Rewards

So we went to the YMCA, and the kids went swimming while I went to the gym. The greatest thing about the Y is that they are swarmming with lifeguards, so I totally feel comfortable letting Adrienne take Ruby to the indoor pool while I workout. Seriously, they have like five lifeguards there, and the pool is only three or four feet deep.

Okay, so I decided to use the indoor track for my walk. It was great! It's 1/10 of a mile, and it only takes about two minutes, or less, to walk around. There is something about challenging myself every couple of minutes to finish the next lap a little faster--or even just about finishing a lap so quickly--that makes it about 1000 times less boring than the treadmill.

So for the first mile, I decided to walk a lap, then on the second lap run the back 50 yards of the track. Then another lap walking, etc. Two weeks ago I tried doing half the track walking/half the track running on every lap and only got about two laps done. This time I finished the whole mile that way, no problem. Progress I tell you. Progress.

The best part is that after that mile, I thought--you know I feel good. Let's do another mile just walking. Then I thought--what the hell, let's do a 5K. Thirty-one laps, or 3.1 miles. And I DID IT! Yesterday I did a sprint triathlon-length bike ride, and today I did a sprint-triathlon walk (with at least a tiny bit of running!) I can't believe it. If you could have seen me just two months ago, alternating between 2 and 2.5 miles per hour for 20 minutes, then needing a nap.

So my plan is to do three miles once a week. And every week add one more of the run/walk laps. So next week I'll do 6. Then 7. You get it. In ten weeks I'll be doing the whole three miles with one lap walking, one interval. Then fifteen more weeks until I'm doing the entire three weeks as interval, half walking/half running. Then I'll work on doing just one lap entirely running--and adding one a week, until 30 weeks after that I'll be able to run a 5K.

That's about a year. Sounds like a long time, but it will take me that long to get down to a weight where it's actually safe for me to be running that far.

As a reward to myself for reaching the 20 pounds lost mark, I went to the bookstore and bought a really cool training log. As I was walking around and around the gym today, I kept watching this family. It was a dad and his three teenage daughters. All three daughters were gorgeous and really fit (dad looked like a body builder)--all three were running on the treadmills. They looked like athletes, not just girls trying to be skinny. Every time I walked by them I thought--I bet they see me as just some poor fat lady huffing it around the track. But inside, I feel as much an athlete as they look on the outside. My body just needs time to catch up to my brain.