I continued running, off and on, after I stopped writing last January, and I finally finished the C25K program at the end of April. The Race for the Cure was in May, on Mother’s Day. It was a fantastic day. Anthony, my dad, my uncle (my mom’s brother) and his wife, along with their 3 kids + 1 girlfriend, and I ran the race. My brother came along to cheer us on and take photos. My cousins Dana, Jason, and Jason’s girlfriend Kim are actual “runners” so they ran off at the beginning and we never saw them again. Ant tagged along with them. He’s a smoker and didn’t do any training, but being a great athlete, he kept right up. My cousin Alison, who doesn’t consider herself to be a runner but is very athletic, stayed back with my slow ass. She had us weaving in and out of other runners, passing people, and keeping a steady pace. I was definitely running at a faster pace than usual since I was trying to keep up with her. We left the “old folks” behind and got to see them all cross the finish line.

I have to say, it was pretty inspiring to see my dad and aunt/uncle cross the finish line. And I was feeling pretty good about crossing it myself. I did it in just under 30 minutes, a personal best. And after that we got to go to the Wawa tent which was filled with all kinds of goodies, fruit, pretzels, donuts, candy and more. We ate a ton of food and then ran up the steps at the Art Museum — Rocky style! Overall, it was a great way to spend my first Mother’s Day without my mom. Not to mention that I raised over $1,000 for Breast Cancer Awareness.

It turned out that there was another 5k right here in town the next weekend to support a local mom (who had been friends with my mom) with her fight against lung cancer. So I figured, why the hell not? And I went and ran that one too. I have to admit that I had gotten shitfaced the night before, and I think I was still drunk when I ran it, but I think it was actually less painful because of it. Terrible, I know. But the important thing is that I did it, right? I may have run once or twice since then, but really I haven’t run since May.

Alicia and I joined the gym for a 3-month term at the end of May, and we went a couple times a week for a while. But it fizzled out half way through the summer. In August, I was away for two weeks, one week in Italy (best week of my life) and one week in Tampa for work. And then my membership ran out after I returned. I still haven’t started it up again. I’ve been telling myself I don’t need the membership because I can start running again now that it’s getting cool outside again. But I’ve been saying this since the beginning of September, and now it’s the end of November and I’m finally going out for my first run in 6 months. I can be such a lazy bum.

In my defense, I have been extremely busy at work (but we all know this is not a good excuse) and I was pregnant for a month (a better excuse?). I found out on September 26th and I was about 4 weeks along. My doctor said that I could continue with any regular activities/exercise I’d been getting (which at the time wasn’t really much of anything). I asked her if it’d be okay to run and she said that was fine. I told her that I have a hard time breathing while I run, and she suggested staying away from running then. Great, a real excuse not to run…my doctor says I can’t. Then midway through October, I had some complications and lost the pregnancy. Now, a month later, I finally got out there.

I didn’t want to start back at the beginning of the C25K program, because — although the thought of running was pretty daunting — I knew that I could run for more than 60 seconds. So I asked Ant if he thought I should start with week 3 (longest run is 3 minutes) or week 4 (longest run is 5 minutes). And he said, “Start with week 4, you’re a runner. You will run 5 minutes easily, even if it’s been a while.” Wait…what?? ANT CALLED ME A RUNNER! This is the guy who never fails to make me feel like the most un-athletic person that every lived. I have to say, that made me feel good, and it gave me the push I needed to start up with week 4.

So I updated my running playlist with a few new songs that I’m liking lately and I got out there. I was slow and my legs were burning at times, but overall, I wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t that hard, and most importantly, I was able to breathe fairly normally. I’d say that it went well. Now I just have to get myself out there again. I’m hoping that having a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving next week will help me get back out there.

The good thing about the park is that the track is all in the sun (although this is going to suck in the summer!), so it’s not too cold, especially on a “warm” day like today…32° according to weather.com but I swear it’s closer to 40°. It definitely helped that it was a little later in the day than usual. So I got out there, got moving, had the  music going, all set for a great run. And it started out rough. I was definitely hurting. I’m starting to see that the first five minutes is usually the hardest. I don’t know if it’s because my body is still warming up (legs and lungs) or if it’s because I’m intimidated by how much farther I still have to run, but it seems that the second half of these runs is definitely starting to be the easier half. But I guess that can be considered a good thing!

