The Mile Project Phase Three

fall back, slow down, cut slack, get stronger.

After only 5 weeks at phase two of my mile project, I am moving on to a new phase three.

I have been suffering from a few workout related ailments lately, and I need to step back.

For one, I have been really reluctant to exercise. It is getting cold, and is still dark in the morning. That is a big issue for me. It doesn't feel natural to get up and out of bed when it is cold and dark. I want to just stay right in bed under those warm comforters and cuddly dogs.

Two: shin splints and ankle pain. It is on my list to do some reading up on these things, but my head is telling me just to slow down, and also to ease up on the incline. So far, I have tried hard to push myself on running fast, but lately it has been excruciating. So I stopped. But I can't totally stop, I just have to work around this.

The successes I had during phase two were 1) running a ten minute mile on an incline of 1 (then going on to run another mile and a half, partially at an incline of 10), and doing at one point two full push ups (in the midst of finishing my sets of modified push ups).

My reluctance to run, and my successes at push ups are what have helped me to design phase 3, which I am kind of excited about. I hope it only lasts in an official capacity for a month or two, but I think it will help keep me exercising, without stressing me out.

I am not focusing on time, which will give me permission to go as slowly as I feel like. When I was coming here to post my running times, I felt pressure to run as hard as I could, to save face. While that was good before, it isn't so good now. I am also taking the incline back to zero. That feels kind of empowering, becuase my original plan was to keep increasing the incline for every phase. The empowering part comes from being able to change my mind whenever I want.

I am going to concentrate on distance no matter how long it takes me, and the distance is what I will track here. I am however, going to make attempts at throwing in bursts of really high speed. For example, I might try to run for a full minute at 7 1/2 miles per hour, but then cut right back down to 3 miles an hour for a few minutes. I did this the other day and it worked really well for my shins and ankles. I felt like I got a good work out, but it went easy on my body. I still have the same old time contraints to work around, and a toddlers needs, so I am going to shoot for around 2 miles each time, but will feel happy and content of I run/walk at all.

The other big aspect of phase three is upper body work, especially the push ups. The push ups are what I will be tracking. Right now I can still only do one full push up, so I am combining that one push up with sets of modified push ups. I will concentrate on increasing the numbers of both push ups, and modified push ups. You may remember that my ultimate goal here is to do one full pull up on the playground monkey bars. I try it out every week when I am there, and I am not feeling anything yet! But I'll get there. It may take me a year, but whatever.

So, I am about 4 1/2 months into the mile project total. The initial goal of the mile project was to create my own personal style of exercise that fits my needs, time constraints, and personal fitness goals without focusing on weight or some random number on a scale. Splitting it into phases seems to work well for me to keep me motivated and keep me from giving up. The big picture is a life time of fitness and physical activity. I think it is working out pretty well.

And since, I once again skipped the a.m. workout, wish me luck in making the nap time workout!