[lemonadelife_blog]

As I have stated to many people over the years, I hate running. I am out of shape, so I am bad at it. It’s uncomfortable. There’s no motivation (I’m not running to or from anything). And I never know what to do with my hands! Do I keep them closed? (Sweaty palms). Do I keep them open? I don’t know!

Needless to say, running and I have never gotten along. In fact, most exercise and I don’t get along, although I have found some relief in ballet and the elliptical machine. But over the past few weeks, I have been reading more and more blogs about ladies who run and a friend of mine from college has also gotten into the running game and posts on Facebook how far she runs and her time everyday. Which of course makes me feel very lazy.

So, I have decided to start running too. Because I am a sheep. But at least I’ll be a skinny sheep.

I know, right? Amazing! Awe-inspiring! My jaw dropped too.

I was surfing around iPhone applications the other night in the Health & Fitness category and I stumbled upon the C25K (Couch to 5K) application, which in theory is supposed to help you go from not running at all to running a 5K in 10 weeks. It starts out slowly, doing alternating walks and runs at about a minute each, with a long thorough warm-up and cooldown at beginning and end. Tonight was my first night doing said program, and the results are… embarrassing. I’m not even going to bother posting them because they suck so badly (I might post them when my results improve and I feel better about myself but right now, I want to crawl under the covers with a Milky Way bar and cry myself to sleep). Julie actually used the program and reading her post makes me feel a little bit better about the whole thing.

I have also decided to invest in a good pair of sneakers. Now, one of my problems is that I have flat feet and slight overpronation (means my ankles go inward instead of just staying put like they are supposed to). It’s bad. It makes it hard to work out and I’m sure it’s affecting like 87 joints in my body. I bought a new pair of Asics, the Gel-1150, which according to Zappos is built specially for people who overpronate (like me!). I am hoping that the new addition to my workout will help improve things a bit, and make things a little less painful while my body adjusts to running. I contemplated by a nicer pair of sneakers, like the ones Amber has, but since I am not thoroughly convinced of my running prowess, I wasn’t sure investing an additional $60 was really going to help. I think these $85 sneakers are motivation enough right now. Plus, they are purple, my favorite color. So there’s that.

Anyway, C25K has this three workouts per week routine, but I’m not really sure what my routine will be. I want to make sure I stay consistent, but it gives you 10 weeks to get to the 5K, 45-minute run, so I don’t feel like there is too much pressure on me to hurry up and get going. In fact, that’s actually the number one piece of advice that “people” give to beginning runners: don’t do too much too soon. I’m all for that!

Do you run? How did you get started? Any advice for this novice?

Filed under: Exercise, Health

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