Weeks 4 & 5 and the Bucket List

Well, let's look at the good news first...

- I've been out and running on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and today.

- I went to the doctor this week and she was very happy with my weight, which I reminded her that it was helped by mono, but it's stayed off (151.6; it was a high of 178 in 2010) and blood pressure (which has traditionally been good), and it turns out that when I started this Couch to 5K thing, I most likely had bronchitis. Yup, that was brilliant on my part. Who knew? (Apparently, not me!)

- I can finish the distance of 5K without dying.

- I've been able to run for 8 minutes in a row.

- My life may be returning to some type of normalcy soon.

And the bad news...

- I ran a total of 8 minutes out of 57 minutes today. (Granted, it is a "walk" day on the Couch to 5K plan).

- I feel like work has taken over my life recently.

- Financially, I keep telling myself I just need to get through the month of May, and then things will be better.

- My apartment is an absolute mess (not that this is new, but I still have tons of stuff to go through and organize and get rid of).

- Life has felt a little out of balance recently...guess that means I should go back to yoga!

So, with everything going on, I decided that it's time for me to put together a Bucket List. And so far, I've been able to put things like "visit ...." or "Run and finish a 5K" but as I've thought of some things I've already done, I've been able to do some pretty cool things (Polar Plunge, speak in front of 400 people). Stay tuned for the Bucket List (which I'm sure I'll keep adding to)!

With all that, here's this week's progress - Week 4 going into Week 5!

Tuesday, April 17:

1.63 miles

21:30 minutes

152 calories

13:11 minutes/mile (I've changed how I view this on CardioTrainer)

Thursday, April 19:

3.20 miles

46:34 minutes

299 calories

14:33 minutes/mile

Saturday, April 21:

3.46 miles

45:58 minutes

457 calories

13:18 minutes/mile

Sunday, April 22:

4.12 miles

57:09 minutes

462 calories

13:53 minutes/mile

Since I started, I've burned 3,798 calories with the walk/jog and have gone 38.6 miles.

Week 3 and into Week 4...

I've been off the grid on the electronic side, but I've still been trying to keep a somewhat normal walking/jogging schedule.

The last check in on here was Sunday, April 8. Since then, here are the results:

Wednesday, April 11:

2.02 miles
28:17 minutes
189 calories
4.3 miles/hour

Thursday, April 12:

1.73 miles
22:52 minutes
162 calories
4.5 miles/hour

Sunday, April 15:

2.48 miles
36:50 minutes
232 calories
4.0 miles/hour

In that, I really just missed the Saturday walk/jog. I won't be able to make it up at this point, but it happens.

Highlights: Thursday, I ended up running 10 minutes out of the 22:52. Not too shabby and a bit unexpected. Sunday, I was absolutely exhausted and ran for a few minutes total, but mostly walked. It seems that I'm consistently walking/jogging at a 14 minute/mile pace. It was a little quicker on Thursday, but obviously, I ran more.

Though, the last few days, I've really been lacking motivation to get out and run. I know part of it is sheer exhaustion from everything else going on, but I just really need to get some motivation back.

Part of it is also that I don't feel like I've been improving, and that doesn't help with motivation. I'm still mostly walking and I'm just not feeling like I can run. So, it's been a little discouraging and I'm trying to muster up the motivation again.

Which means I have to try to go out and do today's workout.

Week 3, Day 1

Well, today is Easter. It is also Day 1 of Week 3 of my Couch to 5K adventure.

Today was a walk day, and I decided to try a new route that I was fairly certain would get me out close to 60 minutes. For those of you in Lansing, I left my apartment complex on Canal, walked south to St. Joseph, walked east to Creyts, then went north to Saginaw, making the loop back to Canal (though I ended up cutting through on Westshire back to Canal).

Stats from today:

4.11 miles

1:05:38 minutes

384 calories

3.8 miles/hour

It was WINDY today! When I was going west, it was the worst, so it slowed me down a little bit. But some good tunes on Pandora today kept me going (good as in "fast/keeping you moving" types of tunes).

And now, for a quiet, productive day to myself.

Week Two, Days 6 and 7

So, I'm back at it again.

Friday was a bit of a slow day, after having been off since Sunday due to illness. However, I think I did ok even though it was a walk. I took Dakota out because she's been kind of cooped up all week.

Stats from Friday, Day 6:

1.73 miles

25:47 minutes

161 calories

4.0 miles/hour

Today, I had to try to get a quick walk in before I took off to work Texas Hold 'Em. It was pretty decent though because I jogged 5 1/2 minutes out of about 29 minutes.

Stats from Saturday, Day 7:

2.05 miles

29:15 minutes

191 calories

4.2 miles/hour

Tomorrow is walk day, but I'm going to see how it goes. Right now, I'm doing fairly well in how I'm feeling, just a little tired (and sunburned from the Easter Egg Hunt and walking earlier today). Not too shabby though!

Week Two – Days 2-5

You’ll notice there’s a big chunk of time missing from this blog. That would be because starting Monday, I had a sore throat. I started to wonder if I should run on Tuesday, and determined that since I was feeling fatigued, I wouldn’t.

That was probably a good decision, considering I ended up staying home on Wednesday. I slept late, napped through parts of the day and went to bed at 8:30pm. I ended up going back to work on Thursday, but came home after work to get some more rest.

So, to make up for this week, I will walk/jog today and then get back on the normal schedule Saturday and Sunday. I will probably “repeat” week two in my schedule, since I didn’t get to build up and sort of feel like I have to start over again.

One of the hardest things I’ve dealt with mentally since I’ve started this is that I’m typically an overachiever, and it’s hard for me not to be able to just do something right away. I have to keep reminding myself that I can’t just get up and run a 7 minute mile – it’s something I have to work up to. I’ll be able to do it when I’m ready. The hard part is that I won’t know I’m ready until I’m ready. I’m learning this lesson in the Couch to 5K and have realized that I can apply it to other things in my life. It’s been a valuable lesson, even in the short time I’ve been working on the program.

Day 8 - Week Two - Day 1

Today on the Couch to 5K schedule was a 30-60 minute walk. I took Dakota along today, and my goal was a 45 minute walk.

3.4 miles

52:12 minutes

318 calories

3.9 miles/hour

I'm finding myself to be more than tired...more like exhausted. But I'm trying to keep up the idea that eventually my body will get used to this. I still haven't run a whole lot, but hopefully will be able to work up to that.

I can say that Dakota is not used to walking so much, and while she had her normal fast paced walk to begin, I could tell she was getting tired toward the end. Though, she wasn't too tired to try to chase cars!