It's a new week....

Dale and I had an awesome weekend that was off to a great start as soon as I got home on Friday night. Dale's brother and sister-in-law, Scott and Treena, came to town for a visit with the best 17 month old that I know Dane. We had a great night Friday playing with Dane and enjoying some good Michigan micro brew's while cheering Michigan State on to the Elite 8. Let's be serious, we enjoyed more than just a "few" brews which made Saturday a little interesting.

Saturday was slated to be my final day of my "3 weeks to a 30 day running program" with a final run of 5/1 x 5. After the evening of fun of course I woke up a little foggy and the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run. I take that back, I wanted to I just wasn't sure I could. Thank goodness for my siste in law! Treena and I threw on our running clothes and went out fo a quick morning jaunt. It was a perfect way to start the day (and surprisingly helped the mini hangover) and a perfect way to end my 3 week training. The run felt great and I wish that Treena lived right down the street so we could do that everyday (that among many other reasons, she's the best!). The rest of our weekend was spent heading to Grand Rapids to see the butterflies at Frederik Meijer Gardens, heading to a brewery, shopping, UFC fighting, lots of good playing with Dane, and of course cheering MSU in to the FINAL FOUR!

It's a start to a new week and I'm now starting a 5K training program. This program will be 8 weeks long and my first run of the night will be a repeat of Saturday 5/1 x 5. Now I suppose I should look for a 5k to run in 2 months!

Thanks again to Scott and Treena for making the trip down! We love you guys!

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

So the schedule this week is a little thrown off since my little sister Jamie is staying with us while our parent's enjoy an Aruba vacation! Monday's run went great though. 5/1 x 4 was the longest stretch of running I've had to do on this program. Again the hardest part is knowing that just a few short months ago I was running 3 miles with no problems ( I will get back there and running even more!). After the run, Jamie and I whipped up a yummy stir fry, minus the rice since apparently I can mess up rice even when it's done in a rice cooker. It still amazes me how much energy I have and how great I feel after a run, it sure does suck while doing it though!

Yesterday however was a day full of excuses. My scheduled run was 4/1 x 5 and the entire day was thrown off. Jamie's school starts at a ridiculously early time so we have to be out of the house by 7 am which throws off any chance of a morning run because let's be serious, I'm not getting up at 5:30 am when it's only 30 degrees outside! After dropping Jamie off at school I headed up to Grand Rapids for some meetings. The hope was that my meetings would be done and I could get home in time to get my run in before heading to Jamie's first Varsity soccer scrimmage (insert a little bragging, my amazing little sister is 1 of 2 freshmen to make the Varsity soccer team and not only did she start last night but she played the ENTIRE game! GO Little J!) Well my meetings went long and I didn't have time to run before heading to Jamie's game. So Jamie's scrimmage started at 6:45 and didn't get over until about 8:30. We grabbed some dinner on the way home and made it home about 9:00. Now here comes the excuses...

• I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was go for a run
• I hadn't eaten dinner yet
• I was already freezing after sitting outside for 2 hours
• It was super dark and I apparently think their is an ax murderer running around our nice, cozy subdivision

Now this is usually when I would throw in the towel and say "well I can always do it tomorrow". But somehow I overcame the usual excuses last night and went out and got my run done! It was a bit of a tougher run since I altered my course (due to the neighborhood ax murderer of course) and ran some different trails that were somewhat well lit. This involved more of a hilly run though and though there were times I wanted to stop and walk I didn't do it. I finished the run and felt awesome knowing that this was another big step for me! I officially have 2 more runs to go on the 3 week plan. No official run tonight but I will be sweating my guts out on the soccer field!

Oh and I have to give special thanks to my dog Oliver for pulling me up some of those hills last night!

In search of the runner's high....

So i've decided that it's high time I lace up the "tennis shoes" and turn them in to running shoes. Running has always been something I've kind of despised. I'm not sure if it's because I have crazy short legs, don't have a runner's "physique" or if I am just lazy. Whichever one it is it's time for me to overcome it. Here are a few reason's I think it's important for me to do this....

• It's good for me
• It's good for the dog
• I can run anywhere (and with all of the traveling I tend to do it may make sticking to an exercise program easier)
• It makes me feel good
• I've always wanted to be able to say "I'm a runner"

A couple of weeks I started a running program "3 weeks to a 30 minute running habit" and I am successfuly two weeks in (minus a day off due to nasy Michigan weather and possibly another day off due to drinking festivities in Chicago) It's been a great starting point for me since every day my run is e-mailed to me and it slowly works you in to a running habit. I've always failed in the past because I've wanted to do too much too quickly and have always felt like "I'm Young, I'm healthy, I should just be able to go run for 30 minutes".

In this program you slowly work your way up by doing a series of run/walk intervals. Not only is this a great way to build endurance but interval training also shreds calories...also another perk of running!

So anyway I decided it's high time I use my blog as a platform for my "running and working out" excursions. I'm hoping this will be a good way to keep me accountable to myself. I hope I don't bore anyone to much with my crazy complaints or stories of success as I make my way through this!

Tonight's run....after a nice warm up, run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute x 4= 24 minutes of actual run time. 30 minutes here I come!