72% done!

Today, I ran 7K for the first time! :-)

Well, it was 7.21K, because I wanted to be running when I reached 7K and then I needed to cool down a little. The first 5K were OK, but the last 2... Oh. My. God... It was very difficult, both physically and mentally. The girl I was a year ago would have stopped after 5K and thought she was not ready for 7K, but the new me pushed it and succeeded!

I was very clever to create a new playlist on my iPod with all the songs that I love to run to. It helped me tough it out and run a little faster than usual. Overall, I ran a little over 48 minutes and walked about 16. This is pretty good for me, the highest number of minutes I've ever run in one run!

After my run, I was SO tired.. I just couldn't read or think or talk. My digestive system was upset, and I wasn't sure if I would vomit or not. (I didn't, in case anyone wonders...) I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but I couldn't fall asleep, so I just relaxed. Something tells me i'm going to sleep very well tonight!

The best part of my run was not related to running: a week before my laser eye surgery, I was running on the TM at the gym with my glasses on and I decided to notice everything I could in order to be able to compare the difference in my vision after the surgery. Conveniently, the TM at the gym face the street, and businesses have signs with different text sizes. Anyway, everything was mostly blurry since my surgery, I could read it, but it was never clear. Well, this morning, during my run, I noticed that one of the signs across the street was VERY clear and it was one of the most difficult to read a few weeks ago. When I blinked, I lost the clarity, but at least I had it for a few seconds!!! After all, there may be hope that I get 20/20 vision once this long healing process is over!!

I'm 72% done reaching my 10K goal. Next milestone will be 8K on March 18th.

Swimming 100m, another first!

Tonight was another first: I swam 100m non-stop! :-)

It wasn't beautiful to see, but I did it once, then I did it again. I'm very tired right now from all this swimming, but mentally, I feel great! I guess I can do this...

Many Firsts to Celebrate!

Ever since I decided to try a 2 weeks hard/1 week easy training schedule, I feel like I have wings! I didn't miss a single run in the past 2 weeks, even though I had mentally-challenging runs. Last Sunday, I had the most awful run: 6K of talking myself through it the whole time. But I did it, in fact I did 6.3K, and I was very proud! It was the first time I ever run more than 6K. :-)

Tonight, I had a wonderful run. I almost felt no pain at all while running and my cardio was excellent. I ran for 16 minutes in a row for the first time ever! I could have kept going, but my 30-minutes limit on the treadmill was up.

On Sunday, I'll get into my "easy" week, where I'll run a shorter run on Sunday, see Duane the miracle-maker chiro on Monday, go to my first ever spinning class on Tuesday, to the pool on Wednesday, rest on Thursday and Friday and do some strenght training at the gym on Saturday. This will bring me to another big day: Sunday the 25th when I'll run 7K for the first time!

How far I've come...

I had some difficult moments in the past 2 weeks. They were mostly related to my difficulties in learning to swim and the discouragement that followed. I'm still not 100% comfortable in the water, and therefore, it's very difficult for me to go from point A to point B in the pool without swallowing water or having difficulties breathing. I decided to postpone my first triathlon, which was planned for the weekend after JF and I move into our new house. There's going to be so much stress involved during this period of my life that I thought it would be best to postpone to August or September.

I started having calf pain again when running and this contributed to my discouragement. I thought there was no way I could ever run 10K... But then, I gave myself a week off, and I came back to running well-rested and ran 6K for the first time ever last Sunday! :-) I was very proud of me for toughing this run, because I had pain all over and was very tired.

After many trials and errors, I think I found the magic recipe for me: 2 weeks hard training, 1 week cross-training or little running. This has worked in the past in keeping me injury-free and I'm ready to give this a try by planning those cut-out weeks.

When I posted about being discouraged about my non-existing athletic capacities, someone on Running Mania asked me to stop and look back at how far I've come. Here's how far i've come:

* 3 years ago, I weighed 25lbs more than I weigh now;
* 28 months ago, I couldn't run more than 30 seconds at a time and needed 4 minutes to recover;
* 2 years ago, I didn't have much self-confidence in both my running and my life in general;
* a year ago, I didn't have as many runners as friends;
* 6 months ago, I couldn't swim at all;
* 4 months ago, I wasn't mentally tough enough to run 10 minutes non-stop;
* 2 weeks ago, I wasn't strong enough to face some adversity in the pool.

Ian was right, I have come a long way and I should focus on that! :-)