Rainy day running

Some brilliant twitter friends of mine suggested that my running headaches might be due to allergies and not my body rebelling against the exercise. I have both positive and negative feeling about this idea. On the one hand it would be great to know what my problem was so I could treat it. On the other hand I never had allergies before so the idea that I may have developed them sucks big time. Today was the perfect day to test the theory since it was raining all day and I assume that means pollen can’t be flying all around. I was kind of stalling to go for the run because, let’s face it, I have motivation issues. However knowing that my internet friends were still at it and if I didn’t run today I would fall behind was enough to get my butt out the door. For once my procrastination paid off and it had stopped raining by the time I finally decided to go, score!

I took Phoebe along again but she was less than pleased this time. Phoebe hates the rain. Usually this is good for me because she gets her business done as fast as possible and races back to the house. I thought it would be ok because it wasn’t actually raining but apparently wet ground is equally awful for the princess. There were literally times that I was dragging her. I didn’t get any pictures but imagine if this were a five pound papillon.

That’s pretty much how it looked. I probably looked like the worst pet owner ever dragging my dog down the street. It wasn’t like that the entire time or I definitely would’ve swung back to the house and dropped her off. She would run right along with me for awhile and then we’d come to a puddle or something and she’d go all stubborn mule on me. Guess it made my workout better since I was dragging a five pound weight around half the time?

She might also have been upset with me because I made her go out in a rain coat.

She looks so darn cute in it though!

She was probably all “My doggie friends are going to seee me like this. Ugh!”

It was for her own good though and not just because of the cute factor that I made her wear it. I just applied her flea medicine yesterday and she’s not supposed to get wet for at least 48 hours. I was not about to let an unexpected downpour wash off her (very expensive) flea medicine and risk getting fleas which would end up costing me more money. So she wore the darn coat and she hated every second of running.

Other than puppy troubles the run actually went really well. I can already tell it’s getting a little easier. It was past halfway before I started to get very tired. I’m pretty excited that this program is actually working! I might actually turn out to be a runner after all. I didn’t get a headache at all this time which means the allergy theory is probably correct. I had no idea allergies could cause no symptoms other than headaches. I’m going to keep and eye on the pollen count and when it’s high I’m going to try taking something and see if it helps. I’ll keep everyone updated.

I hope all my other C25Kers are doing well. It’s such motivation knowing I’m not alone in this. Together we can do this. Woot!

I’m not a runner… yet.

**I wrote almost all of this post yesterday but got hit with an unbelievable migraine. I’m not sure if it was from the running but it did start right after I was finished. I figure I was either dehydrated, wasn’t breathing right or my body was trying to kill me in protest of me making it work so hard. Either way I survived. Carry on.**

The idea of being a runner has always been appealing to me. Number 5 on my 30 by 30 list is running a marathon. My older brother, aunt and grandma all run marathons. My grandma is actually the most enthusiastic of them all. When I told her I wanted to run a marathon she about died of happiness. Then she immediately encouraged me to sign up for the Chicago marathon this year. This year, as in, in October. As in, in six months. At first I went along with it because I didn’t want to disappoint her. However, several stressful weeks and a couple nightmares later I questioned why I was going to kill myself by having my first race ever be the Chicago marathon.

Even when I was in the best shape I’ve ever been in I wasn’t able to run for more than a couple minutes without dying. Now? It’s bad guys. I am lucky if I can go a minute or two without sounding like an asthmatic 80 year old. Because of that I didn’t really know how to start being a runner. Thanks to inspiration from the fabulous JewliaGoulia I’ve officially started my journey from Couch to 5K or C25K. I’m really excited and I’m even more excited that there are twenty other people doing it with me. Seriously, so inspiring. I know myself and I need outside motivation to get things done. If it’s just me, I find a million and one excuses not to do things. When I have others keeping me accountable I am much more likely to get things done.

Today was day one and it starts off with an easy regiment of 60 second running, 90 second walking intervals for 30 minutes. Running for a minute should be a piece of cake, right? Yeah well, I’m seriously embarrassed to admit that it was hard. Way harder than I feel like it should have been. I did it though and I didn’t even die despite thinking I might several times. Joel was nice enough to agree to train with me and since my little brother was over he went along with us on our first run. We also drug Phoebe along.

She kept up pretty well.

By the end the she was really worn out though.

That’s about how we felt too.

We are so out of shape.

I think the lack of oxygen made us giddy.

I’m so glad I’m finally doing this. My goal is to sign up for a race later this year and to run Chicago in 2040, er, I mean 2011. It’s not too late to join in the fun either. If you’ve been meaning to start running but needed a little extra motivation scroll to the end of this post and add yourself to the list of other awesome wannabe runners. Either way wish me luck. Hopefully it will get easier and I won’t be gasping for air after only a minute of running. *hangs head* I’ll keep you updated on my progress.