Motivated

Today when I was on Pinterest I stumbled upon a pin about interval training to go from walking to running and it brought me to a website about Couch-to-5k planning. It's to get couch potatoes to be able to run 3 miles (or 30 minutes) in about 9 weeks. I decided that it was the kick in the butt I needed. Not that I'm a complete couch potato, but I do have my days. You basically start out with warming up each time with a brisk 5 minute walk and then the first week you jog for 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds and do this for 20 minutes. The first two weeks you only do it 3 days a week and then on week 3 you go up to 4, but you always have a day of rest in between.

I've mentioned the track near our house and it's not the kind of track I thought, but there are guides and markers and you have a choice of 3 "tracks" to choose from. We ended up doing the 1 mile track aka the blue track. There's one below it but I'm not sure how far it is, and there's also one above it called the black track which is 1.25 miles. Since it's been storming all around us and we were bringing the dogs we figured it would be best to start with only a mile. Rob was convinced it was going to downpour and I think he was secretly wanting it to happen so he could rub it in my face. I won though! It did sprinkle but that's it so hahahahaha!!!!

Anyways, enough gloating. I only ended up doing one minute of running the whole time. Before you tell me that I didn't do enough running, I'm very well aware of that. I also had a dog to control, pants that were a little too big, and oh yeah, I'm out of freaking shape. I am very proud of my one minute straight of running, and if you have a problem with it, click the little box with the x at the top of the window :-P

I'm also proud of myself that it wasn't just leisurely walking with the dogs for the rest of the mile. It was a very brisk pace and the next step up would've been jogging. I did work up a sweat and my lower back was sore after running so I need to find some lower back exercises to do at home. In all actuality, lower back problems do run on my mom's side of our family and I really am out of shape so once I get in better shape I'm hoping it'll all be good.

We've decided that we won't be bringing the dogs to do this sort of thing again. We do want to take them at least once a week on one of our rest days so that they do get a nice exercise in though, they definitely enjoyed it! On the other rest days I plan on doing some sort of toning or crunches type of exercise so that I'm not just relying on the track days. I may also do pictures throughout to show my progress, but I'm not completely set on doing that yet. I think it will hold me more accountable however, so it's a good possibility.

My goal is to have Rob and I registered and running in a 5k here in Knoxville by June/July if one is going on around then. There's one in May that I'd like to do but I know I wouldn't be able to give it my all by then, so I'm going to have to be patient.

I'm already wishing it was our next day of training!