The Panda Chronicles

[Jeshi]

10/20/15 Tuesday

 

Finished Week 4 Day 2. Can't believe I did it! I am in shock and awe. Sure, I am just walking in a running motion, but I am keeping my breathing in check and there's no pain, just lots and lots of soreness in my legs.

 

Running has gone from "this is awkward and painful; I can't do it" to "I'm doing it and it feels great."

 

I really can't believe I'm halfway! I'm going to push myself the next workout to see if I can go a little faster.

 

 

I don't like wearables but I really want to get a Fitbit Charge HR to track my heart rate. Maybe for Cyber Monday?

[Jeshi]

10/22/15 Thursday

 

Bummed that I ran on the treadmill this morning because it was raining outside. I didn't want to slip in the rain.

 

I set the incline on 3.0 to try to mimic the road. I kept the run intervals at 3.2 mph and the walking ones at 3.0 mph and had to really focus on my breathing.

[SteveJ]

You're doing great! Way to go! Great to hear your story...you'll be (and already are) the inspiration of so many others to come behind you.

 

Keep on running!

[Anne Lang]

I loved reading this post u r amazing glad u getting helthy ive been a long distance walker for a long time running is new to me i like your breathing tips and will try them as my breathing is my biggest issue please keep posting

[Jeshi]

Thanks for the positive feedback! It lifts my heart up 

 

I hope that others with the same struggles can find something in this tread that helps them.

 

 

10/23/15 Monday

 

Started Week 5 Day 1 today. Looked down at the run timer. 5 minutes...5 minutes! Tough, but not the straight 20 minute run that I thought it'd be. I made it a whole 4 minutes before I thought, "I wanna give up." I told myself, "No, you don't. Keep going. Look! You're doing it!"  I'm doing it! 

 

I really need to hear these positive, encouraging pushes from myself. When someone is shouting at me externally to push harder, I shut down. I develop a "I know my own body limits; don't tell me what to do!" attitude. But when I look at the interval timer and hear the announcer's soothing voice, "Begin walking" (relief) or "Begin Running" (okay!), I'm surprisingly happy to oblige.

 

My attitude regarding walking intervals has changed so much. Instead of being bitter than I'm forced to walk because my calves are burning and I need this walk, I relish in the walking interval, like a little me time. I keep myself moving forward at a moderately brisk pace and take time to enjoy the walk instead of being resentful towards it. Then, it's vibrate-beep "Begin running" and I start running, focusing on my breath and my foot fall.

 

Twice, today, I had the urge to give up. And twice, today, I continued past that urge. And am so excited I finished my first day of Week 5! I tend to hold myself back as I'm afraid of failure and don't think I can complete each new session. The secret, I learned, is to just keep going. Running--as I previously thought it was--was torturous, painful, and something only masochists enjoyed. Well, I'm glad to know that, generally, if I'm hurting, I need to adjust my foot strike/posture/breathing, etc.

 

I have a medical condition where a few of the symptoms include extreme fatigue, muscle weakness, depression, and anxiety. When I read about others who are in the same boat running, it gave me the hope that I might be able to as well. And I'm here, doing it!

 

Thank you for reading. I hope you come to your own "Aha!" moments. And may you have happy running injury free!

[Jeshi]

P.S. Out of curiosity about the strength improvement of my muscles, I wanted to see how fast I was running on one of the intervals. Monday, after 2 rest days, should give me the best time. Sure, there's inclines and what not, but it looks to be at about 3.9 mph. That speed is really great for me and I know it'll get better with time!

 

I just wanted to post it because seeing improvements in my own performance gives me a little boost of motivation. This is a great baseline to compare for future runs.

 

However, I am going to start MapMyFitness/Run at the beginning of the warm up so I don't have to manually log workouts to meet the challenges.

 

Take care! 

[Sean90]

Talking about seeing improvements. Just me being on week 3. I now look back at week one and I know it kicked my butt Now I feel it would be easy. Good work jeshi

[Anne Lang]

thanks Jeshi. today i tried counting my in breaths one two three four breath out if i counted out i felt like i was holding my breath but just counting in i was able to have a better run i am on week 2 day one and the last 2 runs i wanted to quit but i said no way u have no health problems that Jeshi person can do it so can u and i did . Keep running and keep posting

[Jeshi]

@Sean, totally! I'm looking at repeating runs as a comfort "I made it yesterday, I can do it again today, and better" runs. I'm planning on repeating today tomorrow!

