C25K Week 4 Wrap-Up

 I'm smiling because I didn't know that two years later I'd be dropped like a hot rock on a gym floor, resulting in a decade's worth of pain and doctor's bills.  Cheerleading, you were fun, but you were SO not worth all that.

I had good intentions of doing weekly wrap-ups but March got away from me and here we are, at the end of Week 4. I did my 3rd run of Week 4 yesterday, and it was great.

I did Week 1 twice, in order to slowly get used to running barefoot. So, my 3rd week of running I was following Week 2 parameters for C25K- run 90 seconds, walk 2 minutes. But here's where things get weird- I started toying with how long I could run, and on my first run instead of following Week 2 parameters I just decided to run the entire first 10 minutes, and then do the last 10 minutes alternating 2 minutes of running with 2 minutes of walking. So, you know, NOTHING at all like what I was supposed to be doing. And you know what? It felt fine. Still no pain, easy 5.0 pace, no worries. I probably could have run the entire 20 minutes but I held back. After that the rest of the week I followed Week 2 parameters to the T, even though after that first run it felt almost too easy.

Week 4 (this last week) I was supposed to be following Week 3 parameters. Again, I kind of played around with this and settled into running 3 minutes and walking 2, repeating that three times, and then running the last 5 minutes. This is also very different than what I was supposed to be doing, but as I mentioned at the very beginning of all this, I'm not at all starting from a "couch" level of fitness, so I'm doing C25K to slowly build tendon/muscle strength so I don't get injured. But because I'm feeling fine- better than fine, I'm feeling amazing, and I totally credit the Vibrams and correct running form as a result- I'm playing with it a bit. This last week all of my runs were at a 1.5% incline, walking at a 3.5 pace, running at a 5.5. Even upping the running by .5 more, and going from a 0% to a 1.5% incline, and running more, I still feel fine and dandy.

This is amazing. It is almost miraculous. I can run again, after over a decade of being sidelined by crippling hip pain anytime I even attempted so much as a mile or two. And it doesn't hurt, at all. I look forward to it, and enjoy it, and I like pushing myself and seeing what I can do. I can't even express how happy this makes me. On top of all of this, my hip has felt even better since starting to run. I feel like my SI joint instability is tightening up, and my alignment feels fully right for the first time since my injury. Between yoga and running barefoot I feel like I have a brand new hip and back. Yoga got me there 80%, no doubt, but that last 20% is all running. And it is glorious. I step off the treadmill and feel like I've conquered the world, even though I'm still just alternating running/walking at a fairly moderate pace and doing a fairly modest distance. The other day we were riding in the car, and I turned to Bobby and said "I really feel like 5K's are just the start- I think I could actually run further... maybe half marathons! Or... full marathons!". We'll see. For now I'm ecstatic that my body is cooperating with me, finally.