Good morning all!

W3D2 is complete.  Not any better or worse than D1, just plodding along and getting it done.    I'm thankful for every day I can get up and do this. 

Welcome to our new runners!

Snipey~ good luck with your goal of getting into the air force!

obxgirl~ great story! 

Anij~ don't lose faith in yourself! 

Have a great day everyone, and happy (and safe!) running!

Hello Fabulous Witnesses

We really are witnessing changes in ourselves!

RACHROB   I am sorry you felt upset, dont let that push you away from your running, you and all of us will get this done!

NINA   Welcome!

RCSPARKY   Cool post, glad you did yourself proud!

MATTMIKESMOM   Hopefully you enjoyed your "me" time running and away from the chores?

ANIJ   If you need 15 min of stretching then thats what your body needs, you learned that with your last run, hope you feel better next time

RUNRUNBOB  I am so with you re PACE, I am only 75% sure what i am doing is "running" but i am bouncing along the road and certainly moving faster than i ever have before, and i am making every interval, so i am happy with myself, who cares if i am the slowest girl at the park, 3 weeks ago i was the girl on the couch!!

i completed Week 3 Day 1 this morning

here in Northern Ireland we are having some lovely weather, on sunday we went out on our sports boat and i was too tired on monday to start my week, and thats OK

so this week for me is wednesday, friday and sunday

keep going TEAM !

W3D3 complete! The air outside is a bit cool this morning so I had a bit of a sore throat by the finish (guess I'm still breathing through my mouth more than I should), but I made it through. I've been running every other day so was on a pace to start week 4 on Friday but I've decided to hold off and run W3D"4" on Friday instead. Today didn't feel as "smooth" as the final day in the other weeks, so I think I need one more at this level. Overall, I'm so happy to be doing this and so proud that we've all made it this far!

rcsparky - your post brought a tear to my eye, literally! I'm so happy for you. It just sounds like such a great personal accomplishment I can only imagine how you must feel. I can't say it enough... this journey is really teaching me that our bodies are AMAZING.

I don't want to be negative, but I've read on different boards that weeks 4 & 5 are the ones that people tend to drop out the most and I must admit that makes me nervous. I don't want to quit, and don't want to lose any of you! When I started this program I made a commitment to 9 weeks, but now I'm going to make another "mini-commitment" to make it to week 6, NO MATTER WHAT. Let's all make a pact --- repeat days, slow the pace, do whatever we have to do not to drop out in the next 2 weeks. Pinky swear????

Sure, pinky swear.

Anij- You have my goodwill, I hope you achieve what you want to achieve.

Sparky- Wow! I'm forgetting my iPod next time :P

Michelle- Excellent.

And everyone else whose names I haven't remembered yet- Just keep going, that's all there is to it. Oh and whoever is doing W5D3, I've done this program before (starting exercise again after a year of v poor health meaning that I couldn't do anything at all) just go with the flow, you'll amaze yourself. I know I did. You can absolutely do it

Nina

W3D2 -- DONE!!!!  Nothing major.  Just me out finishing today's run.  I must say though... I could not WAIT to get started this morning.  I've been looking forward to posting ever since.  Lovely morning here in Austin Tx.  Starting the day out with you guys makes everything seem a little easier.  

Meryl - "repeat days, slow the pace, do whatever we have to do not to drop out in the next 2 weeks"    I hereby do solemnly _PINKY SWEAR!!!!!_

Michael --  Thanks for letting us know.  I really don't care where we post as long as we all stick together.  Maybe Blue should make the decision since she started this team?

RCSPARKY --  WOW.  I am so moved.  Thank you for sharing that with us.   You brought a huge smile to my face.   I don't run with an Ipod.  I keep a stop watch around my neck.  Maybe I need to forget it one day??  I do tend to look at it a lot.  

Anji--  no shame in your game babe.  If it doesn't happen for you later today... no sweat.  There's always tomorrow.  Please don't get too discouraged.  I know it must be hard to face these obstacles and challenges when all you want to do is run.  Please let us know what we can do to keep you encouraged.  I'll be looking for your update post later today.  I'm rootin' for you!!!!

Misty -- Oh my gosh you're scaring me!!!!  LOL  I'm dreading W4

Chasing2boys, Nina (you made me laugh with the "bing" and the human voice comments), and Michellle -- WTGO. 

Blue, although I'm not truly a part of your group, and usually post at another site (admittedly after a LONG absence), please allow me to impart a couple things I've noticed after reading your group posts...

You are all at the very beginning stages of what can be a total shock to your system, both physically and mentally. Challenges come to each of us at different times. Some fight back, some collapse in despair. DO NOT GIVE IN!  This does not mean you should push yourself to the point of injury, but being able to admit you may have bitten off more than you can chew on any given day is not admitting defeat. It is using your head. Your body needs time to adjust, and part of adjusting is repair. Take a rest day if you need it, and you will find more often than not you will come back stronger than before.

There are literally hundreds of books out there about running, how to run, how to start running, how to avoid injury, how to treat running injuries, how to train for races of different distances, how to... well, you get the picture. A person can go bonkers just trying to sort the wheat from the chaff, and what works for your best friend may not be the right program for you.

That said, don't get locked into a program that says you have to run for a specific time and/or walk for a specific time. What one person may be able to breeze through may be hell on earth for another person. Sometimes forgetting about how many seconds have passed before you switch to a different pace, and simply taking your mind off that next step, is exactly what you need to begin finding the "high" you hear so much about. Revel in your accomplishments, you did something today you could not do yesterday! That is where your journey as a runner begins, not in what some program said you should have been able to do by such and such a time.

Sure, a running program is designed to get you from point A to point B. But it's also designed, by necessity, to fit a general population of beginners who are not all cut from the same mold. Just as a BMI measurement is not an absolute indication of fitness (Arnold Schwarzenegger's BMI was obese in his bodybuilding prime), all new runners do not respond to a beginner's program in the same way.

The runner's tools are simple: A good pair of "running" shoes, bought from a Running Store where knowledgeable salespeople can fit you with the type of shoe YOU need (not the shoe color that happens to look cool with your matching runners pants, shirt, headband, etc.), some water if needed, and a stretch of road to run on. The road can be a treadmill, a school track, or a path through a local park. Some sort of timekeeping device is a plus, but not a necessity... you know how far you made it yesterday, you'll know when you make it farther today.

Music: your call. I prefer to listen to the world around me as I run, but that's just me. Others feel lost without their tunes. It doesn't matter, do what makes running fun for you.

The only other tool I would recommend, and will become more of a necessity as you progress as a runner, is a Heart Rate Monitor. It's a tool, nothing more. It let's you know how your body is responding to the stress you are putting on it, and can help you train at a level where you will receive the most benefit from the type of training you are shooting for. As a beginner, please allow me to suggest you take a moment and check out this book: "Heart Rate Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot", by John L. Parker, Jr. Don't be put off by the title (yes, compleat is spelled that way in the title as a joke), it's a GREAT book for the beginning runner, and was the first book I bought in my ever-expanding library of running literature.

Okay, enough of this long-winded intrusion into your group meeting hall. Blue, you currently know me from another site, and I believe you said you remembered me from a different site several years ago, so you know I have this group's best interest at heart. Where you all go from here is entirely up to you. So all I can say, gang, is what Blue quoted from a post of mine concerning a recent run I had....  "How bad do you want it?"