Can I do It? Yes, I Can

(Well, I guess you can tell what Jude's new favorite show is by my title!)

For about a month now, I have been working on the Couch to 5K program. This is a program that is supposed to help a pretty sedentary person build up to running a 5K over the course of 9 weeks. Before I got pregnant with Jude, accompanied with the flu about the same time, I used to run 5K 3 days a week. But after that came the horrendous morning sickness that kept me down for the better part of 4 months and that was that. 

Last year, I attempted to pick up again, but since Jude was little I had to stay close to home so I was running on the pavement at the cemetery across the street from our house. But every time I would get good and going, I would get stress fractures in my foot. 

Now that Jude is older, I can drive over to the gravel track which is a mile if you run both loops and is much nicer on my feet. 

Since I was a runner previously, I modified the program a little bit. The first week I started out running a minute and walking a minute and a half for the first 3o minutes and walked the remainder of the time until I reached 4 miles. The next week I bumped my running up to a minute and a half and alternated that with the minute and a half walk breaks for 30 minutes, but then before walking the remainder I did a longer running stretch about 30 seconds longer each day. For the third week, I would run two minutes and walk a minute for 30 minutes and walk whatever was left of the 4 miles. 

Then there was this week. Week 4. I had a plan in my head to continue the 2 minute run/1 minute walk pattern and then try the long stretch again at the end. The first day, I was interrupted in my run when I bumped into an old friend I used to work out with at The City Club, but hadn't seen in more than two years (because I had to drop my gym membership as part of our plan for me to be a stay at home mom). We talked for over ten minutes so in order to make up for lost time I though, well, maybe I can run a whole mile without any walk breaks. And do you know what? I could! I did!

So the next day I was determined to do that again. I felt really good at the end of that first mile, so I decided to see if I could try for two. And do you know what? I could. I did!

Skip a day (because I can't run when Jeff's at work) to today. At the end of two miles, I kind of felt like crap, but I thought, "I wonder if I could run three miles with no walk breaks. . . ?" And, well, you've probably guessed it. I could. I did! And then walked two miles after that for a total of 5 miles. 

So now my new goal is to get the time down on those first three miles and to continue walking the other two. When I get the time down to something more acceptable than 39 minutes, then I think I'll work on running miles 4 and 5. 

Oh, yeah! I'm a running machine. Well, not really. But I could be. . .

Um, and that clip art at the top there of the jogger? Yeah, that's totally me. All geeky with my iPod and my crazy hair.