and it begins.

Today marks day 5 of training...and day 2 of running :) The first three days of my training only included me staring at the calendar in disbelief and doubt of the next 18 weeks. Yesterday and today was my first real runs of training. They went ok; yesterday better than today and much better than expected seeing as I had pretty much taken the previous two weeks off. Today was the same distance as yesterday (3k) and it was a good run, good time but I could definitely tell a difference in how my body felt running two days in a row. I haven't normally done that in my running history but I guess I better get used to it. Starting next week my training will have me running Tues, Wed, Thurs with Fridays off, than running Sat and Sun with Mon off and than we begin again.....for what seems like forever, but really just 18 weeks :)

Yesterday I ran 1.5km without stopping. It's funny to see that as a real accomplishment to some people. A good runner will run the entire half marathon without stopping (coughcoughmytrainerjoannecoughcough) so me being excited about running 1.5km might seem a little juvenile however for me its a huge accomplishment and so I celebrate :) My lungs are compressed, my spine is pushing on them and I am not nearly getting the same amount of air in as another runner might be. So considering last year I could not do 2 minutes of running straight, I would say this is a good reason for my celebrating :) I would like to work up to running for 5km....I was thinking that on my run today, that I might set that as a goal to work on so that in September when my half marathon is set for, I could run 5k, give myself a minute to walk, run another 5k, walk a minute, run another 5k walk a minute and than run the last 5k (plus another km but I will probably be crying tears of joy at that point and won't even care lol). Breaking it down into four 5km runs seems more manageable in my little training brain!

I am heading to bed now, we will see if my next training blog post is as optimistic! :)

"What distinguishes those of us at the starting line from those of us on the couch is that we learn through running to take what the days gives us, what our body will allow us, and what our will can tolerate."
-John Bingham,