My first 5k -- done!

Saturday:

We had so much to do today I didn't think we would be able to fit it all in, but somehow we did. First was Jasmine's violin performance in a String Festival (she was in non-competitive under 10yo). Luckily for us they split her category into two groups so by 10:30 she had her medal and Tim could rush the kids off to their swimming lesson and then Jas to a party while I made my way to the race area. Luckily it was literally a block away. The 10K or maybe the half marathon was in progress, tomorrow is the marathon and ultra-marathon.

I changed and put on sunscreen, had my banana and string cheese and half my bottle of water, and sat down to play with my iPhone for half an hour. Then I checked in my backpack and got in the long line for the porta-loos. I was feeling a bit discouraged as I looked around me. In front of me in the queue was a woman with two young children (maybe 5 and 7) and also a toddler in a stroller, and I knew they were going to beat me in the race. Everyone was going to beat me. I could run a whole 15 seconds at a time, who was I kidding?

But I made my way to the starting line anyway and placed myself near the back of the large pack -- apparently there were 705 finishers today. We couldn't hear any of the announcements from back there so the starting gun came as a bit of a surprise but we all started shuffling forwards. We couldn't run yet, it was too crowded. After 100 metres or so I passed the starting line and the pack started to thin out.

I decided to put on my Zombie app, week 2 day 1, during the race. As I anticipated, I couldn't hear all of the voice-over at first due to the crowd but later it helped me get going. I was up to 30 second intervals today. For the first 10 minutes I watched a pink-haired lady in front of me, she stayed at a walk. Because I have short legs (I'm only 5 foot tall, 152 cm) I walk slower than most other people (I'm probably also just a slow walker). So this lady strode ahead and I would jog a little to keep up, then walk to recover and she would get ahead again, then jog to catch up again. At some point I passed her and then I never saw her again and had to use other people as markers.

Those first 10 minutes were the worst of the whole race. Whether it was because I wasn't warmed up properly (I did a little stretching and walking, but not much) or just the hard surface of the road when I usually run on grass, my legs were killing me. Quite bad pains up my shins. In particular, every step on my left foot sent pain shooting the front of my leg. And this was only the first 10 minutes! I still had 4 kilometers to go! But actually after that the pain eased up and it wasn't too bad at all.

After the 10 min warm up the zombie intervals began so I did those. 30 seconds of running each time, which I found managable. I found that I did 40 steps (on each foot, I always counted each right foot-fall) in 30 seconds. I was also listening to the soundtrack to Jekyll and Hyde, but couldn't hear it all that well.

When I was a couple of blocks away from the finish line on the first of two laps, the real runners started passing me on their second lap. After six or eight men had zoomed past me, a group of spectators started cheering me and yelling "go girl!" and "doing great" and similar and I smiled and sped up and then realised that they were cheering the first girl to lap me on her way to the finish line. She looked about 14.

I did my last zombie interval just before I finished lap one, and then I was on my own with the timing but I kept trying to do the same thing ... running 40 steps (about 30 seconds) and then walking to recover. The only water station was at this point so I had a few mouthfulls and set off on lap two. I felt in pretty good shape. I started trying to pass people. My stats show that although I was slightly faster on my first lap (not by much), I was comparatively faster on my second lap in relation to others -- so I slowed down a little bit but not as much as other people. We were all either walking a bit and running a bit, or just walking. I would set my sights on someone ahead of me, run to catch up, walk and fall back, run and pass then, walk and drop behind again, run and pass them for good.

The middle three kilometres were all pretty managable; the leg pain was much reduced and I was pacing myself well. But that last kilometre was a real struggle. I was out of energy. My legs were tired. Each running interval was harder than the one before. I was dehydrated and overheated. I saw a woman point out the corner to the finish line sprint up ahead so I sailed past them ... only to find she was wrong and I had another block before the correct corner. Finally the finish line was ahead. I walked until I thought it was close enough for a final sprint and ran. Saw my husband and little son cheering me on. Crossed the line and slowed to a walk. My husband yelled at me to go on and I realised the actual finish line was about a metre further on. Lurched over it. Yay!