 

@Anne Lang, hi! I had the same problem. It became too stressful to time and count in breaths, then out breaths, while maintaining my posture and foot-falling correctly. I changed it to breathing in normally/deep in thru the nose. Keep your shoulders/chest down. Your breath will fill your belly (even if you don't feel/see it expanding). 

 

When you exhale, push the air out of your lungs with an audible "ha" sound. During warm-up/slower walking, you may be exhaling gently. When you're in the run interval, you may need to push the air out more forcefully, to force the carbon dioxide out of your body. Our bodies like to keep a certain level of carbon dioxide. When you have too little (you exhaled too hard too fast), you'll get dizzy, light-headed. When you don't push enough air out, you don't have room to breathe in. Breathe in to re-fill your lungs.

 

For the above technique, don't stress over it. Understand the motion and practice it. It took me about 6 weeks to get the hang of it. Don't give up! The technique is just based off of exhaling harder when you are working your body harder.

 

 

10/27/15 Tuesday

 

I'm going to be honest: I woke up cold this morning and didn't want to run. I got an early start but I wasn't in a positive frame of mind.

 

Week 5 Day 2 consists of two 8 minute jogs. The first one went fine (I checked the clock twice). Did not have much soreness today. Yay! My body really is becoming stronger. The great, great mental change has been wanting to make healthier choices. Sticking with my c25k sessions and trying to eat better and manage my portions has made a notable difference in how I feel, and how my clothes fit. I'm not getting enough sleep (I notice myself being cranky, foggy-headed where I'm making simple mistakes at work). This has slowed down my fat-loss. Instead of berating myself, I understand that I'm someone who needs to make little changes and stick to them before incorporating more changes (changing everything at once is just too overwhelming). So, now I'm feeling silly for not getting enough sleep. The mindset is: if I'm exercising regularly, and I'm making myself control my portions, shouldn't I just get at least one more hour of sleep each night? I've been justifying the lack of sleep with "well I'm preparing healthy meals for the next day" and "keeping my area clean." 

 

One goal I want to put into place this week is to finish everything early, and then do something relaxing until I get sleepy. Then, ACTUALLY GO TO SLEEP! Two of my biggest self-sabotages are continuing to eat after I'm full and not going to sleep when I'm sleepy. I've been able to deal with the first one with the help that when I overeat, I feel physically horrible. Enough times of that horrible feeling and I'm like, "nope, I'm done [eating for now]."

 

Back to the second 8 minute intervals. After the 5 minute walk (which I felt good about), the second 8 minute interval was a killer. I was constantly looking at the clock until I had to shut out my overthinking (analyzing while running, what am I going to post about today) and just go back to breathing and landing my feet.

 

I'm happy that I made it even though I needed to slow way down on the second interval. For a motivation boost, I'm going to repeat this session tomorrow. I would like to move onto Day 3 with a positive experience with Day 2 instead of leaving it as it is.

 

You guys are doing great. Keep it up~!

[Anne Lang]

Thank you for the help today was a skip day for me so i just did my pre work 15 min walk and my lunch time half hr but for fun i threw in a run i timed it i went 2 min 20 sec be for i had to stop. You are right out breath not big enough. Started my lunges and squots and planks today i used to do a lot of sets today i could only do 2 each. so my goal is to get back to where i was before the appartment got to hot to work out in

[Anne Lang]

set back!! pulled calf muscle now i have to rest then strech and strenghthen sigh

[Jeshi]

Oh no! If you see any swelling or bruising, ice your calf for 20 minutes and elevate it.

 

After 24 hours, if there's no swelling and is not hot/tender to the touch, you should use heat to relax the muscle.

 

Take a rest. I saw in the other thread that you were going to the doctor to check it out. Let me know how it goes. 

[Jeshi]

10/28/15 Wednesday

 

Today was great! The 8 minute runs were much easier than yesterday! I even added 0.04 distance in my time!

 

While running, I had NO PAIN, NO SORENESS, just "tiredness" in my feet. During the 5 minute walk interval and the 5 minute cooldown, however, I noticed that the outer edge of my left foot was sore/painful. I will be more mindful of rotating my left foot in tomorrow.

 

I really enjoyed today. I had one lady I've seen a few times tell me that I'm doing well. Another girl I don't think I've seen before was walking her dog. As we passed each other, we said quietly "morning" to each other so as not to upset the dog. As I went past, I swear I heard her say underneath her breath, "Get it, girl!" That made me so happy and put some pep in my step.

