As a brand new runner, I can tell you how to do it.

I’m learning how via the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training Program.  They take ordinary people, non-athletes like me, and help you build up the strength and stamina to make it through an endurance event like a marathon.  It’s a five-month program and I’ve been on it for five weeks, now. 

This last Saturday, I basically completed two 5k events — one was our regular training and the other was a 5k walk/run with a young girls foundation.  So on my fifth week of training, I did a 10k!!

And this was after being a person who couldn’t run a couple of houselengths when I started!  Yes, I did a combination of walk/run, mostly walking in the second 5k, but to have the energy to run ANY of the second 5k is unbelievable.

It’s all about taking “baby steps” and giving your body the time to become conditioned very slowly.  Don’t start out too fast, don’t run like you see all the people around you running.  Don’t push too hard and overtrain.  Be patient, trust me… Even your lungs will start to feel better and better.

Just start out walking 30 minutes every other day.  Every once in a while, run a few steps.  Don’t get so that you’re huffing and puffing, run very slowly.  Even for the first week, don’t push yourself beyond where you can go.

On the treadmill, I walk at 3.5 and I run at 4.0 or 4.4 right now.  I found that I was trying too hard in the beginning and it was killing me.  I was looking at other people’s treadmill settings and they were at 5 and 6 and they seemed to be running relaxed, so I tried it.  It was too fast for a beginner.  And you tend to run faster when you’re not on a treadmill so slow down and really pace yourself.

When you’re comfortable with 30 minutes of walking with a little bit of running thrown in, just a few steps here and there, edge up to 35 minutes four times a week for one week, then 40 minutes four times a week for one week, then 45 minutes a week for one week.  If you mostly walk, that’s fine.  Breathe deeply, just keep moving.

What’s happening at this stage is that you’re conditioning your heart and lungs and muscles to move more than they used to.  And every once in awhile, you run a few steps.  Pick targets, like, I’ll run to that house or that stop sign, or I’ll run for 60 seconds.

When you’re ready, start a schedule of running 1 minute, walking 4 minutes, and repeat that.  Do that throughout your workout, do it maybe for a couple of workouts.

Gradually increase, as your body seems ready.  The key is, don’t huff and puff.  You need to be able to hold a conversation as you’re building up. 

Run 2 minutes, walk 3 minutes.  Next workout, run 2 minutes, walk 2 minutes.  You’ll get so that your breathing gets back to normal pretty quickly, within one or two minutes.  So hold at one or two minutes of walking and gradually increase your very slow running segments.

I struggled for a couple of weeks, then found around the end of week three that it was much easier for me and I was starting to run eight or ten minutes at a stretch.  Then I’d walk a bit, and run another five or seven minutes.  In a fourteen minute mile, four of it was walking.  That’s okay.  It was huge progress over my very first time trying to run!

Then a friend told me a real key.  Your body is ready before your brain is!  When you haven’t been a runner, your brain says… Whoa, you’re breathing hard, that can’t be good.  Whoa, you’ve never run more than two houses before, what are you thinking? 

There comes a time when your body and your brain are in sync and all of a sudden, you run that mile!  And after that, it gets easier and easier.

I will tell you, one thing I’ve learned is that for many people, including me, the first mile is hard.  So I just plain walk and “shuffle” (run a little here and there) during the first mile.  Then, the second and third mile, I can run in good five and ten minute segments.  Right now, the fourth through sixth miles are hard and I mostly walk but my body is getting more and more conditioned.  I love it!

Have fun and keep moving!
Originally posted on http://SheCanRun.com

If you’re looking for MP3 files to run, jog, or workout by, I just found a number of sites that offer MP3 downloads, free and for a nominal fee. The music is timed to “beats per minute” (BPM), where your foot hits the ground in time with the music.

The “Run2Rythm” website says that running to this controlled BPM has the following benefits:

• gives run cadence control.
• puts bounce in your step.
• help simulate speeds required to achieve run/race goals. I.E if your aim is to complete a 10km run in 50 minutes, selecting our music with 166 BPM will simulate the pace required.
• will help you avoid injuries and illness so frequently common among runners due to “over-use” and “over-training”
• helps the breathing pattern become more relaxed thus more efficient oxygen intake.
• keeps the cadence correct and reinforces the ‘effort/relax’ aspect of ideal running – something running to HR (heart rate) and pace cannot do.
• helps the muscles to relax during a long run resulting in better capillary blood flow and less muscle fatigue.
• improves the ability to use fat as a fuel source.
• will improve the muscle’s ability to store glycogen.
• helps you find the mind and body meld that puts you ‘in the zone’.
• makes you feel good.

