Every Monday morning I’m so grateful that here at 2 Fat Nerds, we do our weigh-ins on Wednesdays. I don’t know what it is about the weekend that changes a mentality from “must only eat salad,” to “YOLO, I eat what I want!” But, alas, it happens. This weekend was filled with pizza, nachos, a burger, mozzarella sticks, and drinking. I’m not too upset about it, I did great all week, and a little bump in the diet is OK sometimes (although I did have a miserable migraine this morning, cheese-induced?).
Last Monday I started a Bupa 10k training schedule. While I was enthusiastic to get going, I was also trying to suppress the little voice in my head that said, “what are you doing? you’ll never be able to run 6 miles.” I’ve never been able to run much without walking, so I was doubtful that I’d be able to keep up. By the third run-day the schedule had me running 2 consecutive miles. I think a feat harder than running, for me, is ignoring the self-doubt. So, I was very excited on all three of my run-days last week, when I actually did it!Starting out with a program has been so helpful. I’ve always just set out to run as far and as fast as I could, which turned out to be about 2 minutes, pretty slowly. Now, all of a sudden, I had a calendar with instructions for the day. Run 15 minutes, walk 2 minutes, run 15 minutes. I thought, “there’s no way....” so I made the treadmill even slower than slow, and I ran it all, and felt great! It’s awesome to have a little bit of accountability, even if it’s just to my Google calendar. Being on-track the first week makes me feel like maybe, in 7 weeks, I’ll actually be able to run 6 miles. Nuts!
I’ve been cross-training on my non-run days with swimming laps. My gym has a pretty nice pool that isn’t absurdly crowded, so a couple days last week I swam for a half hour after work. Swimming is probably my favorite way to exercise. I’ve always been a good swimmer, being dropped in the pool at 2-years-old, but I haven’t swam in years. If you’re looking for a full-body low-impact, high-resistance workout, you should hit the pool. I’ve also noticed that my breathing has gotten a lot easier and more regular when running, I attribute this success to learning to breathe with the strokes while swimming. Everyone should try it out!
Week 1 Check-In: All workouts done, everything feels great, and I am excited to hit week two!
Happy Monday, everyone! Have a great week!
Congrats, ADN! I am trying to muster the courage to try the pool at our gym. I just don’t want to be the adult who has to (a) wear floaties or (b) be dragged out of the pool by that giant hook used to save floundering children. I used to swim all the time, but my swimming muscles have turned to mush! It’s so exhausting now!
Anyway, I’m so happy you’re excited about your running plan! I think enjoying what you’re doing is an important part of it all. It sucks when you just feel like you’re doing it to burn off the vats of pasta you consumed the night before (speaking from experience . . . maybe). It’s so much better to actually have fun with it.