Joel: Week 2 Wrap-Up

Well, this was the last week of our semester as well at school, but for some reason they didn't give us a modified schedule. Everything went as normal. In fact, we had a few days with rain, and my students behaved really well in spite of that. So much so that my first period class Friday morning was eerily quiet. It was awesome!

So, in spite of setbacks early in the week and the realization that I won't be able to stick to the prescribed Week 2 regimen this week, I pushed through and tried.

Monday, I ran a total of 3 minutes. Wednesday, I ran a total of 4 minutes, and Friday, it rained. So I used that as my excuse to take the day off. Then I woke up this morning and ran a total of 6 minutes.

The coolest thing that happened this week was that this morning, I got my first running-related injury. More accurately, my left Tibialis Anterior muscle cramped some. I called a friend of mine who is a physical therapist and has been going to massage school and asked her what I should do. She suggested ice. I continued stretching it out for about 20 minutes, crawled into my truck, and went home. By the time I was home, it was feeling better, so I hobbled around a little more, took a shower, and everything was good. But even so, I got a running injury!

This week, I'm going to probably jump over to the Couch To 5K plan and do week 1, which is a 5-minute walk and then alternating 60 seconds running/90 seconds walking for the next 20 minutes. This will be a total of 8 minutes of running and 17 minutes of walking. I may ease my way into it by doing 6 reps on Monday, 7 on Wednesday, and then 8 on Friday.

I'm not exactly sticking to one specific plan or anything, but I am making forward progress, and that's what counts. I've come to the belief that the 9-week or 12-week plans were made for people who are only 40 pounds overweight in the first place.

A friend of mine tells me that the true test is when I can climb a flight of stairs without losing my breath. I'm still not there, but maybe next week...