Week 4 Underway

Friday night, I headed back to the trusty Cool Springs YMCA with an idea that I would do Week 3 Day 3 all over again...so that's what I did...and it was hard. Again. I don't really know why, but it was...

 

So yesterday rolls around...I know I have to do something...and in my head, I'm completely confused. I'm thinking Week 4 Day 1 is a 3 minute run, a 5 minute run and another 3 minute run. In actuality, it's a 3 minute run, a 5 minute run, a 3 minute run and another 5 minute run. For three weeks, I had been running 9 minutes total...on Sunday, I was required to run 16. Honestly, if I had been clear on that, I might have psyched myself out, but when I got on the treadmill at the Franklin Y (the Cool Springs Y is closed on Sundays), I figured I'd at least try it to see how I did (considering how hard Friday was).

 

I turned on Ray Lamontagne's new album and just ran. And ran. And had problems with the first three minute run...but once my legs were warmed up, it really wasn't that hard. A couple of times, I considered turning the speed down to about 3.8, but I figured I'd keep going until I absolutely could not run at that speed...and I finished it.

 

Week 4 Day 1 is in the bag. We are trucking, baby!

Week 3...In the Bag...Kinda

Wednesday night, I finally got around to finishing off Week 3...after spending 30 minutes on the elliptical.

 

It wasn't easy...not remotely, but I got it done. I'm going to do a "Day 4" tonight of some sort so that I can start Week 4 during the same week...I also think I'm going to start weight training tonight...

 

Sadly, the only aspect of Wednesday's night run that stood out to me was that the Braves blew a 9 run lead...it was a replay, but I hadn't seen it yet and didn't know the result yet...so it made me sad...and I'm sure that's why the run was harder. That and the 30 minutes of interval training on the elliptical before it.

 

If I do train on the elliptical on running nights, I'm going to do easy routes and do the hard ones on my off days...which means if I go tonight, we're going with virtually no incline or resistance.

 

Excitement ensues!

Weight Watchers Redux - Week 2

Starting Weight: 303.4 lbs

First Weigh In (8/24/2010): 302.2 lbs (-1.2 lbs/0.39% weight loss)

 

Well, this was disappointing. Although, they say that any week with a loss is a good week...I was hoping to be under 300.

 

I really have to step it up this week.

Sore

I'm sure this will be a subject that comes up often...

 

I'm going to restart Week 3 tonight. After I ran Day 2 on Wednesday, I planned on running Day 3 on Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning and helped my friend Kim move kids into Belmont...and, after 3 hours of carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs, I was exhausted...and sore. So, no running on Saturday.

 

Sunday, I woke up...even more sore. So I figured that I would just restart Week 3 on Monday.

 

Monday morning. Still sore. Last night I went to the gym anyway. I knew I couldn't run, but I had to find something to do.

 

I hopped onto the elliptical for an hour while I watched the Titans game...I burned 700 calories...but guess what? Still sore.

Week 3 - Truckin' Along

Last night got hard for some reason.

 

I'm not too sure why.

 

I went to the Cool Springs Y, popped onto the "good" treadmill and started up Day 2. The first running interval went by pretty smoothly, but the first 3 minute one was a struggle. I really don't know why...it was an effort to keep putting one leg in front of the other. Finally, it was over. The second 90 second interval wasn't that bad and the second 3 minute interval wasn't really bad at all until about the last 30 seconds. Not sure what all of that was about...

 

After I finished, I hopped onto the elliptical and did a good 30 minute workout without too much trouble. At the end, the elliptical said I had burned 400 calories...and when combined with the 111 the treadmill said that I had burned, it was a pretty good night.

 

I just wish that I knew why it was so much harder last night than it was on Monday night.

Weight Watchers Redux - Week 1

Starting Weight: 303.4 lbs

 

That's a little horrifying. The last time I started, I was at 314. Now I'm at 303. Seriously. It's horrifying. I had been down into the 280s.

 

The class I'm doing now is at work. It's a 12 week class...for this one, they gave us all of our books up front and a nice little box with some extra books, a three month tracker and a few other goodies.

 

My point target for the first week is 42 points. That...that's just a lot of points. The one advantage is that can eat a little more than the average person. The disadvantage is...I can eat a little more than the average person. Let's hope I tell myself over and over not to get accustomed to it.

 

The good news is that in order to hit my 10 percent by the end of the 12 week class...I need to lose just 30 pounds. That means I just need to lose just 2.5 pounds per week for the next 12 weeks. It also means I'm going to start completely busting my butt at the gym every night. I also need to get a new scale after I work out tonight so that I can do "unofficial" weigh-ins each morning to make sure that I'm making progress.

 

Here we go again...

Week 3 Redux

It occurred to me late yesterday that I left out a major piece about Thursday night's run - I went to a different Y...and I went again last night.

