Running to and fro

I, my dear friends, have decided that I am going to take up running.

Please, take a moment to collect yourselves and let this sink in.

Ok, now that you've picked your jaws up from the ground, I can explain.

I have been walking steadily for 6 full weeks now, at least 4-5 times per week.  My stamina is leaps and bounds above what it was when I started.  I've realized that walking is only going to do so much for me on this journey.  I mean, I could keep increasing the length of my walks and I could increase my speed a bit, but I'm getting the point where much faster of a pace and I'll be jogging.  Also, if I increase the length of the walks it's going to start taking a LONG time to complete my exercise each day.  I've always been a proponent of the "walking is just as good for you as jogging" argument, however it was my dear friend Stacia who brought up the point that its just going to start taking longer to do.  Granted, I have nothing but time these days, but the moment I get a job, that's not going to be the case.  The fact of the matter is I need to keep pushing myself so, either I join a gym and find a trainer (something I can't afford to do at the moment) or I take advantage of one of the multiple "Couch to 5K" programs that are out there on the web.

I'm not going to lie, this video was also a HUGE inspiration to me:




I've NEVER been a runner.  Not even in elementary school.  I would always gasp and wheeze during my laps, unable to even run a mile without stopping for a mandatory breather.  (I couldn't climb the ropes either, but that's another sad childhood memory...)

Times have changed however.  Or at least I'm hoping they will.  I feel stronger than I have in a VERY long time and with this handy-dandy "album" that I downloaded from iTunes, I think I have a runner deep inside me waiting to come out!

The album I downloaded is from the Personal Running Trainer program.  I chose the 8 Weeks to 5K one.  Each week is set to music that I download to my iPod and it makes training incredibly simple.  Rather than having to constantly pay attention to your time or distance a voice on the album tells you when to start running and when to start walking.  I build my running stamina slowly each week. It's Running for Dummies!

I read a lot of reviews online and it was a bunch of people all with stories that sounded similar to mine and I realized what makes them any different from me?  These people are literally going from couch potatoes directly to running.  I have 6 weeks of exercise on them!

I'm going to take my time on this.  I'm not training for a particular race, although I would like to eventually run one.  If I feel like I'm not ready to move onto the next week's running program, then I will simply repeat a week. I'm doing this purely for me, just like I am this entire project.  I'm not out there to compete.  Well, actually I am, but only against myself.

And I gotta say, I'm pretty competitive.
 

P.S.  I had my roommate hide my scale so that I'm not tempted to weigh myself before my weekly weigh in.  I'm DYING!  I feel like I'm going through withdrawals, only my drug of choice is a bathroom scale!  ARGH!  The agony!!