Three Things Thursday

So I know I said previously that I don’t usually do these things, but here it is, my second one. Maybe it will become a semi regular thing. Honestly I just have random things to say and it happens to be Thursday. Lucky me.

1. Yesterday I completed week 4 day 1 of the Couch 2 5K program. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it is:

3 minutes of running

1.5 minutes of walking

5 minutes of running

2.5 minutes of walking

3 minutes of running

1.5 minutes of walking

5 minutes of running.

I did it on my first try. 

I had a hard time with Week 3 in the program. I couldn’t seem to get over the 3 minutes running hurdle. It was completely mental for me. I had decided that I couldn’t do it. So I couldn’t.  Finally, last weekend, I decided that I wasn’t going to get off the treadmill until I ran 3 full minutes. I had plans later that night so there was my motivation. I did it on the first try. Later that week as I did it again, I thought to myself. If I can do 3 minutes, I’ll be able to do 5 minutes. That set the stage for me. I was tired towards the end of the second 5 minutes, but I kept going. I’m proud of myself. I haven’t been able to get past week 3 in any of the times I’ve tried to do C25K previously, so this is a big deal for me. I’m still having problems with running outside, so I’m continuing on the treadmill until I can build up my endurance, then I’ll slowly start to switch to outside running, and hope that it works! Having the confidence in knowing that I can do this on the treadmill is what is keeping me going. I have a 5K this weekend in New Hampshire. I’m going to see how long I can run at a time. I need to get over this outside running hurdle and hopefully I’ll feel better about this running business. 

2. One of my co-workers had an amazing looking salad the other day and she filled me in on a little secret. Her salad dressing wasn’t dressing at all; It was lemon juice. I’m not kidding. It’s true. Lemon juice. One of my favorite salads is a family recipe for Caesar Salad and one of the ingredients for the dressing is lemon juice. But I had never thought of JUST using lemon juice. I made a salad tonight and I put lemon juice on it. I didn’t realize how much I would love this.

Yum. 

3. I went for a bike ride today through Northborough. About 2 miles in, I wanted to turn around and go home. My butt was hurting. Not bike seat wise, but my outer hip/glute area. It felt fatigued, and the muscles were burning. I don’t know if it’s still tired from the monster hill bike ride I did last weekend, or if my body was just tired from yesterday’s 5 minute intervals of running. Either way. I started thinking that I should have taken a rest day, or I shouldn’t be pushing my body this much, and I have a 5K this weekend, I don’t need to be making myself more tired, etc. Many random quitting thoughts kept flowing through my mind. Even though I remembered that the beginning part of the route was pretty much uphill, and after I hit the 3 mile mark it would switch to flat and downhill for the rest of the way of the loop, I still wanted to turn around and go home. I finally convinced myself that it was okay for me to cut my bike ride short, just as soon as I hit the top of the hill I was on. Then I’d turn around and go back. For some reason I kept going. I had even slowed and pulled slightly over onto a side street. But I just let myself keep rolling. It was downhill at that point and happened to be the area of the loop where it descended to the end. By the time I got to the bottom of that one hill, I told myself that if I wanted to turn around now, I’d have to go right back up that hill I came down.  I kept going. The rest of the ride was fine and my legs seemed to finally warm up a bit. I was still tired and I didn’t push myself at all, but I was thinking about the last time I did the loop and I tried to remember my time. I figured after a few more months of training, I’d have improved a bit. I was excited to see what the results were. I was a full minute slower than I was when I did this loop back in May. I should be getting better, not worse! Even though I finished it, I don’t feel good about it. I guess we all have our off days.