Counting Down

We had a great 30-minute+ run in the Kansas wind this afternoon while the girls played at a friend's house (actually, we imposed on some very nice fellow runners to allow the girls to "stay late" after a birthday party so we could go out). I'm finding it really, really impressive that I'm now able to sustain a jogging pace for more than 30 minutes without even really a noticeable stitch in my side. I am noticing now a lot of the things I read about in books about running - like how running on asphalt is kinda tough on my shins, and how stopping without a sufficient cool-down walk made my plantar fascia start to clench up.

Rhythm

Today was beautiful, sunny, and HOT in western Kansas. High of 83! Finally, a Thursday worth running in. We are pretty much off the C25k program since my podcast-playing palm pilot died, but since we were pretty close to the end and doing well it doesn't matter so much. Today we once again took off for Horace, just with a timer to tell us when it'd been 14 minutes so we could turn back. We may have run about 30 minutes, since we were probably slower coming back than we were going out. We also got a good deal further down the road than we did last time, both because of the slightly increased running time and also my well-rested status which did wonders for our pace. The other exciting bit of news is I got some new running gear, including a very cute running skort from REI.

I hope we can squeeze in a run this weekend and one more early next week, and then rest up for race day May 3. We'll have friends and family there to cheer us on, and I'm very excited.

Catchin' Up

Still no photos, because our digital camera has yet to be replaced. We ran Friday evening, later than usual, after dropping the kids off at a friends' house. In full electronic rebellion, my Treo also has died and so we didn't even have our Podcast to listen to. (To be fair, the Treo's death is entirely my fault: I dropped it on the street, smashing its screen, and my noble knight in armor bravely tried to repair it with a replacement screen but to no avail.) So we ran around town, not sticking to a track or any particular path, just taking streets as they occurred to us, and using a timer on J's phone to mark about 27 minutes, which we figured was probably about the Week 8 duration. I have had a really long week at work and have been really, really tired, so it was a difficult run for me. J is a champ and talked me through the whole thing, which helps so much.

It's raining...

...again. And windy. And cold.

I guess my only day off is determined to be nasty to me. :P

Barenaked Ladies song?

It's been, ONE WEEK since you ran with me...

I had declared that I would be an official slob if I went longer than a week without running. Since we ran today, and it was therefore NOT longer than a week, I am maybe only a temporary slob (the way my 4-year-old is a "temporary fairy" when she puts on her dress-ups with wings). My excuses, in chronological order:
1) Wednesday: Only one day after last run; not in the training program!
2) Thursday: Icky, awful weather with rain, hail, snow, and 40 mph winds. I'm totally
excused here.
3) Friday: Beginning of my worst call weekend since arriving in Tribune.
4) Saturday: See 3).
5) Sunday: See 3).
6) Monday: Fallout from 3), 4), and 5).
Seriously, I was seriously wiped out yesterday. For that matter, I'm seriously wiped out today. But I feel really, really good that we went out running. Today we ran over toward Horace and back. It was uphill going there, downhill coming back. That was a good way to do it, I think. :)

I am really happy to have Jonathan as my running partner. He doesn't mind slowing down for me (as earlier pointed out, he knows I'm allowing him to finish without burning out early), and we actually have time to TALK to each other. Heck, I think I would keep doing a running program 3 days a week just to have the time with my husband.

Our First Run After The Jayhawks Became National Champions

We finally remembered to take Jonathan's Razr phone out with us so we could post a photo this time! It was a beautiful, sunny Spring day in Tribune, if a little cold, and we began Week 7 of our Couch to 5K program. We finished Week 6 on Sunday with a 25-minute run, and then this week we'll do that 3 more times before once again increasing the duration for week 8. This program assumes you're not running very fast, expecting about a 10-minute mile (or 6 mph), so 25 minutes comes to just about 2.5 miles. A 5K in miles is about 3.1, so we're very close! It's hard to track exactly how far we're running when we do this out on the streets instead of on the track, but it's just more fun and challenging to encounter a slope every so often and get to pick your scenery rather than going around in circles. Plus, we never have to see a feedlot if we don't want to!

I'm definitely getting tired in doing these runs. Jonathan still has me beat in the natural skill department, and is a great motivating partner for me. One thing that worries me is that even though we've done a great job of keeping up with the program when we're both home, it's not habitual yet. We don't have a really set routine of how it's supposed to go every time. Like, we always sort of have to figure out whether the girls will eat dinner before or after we run (answer, for Hania anyway: before AND after!). We discuss almost every time whether or not we'll call one of the high-school girls over to come watch them, or take them with us in the stroller (Babysitting pro: No whining! Con: We're out $5-6 per run). Ridley in particular seems to really prefer playing at home with an energetic, pretty girl like Madison or Haylie or Monica to sitting in the ladybug while Mom and Dad jog around for half an hour. I want to include them in this endeavor because I want them to grow up thinking exercise is a normal part of family life. But at the same time, I don't want to force Ridley into it so much against her will that it backfires and she declares she'll never run. We need to figure out some way that we can run and enjoy it, and she can actually have fun with it, too. Either that, or we get her into some other exercise routine that's fun (Jonathan has tried, unsuccessfully so far, to teach her to jump rope) and hope for the best while we make her put up with ours.

Week 6

We did our Week 6 Day 2 on Friday afternoon, and today we went for Day 3: a 25-minute run. We went north on the highway up to the golf course, and then took a meandering jog throughout the golf course. The weather has been quite a bit warmer (though a little windier today) so it's been good weather for running. The golf course was a nice change of scenery but most of the paths we were on are dirt and gravel, which is not necessarily the best for running.

I think it went pretty well, although I've got a sore bit on the right side of my lower back now. I'm wondering if it's from the run or just bad posture from reading books and playing Xbox recently.

Still no pictures this time--our camera is having some issues, which we think (hope) are battery-related. I've ordered a new battery, so hopefully we'll actually be able to take photos again.

Yesterday, week 6 day 1

Week 6 is kind of like week 5 in that there are three different programs for the three days of the week. The first program, which we did yesterday, was running intervals of 5 minutes, 8 minutes, and 5 minutes again, with 3-minute walking intervals between each one. Tomorrow we'll do two 10-minute intervals with a 3-minute walk, and then on Sunday we get a 25-minute long haul. The run was harder than I thought, but then I remembered that I had gone to bed at 3 a.m. the night before, woken up at 7, worked a very long day, and was then running near sunset when I hadn't eaten in about six hours. Yeah, so, that would explain my fatigue.

We're getting excited about our first 5K, coming up on May 3 which also happens to be my Dear Husband's 30-somethingith birthday. Read about it here!