My Journey from the Couch to a 5K

My back hurts.  I don’t know if I have just been overdoing it or what but it hurts. 

I had a pretty good day today.  I was able to make it through almost all of my runs.  I missed out on the last 5-10 seconds of the last 2 runs.  I would’ve kept going on the last one but there were these hooligans (where exactly did that word come from anyway?  It’s kind of like shenanigans.  I like those words.) walking in front of me and I didn’t want to run off the path to get around them and then start walking again just a few feet down the path.  So I quit a little early.  And man the park was ‘jacked up’ tonight (as Annagrace would say.  That’s her new favorite phrase!).  3 simultaneous Little League games, a reunion of some kind at the picnic shelters, kids on the playground, people walking.  Tons of people everywhere. 

So I have to confess that I am really starting to like running.  I miss it on the days I don’t go.  It’s like therapy time for me.  I put on my mp3 player, crank it up loud and just get out there in my own little world.  I look forward to that time alone for 40 minutes to just think about nothing but getting through the next run.  It’s really great stress relief!  

I was thinking today about the difference in ‘jogging’ and ‘running’.  I have read somewhere recently where a wise old man (or maybe a young man, I just know it was a man) said that the only difference in a jogger and a runner was an entry form.  When you read the definition for running, it is defined as: a pace that is faster than walking.  So that being said, I guess I can honestly say ”I am a runner.”  When I go out to train I often say I am going out for my run.  I don’t think of it as jogging.  I don’t know why.  Isn’t that weird?  Maybe because saying “I’m a runner” is cooler than saying “I’m a jogger.”

And I have good news.  I’m down another pound!  Actually, a little more than a pound.  I am down a total now of 13 pounds!  Woot woot!  That is the equivalent of the skin of 2 human beings.  (Just a little useless trivia for you.  Yes, your skin weighs about 6 pounds!)  I was complaining again today about my pants falling off.  Aaron said, “why don’t you put on a belt?”  Hmmmm . . . where have I heard that advice before?!  Well all the capris I have look stupid with a belt.  So I am retiring the really too big, falling-down-annoying-me-pants and will hang on to the few that fit and in another month or so I’ll buy a couple new pairs! (And those clothes are going to be do GONE from this house.  I do not want to keep them because I have no intentions of fitting in them again!)

I’ll leave with an awesome quote I recently found.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”  Aristotle