springrunner

W1D2 (week 1 day 2) of C25K (COUCH TO 5K) completed! And I ran in the rain! Am I hard core or what? I waited all day for the rain to stop. It never did, but it did slow down significantly, so I jumped at the chance to get out. I do have a treadmill, which I am grateful for, but I’d rather run outside if at all possible. My pace was much slower than Saturday! I only ran 1.16 miles at an average 17:19 pace and burned 102 calories. I am not loving the inserts my podiatrist wanted me to get. When I ran with them Saturday, I noticed them, but it wasn’t really bothersome. They weren’t rubbing or anything, I just knew they were there, and I didn’t really like or dislike it, was just aware of it. Well, today running through ankle deep puddles created by the crappy, uneven sidewalks in my subdivision, once my feet were wet, I became very aware of the inserts. Like to the point that if I had run much longer, I am sure they would have started rubbing blisters. Not cool. So now I have my running shoes out on the back porch. I am going to get some newspaper and crumple it up and place in the shoes to dry. At least that’s what everyone on the running forums says to do. I took the inserts out, and hopefully they will dry ok. I guess no more running in the rain. I rather liked it, other than the inserts rubbing. I guess when I finally do get to run a marathon or half marathon, I better pray for sunny skies. I noticed Luke’s Locker has an injury section, so I may go over there and talk to them about it, and see what they suggest, other than keeping my shoes dry during running. Regardless, I’m glad to be running again, however slowly that may be.

The air is crisp and cool. I can sleep in a little, get out a little later, and it still feels early. 9:00 on a Saturday morning, and nobody about. No kids outside playing. Just the birds chirping and the sound of my heavy breathing. Invigorating. So, I finally got the green light to start easing back into running, with the condition that I buy an insert for my running shoe to raise my heel. I bought it, ran with it. Not sure if it helped. My feet feel ok. I’m icing them now, so we’ll see how they feel later in the day and tomorrow. I’m not going back to PIM. There is no way I can catch up. Starting over with my running is getting kind of old, but what else can I do. There are only 2 sessions left in PIM, and then they are running their goal race November 7. If I go Wednesday night I will have to run 20 minutes straight. Not happening. Sigh. So, I decided to follow the C25K (couch to 5K) plan, a popular begin to run plan, and just do it on my own. So this morning I did W1D1, which is 5 minutes brisk walk warmup, run 1 minute, walk 1.5 minutes x 8, and 5 minute cool down. I struggled with that minute run, but I did it. I ran 1.27 miles at a 15:45 minute/mile pace, and burned 126 calories. My last run before this one was September 30th, when I ran 1.85 miles at a 15:09 pace and burned 155 calories. So, I’ve gone backwards a little, but not too bad. I just have to take this slow and do it right, and not get hurt, and build up my base and endurance. I’ll get there. C25K is 9 weeks long. My goal race is in 8 weeks – the Jingle Bell Run. I may not be able to run the whole thing without stopping, but I should be close. I will have completed week 7, which is run for 25 minutes, so even if I have to walk some, it should be fine. I’m still going to do the Great Pumpkin 1K with Adam on Halloween. I don’t know if I’ll do the 3K in addition to that. I definitely won’t try the 5K, but we’ll see how it goes between now and then. 3K is about 1.8 miles, but it’s only a week away, so I probably won’t. Then in November, I wanted to do one of the Turkey Trots. The one in the Woodlands is 5 miles. I guess that’s out. The TXU Turkey Trot has a 5K. I will have completed week 4 by that point, so we’ll just see how much distance I’m covering at that point. There will be a lot of walkers though, so I could always do it and just walk if I need to. We’ll see. The key is just getting from here to there.