Step Three Day Five (or Three, Depending on How You Count)

So the running bit for this week is done, and to pick up where the last post left off–the calves didn’t give any indication I had worked out on Tuesday, when I was just walkiin’ around and such, but Wednesday… well, that was another story. A couple of steps into the running part, and I was very aware of my lower legs. In a sore way, not hurting/damaged, thankfully. Wednesday and today (Friday) were much the same, but I got through it.

Anyhow, so far, so good.

Step Three, Day One

I’ve long hated snow. Having large quantities dump on the metro right before I was gonna start getting fit didn’t improve my opinion of it. I had to push back the training program-proper by a week, and I was concerned I might be stuck losing another week to just walking, as a storm moved through last night. Fortunately, though, it only put an inch or two on the ground, and it was melted away from the streets, sidewalks and–Yea!–the track. So I plunged ahead.

One mile on the track, jogging the front straight every time around. Low thirties, I think, but it felt quite a bit colder with the wind, but I survived. It will be interesting to see how my calves feel come the morning.

And assuming the scale is to be believed, I’ve lost six pounds in eleven days. So that’s a plus, I suppose.

A Week In

I had intended to post items more-or-less daily, but just didn’t manage to do that. I did, however, manage to (mostly) complete phase 1. I walked around my neighborhood, for 35-50 minutes or so, Monday through Friday. I had planned to go today, as well, but the schedule just got too busy.

It hasn’t really helped that there is snow on the ground, fairly deep in places, and it has been fairly cold. It’s also been less than optimal that my parents want to go walking with me. In order to get any sort of an actual workout, I obviously have to maintain a certain pace, and they simply aren’t up to the task of walking fast enough for me to feel like I’m working out while we walk together. They only came along on two days this week, so that helped, and I managed to lengthen my route by “slaloming” while they kept to a straighter path, and on Friday, Mom wanted to deposit some checks in the bank, so I told them I was going to keep walking on a longer route while they went inside to handle that (there’s no walk-up ATM at this particular branch).

Next week, beginning Monday, is supposed to be the beginning of the actual running, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to make that happen. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, including on the track near the house that I had planned to run on to a) let me know precisely where I’m supposed to transition between walking and running on each lap and b) make things easier on my knees. And more snow may be coming through on Sunday, which makes it even more complicated.

Anyway, I may have to push back the running by a week, and hope that I get better weather so the snow will go away, at least enough to see the track edges. We’ll see.