Sorry for the late blog post this week. I had a pretty busy weekend and I didn’t get around to publishing this on Friday like I originally planned.

My week wasn’t too crazy. Now that it’s over, I have about four weeks until I graduate, which that is pretty crazy. I am very excited about graduation, but at this point it still doesn’t feel real.

Anyway, here’s a look into what I did this past week.

This Week’s Workouts

Since the work out class I had been taking on Tuesdays and Thursdays ended right before spring break, my roommate and I started going for a run during that time instead. Both times this week we ran on the indoor track because it was pretty chilly in the mornings. On Tuesday we did a two mile run, and on Thursday we did two and a half miles.

Of course, we aren’t quite to the point where we could run two miles straight. So, we did sort of an interval thing to mix in some walking breaks into our run.

We started with a warm-up, walking one lap around the track. We then did two full laps of running. After those two laps we would run a straight stretch, a curve, and the other straight stretch, and we walked the last curve. We continued this pattern until we hit whatever mile mark we were comfortable with.  

On Tuesday, when we were about two laps away from hitting the two mile mark, I suggested we run one full lap, and then walk the last lap to hit two miles. I wasn’t feeling super great at the time. I kept looking at my Fitbit to see how much further we had to go, so I was more than okay with letting the last lap we did be a cool down walking lap.

On Thursday, however, I think both my roommate and myself were feeling much better because I only looked at my Fitbit three or four times during the entire run. I was feeling so good, that I actually forgot to look at my Fitbit when we were getting close to the two mile mark.

So, instead of doing a cool down walk to round out the two miles, we actually just ran that lap, and then did a cool down walk afterward. At the end of our cool down lap, I told my roommate we had about 0.2 miles until we hit 2.5 miles, so she suggested we run half of a lap, and walk half of a lap to get us to the 2.5 miles.

And that’s how we exceeded our goal by half a mile.

We also signed up to run in a 5k next Saturday, which is another reason I think we went above and beyond (by half a mile) today. When we were walking our first cool down lap on Thursday (before we decided to go for 2.5 miles) I told her that since we had the 5k coming up, next week we would probably run 2.5 miles on Tuesday and Thursday to prepare for it. I also suggested that we attempted to run a full mile before we went into our run/walk interval routine.

I have basically no training experience, so I have no idea if that is actually a good plan or not. It sounds both challenging and doable, so I think I’m on the right track.

I also told her we could take walking breaks during the 5k, but we must run across both the start and finish line, as well as past any of the volunteers handing out water, and up all hills we encounter.

I hope there aren’t very many hills. We’ve been running on a flat track for the most part.

On Friday, I ran one mile to get a cookie. My sorority was doing an event to raise money for Ronald McDonald House Charities by selling cookies and lemonade for a dollar. The weather was really nice on Friday afternoon, so I decided to do the one mile run to campus in order to get a cookie. I did walk back to my apartment though.

The mile that I ran helped me exceed my goal of running five miles total for the week. And I got a cookie, so overall I’d say it was a pretty successful week.

I’m Still a Beginner

While my run on Friday wasn’t great, I did realize something about myself on the way back to my apartment.

Like I said earlier, Friday was an incredibly beautiful day. On my walk back to my apartment I passed a few other people who were running. They all looked like they were doing so much better than I was. I really struggled to run even half a mile that day, and the people that I passed looked like they had been running for much longer and they were still running.

I started to feel really defeated. I started to think that maybe I’m not actually a “runner.” I mean I can barely run a mile when there are hills involved, and for some reason I actually think I’ll actually run a half marathon by the end of this year?

I know I have a long way to go before I hit that point. I do feel frustrated that I am not further along in my training.  But, I still need to remember that I am still a beginner.

Seven weeks ago, I wasn’t working out at all. Now, I do some sort of workout or exercise at least three times a week.  Seven weeks ago, I did run at all. Now, I’m doing upwards of five miles a week. I’m making progress, I’m enjoying my workouts, and I feel really good about myself. I think that’s the most important part.

Every week, I challenge myself to do just a little bit more, and so far, I’ve been able to improve every single week. I do not plan on running my half marathon until October. Therefore, I still have almost six months until I need to be at that point. And I certainly do not want to injure myself or get burned out now by doing too much too fast.

So, yes, for now I am okay with letting myself take walking breaks when I run. I am okay if I can only run half a mile when I have to run up multiple hills. And for now, I am more than okay with being a beginner.

Wrap-up

So, like I said earlier this past week wasn’t super eventful. I did sign up for a 5k, which I am excited about. I get a t-shirt for participating, which was really the deciding factor for me to sign up.

Since that race will happen after I plan on posting my next blog on Friday, you can expect to read about that experience in about two weeks. However, in my next post I publish I plan on writing about my current running partner (and roommate) and the cool event she helped host on Saturday. (I’m really excited about it, so I hope you will be too). Thank you for your patience with me getting my blog posted this week. I so greatly appreciate everyone who takes time out of their days to read blog. I really love getting to write this blog every week and share it with all of you. I know this isn’t the most popular running blog ever, and I’m sure it’s not always super interesting, but I really enjoy working on it.

Week 7:  
Miles run this week: 5.5
Miles run total: 20.6
Overall mood: Determined