It's Alive! It's Alive! My Frankenstein'ed Training Plan

Because I’m taking care of myself with the therapy, I am no longer getting nearly as many headaches as I used to.  I can tell when my muscles are beginning to get tight and I can make changes to take care of that. I can tell the difference between a weather headache (yes, I still get them) and a tension headache. Because my headaches are decreasing, I can do other things that I’ve not wanted to do because of the fear of an onslaught. 

Working out is one of those things I avoided because of the headaches. Who knows, maybe if I had worked out more and did more muscle work I’d not be in this mess in the first place. Hindsight and all that bull…

The family and I went to WDW in September 2011 and I think I only needed ONE migraine pill.  I was fine the majority of the time, and that was a huge win for me.  While we were there, I saw something (I think Wine & Dine Marathon information) that put the Princess back in the forefront of my thoughts. I didn’t say anything, but it was there.

During the holidays, I began to think of the upcoming year (2012) and what changes I wanted to make. I hate New Year’s Resolutions, but for me, change was coming fast and I needed to get out of my own damn way, lest I run myself over.  I was tired of being fat. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of being unhealthy.  I was just tired of myself, I think.  It’s hard to put into words what I was thinking or feeling because most of the time, it was lingering just under the surface, the way cold water is below the warm tides of the ocean.  

I began researching things on the internet, things like HOW to run, how a fat girl CAN run, what kind of shoes to get (what girl doesn’t need shoes?) and stuff like that.  I decided to get through the holidays before I really did anything, but every day, the call of the miles was getting stronger in my head.

On the DIS, I found the WISH forums (We’re Inspired to Stay Healthy).  There was lots of chatter about the upcoming 2012 Princess, so I lurked on the boards. A lot. I found a link to Jeff Galloway’s training programs. I read through his website and found a conditioning program for beginners – ME!  It involved walking interspersed with small bits of running (the first day was 10 minutes of walking and running, with a 5 second run once a minute).  Surely I could do this!  I printed that and tucked it away. 

I found the Couch to 5K program as well and after looking it over, it looked like I would be able to transition from JG directly to C25K pretty seamlessly.  I printed that out, too, and tucked it away.  I went back to Jeff’s website and printed the actual training schedule for a half-marathon. This too got tucked away for further review. 

 

By mid-January, I was about 80% sure I was going to do this. I posted a great video of the 2011 PHM on my Facebook page and my mother and I began talking about it like it was a real option.  The more I talked, the more I wanted to do it. I showed the video to my hubby, and it was really the first time I said aloud that I *was* going to do it.  Up until then, it was a quiet dream I kept in my head. Hubby suggested that our 14-year old daughter run it with me. After showing her the video, she said she wanted to do it as well.  At this point, I was about 90% sure that we’d be doing this in a bit over a year from then.

 By the end of January, I had concocted a training schedule that looked like this:  Jeff Galloway’s Conditioning Plan > Couch to 5K Plan > Jeff Galloway’s Half-Marathon Training Plan.  I had to work the training days around days I worked late and my therapy days, but there is a scheduled plan now!

It felt real.