So here are links to some of the great BPM sites that I’ve found. I’ve downloaded some into my MP3 player and they are very cool!

Run2Rythm: http://www.run2r.com/run2rhythm-home.aspx

TechnoSweat: http://www.technosweat.com/index.html

PodRunner: http://www.djsteveboy.com/mixes.html
(This one has free downloadable podcasts set to a chosen BPM)

I just finished my very first ever 5k walk/run! 3.1 miles in 44 m 50 s. Not bad for a beginner’s second 3 miles of the day.

It was with a group called Girls on the Run (http://www.girlsontherun.org/default.html). They teach young girls to run and along the way, play games to teach anger management, problem solving, goal-setting and reaching, and self-esteem. I’m not a volunteer, I was just doing it because a friend invited me. I did about three miles with my Team in Training group first, cut out early and headed over to Denver’s City Park for this event.

It was SO fun! 750 runners. They had Tony the Tiger and his DJ helping the girls warm up with the Chicken dance, and we shot out of the gate to the sound of Ray Charles’ “Hit the road, Jack”.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LpHDwvxrcXk
Jamie Foxx playing Ray Charles

youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Fal5JVqN2C8
Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, edited, doing the Chicken Dance

I had already walk/run with my leukemia training group an hour earlier so I was on my fourth mile of the day when we started. I ran a little and walked a lot.

It was so cute to see the girls’ teams with matching little running skorts. They were strong for the first half mile, then you started to hear little girls cry about how their wrists hurt or their feet hurt. The coaches and parents were AWESOME. They would encourage the girls and distract them, and along the way there were games for them to play.

A lot of people ran with their dogs. Makes me want to get a German shepherd, those dogs get you out and going! One lady ran with a tiny little dachsund who was strong in Mile 1, then he started to fade a bit. I wished so much that she would give him some water and pick him up to run with him, the poor little guy had FOUR legs all tired out and she only had TWO.

Three little girls were walking around Mile 2. Their coach was running backwards in front of them, trying to get them to get started again. I ran around them and the coach yelled, Hey, you don’t want middle-aged old ladies running faster than you, do you?! (Dang, I need to color my hair today).

Just past Mile 2, I found MY motivation. Cute hunky guys! Ooh, there’s a definite body type — Not the skinny or lanky guys but not the burly guys, either… tall, broad shouldered, strong flat chest, flat stomach, rock solid arms and legs but not too bulky, ummm…. Yup. I found a 30-something dad who was coaching a group of little girls and managed to stay behind them for a good mile and a half! THAT was WORTH it!

I was pretty slow so I cut my friend loose early on… she finished and then ran back a mile to walk in with me. The final block or so, people were cheering wildly so I started my slow marathon run, and then a guy with a microphone shouted, Number 417!! Sprint! You can do it! Kick it up and RUN across the finish line! So I SPRINTED and finished strong.

Oh, it was great! You have to do these runs with kids, they are so fun and so well organized. We got a great shopping bag from Sports Authority, great T-shirts, a new kind of water with glucosamine called Joint Juice that I MUST find some more of, samples of sunblock, bagels, bananas, bottles of water, cartons of Frosted Flakes (from Tony the Tiger himself), fans… lots of fun stuff.

Yup… definitely a very fun first 5K.

At each one of our group trainings, they ask for people to share a Mission Moment — we are, after all, not running for ourselves.  We’ve had a few trainings, here is what I’ve learned so far.

One woman described how her boyfriend took her up into the mountains five years ago, got down on one knee, and asked her to marry him.  But he was strangely fatigued on that day and ran a stopsign or two coming home.  Two days later, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and three years after that, he was dead.  So she now serves on the board of directors and is training for her first marathon.

Another woman said that she was an oncology nurse and never thought any of this would touch her, but her mother was recently diagnosed with leukemia, so she is now “running for a cure”.

And then a fairly young woman, maybe in her early 20’s, said that she had leukemia and underwent a bone marrow transplant two years ago, and now she runs.

Wow.

