Week 5 - Monday 6/7

I'm going to be honest and say I don't know how I'm going to do this week. Not even kidding. Do you see Day 3? Run for 20 minutes with no walking??! I'm going to die. I know it.

I really don't want to be negative, but yesterday's workout was tough enough. I don't know what it was, but I think just the mental knowledge of running for 5 minutes is throwing me off. I now understand why people cover the timer on the treadmill with a towel - so they don't focus on that all of the time and just focus on the running instead. Because when I got past the first 5 minute and 3 minute stints, I was already ready to just give up. But, I didn't. Except for the part where I only ran 4 minutes instead of 5 for the last stretch.

I know I'm not getting the "correct" mileage in, and for some reason that bothers me. I know it's more of a "get the time down first, and then worry about speed", so we'll see what happens. I think once I finish these 9 weeks I'll go back to week 3 or something and start working on going faster and getting the distance in.

On the plus side - for tomorrow I downloaded a few new podcasts - two of which have interruptions for the 8 minute and 5 minute stretches, so I can cover the timer and see if that'll do me any good. :)

A delay of Week 4

So.

In all honesty, I did go to the gym last Thursday and did W4D2, but didn't write about it because I pretty much felt dead after I came home. Thursday was a crappy day anyways where I had literally 10 minutes to myself at school between an extended recess duty, making copies, and no music. Ugh. Needless to say, I didn't eat lunch, and that really affected my work out that evening. I was barely able to complete my run without thinking I was going to keel over. I walked so many times, it's not even funny.

And then life happened, and I haven't been able to get to the gym in a week. Bad Emily.

But! I went today, and decided I might as well keep going with Week 4. So, technically this is W4D3, but I think I'm going to do a "repeat" of it on Saturday to make up for the week of running I missed.

Today though wasn't that bad. I tried to keep my iPod focused on songs that were either 3 or 5 minutes long to help me during the long stretches. I'm still not making 2+ miles in 26 minutes (like I'm supposed to), but was close at 1.8 miles today. I did reach 2 miles when I did my cool down walk though.  I figure at this point I should get at least the endurance up. Speed will come later.

I did end up "liking" the Couch to 5K plan on Facebook, and that seems to be pretty good. Nice to get my motivation up, since there are so many other people doing it too.

On the plus side too, I've lost 5 lbs since starting. It's not much (I love food waaaaay too much), but at least it's something!

Now to peel myself from the couch and go to bed. :)

Week 4- Tuesday 5/25

So I don't know if I'm doing this right at all, to tell you the truth. By my calculation, I should be running/walking 2+ miles in about 26 minutes. I did just 2 miles today, but it took me 29 minutes. I don't know if that means I'm running and walking too slow or what the deal is. I did try running faster today (up to 5.5 miles/hour) and that seemed to be okay, but I had to work my way up to it. Either way, I know in my head I should start speeding up my running / walking a bit. I guess I'll try it out on Thursday, and see how it goes.

On the plus side though, I didn't feel like dying during my run today! I'm not gonna lie - it was hard, but I didn't get to the point where I didn't think I could make it. That feels like a good accomplishment to have, since every week I'm complaining about how I feel like death when running. 

The only thing I see now that could be standing in my way is the use of a treadmill instead of running outside. I know I should be running outside to get used to it, but I'm kind of afraid to. At least on a treadmill I can see my time. I get so red faced and sweaty when running, I kind of feel self conscious. Oh well.

Until Thursday!

Sidenote: Self esteem and self perception

Honestly. This is just a rant I needed to get out of my system before it eats me alive. It's depressing and awful. I wouldn't blame you in the least if you wanted to skip it entirely.


***

As I put on my Facebook status tonight: "*ugh*fits the bill for so many things right now."
Ugh, because it's hot and sticky and gross, and ugh, because my self esteem and self perception is in flux, again. And ugh, because this entire rant is stream-of-consciousness. I apologize if this doesn't make any sense.

Not to make light of any serious mental disorder, but I honestly think the part of my brain that controls self esteem and self perception is bi-polar. I know many, if not all, people have some sort of issue with the way they look - either weight, or not liking their hair, or whatever.   However, there are days when I look in the mirror and don't like what I see at all. Today became one of those days.

I went to Target after having coffee after school, and decided to try on a skirt. But after I took a look at myself in the mirror before I changed, the first thought that ran through my head was "Why didn't anyone tell me I looked this awful today?", which I know is bad. And it completely contradicts what I did hear today - that blue is my color and I did look nice. But all I could focus on was the negative - my shirt was too big (it's stretched out from wearing it), my hips are too wide, I have a fucking stomach roll, my thighs are huge, and I hate the way my hair is right now. And from there, everything started to go downhill.

