this morning i started the laziest running program ever. i just love it. pretty much you walk for half an hour, and during that half hour you run three times for a minute. you do that three days a week. and then the next week you run three times for 2 minutes. and on until you're running for a half hour. it's great because it's such a low bar. you feel like well gee, i can run for a minute. there was a lot of huffing and puffing, but i didn't die. and i'm tired as all hell now, but i feel great about it. like if i'm tired, i'm working hard enough.
i had a friend in college who played on two soccer teams at once and would play with stress fractures and pulled muscles and all kinds of athletic torture. i always worried about it, but she loved it. she'd say if it doesn't hurt you're not trying. our friend would call her a tough cookie, and we'd joke we were the weakest cookies. i can say now that i get it just a little. i'm not going to run/walk on a stress fracture, but i feel great that my legs are a little sore. i see it as progress.
i've been worrying that my walking wasn't really enough, i'm sweaty afterwards but not very as i'm at work and i can't be too gross. but i'm too embarrassed to join the Y and the weather is too unpredictable to go biking. i should mention here that i can ride my bike indoors due to a wicked expensive thing i bought to make it possible. but it makes my ass hurt. and there's no one to make me stick with it like in a class. i have this theory that when there's less of me weighing on the tailbone that it'll hurt less. maybe i'll force myself to bike for a half hour if it's too messy to go running. that would be ass-kicking motivation to run in all weather.
i was off the wagon a bit yesterday (had some of the real whipped cream with my no sugar jello dessert), but i'm back on today. the scale i shouldn't be weighing on yet said 188 this morning which makes me feel like it's worth it to keep going. be able to run for half an hour by may is also motivating me. it would be nice to run that much in the mornings before work. i would be happy with running half an hour 5 days a week as an exercise plan. i figure the better i get at it the further i'll be able to go in half an hour. i should stop the imaginary runner's world vision of myself before i get out of control, but it burns a ton of calories and would build strentgh in my legs and lungs and that would be cool.