Did W5D1 yesterday after two days rest.  Made the run in the evening, went to a different high school track and sure enough the was flag football practice in process,  jogged anyway with all the football moms giving me the squintysideways glances as I huffed past them.

Felt pretty good, no knee or thighbone pain!   Cardio getting better, this one felt like it stretched my lungs a little (is that possible?) but in a good way. Interesting I have dropped about 5 lbs down to 180.  Drop another 10 and this will be helpful, but I will look like a scarecrow at 6'3" and 175.

Laid on the highjump mat in the dark after the footballers had left and looked at the stars and felt GOOD!

OK, so I lied a little when I started this thread, I said I was 53.  Actually, I just turned 53 yesterday and did W5D3...the dreaded 20 minute run.

We had a winter storm blow through SoCal yesterday and by 10 PM when I got out to jog, it was 41 degrees and there was stiff wind blowing that probably dropped it into the high 30's with the windchill factor.  It was spitting rain off and on, so I started with hat and gloves.

I got to the track, no one was around, the lights were off and the gate wasn't locked.  Almost boring!  

The routine went smoothly, no problems, the 20 minutes slipped by and I was even able to push it a little in the last couple of hundred yards.  Recovery is getting much quicker!    I walked another 3/4's of a mile afterwards to make sure that from now on I am covering at least 5K every time I go out.  The walking afterwards seems to really help ease the knees and feels good.

I have to admit, I am starting to look forward to the jogging days.

I finished W6D3 yesterday.  Jogging 25 minutes straight was all could handle, but I completed it,  (I guess that is EXACTLY the idea!)   I completed this on an 8 lane local track that has an inside un-numbered lane, so as I completed each lap, I moved one lane to the outside after completing the warmup walk.  9 lanes and 9 laps almost completed the 25 minutes of jogging...it took about another 1/3 of a lap to finish Robert Ullrey's W6D3 podcast.  (If any other Noobs haven't discovered his podcasts for the C25K program - I highly recommend them!)

I just looked at the schedule for the C25K plan posted elsewhere on this site and I see that the W6D3 schedule says that it is to be a 22 minute jog, the podcast had me do 25 minutes....that might be the reason that it felt like it pushed me a little harder, as the end was challenging...but no worries, I did it.

I will start W7D1 tomorrow and every session in W7 is 5 minutes to warm up and then 25 minutes of jogging.  I am going to do 1 of them on the track and 2 of them in the park to give myself the expereience of running somewhere other than the track.

I just mapped out W's 7, 8 & 9 and the scheduling works perfectly to have my W9D3 "graduation" session be my first organized 5K at the The Dole Great Race of Agoura Deena Kastor 5K portion of that day's events.  I am very excited, this should be fun and a great way to graduate the program!

As a side note, I just registered for a 5K on April 21 in Seal Beach.  Gonna try for 12 organized events in 12 months.

I find I can stay motivated if I have something concrete like an event I have paid for.  Also I assume that at some point I willl begin to see the effects of jogging on my body as it adapts and reshapes itself.  I do nothing but run and have less than zero interst in doing things like lifting weights, but at some point I can see myself adding some basic stuff like situps and pushups - stuff I can do with no extra fuss and equipment. 

I think the fact that you needed nothing but a pair of shoes ( and some even debate that!) and some minimal clothing that almost everyone has in their bottom dresser drawer is very attractive to me.   I think I will eventually see some other benefits from doing this, I do some competitive long distance motorcycling and I am sure the jogging will increase my general fitness and stamina in that arena as well.

W7D3...the interesting things that happen at the high school tracks where I do most of my running never stop!

Last night I get to the school at about 9:30 PM and as I pull into the parking lot, I see about 25-30 kids funneling down the chute onto the football field and track....remember this is is a Sunday night!   I am too far away from them to see how they are dressed and they were out of the patch of light that the parking lot lights afford the area.   I am thinking I might have to sgare the track with a bunch of speedsters and the track and field is dead dark.  The moon is not up yet and Venus and Jupiter(I think) are sliding towards the horizon and it is cool, and breezy, in the low 50's.

I come down the chute and turn right onto the main straight away in front of the grandstands towards turn 1 and 2 to start my warm up walk.  I can't distinctly see the group but I can tell they are gathered in the field in the turn 3 and 4 area behind the goal posts, but not out on the track - basically in the area used for pole vaulting.  I have my ear buds in and am listing to Robert Ullrey's warm up music and it take me a couple of minutes to work my way around.  As I am coming down the back stretch I can see a faint light about waist high glowing on the far end of the track on top of the low fence that circles the outside  of the track and field.  As I get closer I can see a person stand on the stands side of the fence and they are moving their hands kind of like a conductor would.  The light is pointing upwards, but is very low wattage and looks kinds of bluish, and it only illuminates the hands, you can't see the face of the person - so the hands kinds of look like they are floating in space!   As I get closer and enter turn 3, I can hear singing over and through my podcast music!   It was kind of ethereal, and sounded like ancient church music or music from a several hundred years ago.   I guess this must be the high schoool madrigal choir and their creative or crazy (maybe both) director...  I stride by right in front of the director (there isn't any choice, the track is between the director and the choir) in lane 8 next to the fence, and just try to get by as discreetly as I can.  They sound pretty good!

I move quickly out of earshot and my podcast dominates my hearing and I am just about to begin the 25 minute jogging session when a bunch of kids come running past me on the track laughing and hollering, just having a good time.  Apparently they finished their vocal warmup and the director sent them off on a lap, some are quick and some are slow and some finally slow to a walk, but as I enter about lap 3, they are gathered again in the same spot and singing away in the dark.  As I typically do, I start in lane 8 and spiral in to lane 1 as I work my way through the routine.  Tonight is 2.5 miles, so it is 10 laps plus a warmup walk circuit and two more after the routine.  Around 25-35 minutes in total.   Thankfully I feel good,  pretty strong, I am enjoying myself.  D2 of this week was TOUGH, but today feels good!

Every time I loop past the choir they are doing something different.  The light was still on my the director had moved over into the filed area and she had them singing in circle facing each other, then facing away from  each other, and one time they were laying on the artificial turf in a circle with their feet pointed towards the middle...like I said, this director is definitely innovative.

By the time I finished my 10th lap and was on my my first cool down circuit they were trooping off the field, and they were gone by the time I got to the parking lot a few minutes later.

I am very encouraged, because I have none of the aching knees and thighbones in the past 3 sessions!  I can tell I am still stressing a body that hasn't been worked in years, but all the aches and pains feel transitory and "normal."   I think I must be doing about 11 minute miles.  It is going to be interesting to see how all of this changes over the next few months.   I am drinking Joint Juice every day that remember to do it, but I doubt I have been drinking it long enough that to have anything more than a placebo effect on the knee ache, so I am hoping I am just getting stronger and more used to jogging.

W8, here I come!