Josie's Journey

Week 10, begin again??

“It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself ,that determines how your life’s story will develop.”- Dieter F. Uchtdorf

A definite low week.

Week 10 brought both the highs and lows of my journey and crammed them side by side, day after day. I feel like I’ve been riding a physical, mental, and emotional roller coaster all week. Because of the health pandemic? because of the “stay at home” order? I’m pretty sure there isn’t one single box that I could check to answer why, but I do know that it’s some odd combination of the many different things happening in each passing day.

Monday brought some sort of a “high” in the simple context that the sun was shinning and the wind wasn’t whipping at 100mph as it often does in southern, rural Minnesota. For my fellow Gusties who think the wind at the top of the hill is treacherous, why don’t you just take a little visit to Sleepy Eye and you’ll find that our hill top “Gusts” aren’t really all that bad. I did a decent 4 miles parading laps throughout my small town. Without stopping you might ask? I WISH. I made it about 2.5 miles and broke down to walk for a short minute and continue on my endeavor. I then, as most Minnesotans do when the sun is shining, tried to be outside as much as possible, so I proceeded to go on a walk with my mom and sister, and then finished the night with a bike ride around the lake with my sister and dad. A pretty good Monday.

I almost forgot!!!! Monday when I got home from my run, I had a package waiting for me at the door…now, I’m a rather broke college student, so packages with my name on them don’t show up very often. My new running shoes had arrived!!! Like any excited person with new shoes, obviously I wore them on our walk AND the bike ride cause, you know, why not? Have to break them in somehow right?!

Typically my Tuesday’s don’t involve any running because I have to give myself days off from it in order to mentally be able to get the mileage in that I’m supposed to. EXCEPT, when there are new shoes involved, that rule becomes a broken rule :). I tested ’em out on the most perfect spring day and just did a quicker mile than I typically would (about a 9:30) and then walked around soaking up the sun and threw a few sprints in between blocks when I felt like it.

Wednesday was the start of feeling low. I’m not sure if it was the change in weather or what, but I had absolutely no energy to run, besides the fact that the whipping wind had made its grand return once again, creating an even more hopeless energy for my running future. Nevertheless, I didn’t get a run in on Wednesday, which was supposed to be another 4 mile day, so I settled for a walk with my mom.

Thursday repeated Wednesday with crappy weather and wind…surprise surprise. Day 2 of no running, settled for a below average instagram cardio workout and a walk on our 20 year old treadmill until I couldn’t bear it any longer.

Friday was finally decent weather again, so I managed to pull myself together for what was supposed to be my Wednesday 4 miler. It ended up being about the same as Monday: 2.5 miles before a rest and then a few long intervals to finish up and hit 4. Feeling annoyed with the weather, disappointed in my effort, and overall frustrated by the circumstances that we have no control over, I had the mentality of giving up on this whole half marathon training thing.

Saturday I was in a funk. Again, not sure why this week brought me on a roller coaster ride, but Saturday was tough for me. I couldn’t find much positivity within myself, and didn’t have energy to do any of the things that normally make me feel better, or productive at least. My family is completely aware of my running journey and has been such a great support system for me when I’m feeling like crap about it. I told my mom and sister that I would try and muster up the energy to do an evening run since it was decent enough outside to postpone the run that long. We decided it would be good for all of us to go on a walk, so that we did.

I have been begging my sister to join me for my shorter runs basically since I’ve been at home, and I have never succeeded to trick her into thinking it would be “fun” to run together lol. Until Saturday…she came up to me and said “Fine, I’ll run with you, but only a mile”, I was THRILLED!! And a good friend reminded me this week, that even 2 miles is better than none, so sure shit I took her up on the offer to do one mile together:)

The run didn’t go quite like I thought it would hahahaha. My mom chose to bike with us since she has been biking with me a lot lately, so I anticipated a nice enjoyable one mile run with the fam without any troubles etc. I was just a little wrong lol. Emma is a headphones girl so by default, we both ran with headphones in. Periodically I would just peak over at her and mom to see how everyone appeared to be feeling, we were about half way and so far so good!

