WINNIPEG, Manitoba - This morning I decided to put an end to my exercise moratorium. I woke up fairly well rested, there were running shoes in my house and it was 7 degrees Celsius outside. All excuses had been cleared. So, to the laughing remarks of my husband, I put a sweater over my pajamas and headed outside.
Earlier this week I had downloaded a "Learn to Run" program from the first response to my Google search.
Run For Life Learn to Run Regimen
It seemed pretty realistic so I began Week 1, which is: run one minute, walk one minute. Repeat for 30 minutes. Each week you increase the amount of time you run and decrease the amount of time you walk. Seemed pretty easy. After all, I did track in high school and had done yoga pretty regularly about 4 months ago.
Four minutes into it, I had reached the mound of dirt that mostly blocks my house's view of the Brady Road Landfill. What? I have to do this 7 and a half more times? My math is okay. My cardiovascular fitness is not.
Those cleared excuses came rushing back. Someone had switched my 29-year-old hips for rickety, 69-year-old ones. My cold from last week was burning my throat. And my knee, oh my knee - that's right, I scraped it in the shower two days ago.
Thirty minutes is a long time when you track it minute by minute on your iPhone, which in my case, does not have any downloaded music to distract me. Another thing I have to get around to doing, along with researching the proper breathing method during running. Was I supposed to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth or vice versa? Or just breathe through my nose? Not a huge concern, because 15 minutes into running/walking, it was all panting anyway.
When I say running I'm using the term lightly. Bouncing at a pace just above a walk is more truthful. But I did my 30 minutes and made it into my house, where I lay down on my doormat and announced my success to my family. My husband was shaving and didn't hear me. My two-year-old demanded more popcorn in his orange, plastic bowl.
Day one down. 8 weeks, 6 days to go. Can I go back to bed now?
Since reading books is a great way to avoid running, I recommend:
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com.au/books?id=_onEr-4TXJsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=born+to+run&hl=en&ei=Vjt0T4b-FrHjmAXkzZSACA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=born%20to%20run&f=false
(And if for some reason you can't copy and paste that, Google Books search "Born to Run," McDougall