Gotta run . . . literally

I'm going to let my beloved readers in on a secret . . . I have been running.

And I'll let you on another secret (and please don't tell my running coach because it doesn't jive well with the program she set out for me) . . . I ran for 20 minutes straight last night. That beats my personal record of 12 minutes that I set on Friday. After I managed to get my fatigued butt off the treadmill, I wanted to do a happy dance, but I was too tired to do so.

After every run I do, I write what I did on a sticky note and then post it on the front of one of my kitchen cupboards. Not only does this track my progress, it also gives me incentive to continue. And, not to toot my own horn, but the progress I have been making has been astounding.

To give you some background, I've been running for more than a month now. Throughout my life, running is something I avoided as I thought my not-so-great knees wouldn't be able to take such a beating. My thinking changed as I went through some life changing crap earlier this year. Needing to get deal with feelings, I emailed my friend and running guru, C, and asked her if she could teach me to run.

So I've been running. The first run was hard. I didn't think I could finish the four blocks of run four minutes, walk one. But I did. And I went back to the treadmill days later to run again. Believe it or not, it started to get easier. I eventually made a visit to my local Running Room and bought a pair of quality running shoes and my running started to improve. Plus, I was starting to look forward to running days. Incredible!

C started me on an interval running program that consisted of four minutes running, one minute walking. I started out doing four blocks of four and one. I worked myself up to five blocks and then six. On Friday, I had to switch treadmills after the fourth block because it was making an annoying sound. When I jumped onto the new treadmill I didn't realize that I had the incline at 0.2. It should be at two. When I realized that the incline was too low I was about three minutes into my block. Since I'm dedicated to my running, I decided to make up for my mistake, increased the incline to two and kept on running to make up time. I ran past the six minute mark, then the eight and then the 11. I stopped at 12. I felt amazing.

On Sunday, we changed the interval block running program to five and one. I have respected C's program and I have never questioned her. She knows her stuff. She's a runner. She's a physiotherapist. But last night, I don't know what happened, but once I reached the five minute mark, I wanted to keep going. It was almost like I couldn't stop. Five minutes slowly became 10 minutes. At that point, I still couldn't stop. When I reached the 15 minute mark, it was more of a mental game of whether or not I could reach the 20 minute mark. And I did. I squeaked out the last minute, had to take a five minute walking break before running another 10 minutes.

I'm very proud of myself. I didn't think I could ever run in my life, but I'm proving to myself that I can. I'm going to register for a 5k run in mid-April as well as the Ottawa Race Weekend's 5k at the end of May. While I've reached what I consider are some significant milestones in my short running career, I'm not getting too cocky as running on a treadmill is much, much different than running outside. (I ran outside for the first time last week and I whined for days to dear husband how hard it was). So I've got work to do before I do before my short term running goals and hopefully I will be able to achieve them. I'll keep you posted.