Couch Potato to 5k

Couch potato = me
5k = Air Force 5k on September 18th

I started this crazy running about 6 weeks ago. I had quite a few friends who had started running and it motivated me to at least give it a try. I used to run during gym in High School and I knew that I might not be fast, but I had endurance to run for half an hour or more. Could I still do it? I figured I might as well give it a try. It's summer and it's free (once you buy a good pair of running shoes.)

Melissa told me about podrunner.com which does interval training that goes along with the Couch Potato to 5k program. Basically, the 1st week you run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds and continue alternating between running and walking for about half an hour. The 2nd week you run for 90 seconds, then walk for 2 minutes, run 90 seconds, walk 2 minutes... you get the point. The podrunner.com site has a podcast that you download to your ipod or mp3 player. It plays upbeat music and has a tone when you go back and forth between walking & running. Each week there's a different podcast to download with different music.

So I went to Up and Running and had my feet measured. They check to see how much your arch changes between resting and standing and this lets them know the style of shoe you need. So they brought out three different pair of shoes and had me walk around in them. I decided on a silver, white, and pink pair of New Balance running shoes.


I then downloaded the first week of podrunner and headed out to run around the neighborhood for the first time. I gotta tell you, after the 8th time of running for a minute, I thought I was going to die. Could I really do this?

The next time I ran, Melissa and I ran together and she goofed around and kept things fun. When we'd hear the tone to start running we'd both want to groan but she encouraged me to say "woo hoo!" instead. It got to be a joke and we'd yell "woo hoo!" when we were so tired and we'd hear the tone for the last time.

We ran around a trail/track around a park near my house. We ran around Lincoln Park and the neighborhood next door. We ran outside near Trent Arena, we ran inside Trent Arena. We ran in the neighborhood near Melissa's house, but that first hill was a doozy!! And we ran at the Kettering Rec Center. We're not sure how far we ran, but we knew how long we were running. The intervals were always about 28 minutes long and we'd keep going no matter how tired we got. The great part was that we could see progress. Each week we had to run longer, but we did it!

Somewhere around the 3rd week when we were running 3 minutes at a time, Melissa and I decided to see how long we could run. So on the last interval of running, we decided to just keep going. We lasted about 5-6 minutes and proved to ourselves that this was definitely something we could do. I have no idea how long I ran that evening, but it felt GREAT. Who knew that I could run?

Melissa and the kiddos have left for Idaho, as they do every year, and will be back in August. This means I have 5-6 weeks of running by myself. So far I've stayed on track and stayed motivated. Though I think Melissa pushed me to run harder than I do when I run alone.

Tonight I started week 5 of the podcast. Five minutes of running, 3 minutes of walking, 5 minutes of walking, 3 minutes of walking, and another 5 minutes of running. With warm up and cool down, this was about 2 miles. It wore me out, but I finished.

The idea of doing a 5k in 2 months seems easy enough. That's just another mile than I'm doing now and I can always walk part of it. But I don't want to walk it, I want to RUN the 5k. This is my goal. I also want to run the 3.1 miles in less than 35 minutes. No idea if I can do that, but I want to. It's another goal that I'm pushing myself towards, and I've been told it's doable if I keep on training like I have.

So I've been running 3 times a week since the 3rd week (only twice a week the first two weeks), which is much more regular exercise than I've ever done in my life. Have I lost weight? No. Am I discouraged? No. The point isn't to lose weight, the point is to run, and run longer each week. This I am doing, and I've impressed myself week after week. Gotta be honest though, I'm really hoping that the weight starts coming off at some point. This would definitely help my knees and increase my time. But I'll be patient, it'll happen. Form follows function. (Though I will mention that from the waist down everything is getting pretty toned and less jiggly. Yay!!)

Not sure why it's taken me so long to blog about running. I guess I didn't want to make a big deal about it. It's a funny thing, but when I mention to people that I've started running, usually they respond by telling me why they can't run. That's fine, don't run. But please don't give me excuses because my brain stores these away for the days when I don't feel like running. My knees hurt the day after I run (but not the days I run, or I don't run). My lungs aren't at 100% and they never will be, but I feel a need to push them as hard as possible anyway. And I keep wondering if I should up my beta-blocker again. (Lowered it last year when we started trying to get pregnant.) Am I healthy enough to run? Or have I been using all these as excuses to not do this before?

And the words keep going through my head "just do it, just do it, just do it." So I just do it. And so far the knees, the lungs, the heart, and the will power have held up just fine.

The emotional roller coaster of a weekend!

(Click here for pictures of the fireworks and the parade.)

Our plans for the weekend:

Friday - leave Dayton around 3pm, get in to Olive Hill, KY (Jason's hometown) by 6pm. Dinner at his parent's house, then go running.

Saturday - pass out popsicles at Olive Hill's 4th of July celebration with Crossroads church, mow grass at the cabin, watch fireworks that evening.

Sunday - breakfast at the church, service at Crossroads, lunch at Jason's parent's, and then lazy afternoon before heading home.

What actually happened:

Friday - leave Dayton around 3pm, stop by church (Crossroads) to pick up t-shirts to wear for Olive Hill parade, see pastor's "new" office, socialize, meet a few people, and get to Jason's parent's house by almost 7pm. Eat a quick dinner and then go running at the track at West Carter High School. I love that track. Did more running than I thought I ever could, but finished! Thank God for cooler weather.

