Thursday, September 18, 2008

ME?......RUN?....YES!


For those of you who know me well, the title will both confusing and surprising. You see, to me, running has always been something you do for necessity only. You know, if you were being chased by a bear or trying to catch the ice cream truck before it leaves your neighborhood. I've never understood the term "fun run" or how people could possibly find it relaxing. Any time I'VE done it in the past, I've ended up breathless, sweaty, and not amused. But over the past year or so, I've heard mentions of the Couch to 5K program several times. I even looked it up about 6 months ago, but didn't quite have the motivation to do it at the time.

Recently, a friend/neighbor of mine (hi Cortney!) and I started walking in the mornings. We've both found that doing it at 6:30 am is perfect, because it's done before the rest of the house even wakes up and it leaves you feeling revved up and rejuvenated for the rest of the day. We have some other friends who run. a lot. And while I think it's great, when they've mentioned it to me, I've always responded "uh...no thanks, I'm not a runner!" I also have a sister in law who is not only a runner, but a running coach. She's thrown out challenges in her blogs to everyone to get up and get running and I've always assumed she wasn't talking to me. (You weren't, right Shayla?) Anyway, some of these friends have started training for a half marathon (I had to look this up to see what it even was...basically it's about 13.1 miles) and Cortney happened to mention Couch to 5K one day as we were walking. Feeling a little less than challenged by just walking (and obviously in an early morning stupor), I suggested we give it a whirl. Turns out, the same event our friends are running also has a 5K. So, that is our goal. To run a 5K in December. We started this week with week 1 of Couch to 5K and while we're only running a total of 8 minutes per day so far, I feel GREAT every time we finish. It's hard for me to imagine that I will be able to run 3 miles only 8 weeks from now, but I've seen lots of success stories from people who've done it, almost all of whom say "If I can do it, anyone can." I have faith that I'll be saying that myself in a blog later in the year. And if I say it, you will know for sure it's true!

Wish me luck!

5 comments:

Julianne said...

Good job, good luck, I'm So impressed.

Anonymous said...

Good luck! :)am so proud of you!

The Snow Family said...

Yay! That's great! I wish I had a neighbor to wait on the corner for me at 6:30am! It might actually get me out of bed!

Anonymous said...

YAY!!!!!!
I'm so excited for you! And I am sure you will be surprised how fun it actually can be after you get past that "out of breath, huff and puff" stage. Keep with it, because it will surprise you what kind of doors this will open...there's a whole "secret world" of runners out there, and it's a fun little community to be a part of : ).

Abbie said...

Melissa, you are too funny! I've always been the "run if only from a bear" kind of gal myself. You know I'm trying this with you, thanks for the motivation!