Day 14: March Madness

It is with great joy and enthusiasm that I announce that I have successfully completed the first day of WEEK 4, and I feel GREAT!  


The plan was to stay on week 3 for another week, I know, but this is what happened.  March Madness got the best of me.  I just hit "go" on the C25K app on my iPhone, and during the usual 5 minute warm-up walk, I got interested in the Tennessee-Ohio State game.  When it dinged to start running, I ran.  After I felt like it should be dinging again (week 3 starts out with a 90 second run), I looked down and saw I had already been running for nearly three minutes, at which point I had realized that since I ran week 3, day 3 on Wednesday, the program was automatically starting me on week 4, day 1.  Since that first three minutes seemed so easy, I decided to just go with the flow and promised myself that if I experienced any discomfort, I would revert to week 3.  The pain never came, not even the usual pain I feel in my right shoulder (that rotator cuff really isn't as healed as I thought it was).  


I admit that it started to get a little challenging towards the end of the fourth running interval, but it even seemed a little easier than Wednesday's workout.  I owe it all to March Madness, I guess.  This brings me to the hypothesis that perhaps what I need to train for running more than my body is my mind.  


Something odd happened after my workout.  As I was stretching, I saw this girl step on the scale on the other side of the gym.  She hopped on and hopped off, and I thought, "I could just hop on and hop off...  It wouldn't be discouraging to weigh myself if I just do it on days that I advance in my running."  Then approximately 30 seconds later when I finished stretching it completely slipped my mind.  I'm glad my weight has been pushed so far back into the back of my mind now that I can forget about it that easily at the gym, of all places.


And one more thing.  When I did something that was hard for me, I used to say, "Well, I guess I just can't do it," and other such negative things.  Today what I realized is that when things become difficult, I tell myself, "You really can do this.  Just push through a little longer."  I'm so grateful I can run, and I'm actually even grateful that I failed at week 4 last week so that I could have the realization this week of just how fast I'm progressing!


My workout today was:
Week 4, Day 1
2.11 miles in 32 minutes, 2.0% incline
Average Pace: 15:07