I Might Actually Be Able To Do This Thing

We're now officially done with our second week of running.  This week was fantastic and wonderfully surprising! 

Before  I get into how running this week went, I have to share with you the most exciting surprise of the week.  Bryan and I are now an "aunt" and "uncle"!  Our friends Josh and Kassie had their beautiful daughter this week (she wasn't due for a few more weeks, so it was a surprise!), and we are very excited for their new family!  We're hoping to be able to go visit Josh and Kassie in the upcoming weekends and meet little Aurelia.  We're very excited!!

Running this week went much better than expected!  I started school this week, so by Wednesday night I was feeling very tired and overwhelmed already.  I'm able to workout on my shifts at work, so going into Wednesday, I had already worked out twice in a row, and my body was kind of sore from that.  I honestly wasn't expecting to be able to do much.  We figured out that 8 laps around the track was a mile, and since I had been able to to 1/4 mile on my first run, I decided to set 1/2 mile as my goal.  Once I got going, though, I hit a good  pace and was able to crank out a whole mile!  As embarrassing as this is to admit, from what I can remember, that is the first time I've ever ran a mile in my life.  I was pretty shocked and really excited!

We were also able to get out on Friday to run.  Since I was still slightly sore from my run on Wednesday and another Curves workout on Thursday, I decided to set my goal at 1.25 miles.  I was able to run 1.5!  I'm not quite sure how I've been able to progress so quickly, but I'll take it!  Bryan and I figured out that I'm running about 10 minute miles, which isn't too bad since I'm just starting and have short legs.  I should be able to improve on my time, and hopefully get it a little closer to Bryan's so we have a chance of running together.

As far as my heart goes, I've decided to listen to how my body feels instead of the numbers.  Using my heart monitor has been really helpful in warming up and especially cooling down to make sure I'm not getting it up too fast or bringing it down too fast, but I tried to not look at it too much when I was mid-run.  I'm sure it hit 200 a few times, but I wasn't feeling dizzy or shaky so I let it go.  Theoretically, if I keep up with it, my heart rate should go down.  Here's to hoping!