That evening we headed to the field near Jason's mamaw's house (and his aunts' and cousins' houses) to watch his cousins and their friends set off fireworks. One of the big differences between Ohio and Kentucky - you can set off all the fireworks you want in Kentucky. (For the KY people reading this, it's illegal in Ohio, even if you can buy them there.) It was the more amazing than I had imagined. Best hour and a half of fireworks I've seen in a long time. Was chilly but had so much fun! :)

Saturday - slept in late (did I really need 9 hours of sleep???) and had traditional Saturday breakfast with Jason's parents. Biscuits, gravy, sausage, eggs, and apple butter. Yummers!! Then headed to get on the Crossroads trailer for the parade. People on the trailer got the popsicles out of the coolers for us and handed bunches of them to us while we ran around passing them out. Other groups must have been handing them out also because about half the kids already had popsicles. So I'd make eye contact with an adult, smile and hand them a popsicle. I usually got a smile out of them. This is what I live for.

Another difference between Ohio and Kentucky - in Kentucky they're still throwing candy to the kids. In Ohio we pass out candy and other items, you're not allowed to throw anything anymore. Not sure if it was because kids were getting hit by the candy and hurt, or too many kids were running out in front of vehicles and getting hit. I can't remember the last time I saw people throwing out candy (and popsicles) for the kiddos. One boy looked at me and said "you're HANDING this to me???" It took me a moment to understand what he was implying.

Afterwards we debated on helping Crossroads help clean up the parade site or heading to the cabin to get some work done. We checked the time and the clouds and decided we needed to get to the cabin to mow the grass. However, by the time we got to the cabin it had been raining for awhile. However, Jason was still determined to get the grass mowed. As Jason was hefting the mower out of the car I realized the porch swing was missing. We went into the cabin and couldn't believe it - most of the furniture was missing too!

Ever feel like someone has punched you in the gut and knocked all the wind out of you? I went through about 100 different emotions in less than an hour. The strongest one was to leave Olive Hill and never come back. I got ahold of myself and calmed down and reasoned that most of what was taken would have been given away anyway. It was just the fact that someone had come to the cabin and taken whatever they wanted for the THIRD time. So we called the police.

The kitchen table was missing along with the 4 chairs. The two rugs downstairs were missing and a cabinet was also missing. More amazing was that they took the bed, except that the box springs wouldn't fit down the stairs. (We already knew this.) They busted up quite a bit of the wood around the stairs trying to get it all downstairs. I have a kitchen table and an antique dining room table, along with two queen size beds, so I'm doing okay with those things taken. However I had plans for the cabinet, and the porch swing... that was the best part about hanging outside of the cabin. It was an Amish-made swing that Jason had bought for his mamaw's house. They later moved it to his cabin.

Meanwhile Jason walked back out to the car to put the mower away (grass did not get mowed) and realized our front tire was flat - again. We had it repaired last week but obviously it didn't hold. So Jason changed the flat on the gravel driveway in the rain. Yeah, it doesn't get much better than that.

Four hours after we called the police, the state highway showed up. The county dispatched someone but after waiting 2 1/2 hours we found out that he had been dispatched somewhere else instead. So Jason said to cancel the call and we went home. The county called the state, which dispatched someone and he called Jason when he got there, about the time we were getting into bed. So Jason went back out to the cabin and filed a report with the state police. I found this frustrating and unbelievable but Jason informed me that this is how things are handled out there. Another difference between Dayton and Olive Hill.

While driving back to Jason's parent's house we saw some of the Olive Hill fireworks but due to the rain and our soggy moods, we just drove slowly and watched what we could from the car. I was so glad we had the family fireworks the night before. This was our third rained-out Fourth of July fireworks. Maybe next year I guess.

Sunday - I knew the one thing that would make me fall back in love with Olive Hill was going to church at Crossroads. So we got up early to have breakfast there and socialize for awhile before church. I've been having so much fun getting to know the people at the church there. The pastor preached about addictions and freedom and shared his testimony about his own addictions. A transparent, authentic pastor is a very good thing. It makes you feel like you're sitting in a safe place where you can be who you really are. We're starting to get more involved with the church and by the time we left I had us signed up for Vacation Bible School in two weekends. :)

Lunch was yummy as usual and afterwards Jason headed out to have the tire repaired or replaced. We ended up having all four tires replaced, because they all were at risk for going flat. Then Jason and I headed to the cabin to put up a pole so the gate at the driveway could be chained shut. I picked up a few more rocks for my rock garden and then we headed back to the house. Gayle (Jason's mom) and I then went through my yard sale items and got things priced. I tried to fix a few items and somehow ended up getting super glue on a few of my fingers. Thankfully nothing stuck together!

We finally headed home around 6pm. The grass will have to be mowed next time we're out there. Thankfully it's very shaded and doesn't grow too much. However I'm afraid the weeds will take over the grass by the time we get out there again. Ah well, it's a cabin, weeds can be mowed too.

Jason and I had a bet that I wouldn't get into bed until after midnight. I said before midnight, he said if I was blogging it wouldn't be until after midnight. It's now 11:45 and I wanted to post some pictures from our weekend. I'm just going to lump them into one site and post this instead. (And hopefully still win the bet.) Goodnight!!

(Click here for pictures of the family fireworks and the Crossroads people at the parade.)