About 11 today and pretty windy making it difficult to breathe. During the first and second running segment I was breathing heavy and my calf felt very tight almost immediately. Than I started thinking about it, making it worse.  It seemed to get a little bit better and my calf stopped bothering me until about 10 minutes later.
In the end I was able to do day 3 completely and successfully, now do I do the mature thing and redo week 1 so I can do it great or do I go on top week 2 and suffer. 

Today I got a hummus stone to clean my BBQ, it tossed off a lot of dust onto the grill, going to have to do a lot of cleaning to get the dust off next time I go to use it.

Today was my day to redo day 3 of week 1. Instead I took my bike home from my parents house and oh lord I do not use my thighs at all.  By the time I reached the park down the street they were burning. I was likely using muscle groups that never come up in running or walking or watching TV and it burned. I was on one of the slower gears but it didn’t seem to matter at all, i’m not sure if it has to do just purely with the motion because even early on I didn’t over exert myself at all. It just seemed to hurt doing the motion.  My bike is a little compact compared to how other people’s bikes are but I think it is just because of my longer legs.  I ended up biking for 3.4kms, not that far overall but man I am out of shape.

I think I will postpone my run until tomorrow because I do want it to be a success. Oh poop, I forgot to get headphones. My parents pipe to their hose developed a crack in an elbow joint and I tried replacing it, I was able to get the old piece off however I was having trouble getting the new piece on.  I initially got the elbow on and it looked well however the weight of the valve made it come out. Apparently I just melted a whole lot of solder around the seam but none of it got sucked into it. My bigger frustration was my wife’s attitude during the whole thing, she did it last time and just seemed to come up with every reason why it wouldn’t work and not come up with any solutions of why or how we could make it work.  It was really frustrating to listen to. I think it is in part from being at work where it is always just go go go. Oh well, she will have new parts and will give it another try tomorrow.

I actually finished completely today. During my second last running session I thought it was my last one and was pushing myself since my calf started to tense up, afterwards I counted it out and realized I had one more to go.  I was really disappointed since it was so hard to do the last one, I didn’t think I had one more in me.  Thankfully I was wrong and was able to push myself again, my breathing was getting more ragged but I did it.  Not sure if the raggedness was due to the cold wind, it really dried out my throat.  This time around I made sure to land on the middle of my foot under me, it seemed to help a lot.  I was trying to prevent that before because I didn’t think it was good for my arches, but it is the proper form.  Anyways, yay, go me.

Right after I felt normal, not really tired, not soar, not gasping for breath, it was kind of weird, I was expecting more effects after to remind me that I was pushing my fat self.

Today it is about 5, quite different from the last few days where it got up to 22.  My calf was feeling a little bunched up today. Not strained but it wasn’t normal, I would notice it feeling weird. Despite that I went for a run today and it felt really good today. Well not really good since it wasn’t pleasant but not as pitiful as it has been in the past.

My breathing seems to be able to keep up and I am not gasping for breath like I have been before, still not perfect as I do still sick in a lot of wind for 60 seconds of running but a big improvement from the first time I ran. My calves are holding me back, on the 4th session I cut it short by about 10 seconds and the 5th by a few seconds but I was able to get the last 2 done. So almost a perfect run, yay. Pretty sad that I have almost a perfect day 1 run a month after I started, sigh.  I’m still worried about my calves though because my running is pretty slow and pathetic so they shouldn’t be under too much strain.

It could be because I run on some soft ground for a little bit and it is compensating for me or it could be because I run funny and with all my extra weight it is going just to the calves.  I don’t know why I run funny but I can’t seem to not run funny. I think my feet point out on angles when I walk and run instead of straight ahead of me.

