It's official. The Suck it Up Buttercup 5k is less than one week away. 6 days to be exact. Our anniversary is Friday and to celebrate 10 (years) this year, we will be running 5 (km) together (each). Who would have thought? I think we are both getting pretty excited. I know I am. I think Steven is too.
This period of training has been difficult for us both. It is HOT here. While my mornings are not as hot, they are super sticky and humid. The lack of any sort of breeze first thing in the morning makes the weather take your breath away when you walk outside. I'm sweating before I even get my Runkeeper app open and started. Just prepping for a 5k outside though in July, I guess. Such is the life of Florida runners. I'm not sure whether I prefer this or the bitter cold. Probably this just because the humidity in the cold here makes my body hurt. But I digress. Steven runs at night so he is hitting hotter periods than me but he sometimes gets a wind. The other day he actually came home and told me that the asphalt was so hot during his run that it felt like the soles of his feet were burning. Eep!
Steven's training has been going really well. Though most days he doesn't think that is the case. There are days that he has difficulty completing the entire running portions of the c25k program, but I think it is so important to remember how far he has truly come. From not running ever, to finishing 3 miles in under 40 minutes even with a good amount of walking. His pace is still so much faster than me. It's impressive to me since I run so slowly. Steven is a rule follower. He is having some difficulty completing the current week of c25k... I think he is on week 4. Instead of being like me and deciding to brush passed it and continue on the trek, he is dead set on finishing each day doing the runs exactly as they are recommended. So, he is still sitting on Week 4, but he is still doing really well. He has been toying with the idea of trying to run on a flatter surface (as flat as one can get outdoors and not on a treadmill) to see if he can run the recommended times. Downfall to that is that the 5k has hills. It even advertises them so they must be something. Steven was perusing Google Earth and learned that in the first mile, when you leave the park that the race starts in, you have to climb about a 35 feet incline. I'm sure that isn't much to people outside the state of Florida, but it is a feat for some of us. Steven's goal over this weekend was to run a full 5k distance to get an estimate of his time before the race so he knows what goal he wants to shoot for. So, Sunday night, he did just that. He did awesome, too! He came in at just under 38 minutes. He said he didn't finish the actual c25k program as it was designed for this run, but once he had to walk, he just continued to alternate walking and running for the remainder of the length of the run until he finished. I'm pretty impressed. When he looked up his time from the first (and only thus far) 5k run he did back on May 7 when he FIRST started this whole running thing, we realized that he has shaved about 4 minutes off his time. He came in at 41:55 for that first 5k distance. Not too shabby of an improvement.
I'm doing... okay. I am pretty happy with my progress but I still have plenty to continue to work on and a lot of stamina to build up. I have started to focus on running 2 times per week for a specific amount of time (I am working on increasing it by 5 minutes each week) and am currently doing about 25-30 minutes straight. The other day a week that I run, I focus on distance. My goal is to try to hit 3 miles that day or get as close as possible. As we continue and work towards a 10k, I will continue to up that time and distance goal. What I'm finding as an issue right now is that almost without fail, I end up getting a terrible stitch at about 2 miles. I have no idea why and it always happens at about the same distance. Weird. I can push through it for a few minutes and I try to focus on my breathing to see if I can get it to cease, but it usually just gets worse eventually and I have to walk. I'm finding that it is really messing with my total time and distance because once I stop and walk, I have a difficult time running again for any period of time. The stitch returns pretty quickly and with a vengeance. I have also been working on a Florida version of hill training. I try to hit a few uphills every run to make sure that I am increasing my stamina related to running up hills (and keeping good form going down them to make sure I am not hurting my knees.) There is a large hill in our neighborhood that I have stared down a few times. I can run about 1/2 way up it, then I have to walk. Usually I hit that hill at the end of my run so I am already tired. I might try to hit it towards the beginning of a run soon to see if that makes a difference. I know that I can tell a definite difference in my abilities at this point. I can't believe I started this running thing about 6 months ago now and actually kept up with it. This morning I ran 5k just to see how I am doing. It wasn't my fastest run (okay, it was only 2 seconds more than my fastest time), but considering I have been dealing with either a cold or some serious sinuses for the last week, I felt pretty good about it. I also slowed substantially at one point to look at the house in our neighborhood with the crime scene tape and about 15 officers standing around waiting for the crime scene people to show up. Okay, it didn't slow me down that much but it was a bit of excitement for an early morning run. Sidenote: I also got a chance to use my new running gear this morning. Loved the Garmin Forerunner 15, my running belt, and bluetooth headphones. Definitely nice additions to my stash.
