Snow!

It's snowing. Was not impressed to see that when I got up this morning. I think the weather has a lot to do with my general crankiness and lack of motivation. It's been cold this week, and when I walk outside it feels like a slap in the face. Mind you, it is certainly warmer now than it was in the dead of winter. But somehow I'm not prepared for it like I was then. Now I'm just not expecting it, even when I know from looking at the weather page that it is cold. Maybe because we actually did have some warm weather and now it's gone back to being cold.

Today it actually is a bit warmer...and what do we get? Snow.

The Bag Lady suggested that I need a vacation. I think she may be right. Not only do I need some time off, I need to spend that time someplace sunny and warm. Alas, that is not going to happen. So I sit here at my desk and glare at the window where I can see the snow blowing around as if it were the middle of January.

Moving on.

If you've been wondering what's up with my Couch-to-5K training, it's gone slightly off the rails. Here's what happened:

Two Saturdays ago: exchanged the first pair of sneakers I had bought for a different pair. That afternoon, did my first Week 4 session in the new sneakers. Thought it went ok. These sneakers seemed better, though still not fantastic. It seemed like my heel was way lower than the front of my foot, and there was a weird feeling of friction under the pad of my forefoot, so I still ended up with that slightly numb feeling in my feet by the end. But I thought maybe I just needed to get used to the sneakers. Aside from that, I found the session tough but doable.

Two days later, I go to do my second session. Now, I may have made a mistake here but, it made sense to me at the time. I still was not positive about the new sneakers, so I didn't want to wear them any more than necessary until I was sure I was going to keep them. I wanted to do an upper body weight workout before my run, so I wore my "non-running sneakers" (yes, I have a pair that I use for weight training, exercise DVDs, etc) to do my weight routine, then changed to the new sneakers and hopped on the treadmill to do my C25K session. Within 10 minutes I felt like my calf muscles were completely seized up and I had to stop. I changed sneakers and slowly walked the rest of my cardio session.

I was then afraid to try the new sneakers again, and I didn't get in another C25K session that week.

This past Saturday, I hop on the treadmill and somehow the memory of that one Week 4 session I did is putting me off from doing it again. In my mind it has now become some sort of terrible ordeal and I feel like I'm not up to it. But, I don't want to give up altogether, so I decide to do my own thing. I did my 5 minute walk to warm up, then I alternated 3 minute runs with 90 seconds of walking (the week 4 schedule has you running 3 min, walking 90 sec, running 5 min, walking 3 min, then repeat sequence). That went well and I felt pretty good after.

My next session should have been Monday, but I had a bit of an upset tummy and was not feeling like running was a good plan, so I just did a walk.

Got on the treadmill last night and ended up alternating 5 minute runs with 3 minutes of walking, and that felt pretty good too. So now I'm not sure why I was remembering week 4 being so difficult - maybe it was the sneakers. Those last two runs, I was wearing my trusty old Mizuno Wave Riders. I hate to return another pair of sneakers, but I'm thinking I may have to, and ask them if they can order a pair of Wave Riders for me; they do have them in the store, just not in my size. They actually have a very limited selection in my size, which may be why I'm having so much trouble.

Anyway, that's where things stand with the C25K running at the moment. I'm still picking away at it, but doing it at my own pace. Which is fine. It's not like I'm on a deadline, I'm doing this for myself and I'm not in any rush.