Week Eight...

So... Week Eight was my first week where I had to miss a Saturday morning run. Considering how unsure I was at the beginning that I would ever make it to Fuquay to run on Saturdays at the ungodly hour of 7:00 am, its amazing to me how much I was going to miss the Saturday run. The reason for it was our trip to Myrtle Beach for a dance competition -- my daughter Kennedy's last major competition for the year. I had Saturday morning free, and one of the dance moms asked me the week before if I was going to run on the beach, and I thought, "why not?" People were of divided opinion -- saying either that it was much harder than running on pavement, or that it was okay if you ran on packed sand.

Anyway, I woke up Saturday morning to a bright, cool, breezy day. My intention was to run on the road, but it was clear to us the night before that the road was crazy busy with lots of intersections and my run would be  all chopped up with waiting for lights to change and dodging motorcycles, etc. So, off to the beach I went.

I decided to do as many 5-minute intervals as possible before dying from fatigue. I started off and discovered that running on the beach was a little more difficult than running on the road but that it was manageable as long as I stayed on the packed sand closest to the water. I was on my second 5-minute interval when a small dog on a retractable leash ran at me and bit me on the leg. It was several seconds before I realized that he had broken the skin, but I was having such a good run that I didn't want to stop. I knew that if I stopped to deal with the dog's owners, I would never get back to running. So, I continued and ran another 5-minute interval after that, which brought me to the second pier, where I turned around and headed back to the hotel. I ended up running five 5-minute intervals before I called it quits. I was so excited! The only downer was the dog bite, which I ended up having to deal with on my own, since the hotel didn't have any medical equipment or personnel.

The rest of the week I found the running to be more difficult. The heat increased this week and made the running a much messier ordeal. I was able to keep the length of running versus walking at the same rate. On Monday, I ran for 30 minutes and only 3.5 minutes of it was walking. I was very impressed! On Wednesday at the track, I ran 1/4 mile, walked a lap, ran 1/2 mile, walked a lap, ran 3/4 mile (3 laps), walked 2 laps, and then finished with a 1/4 mile. That 3/4 mile almost did me in, but when I think how far I've come -- from not being able to run a half lap to being able to run THREE full laps, I'm amazed.

Unfortunately I didn't get any additional runs in that week. I felt horrible on Friday, which would have been my fourth running day of the week, so I didn't run. Sometimes I think I'm progressing too slowly. The goal was to be ready to run a 5K by June 1st, and here it is May 17th and I'm still not running 3.2 miles. I run 2.3 miles in the neighborhood, and over 3 miles on Saturdays, but its still a struggle, and although I've come a long way, I'm not confident I'll be ready by June 1st. But, I'm still healthy and injury-free, and I'm still making slow but steady progress, so I'll keep going until something prevents me from doing it! I've lost almost 7 inches since the end of March, which is incredible! I'm starting to see some weight loss as well, but I'm discovering that I no longer worry about that so much. I no longer look pregnant and my clothes are falling off. :)  Keeps me going, that's for sure!