Week Three - Five Miles!

Last night was the beginning of week three of my training program and our group run. This week we were scheduled to do 5 miles. I have never run five miles in my entire life. Never even wanted to – until now. For some strange reason I wasn’t worried about completing the run anymore. When I finished the four miles last week something clicked into my mind that if I could do this I can do anything – with the right training :)


Luckily when I got there they had divided the slow group into 2 sections. Last week I just about killed myself with the pace and was blown by the last mile. The faster 15 started out with 2-1s (run 2 min/walk 1 min) while the slower group did 1-1s. According to Galloway’s method for my pace I am supposed to do even smaller intervals so I was a little concerned about keeping up, but luckily one of the trainers started a small group of us out in 30-30s.

Now you would think that doing such smaller intervals would have really slowed us down, but for the first mile we were within a few hundred feet of us. It was probably about 2.5 miles before they got completely out of sight, but they still only finished a few minutes ahead of us. But doing the 30-30s was so much easier. Well not easy – it was still hard, but I didn’t feel like I wanted to puke after so I consider it much better.

The best part of the run – I didn’t finish last! Only because the other runners with me took a bathroom break, but still it was nice not to finish last for once.

Here are a couple snapshots of my run – from a numbers point of view. The first is my stats from runkeeper.com. I logged every mile in around 16:30 – except the last, but I forgot to turn it off right away. The second is my calorie burn for the day. The long high peak is the run of course. You can see that I did 80 minutes of vigorous activity (I have defined at >4.8 mets). That is almost my entire run. Even though I am walking during part of the run, the way it happens (frequent but short) allows my burn to stay steady.

My Story

7 months ago when I began my journey to lose weight, I never thought my life would change so much. I knew I could only dream about how different I would feel. One of those dreams was to be a runner and to run a half marathon. It was one of those things that I didn’t really think would happen, but I knew that if I got there I would have overcome every one of my self imposed fears and limitations.


Fast forward to mid March and I my dream of becoming a runner was starting to get real traction in my mind. I was half way to my first goal weight and had started to love my long walks (with a little jogging thrown in). I signed up to do a 5k in May and began looking at half marathon training programs. I had begun to love running and wanted to see how far I go.

In May I ran my first 5k. It was a wonderful experience and even though I ended up walking a good portion of it I hit a personal best. It was a great experience and I finished knowing I wanted to do it again and that I could do even better next time.

Today, I am starting week three of my half marathon training. I am still obese (I HATE that word) and am the slowest runner in the class, but I am there and doing my best. Last week we ran 4 miles and there were a few points when I thought I had made a big mistake. I finished last, but I made it through and by the time I got home I was looking forward to the next run. Secretly, I wonder what alien took over my body, but honestly the feeling of accomplishment is so wonderful that it is very addicting. Tonight we run 5 miles. I know I will be last, I will finish.

Tonight I will remember the woman who 7 months ago had deep dark secret desire to run a half marathon. I will remember the woman who couldn’t run mile if she had to. I will remember and I will finish – for her and for me.