1 Mile

I ran a mile today! Well, OK, I ran a half mile twice, not the whole mile all at once (in the interest of full disclosure.) I hated pretty much every minute of it until I could sit down at the end and say "I did it!" It didn't help that I'm trying to break in a new pair of shoes, and they repaid me by rubbing a blister on my heel. Arghh. But until the blister cut my workout short, they did feel vastly better than my tired old pair of shoes.

So why am I putting myself through this agony? Every October, I participate in the Race for the Cure, and I've always walked the 5K route. But every year, I tell myself that one of these times I'm going to actually run the race. Not to compete for a prize, but just for the satisfaction of doing it. But having to start from, well, not running at all was a bit challenging. So in my belief that if it isn't on the internet, it doesn't exist, I did a Google search and found the Couch to 5K Running Plan.

The Plan gets you running the 5K in 30 minutes over a nine week training schedule. I'm allowing myself extra time because I've actually tried this before and reached week 5 before some knee pain became my excuse to quit. This time around, I'm doing most of the workouts 4 times instead of the 3 they recommend, so it will probably take more like 12 weeks.

Today was my first workout in the dreaded week 5. Although hating it, I was feeling like I could actually finish, so I was rather disappointed to quit early. But seeing as just walking back to my car was painful - I almost walked in just my socks - I'm sure it was the right decision. We'll see how Wednesday goes.