I ran the first half mile in just under five minutes, and that made me happy because I was already on par to beat my first mile at the track, which was 10:30 (followed by the 11:30 second mile). So I finished out the first mile and I looked down at the time and I saw that I had a little more than 15 minutes left to run, so that meant that I had run a mile in just under 10 minutes! That made me feel so good!

I have to admit that it was a little daunting to see that I still had 15 more minutes to go, but it really wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it would have been. So I just kept on running. And I pretty much was right around the five-minute mark every time I hit the half mile mark. I seems like my pace has gotten pretty consistent. I finished up that last half mile and still had about 20 seconds left to run. So I ran 2.5 miles in just under 25 minutes! I know that 10-minute miles are nothing to write home about, but I’m still so proud of myself! This is huge!

Oh, one last thing that was pretty cool about today. For the last mile or so of the run, there was another woman there that was walking ahead of me. And she started to run for stretch, and I was sort of watching her because I had a feeling that her pace was similar to mine (obviously running, but looking kinda slow), so I started to watch her feet and saw that her feet were moving at the same rate as mine. So I feel like I finally got to see another runner that runs like me and got to see what I look like when I run. It pretty much what I expected, looks like running but slower. Haha! But it was still cool to see!

Well, less than 2 hours till my wisdom tooth extraction! Hopefully this won’t affect my running too much. I was thinking about it a little while I was running today, and I was breathing the cold air in and out of my mouth. I could see how that might be a little painful with fresh cuts in my gums, but we’ll just have to see how it goes! In the meantime, I’ve stocked up on soft foods and DVDs—I’m planning on taking it easy this weekend. Hopefully I’ll be back out there for Week Seven early next week. Week Seven consists of three 25-minute runs, so I’ll get to work on my time.

So long, Week Six! You and my wisdom teeth are history!

But this morning I got my ass back out on the street and did two ten-minute runs. And although I wasn’t on the track to measure exactly, I think that I did the first mile in about 9:30. I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that the stretch of road between 1st and 2nd road is a mile, and started running right before I turned down it and finished right after I turned off. And it makes sense that my time would be better than when I ran at the track in the unbearable cold. I mean, it’s still cold, but today was 29° and there was no wind, a considerable difference than 22° and running against the wind.

It’s funny how there is such a difference between running on the track and running on the street. To me, it feels like a mile is so far on the street because you can see just how far it is, and you feel like you are really getting somewhere and making the distance. But on the track, it seems far because of how tedious it is to be running in circles. I am saying all of this after having only run on the track once, so I guess I need to get a few more track runs under my belt before I continue to compare. I think that I definitely prefer the track, but I have been running on the street because it’s quicker for me in the mornings before work. It saves me the ten minutes of driving if I just run from my front door.

Friday I am getting my wisdom teeth out at noon, so my plan is to run in the morning before I go. This way I can finish up Week Six, and I can get one more run in before I will be laid up for a while. I don’t plan on lying around for too long, and I don’t know if running will hurt my teeth at all. But I figure it’d be good to get that last run in anyways, especially since most likely I won’t get in any running over the weekend, which is usually when I get in a good run. Since I won’t have to be anywhere on Friday until noon, I’m thinking that I will go to the track for a nice 25-minute long run in the morning. I’m hoping that this won’t make me cough too much during my extraction (maybe I can’t cough while my mouth is numbed?). I’ve noticed that I cough a lot for the first five or six hours after running. I’ve read about that and about how out of breath I get, and it seems like it might be activity-induced asthma? But I am pretty much the opposite of a hypochondriac, so I’m going to say that I’m just fine and it’s my lungs still getting their sea-legs!

116 days till the Race for the Cure! And I am feeling like I’m off to a great start. I’m going to be more than ready for this “race.”

I ran back out on the street for the first time in a while, and it was pretty boring compared to the track and the trail. The running was a little tougher than the last few times, and I attribute it mostly to the hills. The lack of incline and decline on the track and trail was something I definitely took for granted. I tried to take a different route today to mix it up and to hopefully avoid some hills, but I think I just ended up actually hitting more of the hills. Oh well, the important thing is that I ran on and finished the workout. Again, it was frigid out, and was even snowing lightly for most of the run, but I warmed up pretty quickly and the cold didn’t seem to make much of an effect on me. Although I did lose a glove somewhere! Maybe I’ll see it next time I go out there.

I need to get in one more workout this week, hopefully Friday, before I go up to NYC for the weekend to see Andrea. We are planning on going on a run in Central Park! I’m very excited about this! It’ll be like all the movie scenes where people go for jogs in Central Park!