 

The Cool Springs YMCA is a tiiiiiiny Y. Like tiiiiiiiny. It's in a converted warehouse/business park and only takes up about a third of the building. The wellness center features zero rowing machines and zero recumbent bikes. Aside from all of that, it was a really, really, really awesome treadmill that the other Y does not have. It has a feature on it where I can just punch in a number and it automatically goes to that speed. It makes the converstion from walking to running on the C25K all the easier.

 

I'll be spending my nonrunning (rowing) days at the trusty Franklin Y, but for the running ones, I think I'll be heading to Cool Springs...if for no other reason than their TVs get more channels (read: the ones with Braves games).

 

Last night was Week 3 Day 1. As I mentioned yesterday, it consists of two 90 second runs and two 3 minute runs. While the runs themselves weren't horrible...I will say that the second three minute run did leave me looking at the clock a lot...the treadmill was off center. It wobbled during the entire run...and I'm not entirely sure why...I think it may have been resting on a cord.

 

Also, the big toe on my right foot hurts today. That's a new one.

 

Weight Watchers is coming to my work later today, so I'm restarting the program. Details to come.

Week 2 Complete

Apparently, my last run on Week 2 went so well that I forgot to blog about it.

 

Don't you hate when that happens?

 

However, I did finish the first two weeks within a two week time period. That, I'm quite proud of. I didn't get to do my extra run on Saturday due to attending a Tomato Festival in the 100 degree heat...my legs are still sore though from all of that...I'm not entirely sure what that means.

 

Week 3 Day 1 is tonight. I'm a little nervous, but I've done it before. Moving from 1 minute to a minute and a half during Week 1 and 2 wasn't a huge issue at all. However, I remember quite well that the three minute runs are the start of the "not fun" part of this. Week 3 features a 90 second run, a 3 minute run, a 90 second run and another 3 minute run. Again, I only run for 9 minutes every day this week...but the 3 minute intervals are a wee daunting.

Week 2 Redux - One to Go!

Two down. One to go. Week 2 is almost done.

 

I didn't run back-to-back days as I had initially planned because I had a friend who needed me, so tonight will be the conclusion of Week 2. In two weeks, no less. So far I'm at my fastest completion rate yet!

 

Anyway, I showed up to the Y and found a treadmill. While I was listening to a book on tape on my iPod, I tend to want to turn the TV on while I run just to give me a little visual stimulation since I can't have the normal running down the road stimulation. Unfortunately, at this Y, all of the TVs with remote controls were taken, so I had to find one and hope it was on something I would want to watch...it was on ESPN2 and it was primetime, so I thought I was safe. Not so fast my friend. 3 minutes into the run, we came back from commercial break - professional women's softball. That's right...as I sat there running along, the whole gym saw me watching professional women's softball.

 

Did you even know there was such a thing as professional women's softball?

 

But I digress...the run wasn't hard...as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to try to finish up Week 2 tonight...so we'll see how it goes!

Another Week...Another Run

I hit week two running. Well, mainly because that's the point.

 

I'm too lazy to go back and look, but this may only be the second time that I've actually reached week two. The last time I made it through week five. I know as a fact that I've only made it into week three once.

 

As per week one, last night was on the treadmill...I listened to an audiobook while watching the Reds-Cardinals game.

 

A quick sidebar: I've been asked how I can listen to an audiobook when I run...basically, I just zone out...or I focus on more than one thing at a time. As you've seen from this blog if you've read back at all, I tend to go back and forth between books and music. Right now, I'm on books. I guarantee you that as soon as I run through Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, we'll be right back to Pearl Jamming and DMBing it up. And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

 

Week Two consists of six 1:30 runs and 5 two minute walks. As I did last week, I did all of my walks at 3 MPH and my runs at 4 MPH. We're going on a flat course...my theory being that once I get the distance, then I can start messing with the speed and the terrain. In all honesty, it wasn't that much harder than any of last week's runs...towards the end, I started thinking that maybe I should have had a little bit more water before I came, but other than that...it was smooth sailing.

 

I'm learning quickly that the art is to go slooooow. As in, run as slow as you can while still maintaining a running stride.

 

Finally, again this week, I am running into a Friday night where I won't be able to run, which leaves me with two options - I can run again tonight and then Thursday or I can run tomorrow and then Thursday. I'm thinking that tonight would be my best option, so I will be doing W2D2 this evening and hoping that I recover enough to do W2D3 on Thursday.

Slow Slow Day

I don't really know what happened. Of course, I also don't know about the rowing machine, so there may be a setting that I'm missing. No matter how hard I tried, I could not move my pace under 10 minutes. I would lean forward and row as hard as possible...and I couldn't move under 10 minutes. I was just slow. So so slow.

