Get Fit or Die Tryin’ – Day 1 Training Diary

As I mentioned on Facebook yesterday, I got tired just TYPING up my training schedule. I didn’t think that boded well for actually starting to run. And I was right – kinda.

I’m doing a hybrid training program, mashing together the plan from the Women’s Health publication “Run Your Butt Off” (oh please, oh please, oh please, let that happen!) and “The Non-Runners Marathon Guide for Women” by Dawn Dais. The latter is my favorite, as Ms. Dais is incredibly snarky and totally honest about how much it’s really going to suck training for a running event. I love that about her.

So, I put together a spreadsheet of my training plan. The “Run Your Butt Off” plan is 12 weeks, and the “Non-Runners” plan is 20 weeks. Based on the Gasparilla race happening on Feb. 24 of next year, I’m already behind schedule. Awesome.

So, since I’m a slave to the spreadsheet, I jumped in to where I should be if I’m going to meet my dates – Stage 4 of the “Run Your Butt Off” plan. It called for walking for three minutes, running for three minutes, lather, rinse, repeat four more times. Easy peasy, right? And it was – for the first repeat.

The second repeat was uphill.

Bollocks.

I managed to run for about a minute and a half uphill, then had to stop. Not only was I running uphill, I was running into the setting sun, having waited until 5:15 to take off for my run. So now I’m sweating, panting, and worried about sunburn. Again – awesome.

I managed to get through the running repeats that way – running for about a minute and a half, a quick walk break, running for the remainder of the three minutes, then walking for three. Not as great as I wanted to be, but I. STILL. DID. IT.

I thought briefly about backing down to the Stage 3 plan for tomorrow’s run, but I think I’m going to power through the remaining two runs this week and see how I do. I might have to hang out at Stage 4 for a while, which would mean adjusting the spreadsheet. Heaven forbid. But I can do it if I have to.

And according to my handy little Nike+ device on my iPod, I ran (well, I “ran” in really short bursts) nearly three miles. That’s almost a 5k. And I did it in only 35 minutes. Given that my last 5k time last December was nearly 45 minutes, that’s pretty dang good. And I torched almost 500 calories. Yeehaw.

So, the three Band-Aids now decorating my feet were hard earned. I’m pretty proud of them. And if I feel this great about my first accomplishment, imagine how I’m going to feel come February.

I can hardly wait. Now I’m going to hobble upstairs and get ready for tomorrow’s run. Again I say – yeehaw. 🙂