progress progress everywherer

I joined a gym 3 weeks ago. I have been running and lifting weights and fairly virtuous. Today is the end of my week 2 program. Things are going smoothly if slowly. I am taking it easy and have not hurt my knee and am increasing my speed by small inciments along with the distance (and weights). I am in the beginning phase (that truly unfit part) in which even the slightest effort is rewarded with gain. I haven't lost any weight but my pants are looser. I am running at a bit more than half my 5k target speed of measly 8 minute miles.
I have never run on a treadmill before. I have played around on them but I love the outdoors and the woods particularly for running. Treadmills give me weird almost dizzy reactions. I get off and nearly fall, its like a sailor walking on dry land after a long voyage. Entertaining and very unexpected...
I am not more impressed by the staff at Planet fitness so far. Despite meeting 2 very helpful employees, overall the customer service thing seems to be lacking. I know that some of this is my fault. I don't know what I am doing in a non-school gym and I am sure it gets on peoples nerves.
Example of Missy not knowing what she is doing and getting on peoples nerves:
Planet fitness offers free personal training upon appointment. My first day at the gym I made an appointment therefore, for the Thursday upcoming. The man at the desk, a very helpful person, told me to be there at noon plus or minus 5 and to arrive ready to work out. Thursday was a very busy day at work and I skipped my time in the nursing room to leave early and get to the gym at +/- 5 min. I got there at 12:01 and out of the changing room at 12:09. Too late :(
The personal trainer told me in no uncertain terms about how late I was. She was quite unhappy with me and moved on to training the other 4 people in the session. I made another another appointment for Thursday the following week.
The next Thursday I arrived at around 11:45 and saw the trainer driving up just as I entered the gym. I changed and walked out to the meet up point and stood around. The trainer was behind a desk working on some paperwork. There was a group of 3 sitting at a table under the class meets here sign. I stood near the 4th chair (there were papers and pens at the 4th spot). The personal trainer came up to the table and looked at me (quite unhappy again) and asked me if i was in the class again. I replied that I was and she said "Well your late"...
I answered that I had been there for quite sometime. She asked if I had checked in with the desk..only she didn't ask me she spun around to the desk and said "Did she tell any of you that she was waiting for me?". They informed he of their ignorance. She stared at me for a while then said "You didn't check in and fill out your sheet (apparently there is a sheet and I should check in but I wish there were a better way to find out that through this trial and error thing.). I made an appointment for this Thursday at noon.
I am afraid of the personal trainer.
The first week I was relieved to be excluded after my conversation with her, thinking that I had caught her on a bad day.
The 2nd week I decided that Planet fitness must be a rough place to work and that she was just generally on edge. But after watching her with the other clients I am now leaning toward the she really doesn't like me solution. She seems all smiles and kind words for most of the other people she is dealing with.
I get on people nerves sometimes and when I know that a person is one of that sort I work quite hard to avoid them. As far as I know there is only one personal trainer and I really want help with my running program so I will keep trying.
Wish me luck!
(credit to http://www.waynet.org/waynet/spotlight/2004/040705-turtle.htm for the turtle pic)

next year . . . how did I not hear about this!?!

Cupid's Undie Run I sure hope we do this next year. Pictures from the Washington post for this years run are here .

Long way to go

I have been running fairly regularly since the Christmas holidays, between using the treadmill in the company gym before work on some weekdays and real runs on the weekend when it is not too cold and/or windy (OK I never clamed to be a true jogger, true joggers do not let little things like unpleasant weather deter them.) I am still very slow and have not made great improvement yet. I know am the weak link in the team since I am the oldest and most out of shape of the group so I am trying to get to a place were I don’t slow people down too much.

How dose your foot fall

An interesting article in the New York times about running form and injury. Makes me think about how I land on my feet. I am not actually sure if i am a heel striker or not...
We shall see.

Well hello

So... we bought a treadmill. I know, I know, I said I never ever wanted to get one. But as I am already signed up for the Shamrock race in March, and it was obvious I was never going to actually get to run outside because a) it gets dark 30 minutes after getting home from work and b) it's cold because it's winter, isn't that weird?