We turned the last corner of our run that we had mapped out, which meant we had about .25 left to go until we reached a mile…I took a peak over at my sister and boy did she look miserable. Like I’m a red faced type of workout person, but her face was even more red than mine gets!! Not to mention the “I hate you and I hate this” look that was painted all over her face lol, I couldn’t help but laugh inside my head (if you have siblings, you for sure understand this). Then, all of a sudden, Emma was no longer running next to me, so I turned around as I continued to jog, and she had given up. While I know this feeling VERY, VERY well, I really wanted her to just finish it out with me, especially because I knew she could! After 30 seconds of me cheering her on from across the street and my mom joining in on the fun to add in some cheers, she put the headphones back on and we set out to finish the remaining .20 miles. We made it about another tenth of a mile and this time she quit for good, no seriously, like I kept going since we only had a tenth left, but Emma took a quick seat on the curb and proceeded to tell mom about the pain in her side and stomach…all I could think was “oh this is just great, what have I done” (hand to forehead).

After a few minutes, she decided she could walk the remaining distance back home, so I ran and she walked with my mom. About halfway between where the breakdown happened and our house is my dads house. So, I decided to stop at his house and wait for them to catch up (mostly so I could tell him the story hahaha, but also cause it’s more fun to do things together so I thought I would just wait for them at this point).

A few minutes later they caught up, and by this time Emma was completely fine again-and she actually was laughing about her little melodramatic scene, too, after all, it was quite a show hahaha. She even insisted that we run back home the rest of the distance together (probably like .30), so we did! So, instead of an 8 mile run, which is what my training program suggested for week 10, I took joy in the first sister run in our history, an entire family bike ride, and game night.

The start of week 11 has now eclipsed. Per my schedule it should have kicked off with a 4.5 miler this morning, but with a snow covered town accompanied by whipping wind, you already know that didn’t happen. Instead, a new instagram workout took its place with a walking session on the treadmill. If this whole training thing is actually going to somewhat stay on track, I really, REALLY, need to find the gusto within to start doing longer runs, otherwise I can kiss this season of training goodbye.

I hope you all had an Easter filled with joy and found hope in the little things, I know we sure tried to here!

Here’s to hoping for a better tomorrow!

…and days filled with sunshine instead of snow, and calm spring breeze instead of a whipping winter wind.

xoxo

It’s fine, i’ll be fine…week 9

“In life, we make the best decisions we can with the information we have on hand.”- Agnes Kamara-Umunna

I can’t help but feel like the quote above is exactly what we are doing in America right now. There are so many unknown variables in our future that all those in powerful positions must just make the best possible decisions based on what we know right now. I give such big kuddos to everyone who is in a decision making position throughout all of this, I cannot imagine the stress they are going through amidst the uncertainty.

With that, week 9 has been a whirlwind. With the stay at home order in full effect, to me, life feels sort of like its half-paused, anyone else? I still went to work and we had our first day of locked doors with phones ringing, it was different, but it worked. After work, I did an average 3.3 miles with about 4 stops throughout…I also then went for a walk with my mom followed by a bike ride with my little sister-so I think by the end of the day my step count was pretty dang high.

Tuesday brought some Tuesday blues. It was officially the day that the decision had been made by the powers that be to cancel Grandma’s Marathon for this summer. Definitely not what I was hoping for, but also something that I was bracing for and was beginning to expect. The health and safety of this state, nation, and world is so much more important than some random chick going from a couch potato to a wannabe runner lol. Bummed, but trying to find the light. (also, because I decided to throw myself a pitty party, Tuesday brought no workout whatsoever and a plethora of snacking after work…yikes)

Wednesday was my last day of work until who knows when because of all of this COVID-19 stuff going on, and with a higher risk sister at home it probably is a good thing. Today was supposed to be a 4 mile evening, but I was feeling emotional with the realization that I would now be sitting at home everyday, I was also feeling the weight of the Gustavus Honor’s Day weekend officially being cancelled, and the realization that the likelihood of having an actual college graduation ceremony is becoming more slim as the time ticks. Needless to say, Wednesday was filled with many tears and red, raw eyeballs by the end of the night. I was feeling so frustrated that around 9:15pm I threw on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and just ran without a destination or a distance in mind, it ended up being 2 miles and made me feel much calmer about crawling into bed. After all, I am healthy and able to exercise, so for that I am thankful.

Thursday brought an at home HIIT workout which actually kicked my butt and was great-one perk of being at home is having the time and energy right away in the morning to knock out a solid workout at my own pace after having a cup of coffee! Mom and I then tried some at home yoga which was nice and relaxing and then headed outside for a walk in the nice spring weather!

