link!!

my aunt sent me this article, and i obviously loved it because it totally makes me feel validated for the barefoot thing. just thought i'd share!

just call me shoeless liz... well maybe not.

yikes.

so the run today was psychologically pretty good, and physically terrible. it started out promising, i felt strong, the weather was great, my ipod was picking good songs. and then i got a side stitch from hell. that wouldn't go away. i walked for a few minutes, tried to run again and barely lasted a minute and a half. so again i tried to walk it off, and had to alternate walking and jogging for short intervals for the next 10 minutes or so, then it took me like 15 minutes to walk back home. in the intervals, my knee started hurting, then a couple bones on the bottom of my foot, then my hip, then my toenails actually. so yeah. i'm trying to wear my toe shoes more even when i'm not running so my feet can get more used to them, and in places stretch them where they might need it. and to build up my feet and ankle muscles. well at least i got outside today. this week is going to be a, have to stay outside for 30 minutes each session, week. even if that means walking. hopefully next run will be better and i'll start to see some improvement.

Doggies make me smile

I ran today. Which is good since last week I only ran once. Oops. But I totally have a plan! Instead of running three times a week, I'm going to shoot for four. I really want to run the whole race, so since I've been a bit of a slacker I feel that I need to step it up a bit.

Today's run went okay. It was cold, but not freezing, so that was positive. I ran a different way than normal and that added something different to my run. Which was totally good because I couldn't find my earphones so I couldn't listen to music. I got a few stitches in my side, which wasn't pleasant, but I totally pushed on. I'm still in the walking/running phase, but hopefully soon I'll be at the straight running phase. That would be good. At the end of my run there was a guy walking his adorable doggie and it made me smile. And keep going. :)

I'm trying to get back to drinking the recommended amount of water (8-10 glasses/day), so needless to say, my bladder was not happy haha. But it'll be good for me - it's water! :)

I'm still excited about our race, even though I'm totally behind haha. And I registered! So it's official - I have committed to the race. Money has left my hands, therefore there's no going back. We can totally do this! It's gonna be an awesome weekend. :)

On a side note, for those followers out there, Matt is now a daddy! Little AJ is just cute as ever and Team LizMattLiz are totally excited about it. But I'll leave all the details to the daddy. :)

HONK!

And I quote "We're gonna own this race!"

So as Liz Baker put it, we're totally going to own this dag gum race. And as Matt pointed out to me, we're totally gonna die by the end haha. But it'll definitely be tons of fun! :) I think that a good distraction for me would be to put a book on cd on my ipod. That way I won't be so focused on what pain may come or if I get tired haha. But that's just an idea. ;)

So I ran on Monday, and it was a little better. I think that my plan is to up the amount of running each time/week, depending on how the run starts out. I'm up to 4:30 running sections with 3-4 minute walking. Although the last running section I did on Monday I ran for 5 minutes. Yeah......totally had a side stitch. Oops. But I was proud. :)

My foot kinda hurt a little bit, but once I got past the initial pain, it was more like a warm sensation through my foot. Don't really know if that's good or not, but it wasn't a big painful experience. The weird part was that at one point my shins were hurting, which I was totally not a fan of. But that stopped at some point.....I think. I don't remember haha.

I'm running again today, so hopefully that will be pretty excellent. I got the Glee Volume 1 soundtrack for Christmas, so that's been my running music currently.

I'M STILL EXCITED! HONK!

still icy :/

It was icy more in temperatures than actual ice. I am really ready for 10 degrees warmer weather. At least. So my newest plan is sort of hard to explain, even though the concept isn't that difficult. Last week (and today, because today I was doing my third run from last week) I was running for 20 minutes. The first day I did the Week 1 times, the second day I did the Week 2 times, and today I did the Week 3 times. This week I'll go for 25 minutes, running the Week 2, 3, and 4 times. Next week it will be 30 minutes for Week 3, 4, 5's times. So I'm bumping up 5 minutes a week, and making the intensity of each workout go up by following the times of consecutive weeks (with the first run always coordinating with the actual week I'm on). I don't know if I made that concise, or just confusing. Luckily I know what I'm doing haha. Now I just have to hope it works. :)

Still no IT band pain! Unfortunately the hip flexor is still acting up. I started adding some sit ups, lunges, pushups, and toe raises before my warm up, as an indoor prewarm up. To actually warm my body up and increase my circulation so it isn't so harsh when I go outside. The toes just get so chilly in my toe shoes. I'm hoping the lunges might help with the hip flexor as well. Ok I guess that's about all for now.