Wow, I’m too cold right now to think. I just got back from my 20-minute run in 20-degree weather. I’m frozen!

Anthony and I spent New Year’s Eve and Day with some friends at our house down the shore. We ended up staying there until this morning, which was nice, but I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t planned on staying that long because I would have brought sneakers and a sports bra so I could go for a run. It would have been nice to go running on the boardwalk, but there will be plenty of opportunities for that in the future.

When we arrived home today, we realized that our heat had been off for the three days that we were gone, and it was 45° inside the house! Being so cold inside the house, I was having a hard time leaving to go into the even colder weather, but I figured that if I were cold and uncomfortable inside I might as well go outside and run. So I drove to the park to run on the half mile track there. I could have run on the street, but I’ve been curious to run there for a while and also I wanted to get some sort of distance measurement of my running since I’ve been measuring everything by time so far.

Man, it was cold! It was even snowing a little bit, and even worse than the cold was the wind! Each time I went around the track, half of the time I was running against the wind. That was rough! But for the first mile, I was about 30 seconds away from hitting a mile when I hit the halfway mark. So that means I ran a mile is about 10:30, which I think is pretty good! I definitely lost some of my momentum for the second mile, and I was just over 3/4 of a mile when the time was up. But I didn’t stop running! I went ahead and finished running the second mile. The total time it took me to run two miles was 22 minutes.

So, not only did I run for 22 minutes straight today, I also ran two miles today! I’m not sure which is more exciting, but I’m very proud of both! Yay!

So I get some running shorts on and a wife beater (since I’ll be running inside I don’t want to get overheated), throw a sweatshirt on for the ride, and Roxy and I jump in the car. Even a few slippery roads can’t stop me. When I’m about a 1/4 mile from the house, I get another text from my dad, “Don’t come, the basement is flooded.” So I pull into the driveway, anxious to see the flood. There is about 5″ of water in the basement, which John (my brother, the photographer) is wading through and taking pictures (“for insurance purposes” but I won’t be surprised if they show up on Facebook). And over to the left, sitting in the water, of course, is the treadmill.

So after remarking about the flooding for a good 20 minutes, I realize that I’m going to have to go to the gym. I’m on the phone with Anthony, telling him what happened, and he mentions that if I really don’t want to go to the gym and since I shouldn’t run on the street, I can always go to the track at the park. And I’m seriously considering this when I realize, why go to the park when there is a great trail in the woods behind my dad’s house? Lightbulb!

Next thing I know, I’m briskly walking down the snowy trail in my running shorts and sweatshirt with the hood tied tightly around my neck. And I’m more amazed at my determination than I am cold. Can you believe I’m actually doing this? And I start to feel pretty good! Soon I’m running along on my first 8-minute run, and to my surprise, my lungs aren’t burning, my ears and jaw aren’t aching (like they sometimes do in the cold), even the light drizzling isn’t fazing me.

This trail, that seemed endless when I was a kid, was nothing! I was more than halfway down it when I realized that only minutes had passed. So I started cutting down side trails, where there were rabbit tracks and deer hoof-prints, and something that looked like cat paw-prints (but I’d like to think they belong to something more exciting like a fox). And as I’m nearing the end of the trail, I look at my iPhone and see that there is still a lot of time left before I get to the halfway point, so I decide to try running on the snow-covered road for a bit. Honestly, I don’t know why I was so worried about running on the street! It wasn’t icy, just a little bit of snow, and some parts were just pavement. When I hit the halfway point, I went a little farther and then turned around, heading back toward the trail to knock out the final run.

As I’m finishing up that last 8-minute run, I’m feeling really great about this, the run, the snow, the trail, the whole C25K program. And I’m even sort of looking forward to the next run, which is the 20-minute run that I had dreaded last time around. I can barely even feel the cold, and all the sudden this thought pops into my head. For the first time, I feel like a runner. I am a runner!

Bring on the 20-minute run!

So today, I got back out there. I started at the beginning of Week Five again. I figured that it would be counter productive to start any farther back, and I knew that I could handle a few five-minute runs. So I ran the three (3) five-minute intervals. I would say that it was tough, but no tougher than it usually is. Overall, it felt good to get back out there, and it definitely didn’t seem as bad as I was expecting after taking five weeks off.

