Bye bye diet coke, hello improved running/health

Bye bye diet coke, hello improved running/health...  I tried to quit diet coke last summer and it lasted about a week, maybe two, until fatigue drew me back into the habit.  I've wanted to improve my health for quite a while and this has stuck out to me as one of the important changes I should make. For some reason, I decided that Groundhog's Day (also my grandmother's birthday) would be my last day of diet coke. I had my last diet coke on Tuesday morning, 2/2/2010. Wednesday I missed it, but survived. Thursday I had the most massive headache that I can ever remember having. Twitter friends told me that if I could just hold out one more day, I would be over the habit. They were right. Headache was gone on Friday and I had no desire for diet coke. I didn't crave it over the weekend either; yay!  My twitter friends and running coach told me that quiting diet coke would improve my running. Well...  not sure if it was from taking a week off running or from quiting diet coke, but this week I ran much better.  I didn't have any tummy issues, which was a major plus! It's too early for me to determine if my tummy issues are related to diet coke, but I'm hopeful.

Monday:  Rest Day

Tuesday:  Coach prescribed 3 miles at a "nice and easy" 12:00 minute/mile pace.  I was so happy to run again!!! Heel still hurts a little, but didn't hurt during run.  It wasn't worse afterwards, but hurts about the same as before. Yay!  12:00 minutes per mile seemed too slow after a week off running, so I bumped it up a notch for miles 2 and 3.  Splits were:  mile 1 = 12:00, mile 2 = 11:32, mile 3 = 11:15.

Wednesday:  Coach prescribed 800 yards of swimming. The local pool is in meters so I did 800 meters instead (a little farther). Felt great! Got in a groove and swam faster than last week without much more effort. Yay!

Thursday:  Coach prescribed 5.5 miles with 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at 11:30 pace, 2 miles at sub-11:00 pace and a half-mile cool down. The run felt good!  Splits were:  12:13, 11:18, 11:15, 10:38, 9:58, and cool-down half mile was 5:15.

Friday:  Rest Day. My daughter's end-of-the-season basketball party was tonight. Too bad the team's coach didn't make it... I took a few hours off of work to drive out-of-my-way to go to the only store in metro-Atlanta that had a Slipp-Nott board in stock, which was the gift we chose for him.  He had asked for parents to contribute to purchase one mid-season, but it was at Christmas time and we just couldn't pull it together.  I gathered enough money from parents for the coach's gift to purchase it...  and he didn't appear at our end-of-the-season party...  And we selected this date based on him saying he would be able to attend.  Oh well... The team ate pizza/pasta/salad and distributed awards at the Stone Mountain Pizza Cafe and then went to the Atlanta Hawks vs Chicago Bulls basketball game. It was a close game, but we were all so excited that the Hawks won! What a great way to celebrate a losing season (daughter's team lost all games this year).

Saturday: THANK GOODNESS! Finally a good long run! Coach prescribed 8 long slow distance (LSD) miles to be stretched to 10 if it felt good. And good it felt... Mile splits were:  13:03, 11:59, 11:53, 11:45, 11:48, 11:38, 11:32, 11:26, 11:16, 10:58.  I was so happy to not have an upset stomach mid-run!

Sunday:  Coach prescribed swimming and biking for today, but my body needed major rest.  I slept until 2 p.m. today, despite going to bed at 7 p.m. last night. I was so tired from weeks of less than optimal sleep.  Plus I now have a stuffy/runny nose. Just didn't have the energy/motivation to go swim/bike today. Despite sleeping ~18 hours, I was still tired.  Uh oh...

Weekly summary:

• Days run this week:  3
• Miles run this week:  18.5
• Highlight of the week:  Having 3 great runs, and less heel pain.
• Goal for next week:  Even less heel pain + participate in the Run the Reagan Half-Marathon