3 Minutes: A Recent Memory

This morning when I awoke in my incredibly comfortable bed at the Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport, I knew today would include my first 11k run.  Of course that would take place after my morning habit (a Grande Americano whilst enjoying a leisurely walk).  

After I finished my coffee and browsing I headed up to my room and changed into my workout gear, and then went to the gym.  It didn’t escape me that I began my running adventure last year, May 01 to be exact, at this gym.  I did not know then what journeys I would be embarking on in the year to come.  But do we ever know?

As I approached the treadmill, with some trepidation, I could hear Sabrina coaching me: “You need to slow your pace to increase your endurance.”  With complete faith in Sabrina’s infinite wisdom I gingerly stepped on the treadmill, selected the manual program, started my time, and I began to run.  While I was watching the time tick by, and the miles slowly increase a gigantic smile spread across my face, and goosebumps graced my skin.  A glimmer of a recent memory tickled my mind.  The memory of 3 minutes.

Last year I downloaded a program for my iPhone that would bring any person from sitting on the couch to being capable of running 5k.  My first run with that application was in Orlando, the program had me running for 1 minute and resting 90 seconds for various intervals.  No problem.  However, as the program progressed they expected me to run for 3 minutes. I remember sitting with Pam in her basement suite, enjoying a glass of New Zealand red wine, and asking “How?”  “I don’t think I can run for 3 minutes.”  Pammie with her unerring positive attitude looked at me and said something to the effect, “I don’t know but I can’t wait to find out how this works.  They designed the program, it must work.”  

The morning of reckoning, I drove to Edworthy Park, and started the application.  As my feet hit the pavement, the sun shone on me, and the breeze drifted off of the Elbow River.  The chime rang, the time for walking was at an end, and I started to jog.  My lungs screamed in agony, my legs protested, and I huffed and puffed my way to 3 minutes.

Today, with the knowledge that both Sabrina and Pammie would cheer me on, I jogged my way to 11k.

                        -Claudia

Mixed Bag

Soooo much to say and so little time....Here are a bunch of little bits...

Tomorrow is my last day instructing a clinic. Part of me is excited that I will get to move on and focus on my goals, but part of me is sad that I won't get to see my group all the time :(.  I will miss instructing, and the people that I met from it.  I guess that means that I just have to do it again.  In Aug was my first Women's only- Learn to Run Clinic, and then a 5k Clinic.  Some ladies from the Women's only followed me in the 5k and we picked up some new friend for the 5k. All and all it was a great time, and I made some new friend.  Wow some of them even moved on and are in 10K clinic and even a Half marathon Clinic, I'm pretty sure when they were running 1min and walking 1min they didn't think a 5mins of running was possible let alone 21km. I know I was pretty sure in my Learn to Run that running for 3 WHOLE minutes was the hardest thing I ever did, and I had to do it 4 time, what the Hell.  It makes me proud to see, them stick to it!!! Way to go!!!

Time to move on to my training, I showed my training schedule to my roommate yesterday, he was shocked when he looked at it, and opened his eyes super wide and exclaimed that he knew I was crazy before and this little sheet of paper just confirmed that fact. I emailed the Evil Dr. Myles that is also a personal trainer, to see if he has time to put together a strength training program for me, I have the running schedule down.  I'm pretty sure he will, mostly because he likes to help people that are willing to do whatever it takes to get better.  Yes I know that, I would be dancing with the devil, because he likes to push you to work harder, and it will hurt, but that's a good hurt.  That hurt will make me run faster, run longer and make it less likely that I will get injured. Plus the strength training will force my lazy glutes, to get off the couch, and get to work!!!

Note on my glutes/thighs it appears that the cottage cheese is losing the battle on my thighs and has been retreating!!!! Death to Cottage Cheese on my thighs....

Today I didn't do my lunges like I should have, BAD me!!! I will do them after my 10km run, I may even sucker some people into joining my lunges MWhahahaha, I'm spread around the pain and misery.  But I did do some other interesting exercises, like a single leg deadlift. Seen here http://health.howstuffworks.com/leg-exercises-tb6.htm and a single leg balance reach seen here http://golf.about.com/od/fitnesshealth/ss/cone_reach.htm.  They were cool exercises and based on how hard it was for me to hold my balance, I need to do more of them.  I didn't feel a huge burn, but gaining balance is always a good thing. 

Cheers Sabrina

Glutes are a pain in the ass

That's not my bum, so don't get excited. :P

First off my glutes are lazy buggers thanks to the modern sedentary lifestyle. So I try and do them a favour by exercising them and what do they do in return? NOTHING. Like some unemployed ex living off my good graces, they have the gall just to hang there and laugh at the rest of the muscles in the body for picking up their slack. Oh wait, that was a personal bitter moment. My bad.

I guess I am being a bit mean to my glutes, after all I can no longer grab a flabby handful like in that picture the way I used to. Not having a clear picture of the communication between my muscles, I like to envision my quads & hams threatening a rumble if they didn't start pulling their weight while I am doing weights. Or running. Or anything really. I've noticed an improvement of late, a soreness after a run and a some actual resistance when I do the poke test. Hawt!

Today's workout was probably the most shocking. No, the glutes didn't do me proud and suddenly go all applebutt on me, but I noticed them working - for an exercise I didn't know they were involved with. Fortunately I am at an all women's gym, so I didn't really feel much shame in covertly feeling my bum with wonder whilst doing some kind of back/ab thing. Yes, I am terrible with proper names for things and it's highly unlikely that I am going to change. At any rate I think this is the first time I've actually felt my glutes exerting themselves and quite frankly, I am a proud parent.

Gotta go to Staples and find me a pack of gold stars. It may not be an applebutt, but it'll be all glittery if it keeps this up!

~Pam

I'm Committed...

Sabrina Here...
I put together a training program for us yesterday to actually train this crazy challenge, and WOW it's a lot of running, some biking and strength training.  I'm committed to this training program, which maybe means I should be committed, not sure.  3 days a week I workout twice a day, yikes. Good news is I now get 2 days off a week, where I will do NOTHING active!! Anyone that knows me will know not doing something active will drive me nuts!! I may need to start a support group. Not that I'm an exercise addict, but on my off days I normally go for walks or swim, or do yoga.  I like to do STUFF, and stuff in my world is rarely sitting on my couch watching TV.  But 2 days off will be good for me, especially since after a huge workout on Sunday, my Monday morning workout was a short bike ride, and then me laying on the mat for 10mins pretending to do ab work.  I'm pretty sure the whole gym was on to my act. I could tell I look pathetic.  So days off are GOOD, actually GREAT and important. 

I've told a couple people(anyone that will listen) that we are doing the Death Race solo, and I'm amazed by the range in replies, from you are crazy, good for you!!!  Looking at the training we have to do, it will be alot of work, but it's looking like we will be able to make a good dent in this race! Woot Woot

Last night Pammy crashed my clinic and we did a time trial a quick 5km.  I'm happy to say that I finished under 30min which is a PR for me.  I'm not a fast runner, but I think I did pretty good for myself.  By the end of this training I'm sure that will be nothing for me, but right now I'm super happy with myself.