
Hydration -
I have been drinking close to a gallon of water while I am at work which may be a little toooo much. I find myself having to go to the bathroom in the most inopportune times such as when we are in the middle of our runs. Why is it when you really have to go to the bathroom, the closer you get to the facility, the worse it gets? I might just start investing in depends. Just a thought.....
Nutrition -
Yeah, no more appetizer platters with a side of medium sausage and pepperoni pizza for a late night dinner :-/ Could do that when I was younger but.... yeah.... Instead I have been eating a little better. Been eating smaller healthier meals but more frequently during the week. A lot of salads which I love and two eggs with tomatoes and spinach for breakfast. Oh, and Chobani or toast with peanut butter for snacks. Even though its only been 10 days, I 'feel' much better. But I still love cake! And Chocolate!!!! And Peanut butter!!!! Oh My!!!! Can someone make me a Reese's Peanut butter Chocolate Cake Please!!!!

The Workout-
Okay, we moved up from 60 seconds to 90 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds to 120 seconds walking. We did the same setup, I played the rabbit and called out times using the C25Klite app on my DroidX while Susan used the Runkeeper Pro app on her Droid to track our pace, distance and calories expended. Those of you still using Blackberrys might want to get yourself a Droid :-) The apps work great on them. Getting off subject lol... As we started the first jog, I did Not know what to expect with the new extensions of time. Susan started to feel some pain early which was a big concern to me. We talked about it but she never mentioned stopping (THAT'S MY GIRL!!!). We we slowed the pace slightly and got to work. I would call the times and she kept right with me. I gots me a trooper :-) Step after step, next thing we knew we were done.
After the cool down, I decided to do 6 minutes of 15 seconds of sprints and 30 seconds of walking intervals for roughly 8 minutes. Ask me tomorrow how I'm feeling :-/
I guess I'll end this segment by saying I'm glad I am able to do this workout with Susan. Its awesome to be able to do this with her as a team and barring any major injuries, I see us doing OUR first 5K in a couple of months!
Stay thirsty my friends..........

Week 2 Day 1

Week 2's workout consists of a brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

I'm not gonna lie and say I wasn't nervous about starting W2D1. Once I realized there wasn't less walking (as I stated in my previous post), I felt better knowing I'd have more time to catch my breath during the two-minute walk.

Unfortunately with the very first strike of my foot starting the jog, I felt aches in my knees. I hadn't felt it during the warmup walk, nor at any other point in the day. Ok... frustrating! As we continued my allergies were acting up some again, but especially near one side of the track. More frustrating! Then came soreness in my inner thighs and I knew at that point it wasn't going to stop there. It eventually spread to my hips and then I just felt like I was jogging at a snail's pace. I tried to not think about it too much and concentrated on my breathing, but I could feel my legs getting stiff. I kept going though and thankfully the intervals seemed to end sooner than I expected.

I think a number of things caused my problems, but I can't say for sure. I know I did not get a good night's sleep the night before and didn't drink nearly enough water to even slightly hydrate myself.

Today I'm all aches and pains and noticed my left knee hurts more than my right. Really hoping I'm not as sore tomorrow because I know I can do this week with no problems!

Week 1 Day 3 Complete!

Friday was a rainy blah day, so Erick and I planned to go to the Submarine Base gym to train on their indoor track. By the time I was done with work for the day, I was feeling like a nap sounded good. He was afraid that we wouldn't want to go afterwards if we did. Thankfully when we got up the rain had stopped for a while, so we headed back to Poquonnock Plains Park. We were happy to see there were only a couple of people on the track. Erick started our timer and we were off warm up walking.

Unfortunately I had told Erick that we can enable 1-minute, 3-minute, etc. alerts to notify us of how much time we have left. The alerts just ended up confusing us and before we knew it we missed the alert to jog. So needless to say we ended up doing a much longer warm up walk this go round.