Here’s my mission moment.  I am running for someone I’ve never met.  He is the adult son of some dear friends from church.  He is in a sort of 100-day ‘isolation’ because he just had a bone marrow transplant — I’ll get to meet him when he can be around more people.  But I wear a bracelet with his name on it, and I walk to church (3 miles) as part of my Sunday training, and it does get people’s attention!  His parents — my friends — lost a seven-year-old son many years ago to leukemia, and now their grown son has it.  They are in their seventies and Jan is in a motorized wheelchair, his illness has really been a strain for them.  Jan was so tickled that someone would go to such extreme effort as to train for a marathon that she sent me a lengthy hand-written letter thanking me.  I cherish it.  To get a letter like that, I’d run to the moon and back.  Well, Denver, anyway!

Just so you know, the research is paying off.  Doctors are telling their patients to hold on, do whatever you have to do to keep going, leukemias and lymphomas are just a few years away from a cure!

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society recently awarded four new Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) grants in the amount of $37.5 million, which will go towards the advancement of blood cancer therapies.  These treatments will benefit children with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, as well as adults who need treatment for Malignant Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

By the way, I learned a few weeks ago that one of my aunts (she’s 79) was just diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.  So these diseases touch people we love and so I’m running for a cure, too!

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it. ~Plato

It’s now been five weeks since I signed up for Team in Training and three full months since I began working out with a trainer.  I CANNOT believe the difference in my body… this is NOT the same body I had three months ago, or even five weeks ago and EVERYONE is noticing.  Whoo-hoo!

People are always saying, Teresa, you’ve lost a LOT of weight!  And I always say, Really, it’s only 10 lbs., but it’s that getting fit and toned that’s making the difference. 

My trainer seriously kicks my butt.  Check out one of my latest training routines, it would kill most people. 

Five weeks ago, I could barely run half a block.  Now, I am walk-running for three miles at a time and quite often run for 10 minutes at a stretch.  For you experienced runners that might seem like baby steps, but it is huge progress for me.  I know that the only thing keeping me from running for 30 minutes solid is my mind.  Part of the “mental toughness” that you develop to be a marathon runner is overcoming your own mind telling you — Gads, you’ve never run more than a few blocks, you’d better stop at 10 minutes.

Imagine what my mind will be able to do when it gets past these little barriers.

The pay-off started yesterday.

After a super-hard workout with weigh-in and measuring (and I’d lost 2.5% body fat in one month!), I was on my way out of the gym when my trainer came running after me.

Hey, Teresa, he shouted… Just wanted to tell you, the other trainers were watching you… they said you’re looking GREAT! 

Seriously??? I asked.

Seriously!  They said you look GREAT!

So I did a little happy dance and ran the rest of the way to my car.  This is NOT what I expected when I began training and I LIKE it!

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
William Barclay

I’m really proud of the kind of training I put in this weekend.  Between Saturday’s workouts and Sunday’s walking to church, I got in 10 miles plus a kick-butt workout!!  Not bad for a beginner.

Saturday morning, I met with my Leukemia Society Team in Training group at the REI location in downtown Denver.  We divided into our pace groups and ran along the Platte River for an hour.  What a gorgeous location, I had no idea we had such a beautiful greenbelt downtown.

I’m in the Durango group (my initial pace time was 12:40), but there was no one in my group so I kind of held back with the Eagle group (the walkers) because I’m not fast enough for the other groups.  With my very modest run/walk efforts, I wound up most of the time by myself, too fast for one group but too slow for another. 

I’m learning that, while the first mile is hard, it’s really much easier for me to run on miles two and three.  I’m stronger, my legs are more fluid, and I breathe better.  I didn’t know that about myself.   My friends who are runners are telling me that’s pretty normal, that you use mile one to warm-up and then you “hit your stride”.

The highlight of this training was that there was a Russian wedding group posing for pictures.   They walked past us as we were sitting on the lawn learning about injury prevention, so we all hooted and hollered and clapped for them as they walked past.

But I didn’t stop with the three miles that we ran as a group.  There was a special at 24 Hour Fitness and my trainer invited me to bring a friend along for a “Doubles” training session, free.  So a co-worker joined me and we had a blast!  We warmed up on the machines before our session and I ran for 8 straight minutes, even after all that workout earlier in the day.  Then Justin really kicked both our butts.

I wondered how he would work with two people at different skill levels.  He had us both doing the same exercise only mine was changed up to be a little harder.  Like,  while my friend was doing squats on the stability ball, I was doing box jumps, leaping onto a platform, switching legs quickly, and leaping off.  VERY hard stuff! 