 

It's great, I walk past some walking ladies and great them each time I run. And I sometimes see this other pair of ladies jogging past me. My reaction seeing people running/jogging used to be "Wow, I wish I could do that" with a resigned attitude that I wouldn't ever be able to. This morning, I thought "I want to get to that point" and I know I can, if I continue with this program. I've been much happier since I started this journey. I love reading your progress and am very thankful for your support.

 

Happy running!

[Anne Lang]

what a great day a good pair of running sox might help those tired sore feet i tried a free pair of thorlos and love them wish i could afford a few more

[SteveJ]

Great job Jeshi! One other thing to consider as you're running is if you're running the same location all the time, consider running on the other side (unless you're running against the flow of traffic, then you'd want to run the opposite direction). Perhaps the same curve/contour of the trail/road is having some effect on foot fatigue? Sounds like you're doing a fantastic job!

[Jeshi]

@Anne Lang, thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look into them.

 

@SteveJ, I noticed that. I run a route and turn around when I hear the 'halfway beep' to even out the strain. The roads here are very slanted. Going in the other direction has helped tremendously. However, turn around yesterday didn't help. It seems that I may be leaning on the outer edge of my left foot since I felt the pain in both directions and only during the walking intervals.

 

 

I did not run this morning. I am very congested and haven't been sleeping much. I did heavy-bag boxing last night and the combination of two workouts and not enough rest is taking its toll. I am going to push myself to sleep early tonight.

[Anne Lang]

sleep is important for many reasons hope you get a good rest

[Anne Lang]

did some walking and stretching today wanted to run so bad but did not im a little tight now from standing around at bowling alley daughter is on a league. Hope u all are doing good Happy Halloween keep candy eating low. Im hopping to limit my consumption. Happy running and posting

[Sean90]

Jeshi. Dying to hear about w5d3. Hope it went well....if you did it yet. Let us know. I'll be on week 5 by late this week. Anxious

[Anne Lang]

where r u Jeshi im going to start over tomorrow my leg was fine after a long walk today. Hope u doing well

[Jeshi]

Hi, Sean and Anne! Glad you're looking forward to my updates  

 

I felt sick (viral cold) on Thursday. It was worse on Friday. Also, tons and tons of rain on both days. I walked 11K on Saturday.

 

Good luck on Week 5, Sean! Good luck starting again, Anne! Hope your leg is pain free on your run today.

 

 

11/2/15 Monday

 

This post is dedicated to the ones who are struggling. I started this morning with little sleep again (I know!) and not running for 4 days (commute on the weekends, so I use them as rest days). I had really hoped I would do Week 5 Day 3 on Friday, but due to the rain and feeling really sick, I decided to skip it and yikes! do it today. It was a risky proposition: on one hand, I should have been rested. On the other hand, it's difficult for me once my body gets out of the habit. And what a difference 4 short days makes!

 

I started off this mornings run in negative mode. After warming up, as soon as I started the run interval, I wanted to give up! My body felt heavy and leaden and I wanted to stop right away. I fought this feeling for 3 minutes. Have you ever been an accountability buddy to someone where they whine and scream the entire time? You get to the point where you're thinking "why am I trying so hard to help them? if they don't want to do [insert activity here], I am not going to waste my energy motivating them." I was having that inner struggle. I kept thinking "maybe I should have repeated those two 8-minute intervals today and attempt this 20-minute one later this week." Then, "ha! think you can do 8 minutes? You can't even do 4! Maybe...2 minutes!" It was hard to keep going.

 

I was whining to myself thinking "I can't do it, I can't finish even 8 minutes, this is killing me." Then, I told myself: "Alright, I'll make you a deal. You say you can't, I say you can. Every time, you've put one foot in front of the other (figuratively), and kept going until the time is up. You keep doing that until you really can't. Then, you can stop. But until then, you're mine. Okay?" "okay."

 

So that's what I did and got to the 8 minute mark. I told myself I'd get to 8 minutes and then I can rest. But when I got to the 8 minute mark, I didn't want to stop running. I had 12 minutes left. Which was another 8 minutes. And then 4 minutes. So I continued. I heard some people laughing to my right. Struggling with negative thought patterns, I immediately assumed that they were laughing at me! (bad habit, I know.) So I refused to look. They most likely were not laughing at me. They were probably just having a good time. But if I looked over, I may have triggered more negative thoughts! I did not want to tempt myself. So, I said nope, not going to look and continued running.