Saturday was supposed to bring 7 miles-DAMN. This is the day I decided that I would maintain my running even though the race is cancelled. At this point I am not going to strictly follow my training plan, but I am going to continue to push myself to get better at this whole one foot in front of the other thing because heck, it feels good! And I’m the type of person that absolutely NEEDS something to look forward to, and since there isn’t much else going on right now, I might as well run! Anyways, I convinced mom to bike with me Saturday since she didn’t have to work from home. We made it a little over 2 miles without stopping and then proceeded to do longer intervals of running until I hit 5 miles. At the end of 5 I was feeling quite tired and my legs felt like logs of timber, so I decided to walk the remaining 6 blocks until I could face plant into our front lawn. Just a little humor for you…around 3.5 miles, in between my puffs for air, I huffed out the words “we just hit 3.5” to my mom. Her response was “only 3.5?! holy crap I feel like we’ve gone way farther than that!!”….LOL, MOM, YOU’RE THE ONE ON TWO WHEELS HERE ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!

So moral of the story for week 9? I’m not really sure to be honest, but you’re welcome to continue sharing this experience with me as I continue to navigate what it’s like to try and become a runner.

I also want to share with you an amazing recipe my family tried this week during our quarantine-it was recommended to us by a family friend and was absolutely amazing!! Give it a try if you’re bored at home with these random ingredients!

P.S. If any of you have tips on how to STOP SNACKING LIKE A CHILD please send them my way!! By 10:00 this morning I had already made 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies and consumed nearly half of them.

I also was supposed to be landing in Florida right about now with my boyfriend for the week, but the universe has other plans, so for now zoom will have to do.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay positive, we’ll get through this peeps! Hugs and love, xoxo

Week 8, the not so great

“Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now, but it can’t rain forever”- NA

I can honestly say I never imagined living at the time of a pandemic.

It’s scary and uncertain, probably two of my least favorite feelings ever-fear and uncertainty.

A few months ago fear and uncertainty meant not knowing what I was going to do for the rest of my life, and boy did that seem terrible! Now, at the end of March, those same two words have been elevated in a completely different way. The fear of loved ones becoming ill or dying, not being able to comfort those who may need it most, thinking about the many front line employees who sacrifice their health and safety for that of others, unfortunately the list goes on and on.

With the stay at home order beginning on Friday of this week because of the Corona virus, I feel like we’ve been introduced to a whole new level of uncertainty and fear. Not knowing how these next two weeks will pan out for anyone, or what will come after, is a bit unnerving.

As much as this week was filled with fear and uncertainty, I tried to stay on my training regime at least somewhat. Monday after work I tested out one of the county roads near my house. I’m not sure how I feel about county roads yet, its great because around here in Sleepy Eye they are completely flat for miles and miles, but they also go straight for miles and miles…kind of good thing, kind of a bad thing lol. Anyways, I ran about 1.5 miles without stopping and then finished to my 3.5 total miles in intervals of running and walking, normally around a tenth of a mile at a time.

My non-running days have quickly become extremely challenging. I am now realizing how much I was loving my 5:30am workout class-and how much it made me work my tail off!! I tried to do some 20 minute at-home tabata workout, but it was pretty pointless, I really suck at pushing myself while I’m alone in my basement next to the fireplace and couch lol. Send help please!!

Wednesday was 4 miles according to my beginner’s training plan. I begged my mom and sister to come with me so that it would go by a bit faster, but apparently we all have the same “I hate running” gene hahaha-maybe some of you have it too? Eventually I convinced my mom to ride her bike very slowly next to me while I ran and see if it was fast enough for her to stay on her bike without doing that awkward twisty-turby thing so you don’t fall off your bike lol. It worked better than I thought! This time I went about 1.7 miles without stopping and then took shorter breaks with longer running intervals after that until I hit my 4 miles. My little sister was also my uber this week after runs since she didn’t have school or softball practice, (it makes her good for something, right?) Thanks Em!!

Thursday I was a worthless pile of lazy…decided not to workout because I’m so bad at it while at home anyways (not an excuse, I know, I need to do better next week or I’m going to be right on track to be post-Aussie bod again). I also learned that being quarantined at home is terrible for my snacking addiction-YIKES!

Friday, which is normally my off day, I did some biking with my sister and a walk with mom, so we’ll call it an “active” off day just to make me feel better…whoops.

