That's What Jenni Said

  Several of you have emailed me to ask how my running regime has been going. I started c25k in June 2010. Way back in 2010! I made it to one week shy of graduation (I chose the distance goal versus time so for me graduation= running a 5k) and it took me something like 12 weeks to get there. I felt so good about my progress and about myself. And then...when I was so close...I let life get in the way. I lost my job (govt contract rebid lost by my employer), got depressed/anxious about that and stopped running consistently which kept setting back my progress. THEN I landed a  job and was super busy learning the paces of  the new environment and used that as an excuse to not run consistently. THEN in the winter my elderly parents fell ill, Dad came to live with us, was very sick and eventually died in March of 2011. Between the stress and grief my running was sporadic at best. I was determined to start running again in March after his death but something just wouldn't sn...

It was a very full weekend around our household. Friday I prepped and executed a birthday party for Literary Elly May . It was her 27th and we employed a zombie theme for the event. It was nice to have all her friends join us to celebrate. Saturday I led my walking meetup ( NoVA Walkers ) on a moderately challenging 6.8 mile hike in the Shenandoah Natl Park. We hiked Piney River Falls with a group of 8 and stopped for lunch once we reached the falls. The trail configuration is out-and-back, with a 3.4 mile decline down the valley to the falls and likewise 3.4 mile incline return. My recent running program has dramatically improved my cardio so I had no difficulties on the return section with breathing. However, despite my  muscle building (also thanks to running) it was clearly not enough to prepare me for a trail with this kind of protracted incline because although I was fine during the hike, I was very sore all day Sunday. Still, it was great to get out there and rise to the ...

I know you are all hanging with baited breath for my update. :) For the c25k program I worked on W1D1 again- third time is a charm! I made it through all 8 run intervals without having to walk any part of any of them. In fact the first 4 run intervals ended on the podcast before I was expecting them to and that gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I also noticed my inner thought dialogue changing from "is this over, when is this going to be over, how many more seconds can there be..argh..i don't know if i can make it" to "ok, keep my head up, that's better, this feels good, lift the legs up using muscle don't push down using bone, my form is good here, i wonder if i am going uphill slightly or down, hey look at that squirrel, etc". In other words able to let my mind wander because it's not consumed with thoughts of how much this sucks/how hard it is. I feel accomplished. The session also represents (don't laugh) my first full week in a lo...