After collecting my backpack and having a drink of freshly-squeezed juice (man that was good!) we went to a nearby Chinese restaurant for a quick lunch -- I was still all hot and sweaty but we didn't have time for anything else -- then went to pick up Jasmine from her party. Got home at about 2.15 pm after a day that felt like it went for about a week, scoffed some birthday cake, had a hot bath and collapsed into bed for an hour. Killer headache and aching legs.

But I did it. My first 5K. My dream time would have been 45 mins, the only thing I had to go by was walking/jogging around the lake about a year ago in 52 mins. I hadn't done very much training.

My official time was 49:38, and I am happy with that. I got under 50 minutes, at least.

The winner took 15:58, the first female 18:53.

I was 682nd of 705 finishers (not last! yay! but as I tell the kids, even the person who came last did really well for finishing at all. The slowest walker is lapping the person sitting on the couch), 89th of 92 in my gender/age group.

So will I do it again? Dunno. I guess so. Not anytime real soon. I am still keen on running away from zombies, and I like doing races. I don't consider myself a runner. Some people say you are a runner if you do any running whatsoever, I disagree. I'm not a chef just because I cook my family dinner, I'm not a writer because I scribble a shopping list (or even this blog). I think it can make words almost meaningless if you broaden the application so far. But I guess I am in training.

Verti-cool challenge

Monday:

I was feeling a lot better yesterday evening and woke up today completely back to normal. Shopping with the kids in the morning and some JD4 in the afternoon when I found out I maybe wasn't 100%. I had to push myself to do a lucklustre half an hour, but at least I did it.

I'm quite excited about an event coming up in March, the Verti-Cool Tower Race. It is a charity race (Camp Quality for kids with cancer) up the 403 step of the Telstra Tower here in Canberra. The ultimate Challenge participants run up Black Mountain first (the tower is on top of the mountain, Telsta is a telecommunication provider) but I am not ready for that this year!

Going up stairs is one of the exercises I quite like. I've always liked Body Step ("like" being a relative term, of course) and just going up stairs is good too. I've thought about incorporating it before but my problem is I don't have any steps to climb. I work from home so I don't have access to an office building. I know of a couple of outdoor places that have stairs but not so great for training in the middle of a heatwave and also it they are only about one flight high so not ideal for training for a 403 step continuous climb. Better than nothing for cooler days, and the kids could play in the park at the bottom while I go up and down. The gym has one flight of stairs indoors which I plan to use if I can't find anywhere else, but I can't use that during school holidays unless I can get someone to mind the kids (they don't do Club Gecko anymore). I would really love somewhere indoors and at least three or four flights high.

I've already called Telstra Tower and been told their stairwell is not available for practice runs.

I have a bit over two months to get ready -- ten weeks actually. I'll need to get my cardio fitness up quite a bit.

I'm a bit frustrated that I no longer seem to be able to upload pictures to my blog, I have no idea why or what has changed. Telstra Tower is pretty iconic, it looks like a giant spike, and I would love to show a picture.

So, anyway, I'm going to ask around and see if anyone has any ideas about where I can find some stairs to climb. I wanna do this one!

Wednesday weigh-in: 77.6 kg

Wednesday:

My weight is continuing to slowly creep downwards so that is great. If it takes me two or three years to lose 20 kg, well that is still better than not losing 20 kg! My scales have been less temperamental, too, since I started leaving them flat on the floor instead of leaning up on their edge. They only vary by a few hundred grams when I step off and on instead of up to a kg.

I'm feeling much better today and I think I have shaken off the cold germs. I've had a pretty good year, illness-wise, compared to the past. The last few years I've been sick a lot through autumn and winter but I think this year was much better.