Saturday was another 4 miler. I convinced mom to come bike next to me again so I had a little more motivation to keep running, and someone to talk at me for the sake of passing time without knowing the minute by minute of my favorite songs. We did the same route as Wednesday, but cut and turned around a little sooner because of the big rain storm that was moving in. I ran straight out of our garage and didn’t stop running until we got back to the driveway!! It wasn’t a full 4 miles, but it was 3.32 without stopping so I felt pretty damn good! I also think my mom was surprised that I didn’t stop for once lol, she kept saying “wohoo Josie” after we hit mile 2 lol. Thanks mom 🙂

OOO, in shoe news: I have decided that my Hoka’s have brought back pain in my knee that’s torn up from high school basketball, so I did my Saturday run in my old brooks and they were A Okay. Soooo, I ordered a new pair of brooks (not the newest version, but the ones a version newer than my own), hoping they can get me through without any tweaks in my knee!

Sunday’s have brought a new normal to my household, this morning we shared our cups of coffee while watching and listening to our pastor give the weekly sermon through the screen of my laptop. It felt so comforting to hear the word of the Lord, but yet somewhat saddening that the uncertainty of our future also affects our house of worship and being able to attend the church services that we are used to.

Trying to find the positives each day, although there may be few, they are certainly there.

Have a great week, stay healthy ❤

Uncertainty of week 7

“It’s how we embrace the uncertainty in our lives that leads to the great transformation of our souls” – Brandon Trear

I have a feeling that most of you had a week filled with uncertainty this week, too. From schools closing, to restaurants only serving takeout, and all the things in between, it has been an extremely stressful, uneasy, and chaotic many days. Faith seems to be the only thing we can cling to right now, and even that is hard.

As all of this has continued to worsen, I was devastated with the news that all gyms would be ordered to close until March 27th. As you know, I have a tough relationship with running outside, and was just starting to enjoy my morning workout routine at my gym class!! Ahhh!!!

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t freak out a little.

Oh, and a bajillion major events through the summer have been getting cancelled, so my new worry is that the Grandma’s races will also be cancelled or postponed, and boy do I have mixed feelings about that possibility lol.

Anyways, this week was wild. Monday was the beginning of the Coronavirus craze with the governor’s announcement to close schools Wednesday, so of course conversations at work were filled with nothing but questions and worries about the future of the spread. I left work feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted, I get pretty anxious about things, so you bet my anxiety was through the roof with all the new developments. I was supposed to run 3.5 Monday. I headed into AF and hopped on the treadmill with the hopes that it would be as nice of a run as I had had last time I was running. Well, I didn’t. I made it just a little over a mile and was feeling on the edge of tears pretty much the whole time. Honestly I’m not sure why lol, I think it was just my emotional wreck of a self being overwhelmed and scared of course. I let myself off the hook Monday and allowed myself to walk for a little less than an hour and called it good enough. Such a weird day for me, and self care is good too, so I decompressed on my drive home with loud music and hoped for a better Tuesday.

Tuesday morning came fast, and I was filled with mixed emotions as it would be my last morning class until at least the week of March 27th. I was bummed, very bummed. Also very worried that I would fall off of the wagon now and get lazy on my non-run days because I do SO MUCH better when someone is in front of, beside, and behind me while working out to keep me accountable. But, all in the same, I was equally relieved that the gyms were forcing people to stay home to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Lord knows we need all the help we can get. Tuesday’s workout was a great step workout!

Wednesday came and would be the start of all outside running until this virus calms. Oh my. I met my boyfriend after work and after much procrastination and wasting of daylight, we headed outside for a 3 miler. We tried a route we’ve never traveled before, and chose to talk to each other between puffs of air rather than listen to music or podcasts since all the COVID-19 noise was becoming non-stop. We did it. The first two miles were healing for me. Although not easy or “fun”, my body needed the run and quite frankly the combination of breathing in fresh air and just listening to our feet and our conversation. The last mile got tough, I started to let the negativity seep in little by little. It would be at that moment that I would say “we can do this” out loud for the both of us, knowing that if we stopped now at 2.2, I would be filled with frustration…and he’ll tell you that that isn’t good for either of us lol. We made it to 3, and it felt good, really good actually. We were satisfied, and then celebrated with chipotle (take out of course:) and some of grandma’s homemade chocolate chip cookies cause why the heck not?!!).

