Run like a boss- part 1

I can't continue this blog for much longer without mentioning the one major contributor to my weight loss success- running. I still can't believe I'm saying this because I use to HATE running. I mean, HATE running. During my high school and college days, I ran one time and probably got 100 yards before I wanted to die (I was skinny then, but out of shape). But when I finally determined that I needed some sort of exercise to lose those extra pounds, running was the one thing I knew how to do and it didn't require a gym.

Before I go much farther, I want to emphasize how much I truly believe exercise and nutrition go hand in hand with healthy living. While nutrition puts things into your body that exercise cannot, exercise does things for your body that nutrition cannot. Nutrition will not make your heart stronger like exercise does. But exercise will not lower your cholesterol like healthy eating does. Neither is more important than the other. And when you have one, you must have the other.

So back to running. I use to hate it. And now I actually love it! It's grown into a passion of mine. But it took me a looooooong while to get there. I also understand that running is not meant for everyone. I have a sister in law that runs marathons and she's told me that running doesn't help her lose weight much. Yet I have a brother in law who you can almost see the weight fall off when he runs. It's just different body types and there is not much you can do about it.

Every one does running a little differently, but I can tell you what I did and it may work for you. To get serious about running regularly, I first had to figure out how far I could run. So I went outside, ran for as long as I could and looked at how far I had gone (I used Google maps to check my distances. Now I use RunKeeper with my iPhone that tracks the distance for me). The first time I did this, I ran about half a mile without stopping.

Once I had this distance, I next needed to decide how often and when I would run. I started out running every other day. I know myself very well and knew that if I ran every single day, it would be too hard and I would lose my desire to exercise. See? doing a little at a time is how you should start anything. I also chose a time every day that I would do it. I wrote it in my schedule, on my mirror, so that I saw it every day. I also told other people, so they could help remind and motivate me to run. This especially worked with Dave because he knew that every other day at 7, I would go run. And if it was 6:55 and I wasn't in tennis shoes yet, he would look at me and say, "Honey, do you need to run today?" It was a great motivator to have that constant reminder around!

I knew that I could run 0.5 miles (half a mile) without stopping. So my first week of running, I did half a mile for all 3 of my runs. The next week, I ran 0.6 miles for all my runs. It was a little bit farther, but not so much that it was ridiculously hard. Week by week, I added 0.10 miles to my runs and before I knew it, I could run a whole mile without stopping! It was about this time that I was beginning to enjoy myself and the fact that I was losing about a pound a week. I was so excited about this, that I mistakenly put "Dana Eyerly loves running!" as my Facebook status. My sister in law, Robin, saw this and said, "You know, me too! Let's train for a 5K together." I must have been delusional with endorphins because I agreed.

If you want to begin running, the best way I know to motivate yourself is to enter a race. It kinda forces you to commit *evil laugh here*. I use www.runningintheusa.com to find local races, whether they are 1 mile or a marathon. So Robin and I picked a race a few months away and made our training schedules. This kept me motivated because I had an end goal I was working towards and I could see myself getting a little closer every day. Another great tip for running is get someone else to do it with you. That way when you need a little kick in the butt, they are there to give you it. Robin and I checked up on each other frequently throughout our training and often ran side by side.

A 5K is 3.1 miles. I could already do 1 mile, so I looked up "5K training schedules" online and found one that fit my level. If you search this, there are tons of results that will come up, so sift through them and find the one that works best for you. Mine involved running 3 shorter runs during the week and a longer run on Saturday. I slowly increased the length of my weekday runs and my Saturday runs. Here's what a couple of weeks from my schedule would have looked like. 

Week 1: Monday- 1 mile, Tuesday- 1 mile, Thursday- 1 mile, Saturday- 1.5 mile

Week 2: Monday- 1.25 mile, Tuesday- 1 mile, Thursday- 1.25 mile, Saturday- 1.75 mile

Week 3: Monday- 1.5 mile, Tuesday- 1.25 mile, Thursday- 1.5 mile, Saturday- 2 mile

I kept this kind of schedule up until I could run 3 miles. It was important to have those rest days right before the longer run so that my muscles wouldn't be too worn out to finish the long distance. The next week it was race time and I ran the entire 3.1 miles without stopping! Wooooohooooo!!! 

Check out that group of good looking runners. Robin and I got quite a few more other people to train with us and this is the fantastic pink group we ran with. Robin is in the solid pink on the right and I'm at the very end on the left.

You want to hear the best part about the race? By the time training was over, I was back to pre-pregnancy weight. Imagine a super giant smiley face right here. :-)

But hold on folks! This isn't the end of my running story, stayed tuned for more.

Boring scientific note- Ever wonder why you always hear that you need 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise per day? It's because that is the way to a healthy heart. When you run or swim or walk, your muscles need a ton more oxygen to function than they normally do. Oxygen gets to the muscles through blood. So cardio exercises force your heart to pump that blood faster and harder than they normally do to get that O2 to your screaming muscles. When your heart works this hard, it's actually building up it's OWN muscle too! Pretty soon, your heart is this buff blood-pumping machine that is almost unstoppable. This is why doing cardiovascular exercise is the number one way to prevent heart attacks and other heart diseases. Keeping your heart healthy is saving your life.