Running with Friends

This weather is CRAZY. Like, seriously. The last couple of winters here have been really brutal, and I guess I've gotten it in my head that it's the norm, but this year has been very mild so far (knock on wood). I've been really happy about that for several reasons, the main one being that I'm sick of having to deplete my leave every winter because I'm snowbound and can't get to freaking work.  Last year, winter completely derailed me.  And this year, now that I have a treadmill in the house, the weather has been in the 60's with very little snow. I've only been housebound one day so far. One. Day.

Ridiculous.


But in the best kind of way.  I just wish I could say I've been taking full advantage of it.

I've really got to get better at getting outside. I'm still too chained to my desk for my liking, and I've got to get harsher with myself and MAKE myself go walk at lunch, if nothing else.

Monday, I finally started my Beginner 5k program.  I'm so stinking excited to be back out on the track, I can't even.  I convinced my friend Angie to do this with me, so that we can both run the Covered Bridge 5k in June, and she agreed, but she has never run before, so when I say 'beginner', I really mean it.  I am so stinking excited to share this journey with her and her daughter, Kailey! I was kind, though...after 10 months of no running, I had a vested interest in slowing my roll, too, so even though the plan called for a five minute warm-up, followed by a mile and a half of running or walking, we basically wound up doing interval shuffles.  Walked for about a half loop around the track, shuffle-ran the rest of the way, until we got a mile and a half in.  Then we walked a cool down lap. That's cool, because even shuffles mean you're moving.

It was really hard for me to keep it a shuffle, though. I didn't think it would be, but Kailey went with us, and with all the abundant energy of youth, she kept bouncing out in front of us. I told her to keep going, but she hovered, and I'm kind of glad because watching her take off would have made me itch too much to join her.  At the end of the run, I felt like I hadn't really run at all, and I never got out of breath, or really even pushed myself, even though Angie was all in.  They both did so, so well, and I am so very proud of them, especially Angie, who laid it all out on the line....but I was also proud of myself, to discover that maybe...just maybe...I wasn't quite as out of shape as I had led myself to believe.

Today, we'll be headed back to the track for our second training session...intervals. I'm going to work hard to get Angie to push it with each interval (they're only one minute apiece, but that can seem like an eternity when you're just starting out), but I'm not sure that our pace will improve much from Monday's (which I think was in the 21 min/mi range). That's ok, but I find that I'm really feeling antsy, and that's not ok. I really want to run. I want to push myself, to feel my muscles respond, to feel like I've accomplished something hard. And that's not going to happen for a while.

So...I think maybe what I'm going to do is to try and sneak in a run here and there on my own, between my run dates with Angie, on the days I know she won't be running.  Just until the initial training process is over, mind...so I don't think I'll have to do it for very long.  I wasn't sore at all the morning after, or even that night, and I usually am after a run, so I know that if I add a run or two through the week, I won't be overtaxing my body. I really think I'm ready for that step.

In other news, I managed to drop a couple of pounds this week (the two that I gained back last week), so I'm back on track, even if it IS a couple of weeks late.  All forward motion counts, right?

Right!!

How about you?  Ever tried to help someone else get into running or some other physical activity? How did you handle it? Were you successful?