After the first set I surprisingly felt pretty good! I was thinking, ok, just wait until the next set, it'll be bad again like Wednesday (I know, very pessimistic which is not usually like me.) But the next set came and went, as did the others, and my breathing was pretty much under control and I was feeling pretty good. Before I knew it we were done!

W1D3 successfully completed with little to no problems, is it going to be like this the whole time? ...God I hope so! Next week less walking more jogging... wish us luck!

Week 1 Day 2&3

Day 2, 15JUN2011- I was feeling a little tightness in my legs today which I was expecting because I usually feel the effects of workouts two days later but the 5 minute walking warmup took care of that. We went back to Poquonnock Plains Park (13 Fort Hill Road, Groton , CT 0640) in Groton. As I said before, the track has a half a mile loop with soft compacted sand/gravel which feels great to run on. In the middle there is a huge field that has a couple of soccer(futbol) fields which is usually being used by various teams.I hope to take pictures of the park and post them... If I could only remember to do so.

Day 3, 17JUN2011 - I felt great on Day 3, no soreness or tightness anywhere. I was ready to go! Susan impressed me. I could tell already that she was getting acclimated to the routine. She didn't have any issues that I could see and we zipped right through the workout. I'm sure we'll have no problems when we ramp it up on Monday where the jogging intervals change from 30 to 60 seconds and the walk from 60 to 90 seconds.. Week 2 Day 1, Here We Come!!!

Some notes - What I have been trying to do is after the 5 minute warmup, have Susan take off. Usually towards the end of the first jogging interval she levels out to a good jogging pace. I then try to maintain that and act as the rabbit (pace keeper) for us and give the remaining times.

Also, I REALLY need to be cognizant of what I eat the night before. I AM getting older and I can't eat like I used to and expect to be able to perform the next day so no more appetizer sampler along with a medium pizza for dinner the night before :-/ Also, drinking a lot of water is great but I need to time it better so I don't have to go during our workouts :-/ :-/ Umm....... Yeahhhhh..........

Week 1 Day 2 - Nobody Gonna Break My Stride

W1D2 was not my day. I only got about four and a half hours of sleep the night before because besides this goal, I've also started getting into work much earlier than I ever have before... GO ME! As my day at work progressed I noticed my legs were getting sore. Don't know if that was from inactivity, delayed reaction from Monday, and/or some other random reason. On top of that, the pollen count was pretty high, which made me sniffle while attempting to control my breathing. I struggled breathing more this time while jogging, to the point where I was wheezing some. I'm hoping that was just my allergies and not anything else. It took me a while to get my breathing back to a somewhat normal rhythm and I felt like I couldn't think straight for a little while.

As much as I wanted to, I didn't quit, but that's because Erick was going right along with me. If he had gone at his own pace (faster), as he had suggested before we started, I know I definitely would've gotten frustrated and walked when I was struggling. Thankfully this training isn't about speed, but about keeping a steady pace. Thanks for listening to my plea Erick!

So does anyone have tips on a good breathing pattern to try? I appreciate your suggestions!

Week 1 - Day 1

So yesterday was my first day doing C25K with my fiance and I gotta say, it went quite well. The first week's workouts consist of a 5 minute warmup followed by a series of one minute jog and 90 second walking intervals then ended with a cool down. I think the total time was around 24 minutes.
Instead of trying to keep track of times with my watch, we downloaded the C25K free app which notifies you with an audible notification and a visual display on what you need to do i.e. warmup, jog, walk. I recommend it to anyone who wants to do this program. My plan was to run the app along with Pandora running the audio through my Motorola bluetooth headphones but, I forgot to charge them. There is always next time.
To most, this may be very easy but I am really enjoying it because this is designed to get me back into running gradual, which I really need right now. Its not too long that I will be in too much pain the next day but it is tasking my breathing. I did take it a little easy being the first day but now that I know what to expect and how my body reacted to it, I will push myself next time. That was the advice of a friend who conquered C25K in 2010.
It was a great feeling doing this with Susan and I was very proud of her. She must have read the day one week one description wrong because after we finished the warmup and first interval, she said 'We're done right? We just have the cool down to do now.' I smiled and explained that we just completed the first set and we have 20 minutes to go. Thought she was going to say an expletive but she's a trooper...... and there were kids around lol.
I know it was only the first day but all in all, it felt good to get back out there and doing it with Susan was the icing on the cake....... And I like Cake!!!!

