We are in week 6 of our running (not including the two we had to take off).  We have switched over to running in the morning on Monday’s along with Wed and Fri.  I actually wasn’t going to go on Mon because I didn’t go to bed early enough and was extremely tired in the morning. I thought, “I’ll just run later on my own.”  I laid in bed for a few more minutes.  “Who am I kidding.  I’m not going to run on my own.”  So I dragged myself out of bed and went for the run anyway.  I have no excuses not to run – unless I am seriously injured or sick.  I wasn’t either!  I’m glad I did go, but I thought the run was never going to end.  It wasn’t even a hard one like we did on Friday – a whole 20 minutes straight.  We jogged 5 and walked jogged 8 and walked and then jogged 5 again.  How hard is that.

Today was the big day.  5 minute warm-up and then 20 minutes of pure jogging for our Couch to 5K.

Our thoughts before the run:
20 min…oh my goodness.  I don’t know if we will make it.
Don’t think of it as 20 minutes but as 8 minutes.
Yeah, 8 very long minutes.
We will just run until someone has to stop.
Let’s jog for 10 minutes and then walk for 2 minutes and then jog another 10.
15 seconds and we run!

Thoughts during the run:
12 minutes and 30 seconds left to go.  We ran just over 8 minutes!
Let’s run to Krug St.  We can do it.
Krug St, that’s far.
We can do it ladies!
Look, the end of Krug St!
Woo hoo the end of Krug St.
6 minutes and 30 seconds
We’ve almost doubled our 8 minute jog!  Let’s just keep going.
3 minutes …. 1 minute and 30 seconds …. 30 seconds …. 10 seconds

Thoughts after the run:
WE DID IT!  WE JOGGED FOR 20 MINUTES STRAIGHT!
So proud of my running ladies!
High 5’s all around.
I’d hug you guys but I’m too tired.

The above thoughts weren’t all mine.  They are from all three of us.

We are pretty amazed that we jogged for 20 minutes.  Yes, we didn’t run, we jogged and we had a good pace to accomplish our goal, but just think by the end of this jogging for 20 minutes will be a piece of cake and we might even be able to jog a little faster.

I had said to the girls we should run for 10 minutes and then take a 2 minute walk and then run again, but as we got going I thought we should really try and push ourselves.  So once we got closer and after Julie gave us the 12 minutes left mark I said, “Let’s run until Krug St.”.  I didn’t want to stop.  I wasn’t breathing heavy.  I wasn’t so dead I needed to stop.  I was hoping the girls were feeling the same way or had the encouragement to keep going.  I know for myself if I didn’t say that, I would have stopped since we got past the 10 minute mark.

A few years ago, actually after my first year at Heritage (2001 I think) I walked every morning from Monday – Friday.  I went at 7am.  I remember wanting to jog, but it was so hard and there was a lot of hills.  At one spot in my run it was flat.  I would tell myself just one more telephone pole. Just to the next tree.  This would help me get there.  I thought I would try it today.

After we got to Krug St. I said just to the next turn.  Although that was great I think we were more motivated by the fact we only had 5 minutes left.  Probably if we stopped jogging we might not have wanted to start again.  Thanks to Julie for voicing this as it was another motivation to keep going.  We turned the corner and 30 seconds later we were finished our 20 minutes.  Wow!  I don’t know how to express how excited we are.  I am sure we will have a great day today!

We woke up before most people are awake and we jogged.  We jogged for a full 20 minutes!  I wonder how many times I’ve written that in this blog!  It’s Friday and we have two days to recuperate before our next run on Monday, which will be a breeze.  We started 7 weeks ago (although we are only on week 5) thinking that we would never reach the goal of jogging 20 minutes, but we have.  I don’t think that I have every been able to jog this long in my life.

My thoughts now:
I wonder if it will be easier as the weeks continue on (only 4 more left)?  Our obstacles now – the weather, sickness, and injuries – not that we can’t do it.  We have been really fortunate to have good weather.  We haven’t had to run in the rain.  It was a bit chilly this morning but we soon warmed up after jogging for a few minutes.  Only two injuries.  One is ongoing, but hopefully Julie’s shin’s will get better even though she is still running on them.

Just wanted to give a shout out to God for giving us good weather to run in, keeping us safe and giving us the encouragement and strength to run, especially today when we were tired and jogged the long one. Thanks God, for keeping us going when we didn’t want to!

Week 6 begins Monday!

Week 5 of Couch to 5K has been interesting.  I thought it was going to be harder than what it really has been.  I would say than what it was but we have one jog left.  What has been happening with C25K…

We decided we would run all 3 days at 6 am.  We talked about on our Monday night run (6 pm) as we were feeling sluggish and heavy after a day of work and eating.  In the morning I feel light and not so sluggish.  It is more of a tired, I just had to wake up kind of feel then the I’ve been working all day and now have to run kind of feel.  I think this is a good decision.  I made change my mind next Monday at 5:45 am.