 

After that, I just worked on my breath. It seems more difficult to draw breath into my lungs today, but I made it!!   20 minutes of non-stop jogging! I even wanted to continue after the 20 minute mark because I knew I could! I didn't though because I needed to cool down and I don't have much time to get ready for work. Cooling down is very important because it brings your heart rate down gently! Always remember to cool down even if it doesn't seem important. It is!

 

So, the important tidbit I discovered today is: you can do it! Just focus on your breath and landing one foot down correctly and then the other one. If you can maintain what you are currently doing and just keep doing it, you will make it!! Just keep going until you cannot go anymore and you will match or exceed your previous record! Do not be afraid of failing. If you have to stop that doesn't mean you failed, but that you've pushed yourself to the max. When I thought I couldn't do it, I didn't want to try. I didn't want to fail (I was raised that way). What I learned is that I'm failing by not trying. Just by trying, I'll be doing, which means I WILL REACH my goals. I made a deal with myself that I could quit if I needed to; I just didn't reach that point before the timer ended.

 

Great new inspiration today! It will take me a while to absorb my own advice into my head, but as long as I keep going forward and maintaining my breath, I know I'll be able to run longer and eventually, faster! I'm so thankful for c25k and you all! This is a tremendously emotional journey where I'm DOING something that I never thought I could!

 

Wishing you success and courage and motivation to stick it out when it's tough! -Jeshi

[Anne Lang]

WOW! way to go Jeshi! you kept going like the energizer bunny. So proud of you. no more negativity u r the little engine that could. Not i cant not i think i can but i know i can and i knew i could . My redo of w1d1 was great i felt like i had good form head up mid foot strike no big stride nice even breathing no pain no injuries feeling happy today

[Sean90]

Awesome jeshi. Glad it worked out. I have heard that the w5d3 really is just to show you that it is mind over matter. And you proved it was. Good for you Now anything is possible. I mean "come on" you just ran a full 20 minutes. Happy running. I'll be there next week. W4d2 tomorrow morning

[Ruthie]

Very inspiring. I will think about that tomorrow, when, hopefully, I chug through my first five minute run 

[Jeshi]

@Anne Awesome!! So glad your leg is is better and you are pain free. Go you!

 

@Sean You're totally right about mind over matter! Who knew running was that way??!? Hope your W4D2 was successful!

 

@Ruthie You can do it! Let me know how your run goes tomorrow.

 

 

11/4/15 Wednesday W6D1

 

Skipped my run yesterday to catch up on some chores in the morning. I've been sleeping early = less time for other things, in hopes of functioning better at work and throughout the day. An unexpected side effect = being extremely cranky and irritable   I thought the extra sleep would improve my mood. I guess I have been so sleep deprived, that's my body's way of telling me I need to take better care! I ended up walking a bit for lunch and bounced up and down like a hyperactive child for a while to get some restless energy/irritability out. Felt much better after that. Looks like I needed my run!

 

I was in a good mood today. Very excited to run. It's extremely liberating and stress-relieving to just focus on breathing and feet. However, I remember the 20 minute run as daunting and I wanted to practice it before moving on to a more difficult session. To my relief, W6D1 has 3 segments, 2 five minutes and 1 eight minutes. Definitely the way to go. The great thing about mind over matter that Sean mentioned is that I was able to tell myself "I got this. I ran 20 minutes straight last time, I can run 5, I can run 8." My breathing was relatively easy. I checked in with myself to make sure I wasn't holding my breath, but for the most part, it was pretty steady and not super deep.

 

My calves and feet were a different story. I've been gaining weight each day since Friday (3.5 lbs) and my muscles can feel the difference in effort and exertion. Noticing this is a great food motivator. I've been mindful whenever I put food in my mouth. I take a breath and concentrate fully on what I'm eating, eat it slowly, and really savor the food. If the food isn't that great, I try not to eat it. It's helped keep me from eating a lot of junk food. It's surprising how much of an effect a small morsel can have over us.

 

The reason for my weight gain was probably due to the festival I attended on Saturday. Vendors sell large green coconuts full of delicious, nutritious water. Well, I've never had coconut meat before and was curious. The vendor cut open the drupe and I ate most of the meat. It's super high in fat and calories so I won't be doing that again. But it was a good experience. And makes me wonder why we aren't shipping/growing coconuts in countries with starving people.

 

Anyways, my calves and feet were quite sore today due to the extra work they had to do. I'm going to continue to watch my food intake carefully and make sure I'm resting enough at night. Tomorrow, will be a tougher session than today, but I look forward to it.