W1D2: The Heat!

Where: Lakefront trail, going north from Promontory Point
When: 8:30 AM

The lesson I learned from today's run was to get out there as early as possible to avoid the heat. I slept in a little bit longer than I had expected, so by the time I got out, the heat was beaming down on me in full force. It was about 91 degrees when I was running an hour ago, but it would have probably been about 10 degrees cooler if I had started earlier in the morning.

From where I started at 55th Street, the trail was covered with the shade of trees, so I could see the sun without really having to feel it. However, that soon led into this one long stretch where there were no trees at all covering the path, so for that section, I really had to focus on just doing the work without letting the hot weather distract me. Having good music helped a lot, since it really made the time go by more quickly than I thought it would.

Even with the heat, I had a decent workout. The pain in my right knee seems to be going away, as is the pain in my back. Tomorrow will probably be a rest day for me, so I'll need to make sure to get plenty of sleep so that I can get up early on Saturday and beat the heat.

W1D1: Starting Over

Last week when I went out for some runs, it just didn't feel right. I know that I'm less than a month away from running my first 10K, but with the training I was doing, I felt like I was rushing myself and not really having a solid plan for how to move forward.

A couple of years ago, I tried doing Couch to 5K for the first time. I did it on and off for about four months, but only made it up to week 5 due to a lack of consistency on my part.

Thinking back to how I did that time, I realized that if I want this time to be different, I need to be a lot more consistent with my efforts. And also, I need to not get ahead of myself and really focus on building up my endurance.

So that's exactly what I did this morning. I decided to start over from the beginning, at Week 1- Day 1, because I need to do this right. I realize that with the 10K being less than a month away, I won't get through the entire 10K program by race time. However, I hopefully will improve my endurance, run faster, and increase my confidence.

With that said, here's how today's run went!

Where: Concordia University Outdoor Track
When: 7 AM

My back was still hurting from lifting a heavy laundry bag yesterday, and my right knee is still occasionally in pain for some unknown reason, so I wasn't sure how those factors would affect my running today. Fortunately, my body turned off the pain while I was on the track, and I forgot all about what wasn't feeling well.

The workout was over much quicker than I had expected, and I'm already looking forward to doing Day 2 tomorrow morning. I think that what also helped me was running on a track, since (and I know this may sound cheesy) I felt like a runner.

On my agenda of things to change: Glasses and headphones. I need to get my glasses tightened since they kept slipping off of my face, and I need to get headphones that wrap around the back of my neck since my earbuds kept trying to slip out. Fixing both of these things should help me keep focused on my running instead of constantly trying to put things back where they should be. Thanks, sweat!

Work and Working Out

I had a pretty good workout at Crossfit tonight, and I'll post more details about it with numbers and stats on Saturday, along with the rest of my exercises from this week.

I told one of my coaches that I'm planning to run a 10K in August, and he gave me two exercises that'll help me strengthen my hamstrings. They're the kind of exercise that seem so simple at first glance: "Oh, all I need to do is just lay down, straighten out my legs, and then lift up! That's easy!" But of course, it's never quite that easy. The hamstring exercises are definitely pushing me out of my comfort zone, but that's exactly what I need if I want to do this training the right way.

Before going to Crossfit, I spent a few hours this morning at school, meeting with some other teachers who are part of our school's technology committee. Believe me, I'm in no rush for the new school year to begin, but going back today got me thinking about my work/life balance again. I've been able to increase my physical activity over the past couple of weeks because I haven't had to work, and as much as I want to keep this momentum going through the fall, I'm afraid that once school begins again, I'll end up putting my workouts on the back burner.

How do you balance work and working out?

Proud to Run 5K

Yesterday morning, I ran the Proud to Run 5K that was part of Chicago's Pride weekend. It was the third 5K that I've run in June, and my ninth overall, so I felt more confident going into it than I usually have with other races.

After the race!

The weather didn't work out in my favor during the last two races that I've run, but fortunately, Proud to Run stayed dry! With that issue out of the way, I felt that I could really focus on what mattered, which was trying to set a new PR, or to at least do better than my previous time.

About half an hour before the start time, some trainers from FFC-Halsted led us all in a warm-up stretch. I was dreading the possibility of it being just a simple leg and arm stretching session, and as we were packing into the stage area, I whispered to Ginger, "You know, I could really go for a dance party right about now." Either the FFC people heard me, or I must be psychic, because a dance party is exactly what we got! Sure, there were some parts where we did the basic leg and arm stretches, but more so than that, it was a high-energy and high-intensity warm-up dance routine. It was like Zumba, only with a lot of jumping jacks and "raise the roof" moments thrown in. I almost didn't want it to end, but then I remembered, oh yeah.. I'm actually here to run a 5K.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new running blog!

I started this blog to keep track of my progress as I work towards running my first 10K in August. First, here's a little bit about me:

When I was younger, I never believed that I could run. It was never something that I even tried to do, since I thought that I would only fail at it. Plus, I had knee problems for many years, but instead of trying to work past them, I just gave up before I could even give myself a chance.

Fast forward to May 2011. One of my friends asked me to run a 5K with her, and to be supportive, I said sure. I really thought that I would do the one race and then never think about running again, but of course, I was wrong!

I've done nine 5Ks so far, and I've decided to run a 10K to challenge myself and start pushing myself to run longer distances. This blog will be the story of my running adventures, so thanks for stopping by to read.