I have been working on switching up my run days to align with Steven. I run in the morning and he runs in the evening (though that didn't work out over the holiday weekend). That way, we can actually go on walks on our off days. What was happening was that I was running in the morning on Steven's off days and then we were walking those evenings. On evenings he runs, we don't walk. It is just too much for him to walk and then run almost immediately after. We typically try to take at least 2 mile walks and (as long as we are not walking Jack) we keep to about a 17-18 minute mile so we aren't exactly strolling along. Our record is actually a 16:30 minute/mile on a walk. We have determined that we can almost walk a 10k at Disney and not get picked up by the bus. Ha! We both wear Fitbits and I was finding that I was missing hitting my goal on the days that Steven was running (though I was hitting at least 15,000+ steps on my run days... and one 22,000 random Tuesday... that's what happens when I get added to a daily challenge) . That's irritating. So, now we both try to run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then we walk on the other days. It's been tough because it's been so hot in the evenings, even for just walking because we have to go before bedtime and before the sun goes down, but we are making it. It seems like it has been an exceptionally hot summer already and it is wearing us down.
One of the main reasons I like running in races is because it pushes me. I can try for a new PR or just enjoy myself. It's called a race, but the only person I am racing is myself. If I can beat my current PR (41:14.38) this time, I am going to be ecstatic. Steven gets to set his first PR so hopefully that will be good for him. I trained for over 2 and a half months prior to my first 5k. He has only been training for about 1 to 1.5 months. He is doing awesome though and I am super proud of him (and me) for sticking with this for this long. I have mentioned that we have both tried this before but never saw it through. We are now finally seeing all our hard work pay off. Both of us have lowered our blood pressure and resting heart rates. I've lost a few pounds (but I find that I am STARVING on days I run so it hasn't been as much as I probably could have because I succumb to that feeling too often) and Steven has lost even more. We are both feeling physically better than we can ever remember. I think we are both super happy with this change we made in our lives.
So, one week left until we hit the road for that awesome race bling. So excited!
This period of training has been difficult for us both. It is HOT here. While my mornings are not as hot, they are super sticky and humid. The lack of any sort of breeze first thing in the morning makes the weather take your breath away when you walk outside. I'm sweating before I even get my Runkeeper app open and started. Just prepping for a 5k outside though in July, I guess. Such is the life of Florida runners. I'm not sure whether I prefer this or the bitter cold. Probably this just because the humidity in the cold here makes my body hurt. But I digress. Steven runs at night so he is hitting hotter periods than me but he sometimes gets a wind. The other day he actually came home and told me that the asphalt was so hot during his run that it felt like the soles of his feet were burning. Eep!