Now, there is no logical reason for this to be happening. As far as I can remember, I've never been called names about my weight, or had negative things said about the way I look. It's just all in my head. And it's a mental block I just can't get past. My ex could never understand why I had such a negative view of myself, but I cant' really remember that he ever told me explicitly that I was pretty. I know that's really, really shallow and I mean, I'm sure he did at some point, but nothing really sticks out in my head.

But as I get this negative self esteem in my head about the way I look, how much I weigh, and so on - my self perception also starts to deteriorate. And I start thinking that that is the reason why I'm still single after how many fucking years, and how I haven't been able to even attract a guy, or even get one interested in me. That's the sad thing that I hate even thinking about or mentioning. I've been single for four fucking years. And I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  That I'm going to be perpetually single for ever. That I just must not be that attractive and so on, so forth. It's a vicious cycle, really. I'm afraid I'm going to become bitter and jaded. I don't think I'm a strong enough person to be perpetually single and be okay with it, honestly. That's a totally anti-feminist stand point, and I don't care. It sucks being the odd person out sometimes.

And so I know, in a few days somehow, someway my self esteem and self perception will start to be built up again, and things will go back to status quo - feeling generally okay with myself, but having that nagging feeling of not "measuring up". The sad thing that goes along with this, is I don't know what I want to "measure up" to.

I don't know if I'll ever think of myself as attractive, or ever get over this negative perception.  I'm certain it will always be there, and it will come in waves like this. But I just hope that one day I can get this all tamped down, and locked away in it's own little box.


We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow - I promise.

Week 3- Thursday 5/20 and Sunday 5/23

So, I totally didn't get around to blogging about Thursday's work out. Oh well, better late than never, right?

Thursday:
Thursday's workout went well. Did a quick work out on the cross ramp, and then did my run, as I had places to go, people to see. :)  Since my run on Tuesday was a little difficult, I decided to ramp up my running speed little by little. So, when the first 3 minute run came around, I started at speed 4.0 for the first minute, 4.5 for the second, and 5.0 for the third.  That actually wasn't half bad, but I still felt like death doing the second run. It was a lot of staring at the TV's and the clock across from me and trying not to look at the timer on the treadmill.

Sunday:
Today's workout went a whole lot better. I did 15 minutes on the cross ramp, and started upping the resistance a little more. It wasn't half bad, honestly. My run today was actually easy, the 3 minute runs today weren't bad at all. I did the same thing I did on Thursday and kept upping the speed that I was running. I actually felt good running the 2nd 3 minute run. I was proud of myself.  I think that might be the motivation to actually do week 4 next week.

However, I thought I should demonstrate how red I actually do get from running.

Here's me, pre- workout:

And then post- workout:

I just gotta say: Ew. While both of these are not really attractive pictures, I have to say, I'm not attractive once I'm done working out. Oh well.

Week 3- Tuesday 5/18

Oh dear lord.  That's all I have to say about today.

Honestly, it wasn't too terribly bad - just that my face was beet red after I was done today - even after my two walking laps around the Y. I just hate that my face gets so red. I do like the downtown Y though a little better than the West Suburban one. Less chance of running into families from school. 

On the plus side, I ended up getting new shoes, so my feet aren't as sore as they have been, and my legs too. I guess absorbing the impact is always a good thing.

What did me in today was the second 3 minute stretch. Here's how the workout went:

5:00 walk - awesome! No problem!

:90 run - awesome! Look at me! I'm running!

:90 walk - still no problem!

3:00 run - okay, gotta ramp up for this. I can do it!

3:00 walk - thank god, I can walk.

:90 run - I can do this... this isn't too bad.

:90 walk - okay, I know I have 3 more minutes to run.

3:00 run - oh dear lord, I'm going to pass out. Is that sweat running under my glasses?

3:00 walk - thank the lord, I can walk and catch my breath.

Total time today on the treadmill: 23 minutes, and 1.6 miles. 

Which is ultimately less than last week, but didn't seem like it.

I know I'm off on the time / mileage though, because I was not doing the math correctly in my head and started the treadmill over half way through, then I dropped my iPod about a minute in of walking (oops), and had to start that over again too.  So Thursday will have the correct stats.

Not that I can tell I've lost any weight (or that the scale tells me any differently - but that's another entry for another day), but my work out pants are actually feeling a little big on me. That's a good feeling to have.

Other stats:

20 minutes crossramp on a "performance" preset: up to 13 incline, and 1.36 miles.

No weights today - too red in the face. :)

Week 2 - Tuesday 5/11

Holy crap, I'm tired.

Usually, I go every other day (or every two days) to the gym. I know that's not gonna happen this week, so I ramped it up a bit and went two days in a row. Ugh.

Same stats as yesterday. Nothing new to see here.