Running the Race

I admit, while I consider myself pretty athletic, I am not at all passionate about running. Give me a volleyball or basketball court, baseball diamond and let's not leave out a kickball field (old school) and I'm right there in the mix. But ask me to run a distance longer than a sprint and I immediately break out into a sweat and I can feel the air escaping from my chest.

Well, my mother-in-law asked me to join her and a few thousand others in a charity 5 K fun run event for the SPCA. I'm not sure who thought fun and run needed to be next to each other, but they had better consult a dictionary next time. I had an approximate idea how long a 5K run was, but to make sure we are all clear it's a grueling 3.125 miles. I can hear all of you half and full marathon runners laughing at me.

I've been exercising pretty consistently three to four days a week for the past five months, but the treadmill was something I had tried to avoid as much as possible. The elliptical machine and hundreds of jumping jacks and butt kicks were more my forte for cardio. However, when I saw that most websites recommend training for a 5K in six weeks and I barely had four, I thought I had better start some serious running. It just had to be the one time of year, that we have freezing temps and my chest tightens at the thought of running outside.

After a brief warm up, I hopped on the treadmill and took off attempted not to seriously injure myself by falling off the back. I was able to get one mile in 14:30 (minutes, not hours), which is probably slightly faster than a turtle's pace. I was happy that 9:30 seconds of that was running and at the end of the run, I felt like I could keep going. I'm going to try to beat my time and increase the amount of running most days of the week. And hopefully, soon I can take it to the pavement. And no, I don't mean falling on my face.