1st week is always the hardest week

Fitness goals usually don't make it past the first week.  The individual realizes how much work, sweat, and pain goes into workouts.  Then decides to stop well before something else begins to hurt.  Pain is the icing to the cake.  Soreness starts to set in places you didn't know muscle existed.  Stuff just hurts period.

The diet becomes a major factor especially if your running.  For example, Sunday after church I decided to cheat a little.  Well cheddar burger, fries and a chocolate shake is more than a little.  Anyways the next day I went for a run and paid the price.  The run was horrible.  I pounded the pavement.  I felt if I were carrying a tire around the wast.  The body felt lethargic.  Could never focus on the run.  Believe it or not mental focus is 90% of the training process.  Since that Monday I have decided to change my entire eating habits.  Didn't do so bad either.  Stayed away from sweets, red meat and my favorite, cheese.  You can put cheese on almost anything.  I began eating smaller meals by substituting fruits and nuts in between meals.  Water consumption is becoming a major factor to the daily routine.  I have begun carrying a water bottle everywhere I go. 

This week I logged about 10 miles of road work.  Starting with about 2 miles every other day.  The importance of these runs are to work on form, breathing and mental preparation.  Stretching and warming up have become important to injury prevention since I am not as young as I use to be.  Even though I can pass for 20 something most of the time.  I like working up a sweet before taking off on a run.  So I usually will hit the punching bag for about 10 minutes then get a good stretch.  Time is not a factor right now so I don't carry a watch or time myself.  I also worked on breathing. Establishing a good rhythm to ones breathing can be crucial to adding good extra miles to runs later on.  I finished the week a good 3 mile run and felt satisfied.  The cherry on top to this weeks workout was dropping 7 pounds by the end of the week.

Caution:
Although the week went well, preventing injury has to be at the top of every ones mind.  By the end of the week I have begun developing shin splints.  Which I have always had to deal with and can become very painful if not treated properly.  The best treatment is that old acronym R.I.C.E, rest, ice, compression, and elevation.  Which pretty much means stay off your feet as often as possible.  Don't get me wrong, I am so tempted to go on a run and feel that this will put a hamper into progress.  Yet I have decided to find an alternative for a couple of days until the swelling and pain recede.  Tonight I did some cardio boxing with the punching  bag with some tai kwan do I picked up from a class last summer.  Not bad for a start to the new week.