I'm a Runner

Well, I think I can finally admit it. I'm a runner. I honestly thought I would never have those words come out of my mouth. But now after I have done two 5Ks and my first 10K, I can honestly say I am a runner and I enjoy running with friends.

Make sure you notice the key words there "with friends". I still do not like running by myself very much, which is why I love to run at the gym with my friend Jennifer. We can run at whatever pace suits us and we are always by each other and talking. It's a social thing for me. I'm a social runner.

So, when it's time for me to run outside with a friend I choose to slow down my pace and they choose to push themselves so that I am not slowing too much.

This past Saturday I ran my first 10K. Earlier in the week I was starting to doubt if it would happen since they were predicting severe thunderstorms and hail on Saturday (we pretty much got nothing but a little rain on Saturday night.)

I ran the entire course with my running partner. I just wanted to enjoy myself and hang out and finish. I wasn't looking to PR or kick someone's butt.

So, what's next for me. Well, my daughter and I are going to run a 1K next month (there is a 5K there as well, but she won't be able to do that and we ran it last year when it was a 1mi rather than a 1K together, so it's our race, maybe some day we'll run the 5K together.) After that I am running a 5K that the proceeds benefits buying new playground at my daughter's school.

I am not sure what is after April (both those are in April yet). I have not decided if I will do an area 5K in May or not because I am doing a Women in the Outdoors weekend later in the month and that kinda takes up a chunk of my budget for recreational stuff.

Right now I am currently working on convincing my running partner to do the Warrior Dash with me in July. That race is 3 miles long with 11 obstacles. It looks challenging and fun!

And in August I am thinking I will do the 4-mile run for our County Fair. I am toying with the idea of adding in a 10K in October.

I find it helps that I have a fitness challenge/race to make. Starting next week, we are changing up our routine which was to meet twice a week and run, run, run. (I also ran 3 miles once a week on my own, did yoga once a week, and have been adding in Zumba every other week.) So, now we are planning to work on increasing our 5K speed so that we can PR in a later race and add in weights to start working on strength and intonation.

This is a picture of me with my running partner/friend Jennifer and our friends (another) Jennifer and Stephanie. The other Jennifer & Stephanie are running partners too and ran the entire race together. We came in right behind them.

I started running 9 months ago with a group of us doing a C25K program with a trainer. Anyways, I took measurements 9 months ago when we started running ( & was still nursing my son.)

After 3 months (ended nursing right after this):
1/4" loss on chest
1/2" loss on waist
1/4" loss on hips
no weight loss

After 6 month (no longer nursing, so I account for some chest loss because of this):
3/4" loss on chest (1" total)
1/2" loss on wasit (1" total)
1/4" loss on hips (1/2" total)
no weight loss (nothing total)

After 9 months
1" loss on chest (2" total)
1.5" loss on waist (2.5" total)
1/4" loss on hips (3/4" total)
6.5 pounds weight loss (6.5 total, just in last 3 months)

Also, I did not change my eating at all. I eat and drink whatever I want. So, ramping up to the longer workouts of an hour really helped. I much prefer to excercise for an hour with friends and do stuff with the kids and eat whatever I want.

Well, guess we'll see what the next 3 months brings.

My 2nd 5K

My friend Lori came to visit with her family and we had planned to run a 5K together. I was glad I ran with her because she pushed me to finish with a pace under a 10-min mile. In fact, it was 9:47 min mile pace that we had. The course was just under 3.1, but I did factor that in with my pace time, otherwise my pace would have looked REALLY awesome to me.

Still have no desire to run anything more than a 5K race. No runner's high here. :(

I am thinking about running a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving, but I am not sure how I feel about the cold. I run inside on a treadmill. So, we'll see. I might just wait to register that day if it feels ok. Although, I was talking with another mom in our playgroup about doing our own turkey trot (no t-shirts or entry fee, just a playgroup event for the moms.

My First 5K

Ok, now I can give you the run down of my first 5K and the training the first 8 weeks.

Here's how it started: A friend posted on her FB status that her husband was given the opportunity to be a trainer for 5 people who have never run a 5K before. The program was going to be very similar to the Couch To 5K (C25K) program (our program was like this but 1 week shorter.) My reply to her post was, "Hmmmmm, sounds interesting. I'll have to think about it." And I was thinking about it because running a 5K was a goal of mine at the beginning of the year, but due to having a 2 month old and fears of drying up from nursing, I abandoned the goal after 3 weeks.

Well, a couple days later I get an email basically saying - ok, you're doing it, my husband will email you more details.

Later than day I get an email from her husband, Lonnie (bald guy in the photo), saying training would be three days a week, we start next week and run a 5K in 8 weeks, but that all these things were negotiable based on our availability. Then we found out we only had to meet once a week for group training and we were meeting at 7pm, the other 2 days of training were to be done on our own time & schedule (but mostly following a MWF workout schedule.) The companies sponsoring us, Metabolife & Active.com would be paying our entry fee, giving us training programs to choose from, and providing us with shirts to wear during our first 5K (see photo above to check out our shirts.) That was it, there was no obligation to the company, this is a marketing opportunity for them. We actually have a FB page as well, and there are teams like these all over the country.

So, I didn't even have time to think of an excuse of why I couldn't do this. I needed to do this. So I went with it. Turns out there was another mom, Jennifer (see picture) I was just getting to know who just had a little boy about the same time I had my son. This training was a great opportunity for us to get to know each other and support each other as moms and as training partners.

The other person in the picture with us is Mike, another training partner. His wife had started the program with us but because of an existing precondition that worsened, she didn't finish the program and did the 1-mile walk this day. There is also one more training partner, who completed his first 5K a day after us because he has college courses on Saturdays.

I think the biggest hurdle was running the first 2 miles straight. I don't think I have ever run 2 miles without walking some part EVER! I believe all of us felt similarly. But I did it! And then my friend Caitlin told me something our runner friend, Rebecca, told her when she ran her first 2 miles "You can run 20% more when you are at the race because of the adrenaline and competition." So, if I was running 2 miles already, I was almost there to being able to run 3.1.

I was very proud of myself for running my first 5K. I finished at 31:52 on VERY HILLY course that was actually about 3.2 miles rather than 3.1. It was a non-competitive, fundraising run, so the distance need to be "close enough". I was even more happy when I found out it was longer (our trainer had a GPS that tracked distance & elevation & time, etc.) So it turns out I ran a 10 minute mile. I was amazed. I only practiced a 10-minute mile ONCE for 1 mile, before this I was just over a 10.5 minute mile. So I had cut over 30 seconds off my average pace time (mostly likely due to it being race day), which is awesome! I have to wonder if I would have gone even faster if there weren't so many hills (which get very tiring.)

I did take my weight & measurements at the beginning of this too. Where I barely saw any weight loss, I did begin to notice that pants fit better. I had lost a half inch around my waist and also a quarter inch around both my chest & hips.

I did end up straining or spraining one of my ankles and need to apply RICE to that for a few days and then ease back in to running. I did walk 1.5 miles on it today and it hurt, but today was supposed to be the peak of delayed-onset muscle soreness and it will start to feel better after today. So, maybe some yoga in the meantime.

I do have plans to run another 5K in a month. Not sure if I will advance to training for a 10K. It's still hard to believe I ran a 5K and I just want to bask in that accomplishment for a while.

I do have to say, I believe the C25K training program is a very good set up and works if you are dedicated to training towards your first 5K.