Thursday was my first day without morning class. I felt “off” all day tbh, and I didn’t enjoy the feeling. I came home feeling sad and tired. I also found out that the job I was planning on acquiring and finally had the wheels moving on, was now pausing all hiring processes because of COVID-19. Needless to say, Josie had a tough day, mentally, emotionally, and physically, a tough day. I tried to do some form of an at home workout that night but honestly it was a piss poor effort and pretty worthless.. yuck. Go away Thursday, and COVID-19…PLEASE.

Saturday was a new long run distance of 6 miles, holy shit lol. Still blows my mind that I’m supposed to actually run that far lol.

I drove up to my boyfriends hometown for the weekend where we would quarantine with his fam, but first the 6 miles! We went to a place along a lake that has some paved trails as well as off road trails if you will. I decided we would only do the paved paths because at my gangly height of six feet, and considering my extreme growth spurt at like 12, my ankles were pretty much as strong as paper airplanes in a thunderstorm hahaha.

For some reason I was really crabby Saturday, no, like really really crabby. I think it was just built up stress and anxiety from the week, but man, idk how he’s still dating me after our Saturday adventure lol. (I think it’s okay to laugh about it now, hopefully he thinks so too hahaha). But seriously, he couldn’t do anything right, in fact I think he picked every wrong turn possible on the path, which led to many inclines….yep, you guessed it!!! This made me even more cranky…oofta, sorry hun.

We started running, then stopped after .3 miles because damnit I wasn’t running up another hill at this rate only after .3 miles!!! So we stopped, I probably screamed at him, also probably almost started crying lol, and then we tried again. This time we made it about a mile…and the whole thing was downhill hahaha. Like seriously?! Can’t I just run on a flat path?! By that time, I was noticing that I conveniently packed the pair of leggings that slide down after every minute of activity, lovely. So every 60 seconds I would have to yank my pants up while trying to maintain my running form…not graceful at all lol. Just try and picture this ppl. I also was noticing a blister forming on the inside of my right foot-even better!!!!!! Wow and I was supposed to be running 5 more miles yet?! You’re kidding me.

As we crossed a cute little bridge on the path, I came to a pretty abrupt stop after being fed up with my blister, these stupid pants, all these damn inclines, and just running in general. We took a solid 5-7 minute pause of just standing on the bridge being annoyed with the running attempt (well, mostly me, but you know lol). We decided to turn around and we would run the “flats” and walk the “inclines” until returning to the parking lot. Well, this time of walking was filled with my lovely self complaining the whole time out of pure frustration for our failure on the day. I wanted to run the 6 miles!! But I wasn’t willing to push myself to get there. I made excuses, telling my boyfriend that “if we would’ve ran somewhere else I could have done it”, “ if all our gyms weren’t closed I could have done it”…in all honesty I’m not sure if I could have or not, but I’m going to keep telling myself that I would’ve had the circumstances been a little different.

My boyfriends new favorite thing to say/do is “cmon i wanna take one for the blog” lol…can you see the crinkle in my brow and annoyance on my face? Whoopsies.

So yeah, that’s a lot for one week, but it’s been quite a week. I’m still annoyed and frustrated by the lack of effort Saturday, but I’m hopeful that better things will come this week. I also might switch back to the old shoes for a run or two and see how that feels.

All in all, I’m praying that week 8 will bring clarity and peace with the COVID-19 crisis, and bring me strength and energy as I tackle a new work week and training week.

A little note to any of my fellow class of 2020 peeps that have made it this far…I’m so sorry. This unpredictable time that we are living in has shaken us to our core with abrupt goodbyes, disappearing rituals, it has ripped experiences right from our hands, and all so quickly. My heart hurts for all. And now we’re supposed to find jobs? When people who have been working for the same company for 30 years are getting laid of because of COVID-19? How quickly things went from thriving and lucrative to diminished and desperate. We’ll get through this together, let’s lean on all the memories we were lucky enough to create, and stay hopeful that we’ll still have a chance to make those that we were most looking forward to as the class of 2020. Especially to my felllow Gusties, sending so much love to each and every one of you, here’s my virtual hug!

Stay healthy, stay hopeful. ❤️

The comeback and coronavirus, week 6

“Everyday may not be good, but there is something good in everyday” -NA

This has been the best week yet.

Aside from the crazy chaos of the coronavirus (wow that was a lot of alliteration lol, sorry folks), this week was definitely hit with a little bit of a runner’s high perhaps?

I started the week off with a two miler on Monday after work (it was supposed to be three but it was the bachelor finale so a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do), and it was smooth! A little heavy breathing, but not painfully miserable like many other two milers have been!

