JogBlog: Week 8, Day 3… or not…

Well, folks, I didn’t complete my workout today.

First, my normal schedule would have had me running yesterday, on Christmas Day… but that didn’t happen. At one point I thought I would head out and do it, but then I had to bake a pie to take to our friends’ house for dinner that evening, and we had company, and it just didn’t work out to be able to go to the park and run. SO…. I planned to do my workout today instead.

This morning I woke up with nothing official on my agenda until the afternoon. I wanted to get to the park and do my run and then enjoy the rest of the day of general post-Christmas laziness. I got up and had a piece of toast, a.k.a. the breakfast of champions, and drank some water. It was a cold morning, with some frost frozen on the windshield of the car that I had to scrape off before I could drive.

I was actually looking forward to today’s workout, just because I knew it would feel good when I was done. The sun was out, the track was dry, my iPod was cued up and ready to go.

I got to the park and saw the World’s Friendliest Stranger just getting started on a walk with one of her friends. She was a little ahead of me on the track this time, but I knew I’d catch up with her before I finished my warm-up walk. And sure enough, I caught up with her about a minute before my run started. She smiled and asked me if I had had “a good one (Christmas)” and I said I sure had, and how about her? She said yes. I went on.

Around the bend I began my run, in pretty much the exact same spot that I begin each time. It was uneventful. I tried to listen to the music and forget about everything else.

I got to BNH and briefly thought of sprinting up to the top today, just to get it over with quickly and see what would happen. But I feared that I would shut down too quickly if I didn’t keep a careful pace, so I just plodded up as usual.

The play list kept going, and I was doing OK, but somewhere around about the 3/4-mile mark, I started to falter. I started telling myself that I was tired, or that I just didn’t want to do it today. I thought about all the times I have had to talk myself out of stopping before. Just keep going and ignore the voice, and soon enough you’ll be over the hump….

This helped pass the time for a little while. I was running on fairly level ground then, and so I just put one foot in front of the other. I had passed the 1-mile mark.

But the thoughts kept coming back. I thought about walking, and what I would write here when I didn’t complete the workout. I thought about Celeste and Elizabeth and Vicki and a few others who have been reading and giving me lots of encouragement over the past several weeks. I thought about how I would explain my failure to finish today…

And then I laughed, as I realized I’d been planning in my head all the things I was going to say on the blog once I didn’t finish the workout — but the whole time I was thinking these things, I was still jogging! Silly goose, I thought. You just need to keep your mind on something else and you’ll be fine.

But, I was heading toward BNH again. And I was tired. And distracted. I should have gotten more sleep this week. I should have gotten more rest over Christmas. I should have eaten a better breakfast. I should have drunk more water this morning.

With every step, I thought about stopping.

Maybe this will be the step where I give up and walk…

Maybe this one…

I am sure I could push through this if I set my mind to it…

Maybe this one…

And then, I got just a little way up BNH, and I stopped jogging.

I walked up the hill with my head down, breathing heavily. As I neared the top, my shame was magnified by the fact that the World’s Friendliest Stranger was heading toward me. She said something encouraging, I’m not even sure what. I think she didn’t know that my stopping to walk then had been unplanned. She said something about keeping on, and I said something about not having it in me today.

I hit the top, and walked several yards more. I would estimate that I walked for a minute, maybe a minute and a half. I could have kept walking, but I started jogging again. Figured I’d better see if I could pick back up and complete at least most of the run. I still had a couple songs to get through.

So I was jogging again, and on the nice part of the track. And I thought… well… at least I can jog the rest of the time and it would only be a little bit shorter of a run than I was supposed to do. Just push on through.

But you know… after you’ve given up once, it’s terribly easy to give up again. My mind was already in a mode of defeat. The voice kept coming back, saying I may as well give up… or just jog to the end of this song, and then be done. It was like I couldn’t wait to be done at that point.

I did manage to jog about 3/4 of a mile that second time, before I gave up again. I’m guessing that I stopped at about the 24-minute mark on my play list, and if you subtract out the amount of walking time, I probably jogged about 22 minutes.

