Short story is….
I ran a complete 3.1 miles/5 K yesterday!!!!!!!!!
(on the treadmill)
Long story is…
As most of you know I finished the Couch to 5K program last week. For me it meant being able to jog 30 minutes straight, but not exactly 5K (or 3.1 miles). As I was talking to my husband about my accomplishment I told him that upon finishing that third 30-minute jog I wasn’t really winded and dying to quit. It was tough, but I knew I could’ve kept going.
hhhmm… That got me thinking, “I wonder if I can jog a full 5K yet?”
So, yesterday I decided I would try it, or at least jog as much as I could. I started out at a brisk jogging pace for me (4.2 mph) and kept that up for the first mile. The second mile I took it back down to 4 mph, then back up to 4.1 where I finally fell into a steady rhythm that I felt I could keep up for a while.
The sweat was pouring down the sides of my face. It was great!
Suddenly twenty five minutes rolled around and I realized that if I was doing my “normal” jog I would be done in only five minutes. I realized then that I could probably keep going for the entire 5K. I kept it steady, bumping up the pace for the a minute or two at different intervals.
At thirty minutes the treadmill decided it was time for me to be done and I had to reset my time for fifteen more minutes. Unfortunately, every minute it tried to go down into cool down settings, so I had to reset my pace every minute. That was interesting, but thankfully it didn’t wear me out or make it hard.
And at about 44 minutes I reached that magic number of my running dreams thus far
3.1 (miles)
At the same moment the little trail on the screen showed me crossing the 5K mark.
I was so happy I was smiling and I wanted to turn and shout it to everyone in the gym. LOL Instead I texted two of my best friends and my husband with the news. I also told one woman in the stretching/core room, because I couldn’t contain my excitement. (And there were no guys in there at that particular moment…*sheepish grin* )
The best part of this entire story is that I was NOT exhausted at the end of my jog. I jogged 3.1 miles and I wasn’t dying to stop during those last few minutes. This shows me that I can endure a race.
So….yes, I’m going to start looking for a 5K race to run in this spring. I’m so excited and can’t wait to see more health goals reached in my life this year!
My New Ending 
YAY! I can't wait to hear about which race you are going to pick!! Way to go girl 🙂
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WOOOT! That is FANTASTIC! I am so proud of you! You definitely need to enter a 5K.
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That is so cool!!!! I can't wait to be able to type that goal out too!
I learned a very valuable lesson last night that I will never do again, I ate dinner (homemade pizza) and then went to run my 15 minutes less than an hour later. About 10 minutes into it I felt like I needed to throw up and had sharpe pains in my stomache. I ended up only doing 13 minutes. I knew better.
Keep up the great work! I'm sure by spring you will have that 5k down to 34 minutes easily!!
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leah i am so proud of you this is wonderful news!!!!!!!!!any news on you visiting phx…miss you love you aimee
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Wow – it's funny when you hear “oh I ran 3 miles” it doesn't seem like much – but boy when you actually RUN 3 miles it's a whole different story! Way to go on that! So proud of you!
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Go, Leah! Go, Leah! Go, Leah! (doin' a little dance for you).
Fantastic! I'll get back in the c25k this week (infection is over).
Whoot!
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Woo hoo! Congratulations! That is exciting!!!!
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Great job Leah, I am both proud of you and a bit jealous at the same time. 🙂
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I mostly lurk here (your story inspires me) but I had to de-lurk to say WAY TO GO!!! That is so awesome!!! Congratulations on an accomplishment that proves how strong you are–body AND mind.
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Leah what an ACCOMPLISHMENT! I'm so proud of you and feel so bad for missing this post (this week has been a little bit of a whirlwind for me…so sorry!).
Not sure if you have actually run outside or you have just been sticking to the treadmill (again I apologize) but just thought I would throw this out there, it's a lot different running outside then it is on a treadmill.
That being said I'm not saying you can't by any means because I know that you are capable, but it might just take some getting use to.
I'm so proud of you my friend…great work!
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thats so very great! and just think 🙂 if you can do that on the dreadmill methinks you can do MORE THAN THAT outside!!
MizFit
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Thank you so much for sending me this link. It really is inspiring me, I am actually sitting here thinking “Hmmm, I wonder how long I could run with out stopping tonight?”
🙂
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