Running update

I'd heard about it happening in a variety of places.
I'd read about it on a number of blogs.
But I didn't really believe it would happen to me.

As I mentioned previously, I've been following the Cool Running Couch-to-5K program. My progress has been a bit jolted, though, as last Wednesday I came down with some crazy virus and I'm just starting to get back on my feet.

And when I say "jolted," I mean the gap between my "Week 2 Day 1" and "Week 2 Day 2" was about, oh, 8 days (2/11 and 2/19, respectively). I did Day 3 on 2/24 and figured that I would just keep going with Week 2 until I felt ready to move on, especially since I'm still hugely stuffy. I even labeled today's calendar as "Week 2 Day 4" and Saturday's run as "Week 2 Day 5."

But tonight I went in to do weights and the trainer put me on the treadmill between certain exercises for 90 second bursts. He didn't establish a pace, so I set my first burst at 5.0mph. My next was 5.2mph. And my last was 5.5mph. And the crazy thing? They didn't exhaust me. And that gave me hope.

So after the weight training, I got back on the treadmill and while I warmed up, I wondered if I was ready to move to Week 3. I hadn't even looked it up, but I thought it went something along the lines of "Run 1.5 min, Walk 1.5 min, Run 3 min, Walk 3 min" (turns out I was right, too, which is sorta cool). So I started my 90 second sprint, and when the 90 second rest was over, I was ready to push for 3 minutes. So I did. And at the end, I was tired. But I followed the sequence two more times ... then at the end, when I had only 10 minutes left on my treadmill somehow, I pushed through 2.5run/2.5walk twice.

And you know what?
It.
Felt.
Awesome.

In the month of February, I've logged 18.5 miles.
If you had told me last February that I would be able to do that, I wouldn't have believed you.

But I guess I'm learning to believe in a lot of unexpected things lately ...