Monday’s run I felt tired and was beat after our first run.  It felt like a long 3 min jog.  Then after our short walk we ran our 5 min which was not that hard.  Then another 3.  Oh I could recuperate.    “Four minutes!” Yells Julie.  “What?” I yelled back.  “I thought this was a 3 min run?”  Turns out we were doing a different set.  I don’t know why I got confused because we always have a different on Monday.  My initial 3 minutes was actually 5 minutes.  Actually all the runs were 5 minutes on Monday.  Well no wonder I thought it was a hard run the first time around when I was thinking it was 3 minutes!  Glad I got it all straightened out at the end of the run when it didn’t really matter anymore.  It did make us laugh, which is always a good thing when you aren’t a morning person and you are up and jogging at 6 am.

I left for my jog this morning feeling very tired and thinking, “I’m so going back to bed when I get home!”  I think this every morning that we run at 6 am.  But by the time we come back and I eat some breakfast, because I am very hungry by that point, I don’t feel the need to go back to bed.  It’s now 7:26 am and the verdict to go back to bed is still out.  I haven’t yet gone back to bed after a run.  Although, today I might break that trend.

Today we accomplished greatness!  Well, it was great for us!  Are you ready for it?  We jogged 8 minutes straight – twice!  It was not too bad either.  I thought it would be harder but it was easier than I thought.  We didn’t run as fast as normal as Julie is running on shin splint in one of her shins (not fun).  But still, we made it through 8 minutes!  Oh the possibilities are endless!  What about 10 min or 15 or 20 minutes at one time?

Oh wait, we get the possibility of jogging for 20 minutes on Friday!  How exciting.  (Italics added for sarcasm) It’s the halfway point.  That’s all I can figure for the program to make us jog for the full 20 minutes!  What is it thinking, that we are supper runners!  So the plan is to jog for as long as we can, to push ourselves (well that is my plan).  Who knows, maybe we will surprise ourselves and make it the whole way!  Here is hoping.

I will let you know how it turns out on Friday at about 7 am.  I need to leave room for breakfast after that run!

Surprised Jogger,
Jackman

Running….I’ve never really been a big fan.  It’s hard on the legs and knee joints.  I’m tired at the end and after doing it a few times something comes up and I don’t get back to it.  I don’t mind the running on a treadmill because it is a lot easier than running on the road; the treadmill helps you along – the road doesn’t.  Until….

One day I was visiting with friends.  We just finished an exciting game of…well that is not important!  But it was a fun game 🙂  My friend Julie told us about a new app she got for her iPhone.  Couch to 5k.  Hmmm…sounds interesting.  Sure I’ll do that with you!  Another friend, Sue, decided to join us.  I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but I was soon to find out.

Basically you have a warm up and cool down of 5 min.  We walk during this time.  Then each week the running (well I would call it jogging) increasing each week.  Week 1 we jogged for 60 seconds and then walked for 90 minutes.  Week 2 we jogged for 90 seconds and walked for 2 minutes.  It was great!  We were on a role and so proud of ourselves!  But….

One of the girls injured her foot.  No more running for a bit…
I got sick.  Still no running for a bit…
Two weeks had gone by with no running.

People would probably say that this is the breaking point for if we would continue or if we would give up.  Let’s say we are determined to finish! 

We finished Week 3 on Friday!  Jogging 3 minutes and walking 3 minutes.  At first I thought it was hard, but it really helps to have the walking break in between the jogs. 

One thing I love about the app, it tells you when to run and when to walk.  You hear, “Run now!”  then, “Walk Now”.  And of course Julie lets us know how long is left in the jog.  “One minute left!”   “Only thirty seconds!”  Believe me when I say that sometimes those last thirty seconds feel a lot longer then they should!

Now we are on Week 4.  Jog 5 minutes and walk 3 min (I think).  I actually thought it was going to be a lot harder then I thought.  I thought I would be totally out of breath and not able to make it the full 5 minutes, but I made it through.  We all made it through.  We are not running, we are jogging.  We are not jogging hard, but we are jogging and we are proud to be on the journey.

We wonder what it will do to us, besides build up our confidence and get us in shape.  I wonder sometimes why after two weeks of running in the evening we chose to wake up at 6am two days of the three that we run.  I’m not a morning person and I actually have the morning off on those two days.  What was I thinking.  Although, it does get me up early in the morning.  The first day we ran at 6am I ran (of course), had breakfast, cleaned, and showered all before 7:30am.  Wow.  I didn’t realize how much you can get done so early in the morning before everyone else woke up!

Tomorrow morning we will be at it again.  At the end of the day that we run at 6am I have forgotten that we ran and think that I should do it again but then I remember that I ran and I feel good.  They say that women accomplish exercise best if they do it in the morning.  I definately agree with that, even if I’m not a morning person.  It’s done and out of the way. 

If you want to run and it’s not your favourite thing in the world then find someone to run with you.  There are days I would have chosen to stay in bed or sat in front of the TV if I didn’t have Julie and Sue to run with!  Thanks ladies!

Want a challenge…try Couch to 5k.  Check out http://felttip.com/c25k/

Starting to like running,
Jackman <