Confessions of a non-runner

Back at the end of March I found myself tired, cranky and generally unhappy in my mommy body with clothes that just don't fit.  Being nine months post-partum, I decided that saying I had recently had a baby, or that he wasn't sleeping through the night, or whatever, were excuses rather than reasons why I had not returned to a healthy sized and strengthed me.

I signed up for a program online called Healthy Wage.  You lay down some cash and have 6 months to lose 10% of your weight, and optionally one year to get your BMI healthy.  Succeed, and you get more back than you put in.  Sweet.  I signed up for both.  I figured it would be pretty easy since I was still above my pre-pregnancy weight.   I did great for about a month just by cutting out some of my crappier food habits.  Then crappy food habits crept back in and although I didn't gain any weight, I stopped losing, and was still way far from my goal, and my cash payment.

Enter the need for exercise and being forced to admit that Mike is right and having more activity is going to be important.  He is always professing the power of running on maintaining/losing weight, being stronger, feeling more energetic, blah blah blah.  I hate running.  I resisted.  Another month sneaked by with no change.

Then track season for Lawrence ended and I realized that without organized sports, he was going to turn into a couch potatoe who has hobbies like "reading", "watching TV" and "playing games online" like me!  Ugh, parental resposibility and guilt add to the pressure to get off my ass already.

So, after months years of making snarky comments to runners on why I do not run such as "I only run when chased, and only when it's by something very fast and dangerous, like a rabid cheetah" or considering this bumper sticker as a must have,

I realized I was never going to feel healthy, energetic and strong at the rate I was going.  Plus, I was being a crap role model.  I realized I was probably going to have to run.

I am aware there are other forms of activity, but minute for minute, on paper running looks as calorie-efficient as it is painful and boring.   Plus, I hate gyms.  And mirrors.  And all the damn mirrors in gyms.  Honestly, step-aerobics is embarrassing enough without having to see myself from every angle possible.

 

So in an effort to both practice what I preach to Lawrence and to win my bet with myself on Healthy Wage, I started a couch-to-5K program this week.  And, I signed up for a 5K in a month to make sure I stick to it.

 

I realised my roadblocks for running were: thinking people are laughing at me when I try to run/stop running, hearing my own gasping due to crap cardivascular health, and just plain hating running.

 

I'm going with "distraction" as my method to overcome some of that for right now. I downloaded an app called "Zombies Run 5K" and am a whopping 2 days in.  I'm still pretty sure everyone is laughing at me, and they have been two of the worst lunch hours of my life.  Which is sad since over the half the time I was walking.

 

Day 1:  48 minutes, 2.9 miles (admittedly, mostly walking.)

 

Day 2:  36 minutes, 2.9 miles (I actually did some running this time. I had music to drown out my death rattle breathing)

 

Tomorrow is a day off.  We'll see if I can move by Friday.  It takes 21 days to cement a new habit, but only one to decide it can't be done.