Week 5 Prep, Run 1

Run/Walk: 30 minutes

It was one of those days. Flies kept buzzing in my face, I kept getting rocks and twigs in my shoes. Sigh. But it was done.

I can hardly believe I'm writing "Week 5 Prep" in the subject of my posts now. I've done four full weeks of 3x-a-week running without missing a day, and have started Week 5. Go me! I think I am really and truly finally getting back my strength after my adventures with cancer last year.

So, I didn't actually call or write to find out my Runner ID yet. But I have found four more things to sell and prepared eBay listings for them. And, I've actually gotten my first contribution towards my run from my friend Czarina! Thanks, Czar!

It's unfortunate that I'll be starting my fundraising right after the major disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina. People will, quite understandably, be contributing to disaster relief (as will I), and won't necessarily have money to contribute to AIDS charities, too. At least I've been planning to do most of my fundraising through my eBay auctions. And maybe in a couple of months I can try to hit up my friends for a few bucks.

Week 4 Prep, Run 3

Run/walk: 35 minutes

Still right on schedule, I added an extra 5 minutes to today's run, and it went fine.

I got an email from the AIDS Marathon yesterday, telling me that there was going to be an orientation in Griffith Park today at 11:00 am. Oops. Maybe if I'd gotten it a little sooner, I'd have planned to go. Or maybe not. Having already done two AIDS Marathons, I don't really feel the need to go to an orientation. I'll just save my gas money and show up on the 11th for the timing run.

The email also said that they'd be handing out packets today to everyone who attends the orientation, and the remaining packets would be mailed. It will probably take them a day or two to put together the mailling of the rest of the packets, so I expect I'll get mine later this week. I think I'll call or email them tomorrow to find out my ID number, so I can go ahead and get started on my fundraising.

Which means -- getting busy and finding more stuff to sell. I've got the eBay listing for my party dress all ready to go, but haven't prepared any other listings yet. I was going to sell my unopened copy of Shonen Jump issue #1, but then I went to the Shonen Jump website and discovered that they're still selling copies of #1 for list price. Darn, I was hoping it would be out of print by now, and I could make some money on it as a collectible. Well, I can probably still sell it for $4.95, but I think I'll hang onto it for a while and see what else I can find to sell.

Week 4 Prep, Run 2

Run/walk: 30 minutes

I got off to a slow start this morning -- didn't sleep well last night, then woke up early with a bad allergy attack, took a pill and conked out until after 10 am. I didn't get out to run until 11:40, and I was still feeling a bit groggy from the allergy pill. But, I did my run, and actually, I felt good. In fact, I felt a little of that old "I can run forever" feeling. Probably at least partly because I got started so late -- I've always had more energy in the afternoon than the morning. Too bad no one starts marathons at 10 am, sigh. Anyway, I got it done. Got interrupted by a phone call while I was doing my ab work afterwards, and never did do my stretching, though. Oops. Well, I can afford to miss it every once in a while, as long as it doesn't become a habit.

Week 4 Prep, Run 1

Run/Walk: 30 minutes

As before, I walked for a couple of minutes to warm up, then did six intervals of run/walking. It was a good run -- I felt strong and had no trouble, except the darn flies buzzing in my face.

I'll stick to this 30 minute, six interval run/walk for my mid-week runs from now on, and start increasing the Sunday runs by one interval per week. I've got two more Sunday runs at home before the marathon training officially starts, so I'll do 35 minutes this week and 40 minutes next week, which should have me ready to do the three mile timing run on the 11th. Whee!

I did mail my registration form in yesterday. I'm still not entirely sure about it -- running in the winter and driving to LA for the Sunday runs are my main concerns -- but I'd feel bad if I didn't even try.

As for crosstraining, I've got more brush to clear from my place, so yesterday I got out the hand chopper and worked on the weeds around the house for maybe 45 minutes or an hour. It's good upper-body work to complement the running. I'll try to keep that up at least a couple of times a week, as long as the weather holds. I doubt I'll run out of weeds....

My diet is going well so far. I've been sticking to it without any major breaks, and I think I've lost a pound or two.

So far, so good.

Week 3 Prep, Run 3

Run/walk: 30 minutes

Actually, 32 minutes, but I'm not going to be that precise!

The real difference between today's run and previous runs was that I didn't do a five-minute warmup walk. I just warmed up for two minutes, then went ahead and started running. So I ended up doing six five-minute intervals of run/walking instead of one interval of walking and five intervals of run/walking. I felt fine -- even over-ran my last interval for about twenty seconds before I looked at my watch and noticed I should be walking. So I guess my bad patch is over.

I'm still not 100% sure about doing the AIDS Marathon. Sometimes I think about the effort and expense of raising $1500, and getting up at 5:00 AM to drive two hours to LA once a week with gas at nearly $3 a gallon (especially in the winter, with a foot of snow on the ground some of those early Sunday mornings), and keeping up a training schedule three times a week for six months, and it all seems overwhelming.

And then I think about the way I feel after a good run, and how fun it was doing the group runs with my pace group, and finally getting healthy again, and how much easier it is to keep at it when I've got a goal and a commitment to motivate me, and I really want to do this.

