"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." ~ Anonymous

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

I Made It All The Way

Short story is....
I ran a complete 3.1 miles/5 K yesterday!!!!!!!!!
(on the treadmill)



Long story is...

As most of you know I finished the Couch to 5K program last week. For me it meant being able to jog 30 minutes straight, but not exactly 5K (or 3.1 miles). As I was talking to my husband about my accomplishment I told him that upon finishing that third 30-minute jog I wasn't really winded and dying to quit. It was tough, but I knew I could've kept going.

hhhmm... That got me thinking, "I wonder if I can jog a full 5K yet?"

So, yesterday I decided I would try it, or at least jog as much as I could. I started out at a brisk jogging pace for me (4.2 mph) and kept that up for the first mile. The second mile I took it back down to 4 mph, then back up to 4.1 where I finally fell into a steady rhythm that I felt I could keep up for a while.

The sweat was pouring down the sides of my face. It was great!

Suddenly twenty five minutes rolled around and I realized that if I was doing my "normal" jog I would be done in only five minutes. I realized then that I could probably keep going for the entire 5K. I kept it steady, bumping up the pace for the a minute or two at different intervals.

At thirty minutes the treadmill decided it was time for me to be done and I had to reset my time for fifteen more minutes. Unfortunately, every minute it tried to go down into cool down settings, so I had to reset my pace every minute. That was interesting, but thankfully it didn't wear me out or make it hard.

And at about 44 minutes I reached that magic number of my running dreams thus far

3.1 (miles)

At the same moment the little trail on the screen showed me crossing the 5K mark.

I was so happy I was smiling and I wanted to turn and shout it to everyone in the gym. LOL Instead I texted two of my best friends and my husband with the news. I also told one woman in the stretching/core room, because I couldn't contain my excitement. (And there were no guys in there at that particular moment...*sheepish grin* )

The best part of this entire story is that I was NOT exhausted at the end of my jog. I jogged 3.1 miles and I wasn't dying to stop during those last few minutes. This shows me that I can endure a race.

So....yes, I'm going to start looking for a 5K race to run in this spring. I'm so excited and can't wait to see more health goals reached in my life this year!



12 comments:

  1. YAY! I can't wait to hear about which race you are going to pick!! Way to go girl :-)

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  2. WOOOT! That is FANTASTIC! I am so proud of you! You definitely need to enter a 5K.

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  3. That is so cool!!!! I can't wait to be able to type that goal out too!
    I learned a very valuable lesson last night that I will never do again, I ate dinner (homemade pizza) and then went to run my 15 minutes less than an hour later. About 10 minutes into it I felt like I needed to throw up and had sharpe pains in my stomache. I ended up only doing 13 minutes. I knew better.

    Keep up the great work! I'm sure by spring you will have that 5k down to 34 minutes easily!!

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  4. leah i am so proud of you this is wonderful news!!!!!!!!!any news on you visiting phx...miss you love you aimee

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  5. Wow - it's funny when you hear "oh I ran 3 miles" it doesn't seem like much - but boy when you actually RUN 3 miles it's a whole different story! Way to go on that! So proud of you!

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  6. Go, Leah! Go, Leah! Go, Leah! (doin' a little dance for you).

    Fantastic! I'll get back in the c25k this week (infection is over).

    Whoot!

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  7. Woo hoo! Congratulations! That is exciting!!!!

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  8. Great job Leah, I am both proud of you and a bit jealous at the same time. :-)

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  9. I mostly lurk here (your story inspires me) but I had to de-lurk to say WAY TO GO!!! That is so awesome!!! Congratulations on an accomplishment that proves how strong you are--body AND mind.

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  10. Leah what an ACCOMPLISHMENT! I'm so proud of you and feel so bad for missing this post (this week has been a little bit of a whirlwind for me...so sorry!).

    Not sure if you have actually run outside or you have just been sticking to the treadmill (again I apologize) but just thought I would throw this out there, it's a lot different running outside then it is on a treadmill.

    That being said I'm not saying you can't by any means because I know that you are capable, but it might just take some getting use to.

    I'm so proud of you my friend...great work!

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  11. thats so very great! and just think :) if you can do that on the dreadmill methinks you can do MORE THAN THAT outside!!

    MizFit

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  12. Thank you so much for sending me this link. It really is inspiring me, I am actually sitting here thinking "Hmmm, I wonder how long I could run with out stopping tonight?"
    :)

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