Sunday, February 14, 2010

week 10 update with a well deserved explanation

So the two people who actually read this blog might have wondered where the regular posts have been.. I said when I began this that I would attempt to update this on a fairly regular basis. I initially did plan on this but because after my second week I decided not to because it would be broadcast to the members of my church who pledged money..not that I didn't want them to be updated, but I wanted them to be fully surprised with the actual amount of weight I've lost..

The reason that I'm writing this blog now is two-fold.. I can't fall asleep and because of what I think is the greatest physical feat I've ever achieved.. as I've written in the past i ve been working on "the couch to 5k" program to give me something to work towards during my weight loss journey, it has been going great, its been 3 weeks since I've done any interval runs and I've been running for longer periods of time at one.. last week I decided to not follow the prescribed time period for running, which happened to be 28 minutes and see if I could complete the entire 3.1 miles to see what my time would be.. I did it with some intermittent walking and my end time was 40:28 which breaks down to about a twelve and a half minute/mile pace..I thought it was good, that I was able to do it especially because I could hardly run 60 seconds without wanting to jump in front of cars to end my miserable existence 9 weeks ago.. I did this a couple of days in a row with the same results.. and I felt semi-discouraged, I wanted to be fffaster.. I think that's just my competitive nature, and I should have just been satisfied with what I've accomplished thus far.

But because of my discouragement I called my brother-in-law J who's really into running and asked what his experience and opinion were on what was going on.. he told me that I shouldn't worry about time, but just building up my endurance, which I agreed with, but he did say in passing that to improve his time he just went a little bit faster, not crazy fast.. I had never thought of it this way, and looking back on the past week or so I figured out that as I tried to increase my speed I ended up over exerting myself and ultimately ended up going much slower to compensate or had to walk for a little bit..

So..

Today I wanted to put what j had said into practice.. just go a little bit faster and it worked... I ended up completing the 3.1 miles in 35:47 which averages out to be around 11:30/mile I was so excited, I ended up shaving a whole minute off what I had previously recorded and felt absolutely great, I shouted YES so loud outside my house that corrie could hear me from inside and thought that I was injured or something.. it was overall great feeling of accomplishment.. I in now way expect to go out there on Monday and see another couple of minutes shaved off my time, but feel confident that this new perspective has changed how I will run.

So that's my greatest physical achievement.. it might not seem like much to some, but its all I can claim.. I look forward to reporting better results in the weeks to come.

Sorry for any grammatical or spelling mistakes as I typed this all on my phone.

Ok bye.

1 comment:

The Hulfish Family said...

Ok - so I AM 1 of the two people who read this and I have to say that that is AWESOME!! Congratulations, but my favorite part was when you talked about jumping in front of a car. . .HAHA!!