Saturday, December 19, 2009

6:1s

I ran 3 x 6:1s this morning. It went well! The first 2 intervals were fine, but when I started running the third one, my body thought I was done because I got hit by a huge endorphin rush. The third interval was hard, because I just felt like stopping. And then, my iPod battery died after about 3 minutes so I had to finish the last 3 minutes with no music!

But I did it. :)

When I was finished I lied on the floor to stretch and I just felt like going to sleep right there! That was quite the workout.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Happy Runs :-)

The pleasure of running is back! :-)

I think I've gotten through the toughest part of getting back to running and it's finally getting easier. I don't have that much merit, though, because I only ran once or twice a week since September, but somehow, this was enough to build back some cardio ability and some confidence.

I'm doing the Learn to Run program *my way*, not the John Stanton way of increasing the running intervals every week. Even when I managed to run three times during a week, I didn't increase the lenght of my intervals if I didn't feel ready to move up. So far, it's working really well for me: both the body and the mind are getting back into it.

Lately, I've been running while listening to songs from the TV show Glee. What wonderful songs to run to! They make me smile. On Sunday, it was so perfect: we went running on the Canal and the snow was falling slowly, I was listening to my tunes and I was enjoying a challenging, but manageable run. I'm doing 5:1s now and will move up to 6:1s next weekend.

All is good at last in my running world... more than 18 months after the train wreck.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

5:1s... 30 billion... 2010...

I have been able to run without interruption since early September. *KNOCK ON WOOD* For the past 18 months, there was always something: I would run for 2-3 weeks and then I would either hurt myself or get sick.

I started taking BioK daily after my bronchitis in August and I haven't been sick since then. It seems like they're not making anything up when they say that 70% of our immunity is in our bowels. The minute I read that, I knew I had to try this out because I've been having problems for many years now. I went to Cuba and came back with something that made me really sick, but the doctors never found what it was. I was sick for about 3 months, lost 25lbs and then I kinda got better but I was never back to normal.

Now, more than 3 months of taking 30-40 billion probiotics daily, I feel like my immune system is back to normal (I'm not sick!) and I have a lot less digestive problems. I also stopped eating/drinking any dairy and it is making a huge difference too. I guess I'm doing things right! :-)

So, back to running. I've been able to run without interruption since early September when I started the Learn to Run program again. I haven't been very consistent with my running, but I've managed to get myself back up to running 5:1s. Some runs are great, others not so much, but they're not all terrible like they were back in September. This is good!

My dream at this point is to run 10K in 2010. I don't know if a 10K at NCM in May is even possible at this point, but if not, that's OK.

My 2010 athletic objectives so far look like this:

- run a strong 5K in May
- ride 40K as part of a Relay Sprint Tri in June
- swim 1,000m again (I usually swim about 700-750m right now when I go to the pool)
- do some triathlons next Summer (Super Sprint Tri or even Sprint Tri)
- ride my first 50K ever by the end of the Summer
- run a 10K race next Fall
- ride 1,500km
- stay injury-free
- keep it fun - no pressure!