When I was considering my first AIDS Marathon, I looked at it this way: okay, suppose I sign up for this and work at it for a while, and find that I can't raise the money or can't keep up with the runs, and decide to drop out. What's the downside? I've contributed some money to a good cause, and gotten some exercise. Even if I don't go the whole way, I don't lose anything. There is no bad there.

So, I think I'll go ahead and send in my registration tomorrow, and see how it goes.

Week 3 Prep, Run 2

Run/walk: 30 minutes

Bleah. I guess I'm having a bad week; I did my run, but I was grumpy about it! And, as I was pushing to finish my last 3 minutes of running, I was wondering why it was still so hard, after I've been doing this for... okay, not very long now. I just have to be patient, I guess, and keep doing it.

I've also decided once and for all to lose some weight. I gained about ten pounds when I first moved here, since my refrigerator wasn't working for the first few months, and I was eating at Burger King and buying food from the deli a lot. And I haven't been able to lose it, even with all the surgery and chemo and stuff last year. (Not to mention that all my doctors kept telling me not to lose any weight, because I needed my strength to cope with the treatments.) But I'm tired of carrying around these extra pounds. Plus, my doctors have told me that losing weight might help the lymphedema in my left arm -- might even make it go away, which would be well worth the effort. I'm also hoping that the diet and exercise will lower my cholesterol enough that my doctor will quit pestering me to go on cholesterol-lowering drugs.

So, I'm trying to stay around 1200 - 1300 calories a day, 20 - 25 grams of fat, and 60 or more grams of protein. We'll see how that works for the next few weeks, and make adjustments from there.

Week 3 prep, Run 1

Run/walk: 30 minutes

It wasn't the best run I've had. Mostly, I think, due to the fact that I didn't put on any insect repellent and was followed the whole time by several pesky flies that kept landing on my face and dive-bombing my ears. Must remember to slather self with Mosquito Magic before running. Also, my nose was kind of stuffy and I couldn't clear it no matter how much I sniffed and snorted. Ah well. Not every run will be perfect, and at least I got it done.

I went to Kmart yesterday to check out their watches. I didn't think they'd have any sport watches with more than one countdown timer, and they didn't, so I ended up buying a cheap ($12.99) exercise timer in a bright red plastic carbiner case. It worked fine, so I think I'll just use that for now and wait until the official training starts to get a new sport watch, so I can get some advice on which watch to buy.

I didn't mail in my registration yesterday, because my horoscope said not to make any commitments that day. Heh. And there turned out to be one advantage to holding onto it -- I called my cell phone company yesterday afternoon to switch to a prepaid plan, and ended up having to get a new cell number. So I was able to correct that info on my registration form.

Week 2 Prep, Run 3

Run/Walk: 30 minutes

At least, it was approximately 30 minutes, sigh. My stupid watch died on me again, about five minutes into my warm-up walk, and I had to take a break to come inside and try to find a working watch to use for the rest of the run. None of my watches works. I ended up using the little cheapo digital clock I used the first time, with no second timer, and counting loops around the house instead of minutes, running two loops and walking one.

So, it looks like I need to buy a new watch sooner rather than later. I could see what they've got at Kmart, I suppose, or try to find a sporting goods store in Bakersfield the next time I'm there. Or see if I can find some more info online. I think there was advice on watch-buying in our AIDS Marathon packets, if I've kept any of my old ones, and if I can find them....

Anyway, I've now completed two full weeks of running/walking three times a week. Go me!

One more step...

My registration form for the AIDS Marathon is all filled out and ready to mail -- all except for the stamp. I'm holding off on making that final commitment until I've completed one more week of running, which I'll do tomorrow. If all goes well, and I'm still determined to do it, I'll send in my registration on Monday.

Week 2, Run 2

Run/walk: 30 minutes

Today's run was a little difficult, due to the 20-oz Coke I drank yesterday while putting together a bookcase for my mom at her house. I was hoping I'd work the caffeine off, but it was not to be -- I didn't sleep well last night, and woke up feeling a bit ragged. But I did my run anyway, and it went fine.

Last night, out of curiosity, I clicked on my old training journal for my previous marathons at codyne.pitas.com. I hadn't updated it since December 2002, and was sure it would have been deleted by now, but lo and behold! it was still there. Of course, in the meantime, I'd taken down the pictures so all the image links were broken, and it had my old email address on it, and the quick-and-dirty Honolulu 2002 page I'd thrown up on geocities was gone so that link didn't work....

I started out trying to update the pitas.com site. I pulled the images off an old backup and uploaded them to Photobucket, and edited all the 2002 entries to link to them, but I'd archived the 2001 marathon entries and there seems to be no way to edit archive entries. So, I ended up downloading the pages, resizing all the graphics, reconstructing the old geocities site in the pitas.com format and re-editing it, and uploading the whole thing to my ratandfox.net domain. I've linked it in the sidebar here, so now I've got the journals of all my previous marathons conveniently located.