 

My final time was 10:32.4, which was almost a minute and a half slower than Tuesday...and I don't know why. I should have been much faster, but I couldn't go.

 

The run, however, was decent. It was a little more exhausting than usual (considering I had just been on the rower), but it really didn't take me entirely too much effort to finish. And surprise - I'm done with Week 1! And two days in a row wasn't bad...I feel fine today. I really do think my only problems with soreness and tiredness were related to coming off the rower.

 

Contemplating going ahead and starting Week 2 tomorrow.

A dilemma...

I just realized that I won't be able to make it to the gym tomorrow night.

 

Tonight is my rowing night. Do I dare attempt Week 1 Day 3 the day immediately following Week 1 Day 2? I feel good enough after last night that I feel can do it...so I'm going to try it.

 

I'm just worried about how I'll feel tomorrow...and the day after tomorrow. I hope it doesn't set me back. Hopefully it will leap me forward.

 

There's only one way to find out!

C25K Reprise: Week 1 Day 2

In what I believe is my fifth attempt at the C25K, I think this is only the third time that I've made it to W1D2 and it may actually be only the second time I've made it there within the span of a week.

 

The run was almost the exact same as Monday...I built up to 3 MPH on the treadmill during the warmup...then did every run at 4 MPH. I was able to snag the treadmill in the corner, which meant I wouldn't be running in front of someone on an elliptical. For some reason, I don't want random cute girl on the elliptical to see me huffing and puffing and slowing down to a walk every other minute (or running at a blazing 4 MPH).

 

Also, my TV wouldn't work, so I listened to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo instead. Horrors, I know.

 

It definitely was the easiest W1D2 of the bunch, which I attribute to a) my new pacing rules and b) the fact that this isn't my first rodeo. To be honest, I could probably do all of Week 2 right now, considering that I run an extra 5-10 seconds on each run just to make sure I go all the way through it, but I want to do it correctly, so we'll stick with W1D3 tomorrow.

9:10.3

Subjects are hard. After a while, when you don't really have any rhyme or reason to naming your blog posts, you sort of just have to wing it...like yesterday's post, which I brilliantly named "Monday Monday" despite it being written on a Tuesday.

 

I did the rower last night and had a new personal best, thus, the title of the post. I at least have found a way to give my brain a little bit of a rest...I just have to get a personal best every day I do the rower. Or not.

 

Moving on, obviously, I finished my 2000m in 9:10.3. My initial timed runs last week were 9:44.9 and 9:48.5. Somehow in a week, I've become 30 seconds better. The only difference I made this time was I warmed up for about 5 minutes, going at a 15 minute pace. I also wore weightlifting gloves which, per my calculations, made me look approximately 8.2% more badass. And finally, I didn't have music because I forgot the armband to my iPod. It wasn't easy...not at all. For one thing, there was a guy on the rower next to me and he managed to move his rower over closer to mine. While it never hit hard enough to do anything but be annoying, he was so close that about every ten strokes or so, the bar from his rower would brush across my elbow. I wasn't a fan of that, but it wasn't like I could just get up and move his. Other than that, it felt like a strong run, but it probably could have been stronger. At one point near halfway, the monitor said that I was making about an 8 minute pace. My theory is that when I try it tomorrow, I should aim for a negative split so I have energy left in the last half to try to get below 9 minutes.

 

After my row, I went to my old trusty recumbent bike and did the old trusty Alpine Hill at old trusty level 8. I got past 10 miles, which was my goal - I've been out for a week, give me a break! While I contemplated a cooldown row, I realized that with my legs exhausted and W1D2 of the C25K coming up today, it was time to call it a night. And that's what I did.

Monday Monday...

No, this time I haven't been slacking. I've just been sick.

 

The last time I worked out was last Wednesday (July 21). The following night, I put on my gym clothes and went to eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory before heading over to the gym. However, I was full and figured missing one night wouldn't hurt me.

 

At 5 am, I woke up...and I was sick. No gym for me Friday through Sunday. I still felt a little iffy on Monday and Tuesday. When I finally hit normalcy on Wednesday, I decided just to take the whole week off so I would be fully recovered and ready to rock and roll on Monday. Also, I managed to probably lose about 10 pounds while I was sick (I don't recommend it...at one point I decided that losing a limb would have been more pleasant).

 

Last night, I headed back to the trusty YMCA with running in my head...so I decided to try C25K one more time with what I believe is a failsafe strategy. I started out on the treadmill walking at 3 miles an hour and only ran at 4 miles an hour. Yes the runs were extremely slow, but they caused no pain and there was no doubt that I would get through them. In all of the W1D1's I've had, last night was the easiest. There really isn't much more to tell.

 

Tonight, I continue my rowing quest after my brief hiatus.