In other news the Canadiens are going to the second round, yay.

most of my posts seem to be about failure. I slipped out on my last 2 attempts due to rain and due to a combination of muscle soreness/hockey/not wanting to. I stupidly decided to try week 2 which has 90 second runs and i suck, the first one felt like it was going on forever, the third one I paused halfway through to give myself a moment and then I continued, I turned it off halfway through the fourth and gave up for the day and just walked home. I can be so negative and down on myself, especially during the failures. I wonder what the point of it all is, it hurts so much and there is so much pain, it would be just so much easier not to.

During the first running segment I knew it wasn’t going to go well, I felt so much slower and so low energy. I was thinking I felt pretty thirsty as well, that didn’t come into play at all but I certainly don’t want to have or use one of those water carrying belts, they look so weird and useless.

I have discovered my big weedy patch behind my shed is Ground Ivy which is a formidable foe that can sprout from any leaf or stem left behind. I got some chemical herbicide from my dad and sprayed it all around, hopefully that will shrink the area to give the grass a chance. This stuff can just take over and choke off grass from even growing.

On the way home today I saw a dachshund crossed with a chihuahua, it was just sad to see. The head had pointy ears that were up with a pointy nose with the long weiner dog body. It just looked so wrong and ugly, I can only imagine a chihuahua’s head on a doberman’s, blood hound’s, or a great dane’s body. The head is so undersized, it looks like it is from Men In Black. I can’t recall if I wrote about it before but in line at Petsmart someone had two bloodhounds in line in front of me, I didn’t realize they were giant, I always pictured them to be the size of a small lassie, the dog’s looked like they were bigger than most labradours.

I was able to stay out there the whole time this time but my calf still feels very swollen but manageable. 

Still not able to run the whole time nonstop.  During the first quarter of the run I was thinking I can do this run 100% our could have done week 2. Near the end I was thinking I can’t do this.  The two shortened runs didn’t help this week. I’m not sure if I should try week 2 next week or retry week 1 again. I never really did retry week 1 since the two days I couldn’t do the full run because of the muscle tightness.

I haven’t reduced calories or eaten any better, today I had 5 enchiladas and 3 pieces of ice cream cake.

I got katty to rub my calf last night before I went out which itself was somewhat painful since my leg hairs were being pulled. It is hard being hairy. She was able to loosen up my leg and I did some stretches to help.

I didn’t feel 100% during the walking warmup and I could tell that it was going to feel strained and it did.  I wasn’t able to do all the running segments but was able to do 4 of them. But my leg just felt tired. On the plus side I seem to be able to do these running segments just with some difficulty not a lot of it. I have come quite a ways from day 1 but still have a long road ahead of me.

I am frustrated, I want to be able to go and get this completed 100% and I don’t want to wait.

I was able to catch Agents of Shield post Captain America, I really enjoyed it but I seem to be in the minority of people who enjoyed the series so far.  It will be interesting to see where they go with Hydra and the split focus the show looks like it might be taking focusing on Shield and Hydra. Avatar sort of had the same thing with the focus on Zoku.

Started week 1 again, it is 5c today and the running bits felt pretty good, it felt like I could have maybe gone 90 seconds at a time which was what week 2 would have been.  Unfortunately though I guess stretching is important, my calf muscles felt like it was a tight ball and it was going to tear itself apart. After the 4th of 7 run sessions I just walked home, I didn’t want to hurt myself.  I am dissappointed but I will try stretching next time.  My breathing did feel much better at least, yay.

I watched captain America 2, it was really good, I enjoyed it a lot.  The only negative review I saw for it was saying that it was all action, which is kind of an odd complaint to have about a comic book movie.

