It's been a busy few months and I think the rest of the year will go the same way. Hopefully 2012 will be calmer. at least til the election really gears up.
I've been working on, among other things, the garden, several quilts and watching a shower be refitted. It has taken quite a long time and is still not finished nor will be for another week but hey..... I have time. Lots of it I hope.
And I have been back to plogging. Now it's plogging with a Purpose. My cousin, who inspired the foray into plogging some months back (if you recall) told me about a Rock and Roll Marathon which will be held in New Orleans in March next year and that she was coming here to run in it. They also sponsor a Half Marathon and I think 5 & 10Ks as well.
sooooo... I said I'd go for the HM. My only goal is to finish it in under 4 hours. If you are seen to be going over that time, they pick you up in something called a Sag Wagon and I ain't gonna be seen in that. So a 4 hour 13.1 "run" is the goal.
She gave me the website for Galloway running and I am using his schedule for training to finish and I have been sticking to it! She recommended that I try what she does: ie she walks for a mile and then runs for a mile* and has this timing device that tells her when to stop and start each minute. I went by Academy to buy an Interval Timer but the only one they had was made by Everlast. I should have known. *Whoops! That should read MINUTE, not mile
I got the batteries into it and set the timer to 1 minute intervals. When the minute was up, the racket this thing made was amazing. The "vibrator" was as loud as the alarm on my phone and the bell sounded exactly like the one you'd hear at the end of a boxing match! Well, that was never going to work.
My daughter gave me another device that is made by Nike. You slip the gadget, a lozenge the size of a keyfob, into a pouch that attaches to you running shoe and the app on your cell phone calibrates and monitors the distance you go. It also tell you your running speed and averages your time. Pretty slick and very accurate! It plays music off the ipod as you go and tells you when you reach the halfway mark, what the time distance is and how much farther you have to the finish. It does NOT alert you to the One minute mark so I have to hold it in my hand as I run and time myself. That is a bit of a nuisance as I never get it right. I'll be going along and think "well that's been 55 seconds" but when I check, it's usually closer to the 32 second mark. and I think Omigosh..... I have 27 second to go ....... will I make it????? Plog plog plog... By the time I finished 5 ks or 3 mile or 45 minutes, I was tired! I'm 52 and out of shape, alright??? But I'm doing it ! I'm doing it! Plog. Plog . Plog. BTW>>>> My daughter is going to come here and do the HM with me!!!!!
So I have been fretting that with less than 3 months to go before the HM, I will not be physically ready to do this! A week ago, I was worried that I was going to have to go for 4 miles on Sunday and 5 miles the Sunday after THAT! (you train in increments) ...... and this is the Eat Drink weekend and I've been doing plenty of that, let me tell you!
But this is Monday morning, 5:15am and I did the 4 miles as the sun went down yesterday. Next week is 5 miles. And I have to say: I'm actually looking forward to it. Strange as that is to write, I really do. It was as though that 4 mile was a mental brick wall..... I was really concerned that I was going to falter.
Back in the days of college life, I ran every day. The farthest I ever ran continuously was 5.25 miles for a "cause" I don't remember now. People sponsored me 25 cent per mile and I had to run around a track as many times as I could for one hour. 5.25 miles and I remember not even being tired but I was 20 yrs old back then. and probably 25 lbs lighter as well! That is something that hasn't shifted an ounce since I started this, much to my sorrow. not one ounce.
And the hardest thing back then was putting the shoes on. Once I got that done, I figured I might as well go out the door! The easiest thing was convincing myself that one day off would not kill me but it always did. If I took one day off, it was easy to then take off anther and getting back ON the schedule was twice as hard. It's all psychological.
These days I don't beat myself up. (I let Life do that...trust me.. Life doesn't need your help) If the day does not permit me to do the required miles/minutes, I just do them the next day and I don't scold myself. But since I have a goal, (the HM) and the day will be here (soon), I really have no choice but to get out there and not embarrass myself.
Hey I figure it's like this: Get Up, Dress Up and Show up. Then the rest is up to me.
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