Week 1 - Day 1

Week 1's workout consists of a brisk five-minute warmup walk, then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes...

We decided to start our workout at Poquonnock Plains Park's walking track in Groton last night. We both downloaded an app that would notify us when we needed to switch from walk to jog and vice versa. I'm not quite sure why, but my brain read the above regimen quite differently than what it says. When the first notification went off to tell us to jog, I took off at a pretty decent pace, Erick was surprised, I was feeling good. After the first set of jogging and walking I turned to Erick and said, "That's it, right? Or is there a cool down walk after this?" He looked at me with a confused look, looking at the timer, "No, we have to do this for 20 minutes!" Oops...

So now I'm thinking, how many more sets can there be? Only a couple, right? WRONG! As we continued, my throat became so dry it felt like the dryness came up from my lungs and out through my ears. I was trying to concentrate on breathing correctly, but would easily lose rhythm. I no longer took off jogging with gusto like I had initially. After each set I would ask, as if I were a kid, "Are we done yet!?" only to hear the same answer, "Nope, a couple more to go I think." EEEEFFFFF!!!

When we finally got to the cool down walk, and my lungs started to feel more like part of my body again, I slowly realized it still wasn't too bad considering I was able to make it through to the end. I wouldn't have been able to do it without Erick though. I'm sure he would've been jogging faster if he wasn't trying to keep my pace. There ended up being eight sets before the cool down walk. Knowing that now will (hopefully) make it a little easier next time.

I'm happy to say there are no aches or pains today AND I was still able to get in to work early! Overall a good start I think. Thank you all for your encouraging comments!

I Like Cake.......

Please forgive me, I am not as eloquent as my beautiful Fiance but Yes, I like cake and just about any food that is not good for you....
I was once in decent shape when I was in the military but now after having two back surgeries, never a constant/continuous stint in the gym due to injuries or lack of motivation, add 15 years and a mother-in-law who loves to feed people, it was definitely time to make a change. But I am realistic and knew that the workout program had to be a gradual, safe routine with a feasible end goal which C25K seems to be. I've been wanting to do this program for some time now. Not necessarily for esthetics but for health reasons. Performance over Appearance! I am 35 years old and at the rate I am going, I will not be able to see my toes at age 45(yes, I hide it well). My family is prone to obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. Following my mom's footsteps, the the 65 year old gym rat who has lost over 25 pounds in the last couple of months, its time to do something about it besides complianing. I want to ensure that I will be around a long time to annoy and embarrass our children when we have them :-) And the main reason is I am looking forward to doing this with my wife to be, my partner and friend. This will be a journey that we can hopefully look back on and say, we did this together :-)
Wish us luck!!

No More Excuses!!

Those that know me well know I've never been the running type and have pretty much lived a moderately sedentary adult life.  So when Erick suggested I try the Couch-to-5K (C25K) running program with him, my initial thought was what have YOU been smoking!? But then I read more about it (http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml) and thought about the complaining I've been doing about weight gain and flab in unappreciated areas, and how I've been procrastinating starting a gym routine and realized I have to do this!  It doesn't seem like it will be too hard.

So no more excuses, we're doing this and thankfully I know Erick will be my motivator while we accomplish this together.  I'm sure there will be struggles and pain involved because of the lazy lifestyle I've been living, but the end result will be worth it and will hopefully push me to do more.  Lord knows I'm not getting any younger and the skinny girl who could eat anything she wanted has been long gone for some time now (and is no longer the pickiest of eaters!)  One thing I want to make clear is I don't think I'm overweight, but I'm definitely out of shape and in need of a regular exercise regimen.

So during the next nine weeks we will be sharing our thoughts and progress here as we follow the C25K program.  This should be interesting...