Totally pumped

I didn't run today. :( It's still icy and freaking cold, so no running outside or getting on the road to drive to the gym. So I only got in two runs this week. The second run I couldn't use my nike+ because I forgot to charge it. But I went the same distance pretty much. This time I upped the running by 30 seconds each time. I lost track of the walking part at some point so when I felt like I was rested enough I'd start back running. But I was pretty proud of myself. :)

Let me just say that I'm totally pumped about our running haha. I looked up the race website and they have a training schedule up for beginners and we aren't too far behind I think. I've talked to my cousin about hotel suggestions, so that's pretty positive. :) I'm just really dag gum excited haha.

Anyway, hopefully this ice will be gone by Monday so I can get back in the gym. I want to start doing some strength workouts, too....I think. So we'll see how that works out haha. But I'm definitely still pumped about our efforts. :) Yay us! HONK!

see us run

glad to see we're all back in it. I still haven't exactly figured out my plan. Today I went to do Week 2 Day 1, but sometimes I increased the running times and decreased the walking times depending on how I felt :) It worked out well. This week I am sticking to 20 minute runs. We will see what next week brings. The only pain I'm having is a bit in my right hip flexor. I need to find some good exercises for that.

Also I'm hoping to get some nutritional changes underway this spring. This week I stopped eating fried chips. I'm hoping to carry that over and add something else next week- I think it will be making sure to get one serving of fruit a day.

New Year, New Start

This post is also known as "We Were Slackers and Now We Have to Kick Our Butts in Gear for the 15k." But that took up too much space.

I ran yesterday. And today I'm only a little bit sore. So that's positive hah. I ran a couple of days before Christmas, and that went a bit better than expected. So yesterday's run I expected the same type of outcome. And I got it haha. I ran/walked a little over 2 miles, and it wasn't too bad. I went to the gym because it was so freaking cold, but my ipod apparently needed to be charged. So I had to suffer through about 30 minutes of not the best music choices to run to. Oh gym music.

The run went pretty well I think. I ran for about 3 to 4 minutes at a time and then walked for about 4 minutes. The running wasn't hard, but not entirely easy either. I got to that point where it was slightly uncomfortable and then I got to walk again. My knee was fine and my foot seemed like it wanted to go badly, but it stayed on the "no pain" course. I was definitely grateful for that! I think I'm gonna go up to Fleet Feet at some point to see what they say about my running. Maybe that will lessen the chance of my foot acting up. But we'll see. :)

I'm glad we're all back on track for this thing - we're gonna rock it out! And I'm all excited about it. Operation 15k is on the move! HONK!

Week 1 Day 1

So this is going to be a bit of an experiment. We're trying to get ready for a 15K in March but we're going to (loosely) use the Couch to 5K program, simply by doubling the times for each workout. On to tonight run. It was freaking freezing! It went pretty well though, i wanted to stick very strictly to the Couch to 5K but double the times so that is what I did. And it worked out well. At one point I was able to almost complete a full lap in the 2 min running portion, pretty substantial feet I think given the cold air in my lungs and my lack of speed work recently. All in all a good start.

game face? check.

well it's back to the pavement for me, folks. I am starting over on the couch to 5K program, only this time, it will result in a 15K instead. And it will be barefoot (or in vibram 5 finger shoes, depending on how things go).

Today's run was... well suffice it to say although my endurance seems to be better than when we started this back in August, I am rusty. I don't feel like I have a flow to my pace at ALL. Some of this I am going to attribute (see also: blame) to the fact that it is REALLY cold out today, and it was one of my first toe shoe runs. In the beginning, I couldn't run enough to get warm, and if I tried to run faster then my throat would get all cold and irritated. Then once my body was at a tolerable temperature, my feet were getting to that painfully cold state. Lesson here: do an indoor warm up, and wear more clothes. The other issue? Week 1 is too easy :) I didn't extend it yet, to the increased time for the 15K, I think I'm going to jump up to week 2 next time I run, and then next week jump up to running for 30 minutes instead of 20, then the following week do 40 minutes. I'll be honest, going from no running to 40 minutes with no gradual increase is just not something I really have motivation for. Hence the gradual increase. Plus I already feel a little ahead of the game since I'm going to jump to week 2 on my second run. I just couldn't get warm enough on the week 1 schedule today. Either way, I feel pretty good, I'll be honest.