A year ago I would have scoffed at this distance but given that a month ago today my life took a drastic turn that completely threw me off course and I was so depressed that I thought things might never be good again, I am feeling pretty darn happy about it.
I started the Couch to 5K program as an app on my phone two weeks ago. The first week I followed it the way I was supposed to. Last week I banged out the three running days in 2 days when I decided to run in the morning and afternoon one day. And this week I didn't get around to running until today because I started Zumba Sunday and although it was fun and much easier than I had thought, my back was miserable for 2 days (is this was being old means? Back pain instead of strained muscles).
I started out today with the intention of following the third week of C25K closely. The first week I ran in 60 second spurts, last week it was 90 seconds and today I was going to be bumped up to 3 minute intervals which I was worried about. But after I started my warm up and got past the ice at the lake I found myself skipping through the walking times on the app so that I could run sooner. Then on the second set of running intervals I started skipping through the breaks. Before I knew it I was done with today's "workout" and just switched over to my ipod to finish out 2 miles.
When I hit the end of the two miles I felt pretty overwhelmed. I'm just a few days away from my first 5k back since I stopped running a year ago, a race that I have run every year since I started running and which was my last race last year. Two weeks ago I thought that there was no way I was going to be able to get up to running a 5k in such a short amount of time but I think I just might be able to do it. And if I can't do it all the way through I know that I'm going to do the best I can which will be pretty damn awesome regardless.
A lot more has happened in the last month than I thought I could accomplish but I pushed myself and responded as I always do. There were days I didn't want to get out of bed, days that the last thing I could imagine doing was to take a shower let alone go talk to people, days that I thought I'd be happy to wallow in self misery forever but that got kind of boring and monotonous after a few weeks. When my dad died unexpectedly 2 years ago I remember being the same way except that every single day I forced myself to get up and run 10 miles whether I wanted to or not because sticking to that routine is what got me through it and I am so glad I have that outlet back in my life.
Also, this morning a (fabulous) friend of mine mentioned that she had recently lost 12lb too and that we deserved gifts so here's what I bought myself today because I'm awesome and I deserve shiny things! ;)
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