Couch to 5K training

Much to my amazement, I am enjoying this training program although the hour before going I thinking of ways to get out it LOL. Much as I thought, I am one of the biggest runners in the group and definitely the slowest (one other runner who about my size).

1st 2 training sessions were a set program for 2 groups, faster and slower. Obviously I am in the slowest group. for the first 2 training sessions it was a 5 min walk, then 1 min run and I min walk finishing with a 5 min walk.  Actually in the first session the coach stayed with me and we walked/ran between fire hydrants which in the immediate are very evenly spaced.  For the 2nd session, I had obviously been identified as the slowest person so another runner came along with me and we managed to keep to the 1 min run/1 min walk for a total of 30 mins with warm up and warm down walks.

Last Tuesday was an easier evening as we jogged/walked to a spot in the local area where the coach had set a 0.5 mile course as a time trial. The first part had an incline (not that much) which I always have difficulties with. Even walking I can get out breathe if there is an incline, especially on cold damp days. This was one of these evening with the first strong cold front blowing in for the season. Temperature when from mid 70’s at the beginning the session to the mid 50’s when we started the time trail but fortunately the rain held off.  I was very pleased with my time – 7mins 35 secs- pace 15.22 which was faster than my Toronto pace of 16.10.

The only day I have been disappointed was this Thursday when I went out for my run and my legs just felt like lead. Even walking was an uphill slog. I tried to follow the program but it just wasn’t happening so in the end I walked  most of the time.  I think it was because I had been doing to some calf exercises the previous day.

By yesterday I was fine and managed to follow the program set. 4 min walk 2 min run and I min walk x 7, 4 min walk – total 28 mins

Today, it was 5 min walk, 4 min run, 5 min walk and 4 min walk. As I have never managed to jog for 4 mins, this was quite a tall order for me but I managed it 🙂

As well as revamping my 5k training schedule by joining a running club, I have also been trying to follow a more diabetic diet, so no breakfast cereal in the morning and lower carbs for other meals. Kind of strange to be eating egg, salad and nuts for breakfast but I am getting use to it.  I am not counting the carbs and I am not an angel so the odd high carb thing ends up in my diet but it does seem to be bringing down my blood glucose. Haven’t quite figure out the effect of exercise as that tends to send it higher briefly. Hoping my HAC1 will be back down to 6.5 or lower by the time I see Doctor Boyd in March. At the moment its 7.0.

I have also finally started to add rolling into my program. My trainer at Gold Gym has tried to encourage me in the past to do it and Gordon does it after every training session he does.  I got a smaller roller when we visited the Toronto Marathon sport expo from this company – Go Fit as the roller Gordon has is too thick for me.  It look simple enough but it’s not and it hurts if the muscle being targeted is tight but you do feel better for it afterwards. Next step is introduce the Myrtle exercises (recommended by Jen the Rogue trainer), which are more hip mobility which I definitely need

Toronto done and gone

Well, I managed to do the Toronto run in 51min 19secs  which was marginally better than my walk time in May for the Pflugerville 5K. I was disappointed with the time, that is true but at least it was slightly faster plus it was a PB. Anyhow, I have now decided to join a local running club for a program called couch to 5K. I am hoping that at the end of the 8 weeks I will be able to jog the whole distance and then work on getting it down to about 30 mins.  I have no intentions of joining Gordon with his long distance running, 3 miles is more than enough for this old lady.

As to the actual Toronto 5K, I hated it.  Up to the day of the race the weather had been quite mild for that part of the world. We did a tremendous amount of walking as it was so easy to walk when the weather is fine plus there is an excellent transit system, once your feet are too tired to go further.  On the day of the race though, the weather was down to 3c which with a wind chill factor added, actually felt like -3c. 😦   As I was doing the 5k I had to leave Gordon at the Half marathon site and the sun was just rising as we stood in our corals.

A not so happy me before I got the shuttle bus to the 5K starting point.

As you can see I was wearing a fleece and  (not see) gloves for the start by which time the fleece was zipped up.  So the run started OK. I am never very good at the beginning as I have trouble controlling my breathing so it strictly a run for about 45 secs and then walk/run until I have warmed up.  About 20 mins into the run, I decided I was warm enough to take off the fleece and wrap it around my waist. Big mistake, the zip got stuck and I was struggling with it for a good few mins before giving up and just pulling it over my head.  Then I had tuck it into the running belt I was wearing. At first it began to slip down, so I had to re-tuck it in. However, I found the thing flapping around my legs just plain annoying and distracting. Just had to get on with it.

At about the 25-30 min mark, I decided to take the gel pack Gordon gave me as I could feel my light breakfast was not there anymore and I was walking/running on reserves. Just one problem the gel pack was in my fleece pocket and I just couldn’t get to it!

Throughout the race, I kept coming across these two slightly older ladies who were speed walking.  Turned out they were good pacers for me as they would catch up with me whilst I was walking and as they came up, I would run.  If only I had seen them at the end I might have achieved the 50 min mark I was aiming for. Looking at the video on race site , I spotted one of them just speeding pass me at the finishing line. LOL.

I was so glad to get over that finish line as I had hated almost every minute of this run. It started down at the lake shore but rapidly move onto the downtown area. It was not a pretty run by a long shot. Along the way there were a few bands of cheerers but on whole it was just a grey long slog along a very unattractive route.

Obviously much as I had run/walked trained for this race, I was not ready for it which is the reason I have finally given into my reluctance and joined the running group called Rogue Running in Cedar Park. As there are no pictures of any bigger runners on their blog site or Facebook page, I can only assume they don’t normally get people like me or simply don’t acknowledge them. However, can’t let this put me off as I really would like to be able to jog non stop for 5k, even if I am not fast.  Never thought this would be me but it is. Somehow, all these other people running around me as brought out the slight competitive streak I have deep within me.

To training starts on Tuesday. I will be updating the blog more regularly during this time. I will also working on managing my type II diabetes as it seems after 20 odds yrs of having this disease it is beginning to get slightly worse. I will be interested to see what my A1c level is when I visit the doctor in a few weeks time,