Week 4!

Okay, so I've been a bit busy with work lately and haven't had an opportunity to write. I'm in the process of working through "week 4" of the program. Week four consists of a five minute warm up, and then five intervals of running for 4 minutes, with one minute to recover in between each interval, and a five minute cool down. I have been on week four for two week now. I did take another short break from running for about a week because it seemed like everything hurt a little too much. So I went to the state forest and hiked instead, spent another awesome day on the Appalachian trail, and I take the dog for about forty-five minute walk every night.

In the past week, I have been incorporating hills into my run, which makes those four minutes seem to last forever. However, every time I start to think about how crappy I feel, I think back to how I felt when I first started this program. I remember when running for 90 seconds was torture, and I don't feel so bad because now I can get through four minutes of running up enormous hills five times in a row. It may not seem like much to the seasoned pro or the marathon runner, but it means a lot to me. I know its taking me longer than the eight weeks it should take to complete this program, but I don't care. I'm proud of what I can do at this moment, and I'm going to keep working towards completing the program.

Week five is going to be a big step up, with three intervals of 8 minutes of running. What I may end up doing is the transition week that is optional with 6 minutes of running to get me ready for week 5.

I am registered for a 5k in October at school, so I am definitely looking forward to that. Now I just need to find a few buddies (A.K.A. my housemates, even though they don't know it yet...) to run with me!