Run Forrest, Run!

This blog has been sorely neglected this summer!  Even though we haven't done much this summer, it feels like we have been constantly busy.   Add that to my laziness and lack of creative writing skills, and you have one pathetic blog.  I have a lot of things that I'd like to write about so my new goal is to update weekly, if not more.  I'm sure that anyone reading this (if anyone is still out there? Mom? Somebody?) is tired of hearing about my garden.  All I'll say is that it's still doing well,  I have tomatoes coming out of my ears!  Some things have done well and others will definitely not be planted again next year.

Something else keeping me busy this summer has been my exercise routine.  Yes, I hate that word....exercise.  Barf.  In February I started a Live Healthy Iowa program with a friend and have lost 25 pounds since then.  It should have been twice that but I've had several months were my weight just would not budge, no matter what.  Since the weather has been nice, I've gone walking nearly every single night.  Even in the rain sometimes.  I change my route so it's not boring but I almost always get is 3-4 miles each night.  On top of that, I started doing the Couch-To-5k (C25K) program.  If you don't know what it is, it's basically a 9-week program (you do it 3 times per week) that takes you from sitting your behind on the couch day 1 to running a 5k week 9 (or longer for some of us.)  I don't know what made me decide to start, I literally was just walking one night and though "hey, wouldn't it be cool if that C25K program had an iPhone app where you could play your music in the background and a little alarm went off when it was time to switch between running and walking?"  And, like everything in this world, there was an app for that.  It was 2 or 3 bucks so I grabbed it and that same day tried it out.  Since then I have been 100% faithfully running/jogging.  Here's a breakdown for anyone interested:

(All days start with a 5 minute warm-up walk and end with a 5 minute cool-down walk)

Week 1 (days 1-3) Alternate between 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking, for a total of 20 minutes

Week 2 (days 1-3) Alternate between 90 seconds of jogging and 2 minutes of walking, for a total of 20 minutes

Week 3 (days 1-3) Run 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds, run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes, then repeat all of the steps a 2nd time

Week 4 (days 1-3) Run 3 minutes, walk 90 seconds, run 5 minutes, walk 2.5 minutes, run  3 minutes, walk 90 seconds, run 5 minutes

Week 5 (day 1) Run 5 minutes, Walk 3 minutes, Run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes
Week 5 (day 2) Run 8 minutes, walk 5 minutes, run 8 minutes
Week 5 (day 3) Run 20 minutes.  (yes, you read that correctly)

Week 6 (day 1) Run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 8 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes
Week 6 (day 2) Run 10  minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 10 minutes
Week 6 (day 3) Run 25 minutes

Week 7 (days 1-3) Run 25 minutes

Week 8 (days 1-3) Run 28 minutes

Week 9 (days 1-3) Run 30 minutes


There it is!  At the end of week 9 you can run 30 minutes, which is a typical 5K run.  I am MUCH slower than typical so I have to work on my speed once I get my endurance up.  Tonight I finished week 6, day 1.

If you were to ask me 6 weeks ago if I could do this, I would flat out tell you that you were crazy for asking.  Seriously, it was hard for me to run those 60 seconds the first week.....but as cliche' as it sounds, you can do it if you put your mind to it.  I'm 80 pounds overweight still and I can do it.  Last week I ran 20 minutes straight!  Plus, as a bonus, this is something you can do for FREE.  Once you get into it, you will want some good running shoes, and of course I LOVE the $3 app I bought (it tracks distance, speed, and even has gps to map where I ran.)