First Legitimate Training Day

The half marathon is looming and I need to get serious about my training.  After recovering from my bout of food poisoning, I took my flabby body to Bally's in an attempt to complete one hour of walking/jogging without falling onto my face.  I started out ambitious...pushed the speed of the treadmill up to 4.0 not realizing that I should work my way up to a 15 minute mile after little to no training and recent diagnosis of high blood pressure.  After about 10 seconds, I had to drop the speed down to 3.2 lest my face become acquainted with the running belt beneath my feet.  I slowly picked up speed and every 8 minutes I would up the speed to 4.2 for one minute.  I pretended Jillian Michaels was yelling at me every time I would hold on to the treadmill.  I was playing with the incline as well, but began to feel discomfort in my knees and figured I would forgo any added benefit and save my knees so that I would still be able to walk after the race.

I completed 30 minutes and 1.89 miles.  Not great, but given that I haven't exercised in YEARS, I was pretty happy with my accomplishment.  During my first cool down I was wiping my face and felt a little lightheaded when my eyes were behind the towel.  I shook it off and figured it was just a fluke caused by the heat and dehydration as I was completely soaked with sweat.  I looked awful but decided I could do another 30 minutes.  I changed treadmills so that I could have a working heart monitor (the diagnosis of high blood pressure a month ago has me a little scared).  I went a little slower this time around and was concentrating on building endurance not speed.  I figure the speed will come as the race date nears.  I stayed within the 80% range and monitored my heart rate every 5 minutes.  I completed another 1.77 miles in 30 minutes and actually felt pretty good.  Sweaty but good.

I decided that I shouldn't push it today and went to the locker room to dry my completely soaked hair.  Waiting for the bus rose my temp a little bit as the high humidity and temps have returned to Chicago.  When the bus arrived, I was ecstatic to feel the powerful air conditioner creating a "meat locker" on the #22 bus. Twenty minutes on this bus in the frigid temperatures caused my muscles to stiffen and my arches and ankles to start aching.  I felt like an old lady as I stepped off the bus, every muscle in my lower body screamed as each foot touched the sidewalk.  I took it easy tonight and plan on doing another 30 minutes tomorrow, in addition to some weight training to start building some strength in my atrophied muscles.

Today's Results:

Workout Time:  60 minutes   Total Mileage:  3.66 miles
Miles per hour rate:  16.39  Rate needed for Disney:  16.00 mph

Once I see some progress I will post some photos.