Anyway, the treadmill is pretty cool, we like it. Chris has been using it too, but no, I can't convince him to join in on a race, he's a party pooper. What would make the treadmill so much cooler is if we could get the dang iFit Live to properly integrate with google maps! I keep reading about how fun it is to run "through" the street view but it just doesn't work properly on our machine. All it does is adjust the incline to the terrain in custom maps that you create. It also has pre-programmed workouts that you can use, as well as some with trainers such as Jillian Michaels where they yell at you the whole time. But all I really want to do is run in street view... and of course customer service is terrible. I have made several custom maps that i'm excited to use when we get it working: the trail off the river in Manayunk, outside of Philadelphia that my best friend runs, a two mile route that ends at my grandfather's house in Mt. Pleasant, PA, a 3 mile loop I used to run when living at my parent's house, & a few mile trek along main street Greensburg. Should be fun...

Anyway, I am a bit nervous about training mostly on a treadmill. I read that you need to set it to at least a 1% incline to simulate wind resistance. But it still feels ten times easier than running outside. I mean, the friggin' belt is moving under you, rather than you pushing against the stationary pavement. Oh well, maybe we will have some more freakishly warm winter days so I can get some proper outdoor runs in before March.

My main challenge is figuring out the best time to run. I prefer to do it in the morning before work, but I already wake up very early (don't you feel bad for me, parents of young babies who I know get much less sleep than I?). When I get home, the last thing I want to do is run. I usually want to eat dinner immediately, and who wants to run after eating? Not this girl.

Once i'm up and pull on my sneakers though, i'm ready to go. It's just getting to that point that's difficult. Because, I. love. sleeping. so. much.

sigh

Okay, so the running was going well... Then I got sick. Then I decided to switch jobs. Needless to say I'm back to square one. Not that square one is a bad square, but...

So Clearly fate Hates Me

My running got off to a great start. I was picking up time, I was running easier, further, having more fun. All those wonderful things. When I went for my monthly doctor visit my blood pressure even seemed to be lower. And then. . . . first my daughter and I both picked up a killer cold. The kind of cold that makes you just want to crawl under the covers and forget the world exists, except you cant cause the baby is sick too. Two weeks I couldn't breath and barely wanted to live. No jogging. So I finally felt better, hit the road one time and the next day white stuff fell from the heavens, and kept falling. Not a common event in Tokyo proven by the fact that everyone's reaction was to pour tons of hot water over the roads and sidewalks to 'clean them off.' One and a half weeks of dangerously icy roads. OK. Roads cleared. Got one jog in. Huge project for work suddenly appears, plus a project for school, not so sudden but every minute of every day for a week was taken up. But I cleared that away my schedule was set up perfectly to jog again and SURPRISE! The incredibly puking baby. All day all night till mid yesterday. Dropped her off at daycare today looked up at the sky pelting down rain at me and thought. . . . maybe tomorrow.

Ashamed. :( On some level these are all excuses I know. Well maybe not the ice. But the cold and the work. I could have dredged up the time and energy somewhere and I didn't. One of the problems is that I'm not signed up for any races thanks to a husband, the literate one among us, that says 'there are no 5 or 10K's in Japan. Nope none. Skeptical. I'm going to ask a friend to look up some races and as soon as the sky gives me the smallest break I am going to go running. Really. I mean it this time.

Sign. But no, really. I am!

commitment devices

Today I was listening to the freakemomics commitment device podcast. I am joining a gym. Today I went to the gym to have a look around. I am joining planet fitness because it is cheap and it is close and looks pretty good equipment wise. This is the 2nd planet fitness I have visited. At first I thought I might join one near home but have decided on the one by work because if I work out during lunch it won’t interfere with baby time.

I have to say this. So far planet fitness has not been very impressive customer service-wise. This isn’t going to stop me from joining because I mean to run and probably won’t have much dealing with the staff but good heavens.

The first location (near home (Germantown)) was full of barely attentive workers who were chatting with each other or texting instead of helping me to sign up. The 2nd location (near work(Frederick)) was vastly understaffed (1 worker so I couldn’t sign up or look around without waiting 1/2 hour) and the girl/woman on staff was deeply flustered and irritable.

Ug.

On the other hand I only visited each location once and who knows if I saw the norm.

Hopefully with more exposure my first impressions will be more favorably altered.

As a barefoot runner I say "Have you read born to run?"

Nothing to see here move along...or not

Sad to say that illness and work relocation had completely jammed up my running. I am perpetually in week 2. That may be a problem come March but I think I will be ok if I can get going again.
This weekend hopefully.
I am joining a gym...fighting bankers hours to set up an account.
This is pretty discourging. I had such a head of steam before we all got colds and even into the move but between the baby not sleeping and the weekend work I am all steamed out. I know that some of us are in the same boat and others are chugging along. I hope to place myself firmly in the chugging along column shortly.
Wish me luck.