recap

On Sunday I started Couch to 5K – finally. I know, I’ve been all talk and no running for a month and a half. After eating my weight in bread and dip at Easter dinner, I decided that I have run out of excuses – it was a beautiful day, I wasn’t losing time with my daughter since I had 3 full days with her (had to take Good Friday off since daycare was closed... no other daycare in the world was closed that day, but I digress), and it wasn’t dark out. So off I went with my fat lady running outfit on, which consists of yoga pants that I’m almost certain were maternity pants because they seem to have a full belly panel on them – but yet don’t say maternity on the label (yes I just admitted to maybe possibly wearing maternity pants) and an oversized T-shirt. When I say oversized T-shirt, I mean “probably would be big on my almost-six-foot-tall husband”. Did I mention I’m 5’3”?

So you know what I looked like.

If you aren’t familiar with the Couch to 5K program, it starts out with “easy” intervals. “Easy” – it used to be easy when I tried this program 3 years ago and I was in much better shape. In fact, I skipped right to week 3 back then because the first few weeks were for fat people! Out of shape people! Couch potatoes!

Fast forward 3 years, 1 baby, and 15 pounds of left over babyweight (and let’s not fool ourselves and think I was at an ideal weight when I got pregnant) and suddenly week 1 isn’t so easy. In fact, it was really hard.

Week 1 is a 5 minute brisk walk for a warm up and then you jog for 60 seconds and walk for 90 seconds. You do that 8 times, and then you have a 5 minute brisk walk for a cool down. Simple enough, right? I mean you are only jogging for 60 seconds at a time! I started out alright – I actually thought I could have jogged for a little more than the 60 seconds. A few intervals into the whole thing it started getting pretty hard. My legs were burning, I was panting and sweating (which is kind of embarrassing when you are only running for a minute at a time), and I was really happy when I could stop running. By the last interval I wanted to cry. I did finish it, I made myself run, but my god it was hard. I’m still fighting off a cough and cold too, and by that time I was coughing pretty hard and not really getting a full breath.

But I finished, I went home and hugged my baby girl and told her never to get fat to which she replied “that yucky” pointing at my beet red and sweaty face. Thanks sweetie!

Yesterday my legs were killing me and they are only slightly better today. But tonight I will go out and do Week 1 Day 2 (W1D2 for future reference) and try it again. We'll see where this journey takes us!