I'm still tempted to re-do the layout in CSS (the old one's in tables, and it's a monstrosity) and fiddle with the organization a little it, but for a rinky-dink little site no one will ever look at anyway, it's not really worth the effort. What I really should do is go over to the pitas.com site and make one more entry linking to this journal, so in case anyone stumbles over that one they can find the updated info. Or, you know, just delete that one, if I can figure out how...

Anyway, it was fun reading over all my old journals and remembering marathons past -- it's really getting me enthused for getting out there and doing another one.

Cross-training

The AIDS Marathon, which uses Jeff Galloway's training method, recommends doing some sort of cross-training on non-running days (except for the day before a long run, which should be a rest day). I haven't made any particular effort to do any cross-training so far, but today my mom took me to check out a park near her home where she thought I might run sometimes, and we walked the trail. It took about 15 minutes to make the loop, so I'm guessing it's around three quarters of a mile or so. Looks like it would be a good place to do the occasional maintenance run, or long runs that I can't make it to LA for.

Then, I put together a 5-shelf bookcase for my mom, which was another good half-hour of physical effort. :) So I guess I got my cross-training in today in spite of myself!

Week 2 Prep

Run/walk: 30 minutes

So, this was my first 30 minute run, at 3 minutes jogging/2 minutes walking. It went pretty well—I was starting to get fairly winded by the end, but not so much that I couldn't have gone on if I'd really tried, and that's only to be expected on the first day of increasing my workout time by 1/3, after only one week of being back at it. The post-run ab work and stretching is starting to feel more natural now.

Yesterday, I told my mom about my plans to do another AIDS Marathon, and she was all for it. I don't know why I expected her not to be, but somehow I had it in my head that she might be skeptical of my ability to start training for a marathon now, after being completely potato-like for so long. Probably projecting my own doubts onto her. She also thought that joining the group in LA for weekly runs was a good idea, despite the two-hour drive to get there. Anyway, it's good to have her in my corner.

So far, so good.

Still thinking about it...

But I seem to have started working on the fundraising already, by digging up my old eBay listing template from an archive CD and updating it with new info. I already had an item just about ready to sell—a party dress I bought years ago but never actually wore. I'd pulled it out a week or so ago with the idea of selling it on eBay, and had already taken pictures of it with my digital camera and started working on a description for the listing.

And, I got a new battery put into my sports watch today. But it still doesn't work right. I need to buy a new one, I guess. And new running shoes (although my old ones will still do for a while), and GU and stuff like that. At least I've still got all my water bottles and belt packs and running clothes.

Now, I'm thinking that I ought to go ahead and register for the marathon right away, so I can get an ID number and start putting stuff up on eBay. But I think I'll wait at least another week, to make sure my physical enthusiasm remains on par with the emotional enthusiasm. Pretty much looks like I'm going to do it, though.

AIDS Marathon-LA

I'm about three-quarters decided to sign up for the AIDS Marathon in LA, aiming towards participating in the LA Marathon on March 19, 2006. Training starts September 10, and, since there's no airfare or hotel included, the fundraising commitment is only $1500. I could probably make half that with another eBay sale, and cover the rest of it myself. I could also put up links on my lj and other websites, and get a few donations that way.

The Sunday training runs are held in Griffith Park. I Mapquest'd it and it looks like an easy two-hour drive from here. I could do some of the long runs up here, but it wouldn't be too difficult to drive down there once a week to run with the group. It would certainly be more fun than running alone, and help keep me motivated to keep up with the training.

I've been wanting to do something useful with myself for quite a while. I looked into volunteering up here, but didn't find anything that suited me. This way, I could get myself back into shape and raise some money for a good cause at the same time.

Deadline for registration is September 2, so I've got some time to think about it. I think I'll do this: If I can maintain a schedule of three 30-minute runs a week for the next two weeks and still feel enthused about it, I'll go ahead and sign up.

Third time's a charm

Run/walk outdoors: 20 minutes

Since it's summer and the weather's hot, it's easy enough to put on my running shoes and my visor and go outside to run around the house for twenty minutes. Once the runs start getting longer, I'll probably want to find somewhere else to run, but, for now, the driveway's fine. My running watch needs a new battery, and the watch I used has no second hand, so I just had to guess at the intervals, but I tried to do three minutes running/two minutes walking for twenty minutes, after warming up for three or four minutes walking. It was nicer than using the treadmill, even with the fly that followed me around and around, buzzing in my face.

So, that's one week's worth of exercising accomplished. Only twenty minutes, three times a week, but one must start somewhere. I'll do the same next week, I think, and then think about increasing time/frequency of my runs.

Oops, I did it again

Treadmill: 20 minutes

Same as the first time—only three intervals of running, about a minute each.

I'm trying to get in the habit of doing my exercise first thing, after feeding the critters and scooping the cat boxes. I'm also trying to get into the habit of wearing my pedometer, so I can try to get in at least 5000 steps a day, even on days I don't run.

Starting fresh

Treadmill: 20 minutes

I hate my treadmill. It sticks and it's hard to make the belt go. I only managed to "run" for a minute at a time, once every five minutes, three times in all. But I did twenty full minutes, got my heart rate up, and finished it up with some ab work and stretching, and a protein drink. I pretty much hated doing it, but I felt better when I was done. Go me?