Couch 2 5K

My husband has been on a dieting kick since the holidays started. Most men (including my husband) are very lucky in their metabolisms. He starts eating right and noticeably loses weight. Did you ever see that weird commercial of the cartoon couple and the woman says she cut sweets and lost a pound and her husband lost ten. They stop drinking soda; she looses two pounds he loses twelve. That is us. I haven't been drinking soda since my wisdom teeth removal. Considering Diet Coke is my main source of caffeine this has been difficult. Mio energy gets me through the day. I miss it! I haven't had sweets (Nutella included) and I have been really good. No dice.

So my husband naturally wanted to speed his speedy progression along and started hitting the gym and running. A lot. I do not run. If you see me running something is chasing me and you better run too. But after weeks of nagging of his persistence I started the Couch to 5K program (C25K). I downloaded the app to  my iphone and began to dread the day I'd use it.

Our first run was on a warm Saturday.  My program started off slow, a five minute brisk warm up walk, then a minute of jogging and a minute and a half of walking rotating for half an hour with a five minute cool down. Ryan ran five miles then came home and met me with the dog to do my run. No pressure right? I hated it. My ears were cold, my chest hurt and I basically wanted to cry before I was half way through. My husband tries to be encouraging with the "You can do it!"s and "Keep up that pace. It is really good!" sort of remarks but they make me want to punch him. Is that bad? I don't do positive reinforcement well I guess. Poor guy is definitely going to have it rough in the future when we have kids! I can see the delivery room now, him being sweet and encouraging me and me reenacting the Exorcist with my head spinning around screaming at him. I'll probably be one of those "YOU'LL NEVER TOUCH  ME AGAIN!" sort of people. Luckily we have a few years to go on that. Poor guy indeed.

Anyway, I hated day one. And I dreaded knowing on Monday I'd have to do it again.

Lucky for me it turned chilly that Monday so we went to the gym on base. Nothing like seeing Marines lifting double your body weight to make you feel like an outcast as you search for a treadmill. I have to say, day two was a little better. The treadmill allowed me to pace myself better somehow. Maybe because Ryan wasn't there pushing me as much I was able to push myself. Either way, I love the treadmill and hate running outside. Do you think I can do a 5K at the gym? My husband is the opposite and he somehow thinks I will run 5Ks with him come springtime. I don't even know if I can make it through the program let alone do an actual 5K with him! He is so much faster than me and more in shape!

As you can see my distance (and not shown pace) dropped slightly day two on the treadmill. But I felt a lot more comfortable. Until Ryan insisted I do an ab work out and lift some weights and I couldn't move my arms for two days. I think I did something wrong. It was funny trying to be an extra when I couldn't bend my arms more than 90 degrees.

So I had a few days off to do my extra thing and was back to the gym Thursday. And again Saturday.

You know what?

It is getting a little better.

By the way, that is overall mileage and time over all my days, not one day's work out! The first few days I was the crying face. Then the sad face. And as you can see last time I was the middle. I also had my best distance and pace on week 2 day 1 (and having Annie running nine miles on the treadmill next to me as I tried to maintain conversation totally helped with that!).

So that's where I am. I will be going to the gym again tomorrow and trying to continue. My main goal is to finish the nine week program to the best of my ability. Ryan keeps saying I should add more time and pace goals each day, but honestly for now I really just want to make it through and do what my body thinks is best. If I over think it I freak myself out... especially knowing in like a week or two the run/walk cycle becomes just running basically.

But smoothies do help.

Wildberry banana smoothies with fat burner almost make the hell of running worht it. Almost.

I'll keep you posted, hopefully this journey will be successful! Ryan said I look thinner already (honestly, I don't see a difference but he checks me out more than I check out myself I guess) but I hope I can notice a difference soon too.