I Must Get Off My Ass

I woke up early this morning to go to the Gasparilla Marathon Expo in Tampa with my husband.  He is running his first marathon tomorrow.  I am going to be his cheerleader.  It was rainy and cold when I woke up and I couldn't help but wonder, as I laid in my warm bed, what had happened to me since the beginning of the month?  I was getting up at 8am to go walk around an expo for runners?  Why was I leaving the comfort of my most favorite place to do this?  I am not a runner...not yet anyway.  Up until a month ago I was a couch potato.  After a blood pressure check up at the end of January I made up my mind that I was through with excuses and that it was time for me to get off my butt and get in shape.  I don't have a weight issue; in fact, I am 5'7 and 124lbs.  What I do have is high blood pressure.  I want to get off the medication I take for it, I want to tone up my body, and just want to do something different.  Around Thanksgiving 2007, my husband decided it was time for him to lose some weight and now after losing eighty pounds, running a 15k and a half marathon he is hours away from starting what will be his greatest personal accomplishment to date.  Just at little of that has to rub off.  This isn't the first time I have decided to start exercising.  Many a gym membership has been opened just to be ignored after the novelty wore off, usually sometime around the middle of January.  But this time is different.  I've zeroed in on what has been missing in my search for an exercise regime that will stick.  I figured out that I accomplish more when I write lists or break up my large goal in to steps.  Lists are my thing.  I learn more and finish more projects when I use lists.  I write down things just so I can cross them off.  The feeling of accomplishment when even one thing is completed and marked off my list is positive reinforcement for me.  I used this knowledge of myself and applied this to exercise.  I searched for pod casts that were for people like me.  It didn't take long to find the Couch to 5K-pod cast that follows the Couch to 5K plan from Coolrunning.com.  I couldn't wait to start.  On February 4th I started my training and haven't looked back since.  The sense of accomplishment just after my first run was amazing!  The fact that I had something to work for was the trick.  I had someone in my ear telling me when to run and when to walk.  I wasn't out on the street just running until I couldn't anymore.  It was structured.  It was perfect for me.  I felt the difference and am still just as excited today as I get ready for day two in week four after cheering for my husband in the morning.  Yesterday was the first day of the new week and I will admit I was very nervous.  Up until yesterday the training was bearable for me.  The most I ran the first three weeks was three minutes and that was more than I thought I could handle at the beginning of week three.  My last day of week three was a tough one.  I ran the whole time in the rain though and that made me feel like a bad ass.  I even updated my Facebook status to show off.  As I left the house yesterday to start week four, I thought maybe I shouldn't.  Maybe I should redo the previous week.  I thought that five minutes was way too much for me.  Three minutes seemed so tough.  Was I ready?  Could I do it?  At the last minute I chose week four on my Ipod and said why not?  The first part is the five-minute walking warm up.  The whole time there was a voice in my head saying - You can't do this.  You aren't going to make it.  There is no way you can run for five straight minutes.  It started to annoy me.  Then there was another voice telling me that I could do it.  I reminded myself that for one brief moment in 2006 during one of my "let's start exercising" moments that I mentioned earlier, I had run for five straight minutes.  As, what I could only picture as a little white angel and a little red devil, argued with each other in my mind, I started my first interval.  Three minutes.  I completed that with more ease than I had the last time I was out running and I had that fleeting feeling of hope enter my still battling mind.  Rest  - 90 seconds.  You'll never make it...You can do it...no way...yes way...start of five minute run.  The devil and the angel went back and fourth the entire five minutes, but I never stopped running.  Rest - 2.5 minutes.  If I hadn't actually been there I wouldn't have believed that I would do it.  At this point I was almost excited about the last interval.  Bring on the three minutes.  If I could do five, I could do three again.  The positivity didn't last long and as I started my last three-minute run my brain started in again.  You'll never make another five minutes, there's no way...you did it once, you can do it again.  My last run for the day, the second five minute run, started with a heavy heart.  Would I be able to do it?  My abs were killing me.  I had cramps.  But all I could think about was being able to cross week four, day one off my list.  If I stopped running, even for a second, I would have to start this godforsaken day all over again.  Keep going...stop running...keep picking up your feet...take three seconds to rest...think of your ass in a bathing suit this summer...BINGO.  For the last two and a half minutes of the second five minute run all I could see was my booty, with no cellulite, half hanging out of a pair of boy shorts from Victoria's Secret.  Hey, whatever works for you right?  I did it and I got to cross it off my list.  The expo today was the best thing I could have done.  All the excitement, all the cute outfits, and my god...all the hot guys!!  Until next time...