The Great Outdoors

It is absolutely beautiful outside today in Hartford! It's 80 degrees and sunny. Of course, I've been locked up inside all day working so I haven't had much of an opportunity to enjoy, but I opened my office window for some fresh air!

From what I've been told, this is great running weather. But there's just one catch — I've been training completely indoors so far. Because I started my training in January, there was no way I was going to take on cold and snow as I learned to run. Now I have no excuse, other than the fact that the treadmill feels more at home.

The official start of Team In Training's fall season is in a couple of weeks. At that point, I'll have no choice but to run outside, because the group runs are at the West Hartford Reservoir. Part of me wants to attempt to venture out on my own, but in all likelihood, I think I'll stick to the familiar while I still can!

One of my biggest concerns about venturing outdoors is pacing. When I attempted to run the Chase Corporate Challenge a couple of years ago, I had great time on my first mile, but used up all my energy quickly and had to resort to walking. The treadmill feels safe because I tell it how fast I want to go, and it makes sure I can't go any faster or slower.

The closest I can get to that outdoors is GPS tracking. I have a great app for my phone that can do it, but no way to carry my phone! The Droid isn't exactly the smallest, sleekest phone on the planet. It also doesn't have an official armband, which poses a challenge. Guess I'd better do some research for purchasing one, because the marathon isn't going to happen on a treadmill!

Pre-training Milestone 1

I passed what I consider to be my first major running milestone tonight — running for 2 miles/20 minutes.

The decision to try to run a marathon for Team In Training came after I'd already committed to a couple of smaller races. I'm running in the Race for the Cure on June 4th, and Warrior Dash on August 13th.

I started Couch to 5k training in January with this really awesome podcast. Couch to 5k wasn't new to me — I attempted to complete it a few years ago for the Chase Corporate Challenge — but I've never made it all the way through.

This time, I had plenty of time before my first race, so I'd decided to take it easy and repeat the C25K training weeks as needed until I felt comfortable. I decided on 6 MPH runs and 4 MPH recovery walks at a 0.5% interval on the treadmills at the gym. I repeated weeks 3 and 4 a lot, partially due to my being afraid to move forward, and partially because I had a bunch of stumbling blocks (shin spints, sick, etc.). In fact, I repeated them so many times that I'm now barely going to finish it before the Race for the Cure, but I'm determined!

This week is now C25K week 5, which is a scary week because every day is different. Day 1 involves three, 5-minute runs with 3-minute walk breaks between. Day 2 involves two, 8-minute runs with one 5-minute walk break between. Day 3, the scariest day, is a 20-minute straight run, no breaks.

Days 1 and 2 weren't too bad. I actually did them a couple of weeks ago before coming down with a terrible cold, so this week was a repeat. Day 3 scared the crap out of me, because I've never run for 20 minutes straight in my life.

I went to the gym today armed with my friend Jon and my interval podcast, and managed to snag the best treadmill in the gym (the one where the ventilation system blows right on you, giving you a fresh breeze!). I covered the time on the treadmill with my towel, set my TV to closed captioning on Comedy Central so I could distract myself with the Daily Show and Colbert Report, and just ran.

It wasn't an easy 20 minutes, and it took everything I had toward the end not to look at my progress, but I did it! And even more amazingly, after I walked for a couple of minutes, I felt like I still had energy to do more running! My heart rate got a bit higher than I wanted, but it actually slowed down a bit once I got a rhythm.

...I got a rhythm. Weird.

My legs were fine after the run. No shin pain or achy knees! The worst part was actually my shoulder. I'm not sure what I did, but it was not happy with all the movement. I took one of my muscle relaxants tonight, so hopefully that will help ease things a bit.

I celebrated my progress with a protein shake and a smile. I feel like I just jumped my first hurdle. I'm 8% of the way there! :)

Racing to Save Lives

Welcome to my Team In Training home page.

I'm training to participate in an endurance event as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. These people are the real heroes on our team, and we need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission.

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. Thanks for your support!