Couch to 10K in 10 weeks/5K in 7

It's absurd, I am embroiled in a conspiracy called running. I certainly cannot believe it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have often seen people running and internally laughed at them for being so ridiculous. "Why?! There is absolutely no point to this behavior", I would think to myself.

Sadly, now, I am involved as well. Involved and loving it?? Not kidding.



It was a benign conversation between me and my boss. There were a few of us in the office who wanted to start working out together during lunch. What a great idea!.....then someone mentioned a program called Couch to 10K. Other people in my office are involved and started talking about how wonderful it was to use as a plan to get started. I offered my traditional excuse that I get a stitch in my side and simply cannot run for my health and safety. I mean, for goodness sake, the stitch might be something that will explode and kill me. If not kill me, certainly it would maim me.

No one bought it.

I agreed to try it for a week.


"Couch to 10K, Couch to 10K"...it rang in my ears. "Oh I hate running,"I thought to myself.

I thought about it and would immediately think to myself - "oh, I'll start later."

It took me a week to even read the website. I just thought about it.

I finally got up the nerve to read the first week of the program. I expected the first week to be a gruesome mandate to run a couple of miles and then run more. What I saw was, well...walk an 1/8 of a mile, run an 1/8 of a mile (Do this for one mile exactly and then go home).

That's it?

Yep...that was it.

Seriously?

Seriously.

I thought about it as I packed my clothes for a week long trip to D.C. In my head, it would be easy to start while I was out of town. I had nothing to do in the mornings and it made sense to me that it would be a good week to start since I would be getting full (meaning no baby waking in the night) night's sleep. So, that's when I decided to start.

After two weeks of it, I decided I liked it enough to invest in an actual pair of running shoes and some socks that were meant for running instead of fabulous shoes. The shopping trip was traumatizing and I was heard to say, "but these shoes won't go with anything else I wear!" Other than that it was a success and the shoes feel great. Good shoes make the back not hurt so much..woohoo.

Now I'm into my third week, running 2 full miles a day for the last three runs and totally addicted. It's not lady-like by any stretch of anyone's imagination, but man is it fun. I feel like a kid again. My boss makes fun of me because I smile while I run...that just makes me smile more.