Then, he had her doing situps on the stability ball.  He had me on some sort of upside down torture device where your legs are kind of tucked in and you’re on a slanted bench, and I was doing my situps THERE.  They were a little too easy so on the second set, he had me hold my arms straight up in the air and sit up reaching towards the sky.  Whoo.  Tough.

Normally, we work through three different circuits, and with two people there and him showing her what to do, we only got in two different circuits.  But it was still a hard workout.

Then, today, I walked the three miles UPHILL to church!  I forgot to bring sandals to change into so I taught  my Sunday School lesson in my ASICS running shoes :-)  There were lots of offers to give me a ride home, but I declined.  The goal is, after all, to get into shape!  So I got in six miles today.

I have to say, I was pretty pooped.  I can see why Team in Training just has you gradually work up to harder runs and longer times.  Right now, it’s very slow and easy.   But hey, that means I did about 10 miles in two days, hard miles.  I am ahead of where I should be on the schedule and I’m working with a trainer two or three days per week, so all of this just gives my psyche a little bit of an edge.

 

Teresa: Thanks for the invitation. Count me in! However,  I will only be able to attend the dinner. I’m an 8 p.m. lights out person, now! How old of me!

Stacy: You crack me up Teresa. Thats why I invited old people, so I feel young

I had a funny email exchange this morning.  A 20-something friend from church invited me to her birthday dinner and to some downtown activities afterwards.  I accepted for the dinner but let her know I have to go to bed early so I won’t make the downstown stuff.  She doesn’t really know I’m training for a marathon.

She must have thought I go to bed early because I’m OLD… so I sent her this reply

Old people!  Now YOU crack me up.
 
Just to make you feel really YOUNG, this “old lady” is training for the Denver Marathon and I’m up running at 4:30 every morning!  So I have to go to bed early so as to be rested for this goofy schedule!
 
Woo hoo!  Come run with me, you young thang!

You know, it’s really FUN, training for a marathon.  I really struggled the first three weeks but this week, it’s coming easier for me.  I hit the gym around 5 a.m. to walk/run for an hour, and then two times this week, I also worked out with my personal trainer.  And he kicked my BUTT.  No slacking just because I just ran for an hour.  He increased the weights and made me do triple sets of EVERYTHING, plus he’s adding jumps and speed things on the Bosu ball to put a spring into my step.

The trick really is, you have to eat right and get plenty of sleep to keep up with this kind of activity.  I had to do a little homework on nutrition for vegetarian athletes.  Then I bought an eye mask that cuts out all light because I go to bed when there is still 90 minutes of daylight.    I have some books on tape and quiet piano music on my MP3 player, so I am able to drift off to sleep pretty well.  Next thing is to train my friends not to call after 8 p.m.!

“Slow and steady wins the race” — That’s truly how both my personal trainer and our coaches with Team in Training are helping me.  Just do baby steps, a little at a time, your body will adjust. 

I am now entering my fourth month of training and I am in truly in the best physical shape of my life!  I’m stronger and more flexible then I’ve ever been.  I’ve lost several inches and two dress sizes — it was only 10 pounds but the firming and toning REALLY look good. People tell me I look like I’m in my 30’s, not my 50’s. I love it!

Gilbert Tuhabonye is an elite marathon runner from Burundi. He knew he had hamstring and sciata issues prior to running in the London Marathon (which is a qualifier for the Olympics) but ran anyway. He had to drop out by mile 6. His discussion of having a backup plan and of feeling good about dropping out are full of insights for newbies.

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It started with a dare on St. Patrick’s Day 2000, when two guys shaved their heads to support children with cancer. Thus was born the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. In eight years, the awareness and fundraising organization says, events have taken place in 18 countries and the United States, “raising over $34 million and shaving more than 46,000 heads.”

A CNN Article today titled, Soldiers shave heads to support cancer kids, got my attention.  See, just in the last few months my eyes have been opened to leukemia and blood cancers, and I’m starting to realize that money spent on research is paying off.

Just ask some of our US Troops in Iraq.  THEY believe.  They’re shaving their heads and paying money for the privilege, all to help kids whom they don’t even know.

Major Stephen Roberts, a pediatric oncologist normally stationed at Walter Reed but recently deployed to Iraq, knows exactly how successful is the research.

Roberts says research into childhood cancer has made an astounding difference. “Most of the diseases we treat used to be a death sentence,” he said. “In the 1950s, 80 percent of kids with cancer died. Today, 80 percent will be cured forever. In the early 1970s leukemia was 100 percent fatal; now 90 percent of kids are cured.”