c25k week 4: Ha ha!

ok so this morning I did the actual week 4 of the c25k plan, and yeah, that is not what I did last Friday! Kidding myself.

But not really. I did the week 4 this morning no problem, feel good! One of the big differences between what I ran this morning and what I ran last Friday is that today I had longer walking intervals. on friday, my walking intervals were basically crossing the street. I was terribly stiff the next day! today I did the proper amount of walking intervals, and stretched a bit at the beginning and end of each one.

So yeah, week 1 to week 4. I kind of want to get through the rest of it by the end of the month. Which is close to doable considering I skipped some early weeks, but probably not a good idea…

c25k week 1: aka I did it!!

I did it!

Instead of just procrastinating, I did it.

I had trouble sleeping last night and was lying in bed, tossing and turning, and finally I looked at the clock—5:42. so I got up, put on my jogging pants and runners, and went out there.

Didn’t follow the official c25k plan for a first run, as I’ve run before, and I also knew that if I took the time to look it up, I’d be done. I’d be sitting at the computer, and then it would suddenly be 7 o’clock and I’d have to make breakfast for my son. I just looked at the official plan now, and you’re supposed to have a warm-up walk that lasts a full 5 minutes, which I didn’t do. I walked to the end of our street, then ran 2 blocks, then walked crossing the street, then ran a couple more blocks, etc. All in all, 6 chunks of running, a small amount of walking, 2km over 20 minutes.

Amazingly my left foot feels fine, while my right foot felt a little funny. Hope I wasn’t favouring the left. I didn’t even think of it till I was almost home. We’ll see how they feel tomorrow.

Next time I will wear my bright yellow shell instead of a dark grey one though. I must have been invisible in the dark!

ETA: I just checked the c25k plan and what I did was more like week 4. Can I skip ahead?

And now I must stretch!

another monday

Another Monday. Super tired, due to a &*$*( car alarm going off under my window, two nights in a row! Argh.

So I still haven’t started the c25k yet. bad me, bad me. But, in my defence, I have been cycling to work every day, and picking up the kiddo from school 2 days a week, which involves both going up a steep hill, and fighting an extra 50 lbs of load (more leg work when I’m pedalling, more arm work when I’m braking—he only seems to pedal when I want to stop!)

Anyway, I just recorded my planned intake for the day, and I’m pretty pleased with how close I am to hitting my nutrition goals for 1,747 calories. Not worried about the low vitamin D; it’s a sunny day today! Will try to think of a high-iron, high-potassium snack to get those levels up where they belong, too. Although I did manage to get loads of iron yesterday, due to the magic of smoked oysters.

School daze

The young fellow is back in kindergarten, and I’m back on the bike!

The summer was spent driving him to & from distant preschool, which was maybe for the best as it was super hot and humid here—hard to breathe just standing still, I’m sure I would have been wheezing and clutching my chest if I’d had any kind of real exertion. The evening swims were just the right kind of exercise for the weather.

Now though, due to a childcare nightmare (isn’t it always the way), I find myself on the bike a lot. I ride to & from work, and on two days a week, I spend lunch hours riding to the kiddo’s school, riding him over to his afternoon minder, then back to work, and then I pick him up on the bike after work, we ride to the library or wherever, then home.

I encourage him to pedal too, but really I do all the work! Sigh. It’s better for me, though.

I am pleased to say I managed to get some dinners & lunches made and put in the freezer, including a great kale/white bean/sausage/tomato soup, which is great. Today’s lunch was leftover black bean/corn/avocado/tomato salad. yum. And I’m back on the take-2-pieces-of-fruit-to-work track, also good.

Next challenge: get running! Got my shoes, got a schedule where I can fit it in, Now I just need to get on it!

Back at it after ten days away

Well, after ten days at the cottage and one on set, I am back to the daily grind. And a sinus headache. I was sick before we went away, and felt blecch again on our return, so I figure it has to be allergies. I’ve started taking cetirizine again, which seems to be helping.

Our time away was filled with all sorts of treats. I made three batches of cookies at the cottage—not counting the brownies and shortbread I made before we left town—as well as peach pie, marshmallows, pancakes for breakfast on at least four occasions, and other treaty stuff like popcorn with melted butter. Yum. There was also a fair amount of time spent relaxing with books and knitting.

But we did also eat a fair amount of healthy stuff: fruit, veg, and meat purchased from farm stalls. And, went swimming and for hikes and even a (short) canoe trip.

So, maybe it all evened out? I certainly have no intention to go back in time and try to track my input & output. But my first day back is looking pretty good nutrition-wise:

And I remembered my vitamins!

a good day, nutrition-wise

well i'm coming down with something, currently lurking in my sinus and making me feel headachey and nauseated, but i managed an almost perfect day nutrition-wise yesterday, so that's something to cheer about!

so far, so good

since noticing a strong correlation between my crabby moods and forgetting to take my supplements, i've been making a really concerted effort to remember them every day without fail. which has meant a few pukey days where i had a handful of vitamins on an empty stomache, and there was one day on the weekend (thank goodness i was home) when i was feeling like a supergrouch and thought vitamins! and took them that very minute.

it may be just the placebo effect, but if it works, i'll take it. and it seems to be working. i've had a couple of really stressful days at work (if only everyone would listen to me and me alone, and do my bidding at the drop of a hat), but have been able to bear them with something resembling grace.

in the interests of posterity and illumination, i take a b complex, c (500 i think), 2x ferrous gluconate, e (200 or 400, depending on which bottle i pick up at random), and 2 teaspoons of carlson's best norwegian fish oil with natural lemon flavouring (i tried norwegian gold capsules before and they did nothing for me, but carlson's makes a difference). in the winter i take vitamin d as well, but considering the burn i got at the pool on the weekend (normally the kiddo and i swim in the evening, but on sunday we were swimming for 3 solid hours in the afternoon) i think i'm getting my daily dose from the sky.