A Little About Fitness

I think I've alluded to it in a few posts, but I recently decided to do something crazy and signed up for a 10K. In less than a month, I will be attempting to run running 6.2 miles, a distance I've still never run. For those of you who don't know, I've never been a runner. Really. In high school I always hated the days we had to run 1 lap around the track for drill team practice. I would finish last, huffing and puffing like I was going to die. Part of that came from having asthma through adolescence and another part was just being out of shape. 

June 2007- London (wow this is hard to look at!)

Once I got to college I would work out a little bit, but come sophomore year I was at my heaviest and very unhappy about it. So starting that summer, I started heading to the rec and working out more. I took some fun fitness classes like fencing, yoga, and step aerobics as well as watched what I ate. Living in an apartment off campus really helped with that and I slowly saw the pounds start to come off and I thought I was at a really good weight when I got married in the summer of 2011. 

Honeymoon, May 2011

However, after we got married and moved, I was afraid of putting the pounds back on. I've always heard how hard it is to maintain weight loss, so I got a gym membership, stepped up my work outs, and started learning about what a healthy lifestyle really means. I don't just focus on cardio and I do some weight training to tone up a bit. I definitely allow myself some cheat meals here and there, but still count my calories and cook healthy recipes (Cooking Light, oh how I love thee!). 

Saturday night, pre awesome dinner date

All of that has been going well, but I was afraid of getting burned out on doing the same thing. So, I decided to push myself and do something I never would have considered. I had run a 5K in November of 2012 and it went well, so I wanted to push myself more. I didn't want to run a half marathon as the training for that is so long and running 13.3 miles is intimidating. A 10K it is! So I found one that was a few months out to keep the training realistic and found a 10 week training plan that allowed me to slowly increase my mileage as well as do some cross-training so I wouldn't get burned out, mentally or physically, on running. 

I'm not going to lie, it hasn't always been easy and I don't always reach my distance goal. The past two weeks I was fighting an upper respiratory infection so I had to walk more than I would have liked. At other times, I started getting cramps that I had to walk off. But I'm still glad that I've stuck to it and am mostly enjoying it. I still don't absolutely love running, but I'm learning how mental of an activity it is. I love knowing after a run that I've accomplished something I never thought I could do. That's why I keep on doing it as there are few things that give me that feeling. 

Anyway, this has gotten quite long but I guess I needed to get it out there. It has been quite a journey over the past several years. October 20th will be here before I know it and hopefully I will be able to meet my goal and not have to walk during the race. However if I do, there's always the next one!