Tuesday was an exciting day as I got myself a new pair of running shoes!!!! I previously was running in the Brooks levitate and loved them, but have been hearing some buzz about some new brands that are out. After some discussion with the Scheels folk, I decided to try the Hoka’s! I went with the Clifton’s, and so far so good, whoop whoop!

I tested them out for my three miler on Wednesday at AF, and it was great!! It was super humid in the gym so I was dripping like someone who just got out of the pool lol, but overall a nice run. Also the first three miler without stopping since the 5k-we’re making progress people!!! After 2.5 miles I had a bout of weakness and wanted to stop but Demi’s new song “I Love Me” got me right back in my mental space and I finished out till the end!!

As good as I was feeling about the week, anxiety crept in knowing that my Saturday long run was a five miler. I’ve never ran that far before in my life and it was terrifying me just a little…okay who am I kidding, a lot lol. I really didn’t want to have a bad run. Since I had a rough two weeks, I really wanted and needed to have a good long one.

It was a nice day for an outside run, but my confidence and toughness seems to drop when I’m outside instead of the treadmill. Weird, I know, pretty much the exact opposite of every other human. But, I felt I was in a good headspace, and with the new shoes I was a little excited even!!

I knew that slow and steady would win the race, so I set my speed at a 10 min mile. Confidence and morale was at a solid ten, I was hopeful this would carry me through to the end of the five miles. I knew I could atleast get to three miles because I had just done it a few days ago, so my mental stability was great up to those three miles. After my watch dinged at three, now I freaked out a little- we were now entering uncharted territory!! Up to 3.5 was still okay, at about 3.6 I struggled for a hot minute. It seemed like the tenth between 3.5 and 3.6 took an eternity and I still had a decent chunk to go yet. I panicked a little, had a hard time regaining my focus. Needless to say, I reeled it back in and started to feel the grove with my music again and kept telling myself “you’re gonna be so frustrated if you stop now, you’re over the halfway, just finish”!!!!

The last mile was a test, my legs were feeling tired and I just wanted to be done, but I was also extremely excited and proud of myself and knew I could do it!! So, I DID IT!!!! I ran five miles without stopping and damn it felt SO GOOD!!!!!! EEEEKKK!!!! Keep pushing people, it’s so amazing, don’t underestimate yourself 🙂

Week 5-the week of intervals

“You get what you give.”- Jennifer Lopez

Week five was another week of mental weakness.

Monday was three miles of interval running at AF, and it was more tough than it should have been.

Tuesday was 5:30am bootcamp, not bad at all.

Wednesday was two and a half miles of interval running at AF in a hurry between work and church, better than Monday but still not good.

Thursday was 5:30am bootcamp, left me feeling great and sore.

Saturday was a three mile interval run outside with the boyfriend. At this point intervals have become the normal lol, so nothing new here 😦

Hoping for a better week six, I NEED IT!

A new week 4

“It isn’t where you came from. It’s where you’re going that counts.”- Ella Fitzgerald

Week four was the beginning of what would become my new normal routine each week.

Through my AF membership, I was able to attend any classes held at the gym. For me, this would mean the 5:30am boot camp class every Tuesday and Thursday morning to compliment my Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday running.

Monday was a two and a half miler outside with my boyfriend, I felt good physically, and it was a beautiful day, but we still stopped three times because I just didn’t feel like pushing myself. I know that’s lame, but I didn’t care and just didn’t feel like being miserable.

Tuesday morning was my first 5:30am bootcamp and whew it was early!! Pretty tough to get up, but so worth it afterwards. It was a great feeling!! Highly recommend morning workouts if you can stand it!

Wednesday brought a two miler at AF, once again I stopped a few times, but still completed the mileage, and was pretty sore from the morning class the day before!

Thursday morning was my second early morning class, tough to get up, but so rewarding again!

Saturday was my first four miler. I worked 9-3pm and then ran outside afterwards with my boyfriend. We ran about 1.25 miles before the first stop, and then I got moody and struggled for the remaining mileage. It was pretty much an interval run after that of .25 miles at a time with walking in between. Got the mileage in, but it wasn’t pretty.

At the close of week four, I’m disappointed in myself and the effort I’ve been giving in the last two weeks. I have to have a turning point here soon before things start to ramp up.

Weak 3

Week 3 became weak 3 for me…

Had a two miler on Monday that wasn’t great, stopped a handful of times throughout, frustrated with myself to say the least.

