Week 1 Day 1, Part 2

A lot has gone down since last Thursday, merely four days ago. On Saturday, my parents came to town to help me accomplish some things I've been wanting to do to my apartment. I cannot thank them enough for everything they have done and do for me and I am really lucky to have such a great family! They have always supported me in everything I have done. Also, congrats to my sister who just earned a teaching job straight out of college. I know she's put a lot of work into her education and she deserves everything she's earned. I know she'll be a great teacher!

Not only am I starting to run, but I am eating as healthy as possible too. I am continuing with Nutrisystem and making smart choices when I go out to eat. I met my parents at Toast on Market Saturday morning - which is my favorite restaurant in Louisville - and ordered a turkey omelette and fruit cup instead of my usual peanut butter french toast and hashbrown casserole. This meal was insane as always. Go to Toast, people.

We then proceeded to work on my apartment all day and I got some natural exercise from doing a lot of  physical activity. I considered running Saturday night, but my calves were hurting quite a bit still from Thursday's run. Not running in years will cause that.

Sunday I traveled to Indianapolis and spent some time with some great friends. I ate a healthy egg flatbread sandwich from Subway for breakfast and thoroughly enjoyed a Pad Thai + Shrimp dish at Noodles and Company for dinner, thanks to the recommendation of the super nice girl behind the counter. Last night I came home and finished the book I was reading, Edge by Jefferey Deaver (my favorite author), and began reading Fight Club. I didn't make it to chapter three before I fell asleep and dropped the book on my face.

Today I woke up feeling well rested and made it through my day at work, knowing that I would be running tonight. I decided to start with Week 1 Day 1 again to get on a normal schedule of Mon/Wed/Thurs, as the program is three days per week. Through reading the Couch to 5k website and some forums, I learned that it's okay to repeat days until you're comfortable moving up to the next level. I decided repeating Week 1 Day 1 would help me get used to running as well, so that's what I did.

My legs felt good before the warmup, but I decided to walk a little longer before starting the program. After about 9 minutes of walking, I began. The first few runs were much easier than I remember from Thursday, but it got harder the longer I went. I noticed having a little more trouble getting a good breath tonight, but I'm pretty sure I have acute asthma. Part of it, I believe, was due to my mouth and throat getting pretty dry. I need to take a bottle of water with me when I run on the treadmill from now on.

The gym at my apartment complex has three treadmills. Tonight, I hopped on the one in the corner. The same one I had used Thursday. Apparently, the other two do not work, because two people tonight tried to use them to no avail. I felt kind of bad, but I feel like they understood it wasn't my fault that I was using the only working treadmill. I don't think they expected me to get off. I wouldn't expect them to had roles been reversed. I hope they get those fixed soon though. It's kind of awkward.

I finished Run 9 - the last run - and was walking the cooldown at a brisk pace when suddenly the treadmill just stopped. I didn't realize what had happened very quickly and I was still walking and almost face-planted. My best guess is that the treadmill auto shuts off after 40 minutes. I'll have to remember that. The last time I looked at my duration it was 38 something minutes. When it wouldn't turn back on, I grabbed my stuff and just walked outside to finish my cooldown plus a little more walking.

I feel good. I got pretty tired today at work, but I knew I had to run tonight. Being able to persevere and actually do it is a great feeling. I could have very easily just gone to sleep two hours ago. If I were the me from two weeks ago, I would have.

I got home tonight and decided to do some more work on the blog before writing this post. I've had some administrative stuff to take care of and finally got my own domain working today. This should be the permanent home of the blog. I added a couple of pages since Thursday: About Me and Stats.

The About Me page is self-explanatory and the Stats page contains an embedded spreadsheet containing all the details of each run and a list of my weight on each running day. The past two times I've weighed right after running, which is probably bad because I'm down a bunch of water weight. From now on, I'll try to weigh the morning of each running day. This should provide more consistent and accurate results. I doubt I've lost 5.8lbs since Thursday. This may end up being a weekly weight depending on how this goes.

It's time for me to head to bed so I can get up for work. Maybe I can read some Fight Club without getting in a fight with my book. The next run is scheduled for Wednesday, so expect the next post then.

If you find something wrong with the site, please let me know. I'm still in the process of getting everything looking and working as I want, so please excuse it. Thanks for reading!