The October Challenge

Yay, October 1st is here! And so begins the challenge for myself that I've been mulling over. It's a 2 part challenge.

1) C25K: I'm starting a C25K program today to work up to being able to run most of the Turkey Trot in November. If I'm not ready by then, of course I'll walk when I need to, but that's my goal, is to run that, even if its slow. I'm also hoping it will help get more weight off, help me with my endurance and stamina, and just in general, get me in better shape. I'll mainly be doing it Tuesday and Thursdays and woven into one other weekly walk to do it 3 times a week.

2) The REAL challenge: I'm going back to every single day workouts. That's the hard one. I'm challenging myself to do something every single day in October (we'll talk about November later...lol). Back when Teresa, Jamie, and I were doing the competition, I was doing great every day but have slacked a LOT since then. So its time to "put up or shut up." I WILL NOT do another half marathon in December, if I can't get it in less than 4 hours. By sticking to this challenge, I think I'll be able to get a lot more fit by then. This will include walking as much as I can on the training/C25K schedule (and I really love outdoor walking, so that won't be hard for me), the stationary bike on AF days, and then the Walk Away the Pounds dvds on bad weather days. Granted, there will be days that I do a light bike ride, or a light walk, to rest my muscles, so I won't be overdoing it or risking injury (these will be majority of Sundays and Fridays for a true rest), but I'm setting a standard of at least 20 minutes a day in whatever activity.

So there you have it. I'm putting this out there for accountability in this. I need all the help I can get so feel free to post comments if you see me starting to slack. It's raining today so tonite ended up being a Walk Away the Lbs 2 miler, even though I WANTED to go for the first day of C25K. D is sick today with bronchitis so I'll be off work tomorrow with him. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting sick too, sore throat, just run down, feverish feeling (though no fever), so it was pretty hard tonite to suck it up and do the WATP. But I finally got up off my butt and did it. I'm glad I did and I felt pretty good during it! My hip had a few minor twinges but I just reduced the movement til it felt better and kept going. Tomorrow will be a tossup of what I do depending on how I feel. I'm going to my own doc at 10:30, so we'll see if I get outside or not.

Foodwise, that's a whole other story. I won't be challenging myself on that one yet, but I am definitely working on the eating side of things. Today WAS lining up to be a decent day. I had oatmeal for breakfast and then a cup of instant chicken noodle soup as a midmorning snack. However, I had to head during lunchtime to get D and take HIM to the doc so I didn't get the lunch I had planned out. We ended up grabbing a late lunch since I was starving by the time we got done and it all kind of went down hill from there. Tomorrow is a new day though. And I foresee lots of grocery shopping in our future.

Output: the rain scrapped my outdoor c25k plans for this evening, so I ended up doing the 30 minute Two Mile WATP dvd.