So anti-climatic

Okay, so I failed.

Yup. I am lazy and life got in the way and I was full of excuses, but I didn't train, and I didn't run. I was supposed to be away for work for a couple different reasons, each one fell through and in the end,  I just stayed home and ate some turkey.

So, is this where the story ends?  Well, I hope not.  I'm back into playing hockey at least once a week ( sometimes more, I'm on three teams). and Yesterday I got back into the running scene. I did 4 miles in 45 minutes. That's 7.9 Km. Which, if I can maintain this pace, would be a 4 hr marathon time.  Granted, its 1/8th of the distance I would be going, but its a good start.

I am going to try to get the full 8 km in 45 minutes as my next goal. Then my next one is to run 6 m/hr for the full time ( minus the warm up and cool down), then start extending my length of run time. But really, I've never run 45 minutes in my memory, and when I set my mind to it, I totally was able to.

One problem. Once I start working out, I am famished, and could literally eat a cow to get full.  I might start with protein shakes again, cause I think that's what's making me hungry. But, slow baby steps.

And if I can keep on this, maybe a Marathon in the spring.

Maybe. Fingers Crossed.

I will do this

I keep telling myself I'm not going to fail. and then my own  motivation fails me.  But, I've not given up completely, not yet.

I'm house sitting, while my boyfriend is out of town, and he's got a tread mill, he also lives near a couple nice running paths. So, moral of the story? I started today out easily. His tread mill is hard to figure out,  but I ran for 15 minutes today, did nearly 2 miles.  Not as good as my other runs, but I think I'm just going to do the quick start option tomorrow and run for as long as I can.
Wake up early enough, and I can do it for an hour maybe.

One day at a time.

Its been a while

And I haven't been entirely faithful to my training schedule. Well, at all.
All this stuff started all at once, including a new relationship...  Eh, whatever, its all excuses.  Yesterday I jumped right back into it with a 6.5 km run, at 35 minutes. Slower than my other pace, i know, but I'm getting my fat ass back into it, right?

Right. :) The battle is still going on.

Oops, been a little while..

So, I apparently took a hiatus from this blog. I'm sorry. I've also been a little too lax with my training. I have been doing good with doing at least three miles on Saturdays.

This past weekend I was in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. We got there Friday, and I may have overindulged a bit with the alcohol. I did get up on Saturday and go to the Fitness Center in our Holiday Inn. I was really impressed with what they had set up, and how nice it all was. The treadmill had a few options, and because I knew I needed to get myself ... cleaned up?... I decided to do a 5k run. Again, run is pretty loose, as I did power walk half of it. Took me about an hour, but I was just proud of myself for not giving up on it. I think it is harder to do loops and pass the same scenery. The treadmill though had a little nature course and as you ran it turned red, and each km was marked off. I'll admit, I was about ready to call it quits a few times, but thought better of it, and really I wanted to feel accomplished. So by 9:30am, I was definitely feeling accomplished... and absolutely gross. I felt bad for two men that were riding the elevator with me, even though it was only for one floor to the lobby, where I asked for more towels to be delivered to our room. I guess I smelled as poorly as I thought, because they delivered 8 towels to our room. I'll have to say though... I now know how to get rid of a hangover, because I definitely felt great for the rest of the day.. Who knew? (well, if you did, please be gentle when you tell me I'm dumb for not knowing...)

Today, I went for a walk/run around one of our local community fields with my neice. I bought a New Balance pedometer, that is supposed to track how many steps you take/how far you run. Well, the township tells me that the loop is 1.33 miles. My NB pedometer says that after 2 loops, I did 1.64 miles. Who knows.

Either way, I need to adhere better to my training schedule, I know this. I just have to actually make myself do it. That's the tough part.

Okay, I Digress

I disappeared for a couple days. My bad, really. Have I been doing any running? Not really, I should have, yes, but thursday I hadn't yet recovered from wednesday. ( I need more water, more nutrition) and friday I hadn't recovered from being up way to late on a date the night before or the several hours I stood in the sun all day.

But yesterday, was that Spring Sprint. It turned out to be more of a 5 km walk, but it was less about the run, and more about being there for my friend. The event was for brain tumour research and support,  My friend's fiancee passed away from  brain cancer in 09.   His family was there, she needed friends with her.  So, me and a girl she works with, walked with her.

Today, I play paintball and then ball hockey. Monday is a new day, and I'm hoping to get off my ass and manage an 8 km trail. That's my goal. To hopefully do two of those next week.

Training schedule set.

Well, my first day of "rest" was completed yesterday. I felt like a chump, because lets face it, I've been resting for about 2 years now. Today I'm not certain what I'm going to do, but I will do some sort of training at some point. Does bowling count as cross-training? I have a charity event this evening.

Either way, Melissa found an appropriate training schedule for us. We'll be following Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Training Program. My days of the week will be a little mixed up, as we'll be doing the longer runs/walks on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

I feel better knowing this is what I'm supposed to be doing though. It's something in black and white to follow. So we'll see how today and tomorrow go.

Day 1 = Win

I don't have any fancy pictures or anything, like my counterpart, so this wont be as exciting.  After work I was exhausted, tired and not motivated at all. I watched the video ( Check out my comments on the last post) and felt like a pos. I have nothing stopping me from doing this than my own lack of motivation. Seeing that kid go through the pain and effort for the joy of running, well, it made me think. I had a 15 minute lap, then took my first step of many.

