Finding my Inner Runner...

Over the Christmas break, I ate my fair share (and then some) of sweet goodness which prompted me to take action in 2012. Yes, I...like millions of others... made a New Year's resolution to work out. Running seemed to be the quickest and cheapest way to work out for me. We live in a very runner friendly neighborhood with many hike and bike trails...one of which is out our back gate. There were no excuses and I felt myself wanting to become one of THEM.

I have always watched runners from afar and admired them as they gracefully passed by. My history with running has not really been a successful one. In my mind, I have always envisioned myself as a gazelle...in reality, it is as if I was wearing cement blocks on my feet. After about 1 minute of running I would quit with my lungs and legs on fire. I have not really run since high school and even then, it was primarily sprints. I dreaded anything longer than a 200 yard dash!

Last spring, I purchased the Couch to 5k app and didn't do anything but read the workouts until now. The C25K is a 8 week running program that focuses on time intervals rather than distance intervals. It seemed to put running in manageable chunks that I felt I could handle. I loved that I could listen to Pandora and a woman's voice would break through telling me to "run now" and then tell me to "walk now". All I had to do was keep moving forward and change speeds according to her directives. Simple enough :)

Week 1 seemed easy on paper...
5 minute warm up
45 second run
90 second walk
repeat for a total of 20 minutes
5 minute cool down

I thought it would be a piece of cake...I could absolutely run 45 second intervals with a walk break in between. Let me just tell you, I had a hard time with the 45 seconds and wondered how in the world I was going to be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping. I forced myself to keep going, rain or shine...cold or COLDER, and pushed though week after week. I had some really tough days, but after every session I felt extremely proud and continued to gain confidence and strength as a runner. I started to look forward to running, trying to see if I could get farther on the trail than I did the time before. I love that I have started passing the same people running and that we greet each other with a quick nod or a brief smile...we are all in this together and I now feel like I am part of their club.

I am now finishing up with week 6 and Saturday I will run for 20 minutes nonstop. This is a HUGE accomplishment for me! I no longer have burning legs and lungs when I run, I embrace the challenge of each new level, and I just might look more like a gazelle instead of an uncoordinated gorilla :)

I will keep you posted and let you know when I reach my goal of running 30 minutes nonstop...hopefully 2 weeks from now :)