Week 4 and some perspective

Well, week four is coming to a close and it has been a very inward-looking week for me. First off, I want to put down what this week's workout is and then go from there- jog 3 min., walk 1:30, jog 5, walk 2:30, jog 3, walk 1:30, jog 5
Okay, for some of you out there, this doesn't look too tough, but let me tell you something... IT IS HARD. When I first started this whole thing I thought the 1:30 minute jogging was tough and here I am jogging for 5 minutes straight! That is amazing to me and shows just how far you can come in a relatively short amount of time. But in order to do something like that, you have to be creative with what motivates you through it when you just want to collapse. I found some things that surprised me.
First on the list, I had to find music that would push and pull me through the tougher parts. After thinking back on my favorite kinds of music and what those songs made me feel, I realized that I needed to listen to Lincoln Park. Not some upbeat cardio-class music, but something a little more gritty and LOUD and emotional. It worked great and I was able to just go straight through that three and five and three and five minutes because of it. Then I had to think of something to get me through when I would feel tired or have a stitch in my side or ribs and I decided to do visualization. When I was begining to feel overwhelmed, I would just envision that I was actually in a pool swimming. I would move through the breast stroke and let myself feel the water and the rhythm of the stroke. I would envision the power and strength I feel when I am in that pool and then suddenly, I was feeling stronger and more able to get through that run. I was reading an article not long ago about the power of visualization and thought it was really a great idea. The writer explained that almost all Olympians use visualization before they compete. Sounded good to me and when I did it while I was running instead of before, it was very effective. Lastly, I really thought about why on earth this came to mind as something I want to do so badly. I thought about what makes me look forward to this every other day of the week that I do it and makes me want it enough to strength train in between those jogging days. Here is what I came up with:
I AM NOT PREGNANT ANYMORE. There. Okay, it is a little bit deeper, but not much. Over the last five years of my marriage (that is 65 months), I have been pregnant a total of 3 years, 2 months (or 38 months). To be more specific, I was pregnant the 9 1/2 months with M, when she was 13 months old I became pregnant with G. I did my 9 1/2 months with G and by the time she was 3 months old, I was unknowingly pregnant with E. I did my 9 1/2 months with E and she was born with a genetic condition that no one could figure out for a long time. When E was seven months old, I became pregnant with Z and did my 9 1/2 months with him while in the hospital with Elizabeth quite a few different times. So, tally it all up and you have the four months I was married that I wasn't pregnant yet, the 13 months between pregnancies with M and G, the three months between G and E, the seven months between E and Z, and the two months since Z was born that I WASN'T pregnant. Since I got married November 29th, 2003, I have been unpregnant a total of only 29 out of 65 months. That is A LOT of being pregnant for a five year old marriage and it also means that over the last five years, my body has belonged to my unborn children with everything I ate or did. Nothing I did was allowed to put strain of any kind without a feeling of "oh crap, what if that hurts the baby?", so I would just tell myself to wait it out until I wasn't pregnant anymore.
That time is NOW. I am not pregnant and for the first time in my life I won't be getting pregnant ever again. I can do things with my body for myself that are challenging and exciting without worrying about my baby's well being or getting it going just to have it undone once I am pregnant again. So, doesn't it make sense to start my unpregnant chapter with a BANG and run a 5k? It does to me. It makes A TON of sense to prove to myself that I can do something good without it involving being an incubator to a beautiful baby. I need to feel good about my body and be a good example to my babies on exercise and healthy eating. So here I am, finding anything motivational and exciting to push me through the tough spots because this means so much more to me than a run, it means the beginning of my belonging to me and me alone. A wife and friend, a mother of four of the most wonderful children in the world, and a LaNae that can do anything she sets her mind to. That is what a 5k means to me.

What I Have Been Up To...

I didn't want to post about this until I stuck with it long enough to convince myself I really was going to do it... I am training myself to run a 5k! I have always been a natural swimmer and after my last baby I did swimming and ballet and Weight Watchers and it worked amazingly. But circumstances change things and this time around, I don't have the money for the ballet and I don't feel like dealing with getting into my swim suit lol. So I had to think of something affordable (or completely free) that I could do to deal with my pregnancy weight and I decided it was time to do something I had always admired others for doing- marathons. I figured that weight loss would be a great side effect of the running but that my main focus would be on training for the run.
In order for me to do this, I had to find a program that was for someone starting from absolutely zero running and out-out-shapeness that could take me all the way to my first goal of a 5k (or 3 miles). So I went online and found this really great program called Couch to 5k (). It starts out so easy that even I can accomplish it lol. I also decided it was time to exercise with Darryl because I know how much he struggles with running and I really wanted a buddy in this process. And so I started two and a half weeks ago and I will finish my last run of week three today. I am actually up to just under a mile and a half in about 20 minutes so I am very proud of how far I have already come and that I haven't had to repeat a week yet. That is a prop to this program, it is for 9 weeks, but you can repeat weeks that challenge you too much until you feel ready to push forward.
I also decided that I really needed to get a handle on what I eat again. But just like the exercise issue of money, I couldn't afford to do Weight Watchers this time around that had worked sooo well for me before. That was when my mom turned me to Spark People. It is this completely free online weight and exercise tracking website. You can track everything you would with Weight Watchers but without spending a dime and I LOVE it. There is amazing support and it really has been working well for D and I over the last three weeks. It has been great for us to do and I have actually seen results even though my body is extremely stubborn right now since just having the baby when it comes to losing a single pound. But luckily I already decided that my main focus is on the running and not the weight because I would have given up already if it were about weight for sure. It took two whole weeks to see any progress AT ALL because I am only two months out from Z's birth and I breastfed until he was a month and a half old. So my body is very resistant to letting go of anything still. Oh well.
All in all, I have three goals with the training. My first goal that I am currently working on is to run a 5k in 30 minutes. My second will be to be able to run a half marathon. My third will be to start working on accomplishing a triathlon. That is my biggest goal and I am most excited about reaching this one because there is swimming involved. I love swimming so much that I actually take Saturdays off from the training to run or the strength training and I just swim. It is a very peaceful experience for me to swim and now I actually have a goal in the pool to reach 3 miles straight just like running. For those of you in the swimming world that is just under 1625 meters per mile (4825 for 3 miles!). My biggest challenge in the pool is that I have always done much better with breast stroke than free, so I will master in breast and then start working on free. All in all, I am working very hard toward something big and exciting that I never believed I could do before. Something in me wants to finally feel like I am the person I always knew I could be. I want to be in a body that is pregnancy free and able to do something else amazing.
Just to keep tabs on my progress, I will check in with what I have accomplished and what I am working on every week. So far I am doing week 3:
Jog 200 yards, walk 200 yards, jog 400 yards, walk 400 yards, and repeat once for a total of 1.36 miles or about 1 1/3 miles. This takes about 20 minutes. See, easy stuff (yeah right! lol). I will post next week on what I am doing. I am so excited! There is a 5k coming up here in Ridgecrest on May 2nd I am going to do no matter where I am in my training because it is a walk/run and I can finish it at a walk if needed.