Changed attitude

I’ve decided that instead of being jealous or admiring those people you see running around so effortlessly, with teeny, tiny butts and no bat-wing arms, I feel sorry for them.

Because in order to have that little body fat they have to run a lot.

And I’m guessing that means they feel like I feel today, after a 4 1/2 mile run with GS: like crap.

Not only does my ass hurt (t-band, I’m guessing – but maybe it’s a harbinger of hip replacement surgery) but I’m exhausted. I laid on the couch like a dead thing for two hours after I got home. I’m telling everyone that I was “spending time with DS2″ because we watched a movie, but really all I was doing was trying not to fall asleep.

So, I figure these people who are actual runners must feel like this much of their lives.

How sad and to be pitied is that?

“Alright, Wesley. Great Job. Sleep Well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

Got Spandex and I got our email this morning saying that we were selected in the lottery to run Grandma’s Half Marathon.

First word out of my mouth? “Crap!”

Just to recap, I went to the gym to train in early February, caught some virus and spent most of the month sick. Both respirtory and gastrointestinal. Yay, me! I have not been back on the horse yet. Although, I walked a brisk mile to and from my haircut appointment yesterday.

Today is “technically” a rest day but when you haven’t been training for a month does that really hold any water?

So, I’m going to skip out of work early (at about 2:30pm), go home and drag myself around a 2 mile route in the neighborhood and then hopefully have time to shower and change again to be at church by 5:15… the main reason Wednesday is a rest day is that I have a FULL day on Wednesday.

I”ve also read a few more training schedules and things and made an important discovery:

Cross-training = bike, swim or eliptical machine not (as I thought) strength training. Doh!

No. Strength training (squats, lunges, bicep curls, sit-ups, crunches, etc., etc.) is over and above the cross-training and the walking/running. Double Doh!

And it’s necessary – especially for me and my goal of reshaping my body and building muscle. Triple Doh!

Have I mentioned how big a spaz I am on an eliptical machine? I’ve been on one exactly twice in my lifetime. I fell off both times. I blame it on the fact that I’m only 5’2″ and they’re made “for regular sized people.”

Seriously questioning my sanity now, I am resorting to the AA method of training exemplified in the quote I used as a headline: One day at a time, baby.

One thing at a time. One work-out at a time. It will most likely kill me in the morning, but for today I just need to focus on getting this much done. [holding fingers about 6 inches apart]

So today’s goal is this: squeezing in 2 miles between work and Wednesday night church.

On your mark…. Get set…. Go!

Sick again? Really?!

Last weekend (2/5-7) I chaperoned a middle school confirmation retreat to a really cool place here in the city that does urban experience retreats. It was awesome. The 7 middle schoolers in our group spent Saturday watching a bunch of kids at the Harriet Tubman Shelter for women and children.

We were supposed to have 5-10 year olds. Instead, we had, a 4-month-old, a 10-month-old, 5 2-year-olds and 8 elementary aged children.

One of whom (at least) had new germs. At least new to me.

About 3AM Monday morning it started and didn’t really slow down until after noon the next day. I tried forcing fluids as much as I could. I was very glad for a cast iron stomach but just a little worried when my fever started spiking (101.5 at one point) and I couldn’t really tolerate anything by mouth. I could keep it down all right, but every sip of water felt like I was grinding glass in my stomach afterwards.

Brutal.

So I didn’t run on Monday. Again.

And I didn’t cross train on Tuesday. Again.

I did eat some solid food last night for dinner. Probably not the best choices, but I didn’t have bananas, rice, applesauce or toast (the infamous BRAT diet of my children’s baby-hood.)

So I had a little tortilla with some cheese. And some more pedialyte. And a few pretzels.

And I came in to the office this today (Wednesday) but I’m not sure I should have. I’m not running to the bathroom or anything but I’m woogly on my feet and feeling like I’d pay $50 for the chance to lay down on a comfortable couch with a blanket.

I’m not too good with this “take it easy” concept, I guess. But I’m totally getting this mediocre training thing. I think.

Training Sick

Last week was week 1 of training. And I completed exactly 1 day of the schedule.

Why? Because I went to the gym to walk/run my 35 minutes, like a good doobie does and caught a cold. The kind of cold where if I were a 2 year-old I’d have snot running from my nose to my mouth continually with crusts on the edges. Red, watery and puffy eyes and sinuses tender to the touch.

Now, I’ll admit that I wasn’t sick on Tuesday and that by rights I should have done 45-60 minutes of cross-training. But I procrastinated that until the evening and then had an unexpected visitor stop over just after supper and stay until I needed to go to bed. She just sat there. Watching TV with me while I actually thought about ways to say “Hey, I’ve got to get some crunches and some push-ups done. Can you leave now?” But having never having had a thought like that cross my mind before I let it pass, unspoken.

In the middle of Tuesday night I woke with the bad of my throat feeling like it was being sliced by a not very sharp fillet knife. Wednesday I croaked through choir rehearsal and by Thursday I was bumming Dayquil off the cube-dwellers near me. They were happy to hand it over and followed me out of their territory with Lysol and anti-bacterial wipes. Whatever. My run/walking was confined to the skyways scouting for something to eat that wouldn’t hurt to swallow.

Friday, I worked from home. And by that I mean I worked from bed. And by that I mean I did as little as possible. Including not cross-training.

Saturday supposed to be the first endurance run. 3 miles, which if I had done the rest of the week seems like it would have been a logical stretch of endurance both mentally and physically. My stretch was spending the day dozing on the couch instead of in the bed.

I gave it all up freely in part because I felt like crap and in part because I knew that GS and I had designed this training schedule by repeating each of the first three weeks of prescribed training. So I basically am starting over again this week. And that’s OK. 

