Proud of Myself!

About 3 weeks ago I went jogging for the first time. It was ugly. My muscles hurt, my heart beat about 400 times per second, and my lungs burned.

This past Saturday morning I got up early, but not as early as Spencer, who was running* 12 miles. I started going north, and when I had reached 1/4 mile I was not happy. But I could see Spencer and his running buddy coming toward me, so I couldn't stop (it was a pride thing). By the time we passed one another (and I got a little bit of encouragement), I was almost at 1/2 mile. So I started telling myself, "I can get through one more song on the MP3 player." Then another. And so on. Pretty soon I was at a mile and starting to think I might be able to do the 2 miles I was scheduled to do. At nearly 1.5 miles my muscles were beginning to whine a little bit, and I thought, "I'll do a short rest at 1.5 miles." As I got closer to that mark I thought, "I'll finish this song, and then rest." The song ended after the 1.5 mile turn, and all of a sudden I thought, "Holy cow! I think I can do this!" So I kept jogging for a couple more songs. When the third song started I knew I was going to make it, and I did.

Spencer and Kent came into the house after their run. When they heard that I'd done two miles (as opposed to their twelve) they both cheered and high-fived (hooray for your own personal cheering section!). I was so proud of me!

Yesterday I was supposed to jog 1.5 miles, but Spencer needed a runaway, so we left the house for a while. Today I was scheduled for just a mile. So I thought I'd try to combine them (a little bit), and I jogged 2 miles. I'm really slow (two miles took a half hour), but I got into a rhythm before the .5 mile mark this time. I still talk my way through songs (thanks for the playlist, Taylor!), but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to do that 5K in a week and a half. I'm getting excited.

*At best I can only call what I do "jogging." But at the pace Spence runs, it's definitely "running."