I have a lake near my house. One thing you have to understand about Canada is that we like our artificial lakes. So, its not a real lake, and its not a big lake, but there's a large pond near my house, which I've run before. But, its a short run, about 3 kms ( 1.89 miles) from my house to around the lake, to back. So I ran the lake twice, amounting to 3.78 miles or 6.08 kms. In 31.20 minutes.  That's a 5.20 minute km.  A good first go, I guess. :)

Tomorrow I think I'll bring my shorts and work out stuff to work, and do a run on one of the paths near my job. The one route is 6.2 kms ( 3.8 miles).  But its not going to be repeating the same thing over again.  Then I will need to find longer routes.  Its sort of following the schedule, but once I actually research the routes, I should be able to follow it more completely.  Friday is a rest day, then Saturday is the race day (5 kms, which I will be running at a slower pace, with my friend)  I haven't decided about sunday yet.

I finished that all off with a nice rack of baby back ribs that I had been slow cooking all day in beer, rootbeer, bbq sauce and herbs from my herb garden. I was going to grill them, but my bbq was making weird noises, so I elected to just bake them for a bit. Yummy. Oh, and some veggies and a Big Rock Lime.

First Step Accomplished

I realized that I was carrying around a bunch if extra weight today. So before anything was started, I thought it would be best if I got myself down to the proper weight. Here's the proof I did exactly that...

Now, to be honest with you, I'm not sure how Blogger uploads photos, so we'll wait and see, as I'm doing this from my phone. (Yes, they have an app for this.)

Anyway, we started today, and went out to Sea Isle to walk the promenade. All my life I thought a city block was .10 miles. They say you learn something new every day... Well, today I learned that 3 city blocks account for .20 miles. So although we thought we had done well, we went back for round 2 after clicking it with my car down Landis Ave, and doubled up. We accomplished 3 miles in 52 minutes. I believe Melissa calculated that to be a 17 minute mile. We have a bunch of work to do to keep out stamina and do 13.1 miles @ 13/15 min mile. But at least we picked a pretty awesome training location. We have the fresh ocean breeze mixed with honeysuckles today.

Our next group meeting is Saturday morning at 6. Maybe between now and then we'll be able to shave a little time off our mile.

And right behind her ...

People say I'm in shape. I kinda gotta be for my job, but I'm not ... what you would call a motivated fitness junkie.  I play hockey, work out on a semi-not-really-regular basis, and manage to stay fit from a blessedly awesome metabolism.

However, this run thing. The last  couple years, I've been telling my good friend that I will run the Victoria (B.C)  Marathon, in some  form or another with her.  I've been a horrible friend, and thus failed miserably to do this with her ( partially - completely because of work, it keeps me away a lot of the time) This year,  while away for work again, I was running, and discovered I could run charity races, and even hit a new length for me, 8 kms!  ( I usually stop at about 5) I also promised to run in a fun run ( this saturday!) with the same friend, in memory of her fiancee who passed away from brain cancer a couple years ago ( he was an amazing guy and used to run the Victoria Marathon,  thus why she makes the effort to run it in some shape or form)  So having already committed to running an easy ( for me) 5 kms, I  was talking to my cousin, who sponsored me for it ( she has a friend with brain cancer, and the run is in support of that) And she asked me to run the marathon as part of her team. "Breast Friends for Life"

So, I've agreed, and this blog has kind of sealed the deal. I can't talk all tough and do nothing. So my plan is this. Start the running program. I kind of already did, cause I had decided to do something productive and work out on Monday, then I just got back from hockey tonight, but tomorrow I'm going to attempt a 5 - 6 km run.  And every day after that, if I'm not playing a game, I'll be running.  If I can surprise myself and not lose momentum, then I'll sign up for the marathon in a week or so.  ( and maybe book my flight out there.)

If anyone out there is reading this, and decided to give us a couple tips, whether it be for working out, running strategies or even meal plans ( I don't have a very strict diet, and believe that everything in moderation, specially plenty of beer and chicken wings, is good.... ) to help on run days or anything, don't hesitate to comment.  If you're looking for expert advice... you might want to keep looking, cause, well... as with most things in my life, this is a trial and error sort of thing.

What have I gotten myself into?

The last time that I physically ran was probably about 2 years ago. Well, ran as a form of exercise on a regular basis. I had started to run with my niece Ashley in mornings before she would go to school and I would go to work. 5 am started to come around too quickly, and even with the best of intentions, our runs faded to nothing. Saturday I was approached with the question of "Would you consider..." and the next thing you know, I had agreed to walk at a healthy pace for the RunRock'nRoll in Philadelphia. It looks as though every mile to mile and a half there is a stage set up with local bands. I have to say, of all the things that I have agreed to, this scares me, and excites me just the same. 

Melissa (my cohort) and I will begin training tomorrow, 5/30/12. For now, it is set that we will be meeting at least 2 times per week to stay on a training schedule. Hopefully, we stick to it. The goal is to walk 3 miles tomorrow to test ourselves. I've done fundraiser 5k walks, so I'm confident with this start. But we'll see. Only time will tell how much I hate myself for agreeing to this.