I have to admit that I was afraid to start this whole journey. I anticipated more pain and more problems than before. After all, I was now 52 -- 6 years older than last time, and less healthy. My running coach kept telling me I would be fine, but I didn't have history on my side, and I was the oldest woman in our running group. But, I was down to 190 pounds, which was 35 pounds less than the last time I tried running. I hoped that would help.
We get our homework on Fridays, and run together on Saturday mornings. But, I skipped the first Saturday morning run. It was at 7:00 am, and I convinced myself that I was too tired from the work week to get up at that hour. To be honest, I think I was embarrassed about how bad I would look in front of all those other runners who were in better shape than I was. I wanted at least a week to run on my own first and see how bad things were before I ran in public. Call it selfish, but I wasn't sure about throwing my hat in the ring where people could see just how out of shape I really was.
The first week we only had to run 2 minutes and walk 2 minutes during our track run on Tuesday afternoon. I started on Monday with the same assignment. We were supposed to run/walk for 20 minutes on Monday, but I just did the 2/2 to see if I could do it. It was soooo hard. I wasn't sure I could make it two minutes. I was having such a hard time breathing. I could barely get my heart rate down between intervals. I was really disappointed. On Tuesday, I blended into the masses that were on the track, praying my running coach wouldn't run with me much because I couldn't talk and run at the same time. My legs felt like lead. I couldn't even make it around the track one time without having to walk. By Friday, after feeling the same, I emailed my coach and asked her why it was so. She said that if I wasn't breathing correctly, it could prevent my legs from getting enough oxygen. I wasn't sure how to fix it, but it sounded reasonable.
No comments:
Post a Comment