It’s about -1 tonight when I went for my jog, I started during the second intermission.  I remembered and did some deep breaths during my warmup walk and during my first of 7 jog sessions.  I am guessing it is the breathing but it did feel a little easier to get started and after my first and even second jog session I was actually feeling pretty ok.  They were slow jogs though but nothing like the gasping and hoping it was going to end soon sessions I had on day 1.  This program actually does seem to be working, however despite the stronger than normal start I had this session I wasn’t able to maintain it all throughout, however I did do better than before.  The defeat felt like it was less due to breathing and cardio and more due to my calf muscles cramping up which I think is normal since most of the run was on moist soft ground that had a lot of give.  It is forgiving on my bones but I guess it requires some extra excretion from my calves to compensate.  One session I was feeling the burn and I was able to force myself to the full 60 seconds which felt like a small win since usually I would have just stopped early when it is usually 10 seconds to go. The downside is that after during the walking session I was immediately just thinking of how nice and easy it would be just to walk home, I wanted to take the easy way out however I knew if I gave in and did that I would just sit on the sofa next week and not do anymore c25k and just give up on it all, this I think will be ultimately the struggle that I will have every week.  I thoroughly enjoy doing nothing, just sitting back and relaxing, I don’t enjoy exercising and I don’t understand how people could, haven’t they sat down before and watched a movie and than another while drinking a hot chocolate and having some garlic bread.  That is the life I want to have everyday.

Anyways back to the c25k, I will be repeating the first week again, I can’t quite imagine jogging for 90 seconds at a time 7 times, since I can’t do it consistently enough 60 seconds at a time.  I will need to maybe set aside a shirt or two specifically for jogging, I am a hot, sweaty mess.  I do have a couple of shirts that I used for painting.  I just need to find a spring jacket since I don’t want to stink up my current one since I take it to work, and as I said I am a hot, stinking mess.

I babysat Hudson for a while today, Chris too I guess since he went for a nap too, luckily he didn’t need a diaper change as well.  I took some pictures of Hudson for Easter, I hope something from it turns out ok and usable.  While his parents were out I got him to fill up a basket full of plastic Easter eggs and than I poured them all on his head while trying to tak pictures of the falling eggs.  It didn’t work out too well.  After getting him to fill up the basket 2 more times I thought it might be easier to just put the eggs in front of him instead of on his head since he didn’t seem to impressed.  I guess he just didn’t have the heart to make some art like I did.  I also figured out it would be easier to do it on the sofa since the eggs scatter a lot less so it was easier to collect them again in order to dump them on him.

Yay plex can stream music from iTunes to chromecast now which I have conveniently plugged into my surround sound.  I have to try the subwoofer on another plug, it doesn’t seem to be on, I hope it is alright and not broken.

Yay some good news, I actually did the second run for the first week, lots of bad news to go along with that though, such as not being able to do it 100%, I wasn’t able to sustain a full jog during the jog sessions, a couple of those sessions were so slow as well. Most of my run was on soft ground, it may have overworked my calf a bit, it was feeling a bit strained by the end of it. I think I was able to avoid slapping the sidewalk too hard to hurt my feet. I have to watch out for that, I don’t think my running form is correct to keep from hurting myself quite yet. I noticed that I seem to strike my heel first on the ground and pretty hard too.

From reading about running form I did try taking deep full breaths and that seemed to have helped, I wasn’t gasping for air quite as badly, so I only had to contend with tired muscles that didn’t feel like they had the endurance to do the full running sessions. I’ll probably have to repeat the first week, I don’t think I will be in shape to do 90 second runs by Monday. Pretty humiliating. On my way back on the last jogging session I was thinking about how much easier it would be just to quit and watch Avatar instead.

Overall even with all of the complaining I seemed to have done better, especially earlier on, I hope it is because I am actually improving but in reality one day isn’t going to make a difference, it was likely just the temperature was a bit better so it was easier to breathe.

Both days I went for 3.1 km. If I could actually do my running a half marathon would take 3h30m. That does include the 5 minutes of walking as the warm up and cool down.

I went to see Jeans and Classics rock orchestra performing Queen songs, It was good, it didn’t seem to be a wall of music though which kind of sucks but it was worth the price. Unfortunately I bought the tickets a couple of weeks before Queen + Adam Lambert announced that they were coming to Toronto, so I’ll be going to that too.