The Race Update

So, I had a goal to run in the Lodi Mother’s Day 5K on May 11th and I laid out a plan on how I was going to work my way up to it.   This is an update on how its going and what the current plan is.

First, let me say that I still hate running.   This is worth repeating, I hate running.   But, it is so far the most effective way that I have found for getting exercise.  I call it effective because you burn the most amount of calories in the shortest period of time.  So, I keep at it and it is amazing to me how much stronger I am getting.  In fact, on almost a weekly basis I have been running my own 5Ks.  My goal was to run the Mother’s day run and complete it in less than 45 min.  For the last several weeks that I have run, my indoor time has been 30 minutes.   This past week I did my first outdoor run of the season up the hill by my house and I ran it in 42 minutes included a 490 foot climb.  Most surprisingly to me, it was not painful to do.  I actually felt really good.

So did I follow my plan?  No, not exactly.   I didn’t do every step that I laid out, but I did do interval training starting with increasing laps and then I change to time.  On the indoor track I did achieve a 9 minute average pace which is a personal best for me, although I still do intervals.  Meaning I still can’t run a 5k all the way through.  Although I am not sure that matters?   I still feel very good about what I have achieved so far.

I did have a couple of setbacks.  The first being that just when I got into a daily groove of running, my gout flared up and side lined me for almost a week.   The second was, just as the gout got better I got a case of Vertigo (yes, it sucks getting old) which put me out another week.   This is why I am very surprised with my progress.

The final setback and maybe the biggest is that I am unable to run in the Mother’s day race.   No injuries, just a major scheduling over site.   I did not realize that the race was on the same day I had agreed to be a chaperon on my son’s band trip.  I will try to sign up for another race this summer, but actually I feel that I have reached the intent of my original goal and I am not too upset.  I have lost about 20 lbs and other then my illnesses I feel in the best shape I have been on.   And, most importantly, I am hooked on keeping physically fit.   With my gout flare up, I have been thinking about exploring other forms of exercise that would be less demanding on my joints, but as I stated before, although I hate running, it is the easiest, cheapest, and less time consuming of almost anything else. So for now, I will keep running.   What’s the next goal?   Not sure, for now I will savor the victory of this one for a few more days.