Recovering with Fun

Well, I'm just about over the heavy congestion from my flu and I'm officially on the mend. This weekend, we made a trip down to Glen Rose to visit the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and the Dinosaur Valley State Park. We had a great time. Fossil Rim is an African safari type park, where the animals roam free and you drive throughout the park. You are able to buy feed, and actually feed the animals, some by hand. The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time. Hey, what kid wouldn't: being able to stick their heads out of the sun roof and even ride on top of the van. The slideshow on my blog for this week is pictures from this trip. Enjoy!

Doh! The Flu

Man, I've never had it, except maybe once when I was a kid according to my mom and it sucks. It hit me quick and hard on Tuesday night last week and I woke up on Wednesday wishing for someone to put me out of my misery. Now my concept of the flu is that you're going to be feeling miserable for a few weeks. However, now a days there is actually a prescription you can get from your doctor to stop the flu called Tamiflu, as long as you get it early enough in the flu. That got me feeling pretty good in about 4 or 5 days and now I just have the cough and nasal congestion that started on Monday this week. I'm working my ColdBusters from Jamba Juice and drinking tons of fluids, taking ecchinasea (no idea how to spell that one), going to bed early and staying close to my cube at work. This has been helping and today I started to feel the congestion beginning to break. I'm going to start back up with walking and some jogging and hopefully at least go out with the group on Saturday for running. I was bummed to have missed the 5k last weekend, but, what do you do? If you've got the flu, you have to listen to your body, right?

Yet Another

This morning I did my long run (13minutes) and it was a challenge with the wind. Wind makes it feel like I'm running uphill or something. But again, I perservered. I set a PR for the mile. I don't have an exact second, but it was somewhere between 10:47 and 11:00, which beats my previous record by about 30 seconds. Woo Hoo! Tomorrow I've got a short run and I'll do my drills from the workout. We might have rain tomorrow morning, maybe because it didn't show this morning. Well, I'm loving running, even though it's hard.

PRs All Over the Place

This Saturday's run was another PR (personal record). Our workout consisted of walking 8 minutes, running 14 minutes and then walking another 8 minutes. I've never run 14 minutes straight and I'm quite proud to have completed it. I wasn't running my stop watch and I was depending on the coach to call out the start and stop times. I remember I was running along near the end and I was getting really tired, which for me when I'm running is that I'm having a hard time breathing. My lungs almost always give out before my legs. Anyways, that last bit was uphill and I was having an inner dialogue about stopping or not. If I were to stop, then I'd have given up, wouldn't know how long I had really gone for and been pretty disappointed in myself. On the other hand, if I continued, I would have set a new PR, cemented a sense of achievement of doing what I set out to do and have something to write about in my blog. Plus, I had the whole rest of the day to walk around and slowly catch my breath, that was not the time for that. So, I pushed through and did it! Woo Hoo!

This week I see some 13 minute runs in the schedule, and we have a 5K benchmark on Saturday. Things just keep progressing, more than I thought I could. It's awesome! Today, Lori and I warmed up on the erg rower and did our weight workout at the gym. Then we drove over to Lake Worth and went for a bike ride for around a half an hour. It was fun. Now I definitely have to put my seat on this bike. The pelvic-crushing seat on the aluminum frame of this bike is killing me. Time to put my cushy granny seat on. :o)

Feelin' Good

I'm sure I've posted with that exact title before, but darn it, I am! I worked out this morning early and for a long time. Just had to bite the bullet and get the extra weight workout done for the week. Running is the priority, but things will "work" better with weight training incorporated and I know it. I did Sharon's full body workout series #1, because I have Lori with me. Lori's decided she needs to lose weight. I've become her trainer of sorts. It's pretty cool, and again I've wondered if maybe I should look at doing that for a job, but I'm not sure it would make enough to pay the bills. Anyways, I'm feeling good, I can feel the difference already when I take the stairs by two (as always), but now it's feeling much easier. Although it's difficult to get up early, and deal with having to go to bed early, I feel so much better having started my day off with a workout. I'm glad I'm back into it. Also can't believe I'm running 10 minutes at a time. Looks like according to the schedule I'll be up to 14 minutes on Saturday. Wish me luck!

Good Morning!

Today I wanted to write post-workout, when I was excited and had something interesting to say. Here goes...

I got up! In the morning, before work. This is something I've been struggling with for some time now, but I just had to get back to my routine and straighten everything out. That damn snooze button has been too alluring for too long. I went for my run per the group training homework, outside at the track, which was thankfully unlocked today. From my run meeting on Saturday, I picked up the idea of varying the surface of your workouts at least 1/2 the time so that you aren't running on concrete all the time. That is one thing I'm disappointed about in Texas. All the sidewalks, roads, trails and paths are made of concrete, so I don't have much choice when running. So the track was a nice variance for the feet. Tomorrow it'll be less running, so I'll go through the hood and down by the pond. Anyways, it was an excellent morning, a little humid making the air soft, breezy and about 62 degrees. Nice. My legs hurt from the workout yesterday, but felt great by the time I did my post workout stretches. Lori went with me and that was also nice. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's run.

Here We Come Now

Well, the first week only went 1/2 as well as the original plan. Finishing out busy January at work for the end of the month just overtook my schedule. But that's OK, you just get up, workout at the next opportunity and keep moving. The missed workouts in the week didn't affect things for Saturday's run. It was a great workout at Luke's and the 10 minute run I was so intimidated by last week was easier this week. In fact, we ran on for a while and before we knew it it was at 8 out of the 10 minutes we needed to run. And I didn't even feel pain or get out of breath. It was awesome! I took little man out to hit some balls at the range, played catch and went bowling yesterday. It was a very physical day and very fun. Today I hit the gym with Lori and it was a workout that was definitely needed. My muscle tone has gotten worse and it needs the work. I'm looking forward to the workouts and looking forward to integrating in a little more into the routine and I'm looking at a class or two at the gym, maybe spin or maybe cardio kickboxing. Tomorrow it's a 30 minute run, that's all she wrote for tonight.