I had my second (and probably last for me) diabetes/prediabetes seminar this morning. This one was all about healthy eating. It went into more detail about food than last week. Again it mainly covered things I was familiar with, but it gave me some concrete targets. As well as the general advice of less fat, more fibre, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables; I should aim for around 45 grams of carbohydrate at each meal and around 15 grams if I snack between meals. Low GI foods are preferred, and no sugary foods in isolation -- so I can't have a cup of tea with sugar by itself, only with food, otherwise I have to use artificial sweeteners or give up the sugar. Protein with each meal.

Another thing I learned is that peanut oil is good (ie monounsaturated) so I can use it for Asian cooking -- I don't have to always use olive oil.

Something I found really interesting was how resistant people are (and I include myself here) to hearing and/or accepting things that don't fit in with their current understanding or that they don't want to hear. One very obese lady said she had never been told to count carbohydrates before. I don't know how long she's had diabetes but it seemed unlikely as that has been used in diabetes management for a long time. She complained that she couldn't have yogurt anymore because it was full of sugar. The dietitian explained that actually that was mainly lactose from the milk and some fructose from the fruit and it was low GI and healthy. But it was clear the woman didn't believe her, and was going to continue to avoid yoghurt. One man (also morbidly obese -- so there may be a pattern there of the kind of person who doesn't take advice) seemed rather proud of the fact that he doesn't have breakfast in spite of all advice to the contrary. He also liked the idea of snacking all day rather than eating regular meals, and dismissed the dietitian's concern that that method could lead to overeating and calorie amnesia. No, no, that didn't apply to him. Um, sir? Your girth contradicts you.

In my own case, the thing about the sugar in my tea came up at the last session but I managed to dismiss it's importance. Such a little bit of sugar, I said to myself, it can't be that important. That rule somehow doesn't apply to me. But I have got it into my head now. The tiny splash of milk is not enough to bring down the high GI of the sugar, so I have to eat something low GI with my tea.

More Just Dance today, conquered two more songs. Twenty to go, so plenty more hours of exercise before I'm done. I don't just do the difficult ones, I took some time at the end of the session to do a couple of favourite songs and just enjoy them. The gardener arrived as I was finishing and was trimming some plants outside the lounge room window; he didn't look in but I felt a little embarrassed anyway. At least it made me put a little extra oomph in even though I was tired!

I saw an add for another fun run yesterday, a 5k this time around Lake Burley Griffin where I like to walk/run. My first thought was that I wanted to do it. But it is in a week and a half and I haven't even restarted my training, so I'm totally not ready. And it's on a hard surface, which hurts my shins. I could just walk a lot of it, of course. But the deal-breaker for me is that you have to wear a five piece Santa suit, including a beard, which they provide when you register. I may not have mentioned it much here, but I really really really hate being hot, especially when I exert myself at all. Even a brisk walk in jeans is unpleasant, and a sauna-like Santa suit would just be a nightmare. With a hat and a big beard? No way.

There will be other races.

photo of santa fun run by VarietyAU

Fun run and golf balls

Tuesday:

Well, I just registered for the fun run. It is actually 3.4 km, and I have only 13 days to prepare. My training isn't going that smoothly so I don't feel ready at all, but I'm going to do it anyway.

My goals are 1) to finish and 2) to run as much as I can. I do not expect to run the whole thing.

Yesterday I woke with my shoulder aching -- my right shoulder, which I injured 12 years ago, not the left which was only damaged two years ago. The right rarely hurts now except when I am sick or overuse the computer. I haven't been feeling well the past few days and I assume it was a combination of that and sleeping on it wrong. It washed out my plan to do BodyPump and I just did some gentle walking.

Today was a run-training day. Luckily my shoulder was fine but I still wasn't feeling great this morning so I put it off until after lunch when I was feeling much better. I had to walk/run 2.41 km. I found the instructions a bit confusing, previous sessions of this length were "slow run or brisk walk" and as I can't run far yet I just did the brisk walk except for the first day when I did my own run/walk intervals. But then I had an training session with actual planned intervals so I felt like I shouldn't be doing them on the other days. But it was confusing doing so many walking sessions -- I already know how to walk. Then today's session said "If you can't run the whole way yet, run as much as you can". So that sounds like I should have been putting in my own running intervals all along. And I haven't been. Only a week and a half into this and already I feel off track.