I have no excuses for not finishing today. I have no explanation other than to say, today I wasn’t on my game. It wasn’t in me. I guess I didn’t want it badly enough.

I walked back to my car ashamed, and mad, and tired, and wondering what to do next time. Should I go on and forge ahead with Week 9 on Monday? Or should I require myself to do a third 28-minute run before moving on? Or should I give up jogging all together? You know, there’s nothing wrong with walking. Lots of people do it every day!

For now, I’m just taking it easy. Maybe I’ll get some more rest this weekend and be raring to go on Monday. I can only hope.

JogBlog: Week 8, Day 2

Just a couple days until Christmas!

The weather was pretty nice this morning. The sun was out, the temperature was in the upper 30s. I rolled out of bed at about 8:30 and thought about when I might do my run today. I admit that there is a desire to blow off this week because of the holiday… I am definitely in a mode of “don’t ask, don’t tell” … you don’t ask me to do anything because I’m on vacation, and in return I don’t tell you where to go.

But I did want to do the run today, or at least try it. My last two runs have been less than inspiring, but I did complete them… and I didn’t want to break my streak of 8+ weeks of consecutive completed workouts! I’m stubborn and prideful like that.

I wore my regular running tights and a cold weather running shirt, tied my shoes and headed out. Today I had my iPod loaded with an updated song list… I changed last week’s list slightly in order to have 28 minutes of running music now. Got out of the car, stretched a little, turned on the music, and began my walk.

Warm-up song: “Walking on the Moon” by Sting. It’s almost exactly 5 minutes in length and so it serves me well as I’m getting started. I’m enjoying the sunshine and clear skies. My hands are cold, though, because I didn’t bring my gloves today (knowing I’d be hot by the end of the run). I tuck my fingers inside the little pockets that are built into the inside of my long sleeves. Who dreamed up these cool running shirts with the special pockets and the thumb holes and everything? I like them.

So Sting quits singing and I start jogging. I pass the Friendliest Stranger in the World in her pink puffy jacket, as she strolls along with another friend. She says good morning and happy holidays. I say thank you and the same to her. She really is friendly. And pink and puffy.

The first running song is “Come Sail Away” by Styx. I chose it because I like the song, and because it starts out slowly and then has more of a rhythm in the second half. So it works for me to start out slowly with my jogging, finding my pace and getting into a smoother rhythm after a couple minutes. Come sail away, come sail away, come sail away with meeeeee… Nice. Sometime when they are heading for the skies in their star ship, I’m huffing it up BNH.

Ahhh, BNH. It’s been a week since I’ve seen you, and I still hate you! But in a good way.

[Hey! Today I'm including a photo of BNH. I'm a little afraid to, because I don't think the picture really gives you an idea of how challenging this little sucker can be. But here it is, in case any of you were wondering. It's from the top looking down (opposite direction of how I was running) and I took it a couple days ago when I was walking my dog.]

As I crested the hill the first song was ending, and I knew that was about 6 minutes done! (Yes, I did check the lengths of all the songs as I put them on the play list, so I’d have a rough idea of where I’d be time-wise as each song ended. I’m like that.)

The second running song is “Still the One” by the Orleans. One of my all-time favorites! It starts out peppy and it stays peppy and it makes me feel peppy. Also, I love to sing along with it… but no way was I going to do that while I was running. But I enjoyed the song and let it move me along. I was in the best section of the track just then.

Hey, there’s the Friendly Stranger again. I’m in cruise mode now, although I know I’m still pretty slow. As I pass by I say that she must be marveling at how slowly I jog. She laughs and says something to the contrary as I continue on.

Next up on the song list: “Call Me The Breeze” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Well now they call me the breeze… I keep blowin’ down the road… I ain’t got nobody… I don’t carry me no load… And even though I’m sure no one is actually calling me The Breeze, the song also does a good job of moving me along right when I first start to think about stopping to walk…

Yes, it happens every time. I can be going along fine and then something will hit me and I’ll start telling myself, “hey, you’ve gone X minutes already, why not take a break? Who ever said you have to be a runner? Just take a little break.” But I’ve found that if I ignore myself I can usually get through whatever rough spot I’ve hit and keep going. Just keep going.

