posted by Ashalah on Life

3 comments

I’m sure you have heard of Couch to 5k. It’s a program to help you go from not running at all to running a 5k. I don’t know many details but it involves a combination of running and walking and I’m pretty sure there’s a decent time frame attached to it.

I’ve decided to create my own program. Couch to 10K. Only it doesn’t involve any combination of running and walking, just running, and you only have two and a half weeks before you run that 10k.

I’m not seeing many of you signing up for this program. Hmm…I guess I’ll be the only one.

I signed up for the Bolder Boulder, as you might have read. It’s on Memorial Day which is two weeks from tomorrow. The boy, we’ll call him B, somehow convinced me. I think his dimples played heavily into the successful convincing. I am a sucker for dimples after all. Blinded by these dimples, I don’t think I realized just exactly what I was signing up for. Do you know what a 10k is?

6.2 miles.

I have not run more than two miles in the past three and a half years. I used to run the six mile loop in Central Park–and when I say run six miles, I mean I walked some of that. I don’t know if I have ever, in my life, run six straight miles.

Yet in two weeks that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Last Thursday I started the training by doing a two mile loop near my apartment that I’ve done before. By mile .5 (that’s half a mile, folks) I couldn’t breathe and was in pain. Altitude is painful to run in when you’ve only run at sea level. My body was all WHERE THE HELL IS THE OXYGEN AND WHY AREN’T YOU GIVING IT TO ME? But I managed to pull through and nearly ran the entire two miles, only stopping once to take a picture of some epic clouds (and catch whatever breathe I could get). I was feeling pretty good about myself after that run, feeling like I could take on the Bolder Boulder and be victorious.

I was pretty sore though and took the weekend off from running because my muscles were on fire and I didn’t want to hurt myself. It also may have been the last weekend before B took off to Florida for two weeks and we spent it making delicious food (salmon with mushrooms, spinach and tomatoes, eggs in red pepper, and a shrimp and pineapple green curry, just in case you were wondering), going to the aquarium and relaxing. We did take a three mile walk but no run was logged.

Tonight I decided to conquer my next run. I wanted to run at least 2.5 miles and figured out a route I could take that would give me just over that. The first mile I rocked, beating my first run’s mile time of 11.8 minutes by 30 seconds. But then mile two started and I lost momentum. I was walking more than I was running and every step I was feeling throughout my entire body. My lungs were better off this run, but my body was not.

I was feeling a little defeated, I’m not going to lie. I was like what the hell did I get myself into? Here I am, at mile 1.33 and I can barely do this. I’m doing worse than my last run. How am I going to do 6 miles of this? But then I reached the 1.6 mile mark and I decided to get over myself and I pushed myself hard to keep running. And I did it. I ran the last 1.2 miles without stopping, even with my aching muscles. I literally felt every painful step and I threw myself into that ice cold shower with my clothes practically still on.

I have a long way to go. I’m not even able to run half of a 10k right now but somehow I’m going to do this. I have no other choice. I’m running with B who has a mile time of 6 and change. Mine is about 11 minutes, nearly double his.

I have some work to do.

Tags: #CouchTo10K, Bolder Boulder, Couch to 10k, running, Slowly Going Crazy