In less than a week, I will be officially running into my forties stronger than my thirties...On Sunday, I will attempt to run the best I can in my first running 5K. Since February, I have been training the best I can in my schedule. Gung ho at the beginning, I didn't want to miss a day. I started at 1 min. run, 1 min walk for 30 minutes and made it up to 3 min. run, 2 min. walk before I knew it. Then my schedule became crazier, spring sports started and state testing at work took over. My early morning workouts were replaced with late afternoon workouts every few days and I didn't beat myself up if I missed a day here and there. Surprisingly, I kept improving even though time had got the best of me inbetween training days.
The other day I knew I had to train so I was really pushing myself to get to the gym. Before I got to the gym, I had stayed late at work for an event until 5, ran to get Jayna and then raced home to make the boys a homemade soup before heading to Kumon. It wasn't easy because I knew I had to get to the gym before the kids room closed at 8. (My husband was working so it was all me!). After a stress attack of getting dinner made, feeding the kids and getting to Kumon, I made it to the gym at 7:25. Not enough time to run that 5K program on the treadmill so I was already annoyed. But I had to just take what I could. When I got on the treadmill, I warmed up for a couple of minutes. Then I started my run, a little faster than usual so I could make up more distance in a shorter time. I also decided to just run and see how far I could get and just feel my body. I started to run the stress and time pressure I felt out. When I looked down, I had been running almost 10 minutes and had almost finished a mile! WHOO! So I pushed myself to finish the mile without stopping. I ran my first leg was over 15 minutes and I had run my first mile without stopping..never had I don't that before! I continued to run as long as I could but my second mile was definately more like I had been doing..a few minutes run then walk a minute. I left feeling proud that I had done my longest run yet and fit in what I could in the time I had.
Today was my next run around the neighborhood. After a day without rain, (shocking), I took my friend's advice to clock a run with my car and then run in the neighborhood. So after clocking 2 miles ( I only had about a half hour to run again before a lacrosse game), I began wondering if I had made a mistake in thinking I could do this. Two miles looked like a lot to run! Gavin decided to come with me and ride his bike behind me. As I started to run after my warmup, I was running at a faster pace than usual. I kept thinking I would not be able to finish in the time I had and was afraid it would be too hard. But as I ran to different marks, I was so happy that I made it to each mark in less time than I thought. Half way through the run, I was feeling strong and I felt great that only about 15 minutes pass! I felt so good that I could run more than I thought and it was faster than I had expected! I wound up hitting my block and running toward the house and it took me 26 minutes to run the two miles! That was like a 13 minute mile! (Remember when I was running an 18 minute mile!?) I felt glad to see that I could do it...little steps at a time. Only one more day until I put this girl to the test!
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