I’m about 1 1/3 miles in, and I’ve guessed that my first mile pace was under 12 minutes, which is great for me. I’m about to start up BNH when “Dialogue Pts. 1 & 2″ comes on, by Chicago. The lyrics on this one… well I’ve never really gotten them all straight before from just listening. But I love the beat of the song for jogging, and then when it gets near the end and they keep saying we can make it happen, yeah… we can make it happen… over and over, it serves as a nice pep talk when you are struggling a little.

I’m tired. But I’m on an easy part of the track, so I keep going.

“Taking Care of Business” by BTO is my penultimate run song today. If you ever get annoyed, look at me, I’m self-employed, I love to work at nothing all day. Yeah, I love the music but I’m also all about the lyrics

I see the Friendly Stranger again, this time she’s walking the same direction as me with a different companion. As I pass the 2-mile point in my run, I pass her and she says “you go girl!” and I laugh as I’m huffing and puffing and say that I’m just waiting for the music to stop so I can stop running! Which is simultaneously so true and so sad.

Now comes a big moment in my run today. I’m heading toward BNH again. Since the run is longer today, my 28 minutes would definitely take me up that monster one more time if I keep going. I’m not sure I’m in the mood. Things have gone relatively well so far… should I risk a major fizzle at the end of the run? Hmmm.

The last running song comes on: “Rockin’ Down the Highway” by the Doobie Brothers. I jog and I think. I get closer and I think. Can’t stop, and I can’t stop, gotta keep moving or I’ll lose my mind… whoaaaaa, rockin’ down the highway…..

So I get to a curve in the track just before BNH, and I turn around and jog back in the other direction. Call me a coward, or call me brilliant, but I’m going to finish without feeling nauseated today! Hooray for me. And, shame on me for not pushing it. I pass the Friendly Stranger one more time going the other way, and say “I just didn’t feel like doing that hill again” and she says she doesn’t blame me.

And I’m jogging along and I know I’m getting close, and wow, that song just sort of ends very abruptly! Da-da da da-da DUM. And you’re through. The end! Twenty-eight minutes are over.

Or… well I don’t want to brag or anything, but if you add up all the songs in my iTunes you would see that I actually jogged for 28 minutes and five seconds. So I earned extra credit!

As was the case with my jog at the end of last week, the cool-down song is “Too Hot” by Kool & the Gang. Which is fitting, since after that long run I am too hot to do anything but run (or walk) for shelter.

I make it back to my car, proud of finishing with relative ease after two lackluster workouts. I don’t know if I would have felt better or worse if I’d gone ahead and tackled BNH that one last time. I don’t care.

My last workout for Week 8 is scheduled to be on Christmas Day. I haven’t decided yet if I will actually run that day or if I’ll skip it and go on Saturday instead.

I guess it will depend on the weather… and  on whether I wake up feeling more like Santa Claus or like a reindeer that morning.

Merry Christmas!

Check this out…

A quick post to let everyone know about a friend of mine in Tennessee who has started a blog to go along with his effort to hike all 900 miles of trails at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He lives close to the park and has hiked there frequently… but now is making a concerted effort to hit every trail instead of just the family favorites. He’s just getting started with the blog, although he has already covered a chunk of mileage from past hikes which he recounts in his first post. I’m sure you can expect to read some fun stories and see some great photos from his hikes going forward!  Check it out at 900 miles.

JogBlog: Week 8, Day 1

Monday morning. The week of Christmas. Kids are on break from school. I’m taking some time off of work. I have some holiday baking to do, some serious house cleaning that needs to be done, and at least a little Christmas shopping that I ought to take care of. Oh… and I’m supposed to do my C25K workout today.

I almost skipped it. Thought of about a million reasons to blow this day off, to do other things. Any other things.

It’s a cold day, but not as bad as some recent days. There are some meager remains of snow on the ground from the weekend. We only got a dusting, really… maybe an inch at most. Nothing ever stuck to the roads. The kids went to play in it and made a muddy mess of the yard.

