The Little Things
September 29, 2011

After my 4 mile run last weekend, I woke up Sunday a bit stiff and sore. I iced and foam rolled, and put on compression socks for the day. I think I mentioned in my last post that I go walking a few times a week with a friend who went to grad school with me. After we graduated and had a bit more free time, we decided to take an active role in our health. We got together with another friend on Sunday evening, and she casually asked me if I wanted to walk a half marathon on Monday. We’ve been talking about this for over a year, and really wanted to get it in before the weather got too chilly, so Monday sounded good to me. EXCEPT- I was still feeling sore from pushing myself hard on Saturday.

Monday morning I woke up early, ate a breakfast of oatmeal (with apples), and began hydrating while icing my knee and hip. Lunch was almond butter on both sides of a bagel, pomegrate Chobani, and some fruit. I made sure to back in protein and carbs before to keep me going.

I’ll be honest. I was pretty nervous about setting out for 13.1 miles. It’s a long distance, even for walking, and I wasn’t sure how I would hold up as I was still achy from my last run. By mile 3 my foot was hurting, but I refused to quit. I started looking it as a half mile- i just needed to go a half a mile. When I hit that half mile, I’d say it again. Luckily I had a friend to talk to so I could keep my mind off the pain, and finally we hit mile 7, where we re-fueled (protein Luna bar). That mile went a bit faster since I was eating which took some focus from my foot. Then it was back to focusing on a half mile at a time.

Before I knew it, I looked down at my phone and BOOM! 13.2 miles!

There’s your proof!

I WALKED A HALF MARATHON! For a split second I felt guilty being excited because people run marathons and ironmans. But then I realized- even if I walked it, it’s more then I could do a few years ago, and it’s more then a lot of people could do. It’s OK to be excited about it, because it’s an ACCOMPLISHMENT.

So then I got REALLY excited, and jumped up and down a bit, then immediately hurried home for a marathon foam rolling and icing session.

VERY EXCITED to be done with my first 13.1 miles…hence the huge smile:)

So now I’ve walked a half marathon distance, and I want more! My foot is hurting a bit so I’m trying to take a few rest days and icing so I don’t make anything worse. I have a race in 2 weeks and am doing everything I can to make sure I run it!

Should I have walked that distance? Um, probably not given the strain on my body from the few days earlier, and my training. Am I happy I did though? ABSOLUTELY.

I walked a half marathon!

Now it’s your turn! What’s one of your proudest accomplishments in life? What’s your next goal towards health? 

September 25, 2011

Oooh- my first post! Welcome to my journey for wellness and health in life. Health and wellness is a hard journey-one which we will never be done with in life. Since graduating with a degree in counseling, I’ve been actively trying to increase wellness and implement healthy behaviors in my life. Once I graduated, I started reading healthy living blogs in the evenings. This ended each day with me focusing on wellness and evaluating myself on the day. Because of this, I began to be motivated to increase my exercise and physical fitness amongst other things.

It’s been a year long journey so far, and it’s been fantastic. There have certainly been rough moments along the way (One time I tried to convince a friend to lay down on the side of the path we were walking on and wait for 3 hours until a friend could pick us up-yikes!), but so far it’s all been worth it. At some point I plan to go back and actually document parts of my journey leading up to today (It’s pretty good- I promise). To help motivate myself, document my personal growth, and become part of a community that I’ve enjoyed, I decided to start a blog.

Today, however, I’m giddy because I broke 2 personal records! For the last 6 weeks, I’ve been doing interval training, and haven’t seen how far I can run without stopping since my birthday. At that point it was 20 minutes (about 1.5 miles for me). Well, today I tried once again (I think I was inspired by Ali on the Run finishing her first marathon this morning)! I got into a great breathing rhythm almost immediately, and refused to let myself walk. Before I knew it I was at 2.5 miles, and I began to realize that I could do an entire 5k (3.1 miles) without walking once. When I hit the 3.1 mile mark, I realized that I not only had finished it 2.5 minutes faster then ever before, but that I was also fine and could keep going. I ran a total of 4 miles today, and I’m so proud of myself. Given the health issues that I’ve had to battle through, I truly never thought I would be capable of doing what I did today. Needless to say, I’m happy:)

I love using the Runkeeper app for my phone to gage my pace, map my run, and see my splits. It’s an easy way to track the progress that I’ve made. Here are my splits for today:

Well, I got a little slower every mile, but considering that I ran 2.5 miles longer then ever before, I think I’m ok with that.

CLEARLY I was actually thrilled with the time. This was me after the run:

 

Isn’t it great that my face happens to match my shirt? Really attractive. I do love that shirt though.

I’m off to foam roll, ice my knee, and eat.