Wednesday had a busy day job shadowing in the twin cities and ran after at my boyfriends apartment. The first mile was going great, finally a good run after weakness Monday!!! Then right after I hit a mile, I had a wave of stomach pain and had to run to the bathroom….I’ll spare you the details, but it was not pleasant. I hopped back on the treadmill afterwards to crank out my final mile and a half. Again, the second mile went well, but had to have a second bathroom break after finishing mile two. I then finished up with my remaining half mile, so overall not terrible, but I had to stop three times so I’m not sure how it really fared.

Saturday brought what should’ve been my first three mile run without stopping…..except I suck and stopped a bazillion times. Attempted to run this one outside too cause it was a beautiful day, but to say the least I did not reach my goal of running it without stopping. UGH. Weak week.

Week 2!

“Inspiration comes from within yourself. One has to be positive. When you’re positive, good things happen.”- Deep Roy

I had to become my own cheerleader in order to have the courage to actually train for this dang thing. Mental toughness is something I’ve always struggled at, so this was a true test of how tough I could be.

After week one of training, I realized I should probably incorporate some sort of exercise that wasn’t running into my regime. I also needed access to a good treadmill that wasn’t the 20 year old one in my basement at home, or the one 45 minutes away from me at my boyfriends apartment, and in February in Minnesota, you can’t rely on being able to run outside.

I checked out the local Anytime Fitness which was right behind my work and got a free week trial going, I also scoped out a yoga studio with my co worker and set up a punch card for a few good stretching sessions of flow yoga.

So for week two I began with a mile and a half run on Monday after work at Anytime Fitness (AF) and IT WAS TERRIBLE. My legs were so tired from being on my feet at work all day (my apple watch said I had 12 miles on the day before the run…uuffda) that it was so difficult. All I had to do was run a mile and a half, and I couldn’t. I probably could have if I was stronger mentally, but I stopped every quarter of a mile for a 15-30 second rest in order to get the mileage in. Week 2 got off to a rough start.

Tuesday morning I headed to yoga for an hour, and let the tough first run of the week roll off my back through the relaxation and stretching, it was so helpful.

Wednesday brought another two miler, and a big blizzard. So this meant I was stuck at home on the 20 year old treadmill. Once again, I had a rough run, I stopped multiple times throughout the two miles and was extremely frustrated with myself, but nevertheless I got the two in.

Saturday came and it brought my next long run, a two and a half miler. I decided to make sure I was at my boyfriends apartment for this one lol. I decided that I HAD to do this one without stopping. I got too lazy this week and needed to have a good run again to stay somewhat on track. It was a test of my mental and physical strength, the first two miles felt pretty good. The last half mile was tough, my legs were tired and I was loosing my drive to finish it out, but I knew I would be even more upset if I didn’t just finish it after getting this close. So, I completed my first two and a half miler since the 5k!

Bring on week 3!!

Training week 1

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there”- Theodore Rosevelt

Fun fact about that quote: I painted it on a canvas for my dorm room freshman year of college and it’s come along for all four years 🙂

After signing up for the half, I surfed the web and my resources for a training plan that was appealing to me. Many plans for half marathon training start with a 3 mile run which follows a 13 week program…I knew that I wasn’t even at a place where I could run three miles “easily”, so I chose to follow the 20 week training program that began with a mile and a half run. Now that I knew I could handle.

Honestly, the first week was smooth for me. I began on February 3rd after spending October-January maintaining my 3-ish miles a week average, even while on vacation in Mexico!!

I ran outside on Monday and Wednesday, both one and a half milers. I think it was the excitement and anxiousness of the journey I knew I was about to embark on that carried me through those first runs. I enjoyed them.

Saturday I decided would be my “long run” day of the week, so for week one that meant running two miles. For many people that isn’t anything at all, but for me it was SUPER intimidating. I had a lot of anxiety before hand because I knew that if I really wanted to do this half marathon thing then I really had to do the training. No one was going to make me do it, I had to believe I could.

My two mile run on Saturday I decided to do on the treadmill at my boyfriends apartment because for some reason I felt better running on those treadmills than I did on all of the other ones I’ve ran on before. Probably just a mental thing, but oh well! After the first mile I was like okay now just do that all over again lol. It wasn’t near as bad as I was anticipating. I made it through and damn did it feel good afterwards.

Bring on week 2!!