With all the things I’m supposed to accomplish today, I’m not sure I want to take the extra time to go to the park for my run. Maybe today I should do the treadmill instead.

I dread it. Not only do I dread the thought of increasing my jog time to 28 minutes this week, but I also dread the thought of doing those 28 minutes on the treadmill. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to have a treadmill. It’s really a handy thing to have. But in the past when I’ve used my treadmill, it’s always been on my own terms… and I’ve never used it for a lengthy run before, I’ve mostly only ever used it for walking.

As the morning dragged on and I tried many different ways to excuse myself from the workout, I finally told myself to just do it. Get on the treadmill, get it over with. At least try!

I thought about using my playlist to run with, but decided I’d watch something on the TV instead. The music would be nice, but even the best music isn’t going to do much to improve on the boring scenery in our basement. No, at least with the TV I could have something visual to distract me from watching the time tick down…

So, I turned on the treadmill and got started. The TV was on and I was watching the last half hour or so of the movie, “Never Been Kissed” on AMC. That’s a fun movie.

I walked my 5-minute warmup at about a 3.5-4 mph pace. Incline set to 2%. Yawn.

When the time came to jog, I bumped the speed up to 5 mph. Whooohoooo, we’re rockin’ now! Ha ha. Yes I know it’s kind of slow… but I’m the one who has to keep this up for 28 minutes, so I get to pick the speed, mmmmkay?

It’s funny because 5 mph feels really slow. And yet, I know that my average pace is pretty close to a 12-minute mile, so I want to keep it there. I’m not feeling energized just yet. I’m already thinking, what? I have to do this for 28 minutes? I don’t think I’m going to make it.

I will pause here to say that I think the reason I love to run outside so much more is that when I run outside, I know I have to get somewhere. I have scenery to look at and hills to climb and people to convince that I am a runner. I have a car or a house that I have to get back to when the workout is done. But on the treadmill, I just have the clock. Watching TV is nice, but it’s not the same. Also, when I run outside I know I am constantly making adjustments to my speed… a little faster on the level spots, a little slower on the uphill climbs. Sure, I can adjust the speed on my treadmill when I want to, but I’d rather not bother with it. I’d rather just be able to settle in to my run and not worry about other details until it’s over.

So I’m doing my jog and after, say, 5 minutes I am at least loosened up a bit. I’m watching the movie, but then the commercials keep coming on. Do you own life insurance? What about medical insurance? You should have both of those things, otherwise you will end up like this older couple, where the man was supposed to fix the kitchen cabinet door but he hasn’t done it yet, because he has other things on his “to do” list that he needs to finish first. But his wife points out that buying insurance is so easy! And it will only take a moment on the phone, or something. And by the end of the commercial, they have acquired the insurance they need, even though they are old. And now the husband can fix that cabinet door. These daytime commercials, they are just priceless.

I am not even sure where I am in my run now. Somewhere in the middle. I keep looking at the time on  my treadmill timer, and subtracting 5 minutes for the warmup, and figuring how much longer I have to go. Even though before I ever stepped on the machine, I could tell you that I needed to walk until 5 minutes and then run until the 33 minute mark, I still needed to look and check and recalculate all the time.

Somewhere around 15 minutes of running, I told myself “maybe I’ll just do 20 minutes today.” I tried to convince myself that it would be OK to do some shorter runs this week, that is was silly to ever have tried to do this running program during the holiday season. So yeah, 20 minutes will be fine. Just get to the 25 minute mark on the timer, and then you can walk. No one will condemn you for it.

The movie is good, but these ridiculous commercials keep coming on.  I remember how a long time ago I used to try to do interval workouts at night, and I would speed walk during the show segments and then try to jog during the commercial segments.  I did it because I really wasn’t a jogger, and so I wanted to walk but then do some shorter intervals of jogging just to get the heart rate up.  I realize that if I were doing that same thing during this movie, I’d be jogging more than walking because the commercial segments are SO LONG AND SO MANY. Sheesh. And they are mostly about insurance.