Over the years I’ve read or heard many arguments for training while sick or not training while sick. All of which I ignored because I never thought I’d be in the situation where I’d need the information.

Last week, I just listened to my body. It’s early on in this process and it could very well be that later on I’ll feel like a good brisk walk/run is just what I want to be doing with my snotty headed self. But this time, I was for the couch and the bed and nothing else.

Today, I’m feeling a lot better, although the secretions in the back of my throat are still plentiful and make me wonder at the wisdom of my plan, but I do plan on resuming my training today. So 35 minutes of run/walking over lunch, here I come.

The Voice(s) of Experience

In January of 2008 I joined the YWCA, worked with a personal trainer, joined boot camp classes and after almost a year of whining and crying a lot I had lost about 20 pounds and was starting to look pretty good. I even felt different. Better. I barely admitted it out loud but all those people saying exercising would make me feel better might have been right. (Although it took a long damn time to get to that point. And a lot of Advil.)

Then I went on my big trip to Italy (10 days, by myself…well, with 20 of my new friends on a Rick Steve’s tour of Florence.) (Which I can highly recommend.) and I came back and BOOM! I was in the middle of preparing for Christmas. No time for exercise now!

Then the new year came. And went. And the work schedule in 2009 was insane. And exercise got put on back burner. Again. Waaaaaay on the back burner. Maybe even off the stove completely. Just saying.

I met G and we started dating and the pounds started to creep back on because I wasn’t spending the time focused on keeping myself healthy.

Anyway. Yesterday on Day 1 of training for this half marathon, I realized in the middle of the 35 minutes of run/walking that I have more confidence that I can do this because I’ve done it before. I can run for an hour (well, not yet again, but soon!) because I worked in those boot camp classes for an hour. And maybe it wasn’t running the whole time but they kept me moving. And I didn’t die (although some days I wanted to.) And if I can run for an hour, I could run/walk for two and half, right?

Another thing I realized is that if I think of doing the whole race right now I’ll choke. But if I just look at the training schedule for the week, or even just for the day, I can do that. Focus on just what is before me and not worry about the big picture. Now there’s a personal growth opportunity!

So the little voices in my head are starting to help me. (who knew?) The ones that say “One day/hour/minute at a time” and “You’ve done this before” and “It will start to make you feel good” and “It will start to make you look better.” Sure, I still work at getting those other voices to STFU but it’s kind of nice to have some positive ones in there that I can actually trust because I’ve actually experienced the truth of what they’re saying.

Don’t worry though. I’m in no real danger of becoming a chipper exercise enthusiast!

Day 1- I can totally do this

And by “This” I mean walk/run for 35 minutes. Sustaining that over 13.1 miles is a completely different story.

Today’s training goal: 35 minutes run/walk

Today’s training results: 38 minutes (added in the 3 minute warm-up). 2.51 miles. The first mile I ran one minute then walked one minute. The second mile I sucked wind at 4 mph.

Afterward I cooled down and stretch, focusing on Achilles, hamstring, T-band and the front of the thigh stretch. (what’s that called again?)

Mostly I thought it went pretty well. I didn’t cry and because I went in the middle of the afternoon, I didn’t have to fight anyone about staying on the treadmill longer than the 15 minute limit.

Mechanically, I felt pretty good through most of it. No shooting, stabbing or throbbing pains and only when I was running did my lungs hurt. It was one of those fancy treadmills with the heart rate monitors on the handles and I got a peak reading of about 180. I tried to keep the average more around 146 or 150. I probably should calculate what my actual target rate is so that I have something besides my whiny self to decide if I’m actually working too hard at this.

I did notice a pesky little sensation in my left foot at about the 1.5 mile point. Slight pins and needles on the bottom of my foot, but I’m chalking that up to shaking out the kinks in my back – specifically my SI hip-joint on that side that has bothered me for a few months now.

While I was running walking (whatever) my feet felt great but my heel hurt when I changed out of my running shoes.

You’ll notice that I might be paying a bit of attention to every little twinge and ache. Mostly because I tend toward the hypochondriac side and there’s a big part of me that thinks that I actually can’t do this. That my body will fail in the middle of it in some spectacularly horrible way.

Before I got there, the hardest part was getting there. It really will be the biggest and most consistent hurdle I’ll have to battle. Every. Single. Time. I still think that might be true. So far. It is only the first day…

The Contract

The contract includes:

1. The Race (Grandma’s Half Marathon) date is 6/19/2010.Participants will enter the lottery for race entry together between 2/17 and 3/1.
2. If we don’t make the lottery for that race then we will enter the Sour Grapes Half & Half, June 12, 2010. Because we’d have to.
3. Training schedule is 19 weeks long.
4. Once weekly gathering on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. for The Endurance Run. (a.k.a. hell) (If one party cannot meet on Saturday alternate arrangments must be made.)
5. Two Cross-training sessions minimum per week at 45-60 minutes each.
6. 3 runs per week. Two independent runs and the third, on Saturday, together (see #5.)
7. No others will be allowed to join the Saturday runs.
8. NFH is allowed to skip the run on 5/22 due to her impending wedding that evening.
9. Skipped sessions must be made up that week.
10. Each person committs to “Be Jillian” for the other. This includes all tactics up to and including pounding on the door and tattling here.
11. Profanity goes without saying.
12. As does crying.
13. Each participant agrees to post as many times as they run each week at a minimum. But not necessarily on the days of the runs.
14. Running routes near pretty people (a.k.a. Lake Calhoun) will only occur closer to race date. Or after dark. The parkway along the river seems like a good alternative.