Steven's training has been going really well. Though most days he doesn't think that is the case. There are days that he has difficulty completing the entire running portions of the c25k program, but I think it is so important to remember how far he has truly come. From not running ever, to finishing 3 miles in under 40 minutes even with a good amount of walking. His pace is still so much faster than me. It's impressive to me since I run so slowly. Steven is a rule follower. He is having some difficulty completing the current week of c25k... I think he is on week 4. Instead of being like me and deciding to brush passed it and continue on the trek, he is dead set on finishing each day doing the runs exactly as they are recommended. So, he is still sitting on Week 4, but he is still doing really well. He has been toying with the idea of trying to run on a flatter surface (as flat as one can get outdoors and not on a treadmill) to see if he can run the recommended times. Downfall to that is that the 5k has hills. It even advertises them so they must be something. Steven was perusing Google Earth and learned that in the first mile, when you leave the park that the race starts in, you have to climb about a 35 feet incline. I'm sure that isn't much to people outside the state of Florida, but it is a feat for some of us. Steven's goal over this weekend was to run a full 5k distance to get an estimate of his time before the race so he knows what goal he wants to shoot for. So, Sunday night, he did just that. He did awesome, too! He came in at just under 38 minutes. He said he didn't finish the actual c25k program as it was designed for this run, but once he had to walk, he just continued to alternate walking and running for the remainder of the length of the run until he finished. I'm pretty impressed. When he looked up his time from the first (and only thus far) 5k run he did back on May 7 when he FIRST started this whole running thing, we realized that he has shaved about 4 minutes off his time. He came in at 41:55 for that first 5k distance. Not too shabby of an improvement.
I'm doing... okay. I am pretty happy with my progress but I still have plenty to continue to work on and a lot of stamina to build up. I have started to focus on running 2 times per week for a specific amount of time (I am working on increasing it by 5 minutes each week) and am currently doing about 25-30 minutes straight. The other day a week that I run, I focus on distance. My goal is to try to hit 3 miles that day or get as close as possible. As we continue and work towards a 10k, I will continue to up that time and distance goal. What I'm finding as an issue right now is that almost without fail, I end up getting a terrible stitch at about 2 miles. I have no idea why and it always happens at about the same distance. Weird. I can push through it for a few minutes and I try to focus on my breathing to see if I can get it to cease, but it usually just gets worse eventually and I have to walk. I'm finding that it is really messing with my total time and distance because once I stop and walk, I have a difficult time running again for any period of time. The stitch returns pretty quickly and with a vengeance. I have also been working on a Florida version of hill training. I try to hit a few uphills every run to make sure that I am increasing my stamina related to running up hills (and keeping good form going down them to make sure I am not hurting my knees.) There is a large hill in our neighborhood that I have stared down a few times. I can run about 1/2 way up it, then I have to walk. Usually I hit that hill at the end of my run so I am already tired. I might try to hit it towards the beginning of a run soon to see if that makes a difference. I know that I can tell a definite difference in my abilities at this point. I can't believe I started this running thing about 6 months ago now and actually kept up with it. This morning I ran 5k just to see how I am doing. It wasn't my fastest run (okay, it was only 2 seconds more than my fastest time), but considering I have been dealing with either a cold or some serious sinuses for the last week, I felt pretty good about it. I also slowed substantially at one point to look at the house in our neighborhood with the crime scene tape and about 15 officers standing around waiting for the crime scene people to show up. Okay, it didn't slow me down that much but it was a bit of excitement for an early morning run. Sidenote: I also got a chance to use my new running gear this morning. Loved the Garmin Forerunner 15, my running belt, and bluetooth headphones. Definitely nice additions to my stash.
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| The Suck it Up Buttercup 5k race course |
One of the main reasons I like running in races is because it pushes me. I can try for a new PR or just enjoy myself. It's called a race, but the only person I am racing is myself. If I can beat my current PR (41:14.38) this time, I am going to be ecstatic. Steven gets to set his first PR so hopefully that will be good for him. I trained for over 2 and a half months prior to my first 5k. He has only been training for about 1 to 1.5 months. He is doing awesome though and I am super proud of him (and me) for sticking with this for this long. I have mentioned that we have both tried this before but never saw it through. We are now finally seeing all our hard work pay off. Both of us have lowered our blood pressure and resting heart rates. I've lost a few pounds (but I find that I am STARVING on days I run so it hasn't been as much as I probably could have because I succumb to that feeling too often) and Steven has lost even more. We are both feeling physically better than we can ever remember. I think we are both super happy with this change we made in our lives.
So, one week left until we hit the road for that awesome race bling. So excited!
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