Day 27

I did 30:21 for 1.75:

1 minute @ 2.5 mph
4 minutes @ 3 mph
8 minutes @ 4 mph
5 minutes @ 3 mph
8 minutes @ 4 mph
2 minutes @ 3.5 mph
1 minute @ 3 - 2.5 mph
1 minute @ 2 - 1.5 mph

I was worried that I would not be able to run 8 minutes straight twice, but I did! Woo hoo! One thing that I discovered is that I will need to speed up at some point as I should have done at least 2 miles today and that is only at 26 minutes. It looks like next week's second run has me running 10 minutes which equates to 1 mile and as we have seen I'm only going 1.75 miles in 30 MINUTES! Yikes!

The Couch-to-5K Running Plan lasts for 9 weeks and if I haven't already begun to speed up I will definitely need to after the plan is over. A 10 minute mile....yeesh....

One thing that is not helping is the lack of sleep I am getting. I have mentioned it several times already but I know my body is not getting the rest it requires for this training. It's been years since I have slept more than 3 hours straight but I figured with my training that I would be sleeping better. Everything I have read states that is one of the wonderful effects of running. I have been to my doctor more times than I can count, trust me. The first time I went to him was about 3 years ago and he told me 50% of the population doesn't sleep well. I asked him, "For over 5 years straight???"

I had a breakdown today before my run. I got 2 hours of sleep last night and am still suffering from my rice cake snafu...I still haven't eaten one since Thursday....woo hoo....and I am just plain exhausted. I don't know where to go, who to go to, what to read...scratch that, nothing holds my attention for more than a couple of minutes except a very good fiction so buying any books on how to sleep would be a total waste of money and magazine articles always give the same recommendations. Go to sleep at the same time, turn off the TV, just use your bedroom for sleeping, blah, blah, blah, blah....been there done that, still not sleeping...sigh...

The medicine my doctor had prescribed for me did allow me to sleep for one hour straight when I first went to sleep which is more than the 15 - 30 minutes I am now getting but that would be it and then I am up for the rest of the night and because it has a sedative effect I would be a walking zombie/gumby like person for the day. Plus, he tells me this is one of the reasons I had gained 35 pounds in a year. You can see why I don't take it...an extra 30 minutes of sleep with a trade off of 35 pounds....hmmmm, let me think about it....uh, no!

I better get going since I put off today's run for over 2 hours and I have a ton of errands to run in just a couple of hours so I will be here tomorrow!