Ha. If I can't run the whole way yet?! Not even close.

I went down to the local oval, using half of the walk there as a warm up then doing a little run, but I was only a quarter of my way around my first lap of the running track imprinted on the grass when I saw a golf ball in the lane. I nudged it gently off the track, to next to another golf ball. Huh? Why would someone leave golf balls here? A couple of metres further on there were another half a dozen. I looked around and saw a woman standing over in the shade with a golf club, some distance away. "You worked out what I am doing yet?" she called. At the time I though she said it in a friendly way, but now I wonder if she was being a bit snarky because I was in her way. "I was wondering why there were golf balls all over the place," I laughed, moving on.

So the running track was now out of the question, with golf balls flying around, and I moved onto the footpath and wandered around the suburb. But it was far from ideal, running on the path makes my shins hurt (which is going to be a real problem in races and I don't know how to resolve that) and quite often I didn't even have a footpath; I had to walk on unmown grassy nature strip or in the gutter along the side of the road. I got in three little running intervals all together. Not a good session at all.

Lots more walking, a possible first race

Sunday:

I did two short walks on Friday and spent a lot of time reading more about prediabetes, this fairly recent book (Diabetes & pre-diabetes handbook, Brand-Miller et al, 2007) was all about how low-GI is more important than anything else in blood glucose management. Very informative, but there is so much info out there I'll be interested to see what the Diabetes ACT people have to say. When I had gestational diabetes in 2006 they did emphasise low-GI, so I think that is the current guideline. It changes every couple of decades as the scientists find out more about how the human body works.

The other thing I did on Friday was start a really detailed food diary, handwritten instead of just using CalorieKing, with columns for protein, carbs etc. The guidelines are for 15-20% of calories coming from protein, 20-35% from fat with less than 10% from saturated fat, and 45-65% from carbs. Also 25-35 g of fibre (part of carbs). I did well on that first day, around 1600 calories and close to those percentages but with not nearly enough fibre.

Yesterday Tim & the kids went off camping for the weekend. I could have gone, of course, but camping really isn't my thing. I like my comforts! Tim's brother and father were going too, and turned out my sister-in-law went even though she is about 5 months pregnant. But I didn't want to, so I didn't. By the time they left at around 10 am I was feeling quite unwell, headachy and stomach cramps. I wasn't actually sick, just a very difficult TOM (I've had issues since I was a teenager and used to have sick days home from school every month, the pill usually helps but not these past few days) but apart from walking up to the school to vote in the local elections I didn't get out of the house.

I watched the last Harry Potter movie on DVD and had a good cathartic cry over Snape, always my favourite character. My dad called on the phone during the most intense scene and I had to choke back my sobs.

My calories and nutritional balance were looking ok until after dinner. I was lonely. I turned to my buddy saturated fat. And had nearly 1000 calories worth of crackers, salsa, camembert and chocolate. Not so healthy.

Luckily every dawn is a new day and I was fine this morning. (Tim texted to say the kids were having a great time but he had one of the worst nights sleep ever, I'm so glad I didn't go! They will be home soon.) I got out for my training walk, supposed to be 45 mins plus warm up and cool down, I did well over an hour. Up and down hills too. I planned where I was going to go, but after a while turned off onto an interesting-looking path that wound around a suburb I hadn't walked in before, so that was nice. I definitely need to ramp up the intensity of these training sessions though. And do some weight-training in between -- back to BodyPump on Monday.

While out walking I saw a sign about a 3 km (or 6 km) fun run/walk that is on two weeks from today. Will I be ready for 3 km? I guess I can just walk as much as needed. I'll just check the date with Tim before I sign up. But I don't really see any barriers. My first race. How exciting.