Also, I got an iPhone for Christmas (and I love it!). I downloaded a C25K app that I like much better than the podcasts. Check out the site for more info about this great app. The app tells me when to walk and run, all while I can listen to my own music on my iPhone’s iPod. It’s the prefect combination of the podcast and my iPod, because I can choose my own upbeat songs like I did for the 20-minute run but I can still be told when to walk and run. And, it tells me when I’ve hit the halfway point so I know when to turn around, something I’ve been guesstimating all along. This is pretty exciting! Yay for technology!

And I don’t know if I’ve mentioned my ass getting rounder and nicer, but it is! Even after taking so much time off from running, I can still see the difference that running has made on my body. And I’ve also noticed less cellulite on my legs. Yay!

Since I last wrote, I officially signed up for the Race for the Cure. It’s only 133 days away! Also, I pledged to raise $500. I guess that’s sort of a lot, but I don’t think it will be that hard to do. I know some pretty generous people, and I know they’ll agree that this is a great cause!

Bad News: I didn’t run the full 20 minutes

Good News: I ran 19 minutes!

It was really hard, but I did it, and now I know it will be easier to do it again. While I’m disappointed that I didn’t make it to the end, I’m really excited that I ran so long. Last time, I thought that eight minutes was hard. That was only two days ago, and now today I ran more than twice that!

I made my own playlist for this run, and I think it was very helpful. There were some great upbeat songs, and the song “Move Along” by the All American Rejects was especially helpful. It’s got a great beat and the lyrics are perfect. At one point during the run, I really thought that I had to stop running. It was getting so hard, my legs burning, and I was thinking about my mom, tears starting to well up in my eyes. Next thing I know this song comes on and that beat gets me going again. I hear, “When all you gotta keep is strong, move along, move along like I know you do. Even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make to it through.” It was just one of those perfect moments when the right song comes on at just the right moment. It totally got me through!

I did get confused about which songs were on the list, because I had messed with it so much, trying to get the perfect timed play list to run to. And I think this is partly why I didn’t finish the 20-minute run. When “Paper Planes” by MIA (usually a song that completely pumps me up) came on, I was confused because I thought that the last song was about to come on, and I knew this wasn’t the last song. So instead of getting pumped up, I got discouraged that there were still two more songs to get through (because at this point, I seriously thought I was going to die). Basically, I thought it meant that I had three more minutes left to run after that song, and I knew I couldn’t run that much longer, so I stopped before the song even ended. But then it ended and the cool-down song came on, and I realized that I really only had about one minute left to run!! I’d like to think that I could have run that last minute if I had known that I only had one more minute to go. So here I was thinking, well at least I ran 17 minutes, and I stopped. And then the next song came on, and I realized that I’d stopped only one minute short of 20. Ugh! But…wow! I just ran for 19 minutes! So needless to say, I’m very excited about my progress!

Next week, the runs are broken out again, and the final day is a 25-minute run. So we’ll see what happens!

Okay, so this whole running program is the Couch-to-5K program, right? Well, I found a 5K to do! Every year my uncle, aunt and two of my cousins (all of whom are great runners) do the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. It’s a run/walk that raises funds and awareness for Breast Cancer. And it’s held on Mother’s Day. Considering that my mom recently died from breast cancer and that was a huge part of my motivation to start running, I can’t think of a better way to spend Mother’s Day. Also, I’m glad that it’s not until May because it will help keep me running after I’ve completed the C25K program. I’m really glad that I have this new goal, and I’m glad that I can use this to honor my mom!

P.S….. I ran 19 minutes! Woohoo! Read the 11/17/09 entry…what a difference five days make!

I’m thinking about making my own playlist for the 20-minute run, rather than listening to the stupid techno on the podcast. I don’t need to aggravation of hearing when the first two days can stop and start running, while I have to keep running along for a whole 20 minutes! If I have no stopping and starting to worry about, I can just plan 20 minutes of my own upbeat music to keep me going. Plus, listening to my own music will help make it go by faster. We’ll see!

Well, today’s run was very difficult for me. It consisted of three (3) five-minute runs. Each one was harder than the one before it. I still can barely breathe! Ugh. I’m so discouraged. Ant says maybe I should go back to last week. I’m thinking maybe I should repeat today’s routine a few times before moving on, but I know I’m only considering this because I’m dreading the eight- and 20-minute runs that are in the rest of this week’s routines. But at the same time, it might be good to be better prepared for those when I get to them. I dunno.

I can pretty much guarantee that, right now, there’s no way I can run for 20 minutes. Hell, I couldn’t run for 10. Five is difficult enough. Bleh.