I reach 25 minutes on the timer; 20 minutes into my run. OK, I say, you’re doing all right for the moment, how about try to make it to 25? Then at least you will be where you were on Week 7, you won’t really be falling behind so much as just repeating a week. No big deal. And look, here’s another commercial to watch while you think about it.

So I keep going. But really, I’ll stop at 25 minutes. I’ve been tweaking my speed and incline a little bit, just to keep things interesting and maybe give myself a little break now and then. My running speed was 4.9-5.1. The incline was at 2% most of the way, but then closer to the end I went to 1.5, and eventually to 1. And these are all fascinating numbers, aren’t they? Get out your graph paper and be sure to make a chart showing my progress.Then make a commercial about it… maybe I’ll get to watch it next time.

Finally I reach 30 minutes on the timer (25 minutes of running). Hey! That’s the length of last week’s run. I can stop now. I give myself permission to stop…

Oh, poo. Just keep going, it’s only three more minutes. Stick it out to the end!

Two more minutes… one more minute…

We’re at about 30 seconds left. Let’s go nuts. Let’s up the speed a bit! Whoohoooooo! SIX mph, baby. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. For all of 20-ish seconds, I was running 6 mph.

I ran several seconds past that 33 minute mark on the timer. You know, just to be sure.

Cool down time. Movie credits are rolling. No commercials now, because they would never want to keep you from seeing who the Best Boy or the Key Grip was.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

JogBlog: Week 7, Day 3

[With sincerest apologies to Clement Moore.]

‘Twas a week before Christmas, and seemed a fine day
to do my next workout for Couch-to-5K.
I decided to try out a new place to run
to see if it might make the workout more fun…
so up did I bundle (because it was cold)
and hopped in my car and drove down the road.
My iPod was synced up with songs that might keep me
from losing steam, running Week Seven Day Three.
I started the warm-up with Sting in my ear,
and we walked on the moon without shedding a tear…
but then when the second tune started to play
I knew it was time for the long run today.
So I quickened my steps and was trotting along
and listening to Styx as they sang me a song.
I hadn’t gone far when I came to a place
where a sizable hill stared me right in the face,
and just for a moment I wished I was back
with BNH looming on that other track!
But I threw myself forward and on up the hill
with little else pushing but sheer force of will.
The next several minutes are not too specific:
I jogged even though I did not feel terrific.
A trio of ladies I passed on the way—
it was evident they didn’t have much to say.
And then I was wondering how far I’d run,
and shouldn’t this third song be just about done?
I knew there were five songs I had to get through
before I could get to the cool-down, but, phew!
I was already starting to run out of gas.
Already! When not fifteen minutes had passed!
“Call Me The Breeze” had just finished playing
and I wanted to scream out “I blow!” [I'm just saying.]
With each passing stride I was growing distraught
and wanted to walk. “Why not give up?” I thought.
But keeping my two feet in motion instead,
I kept pushing forward, and looking ahead,
and telling myself “if you jog this much more,
you just might be able to get through song four.”
And thankfully then, as the ground got more even
I got a brief chance to catch up on my breathing.
The fourth song was playing, and nearing its end,
and I hoped that the fifth song would be my new friend…
it started to play, and I must tell you now
that this wasn’t the best day for old “Running Cow.”
If there had been even one more hill of note
for me to ascend, that would be all she wrote.
But, lucky for me, the worst was behind me
and knowing that just a few minutes would find me
at the end of my run, I pressed on ahead.
Then finally, when I was just about dead
I heard the last notes of that precious fifth ditty
and let out a gasp, [and it didn't sound pretty]
and I knew I was done, or at least I was close…
I ended a few seconds early, at most.
And then it was time for the cool-down to start:
a time that has grown near and dear to my heart!
So I turned to head back toward my car in the lot
and Kool and the Gang sang me there with “Too Hot.”
I got to my car, had some water to drink,
and looking to next week, I started to think,
if twenty-five minutes was so hard to meet
how will I do three more minutes next week?

[I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. See you Monday!]