Like most things in life, I needed some inspiration to start running and this time my inspiration came from my mom (as usual). Last summer, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and as sad and scary as it was – it was my hook. I finally had a good reason to work towards running a 5K, a goal I never thought would be possible. If my mom was fighting breast cancer with everything she had, why couldn’t I fight towards marking one thing off my bucket list – Running a 5K. But, as a guy who went almost 240 pounds, it did not seem like would happen anytime soon. My mom’s diagnosis gave me that extra nudge I needed to get my butt off the couch.
One night after work, I finally decided that I was going to go out and run a mile to see how I liked it. I ran about three-quarters of a mile making it almost the whole way. I marched into the house and fired up my computer and went on Facebook – because that’s what we do right? – and posted this:
“So everyone on here is talking about running and how great it is. I thought must be something about running must have changed since I used to try it. So tonight I decide to go out for a run and you know what it still sucks I so prefer riding my bike can’t wait till I can do that again.”
I was determined though to make this work and I signed up for my first 5K – The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure held in Milwaukee, WI. The problem is that I had no idea how to do this, after all I could hardly run a mile let alone 3.
This is when my wife brought up the idea that we should start doing P90X to help us lose weight. So we tried it and I realized quickly that it sucked just as much as running. I needed to do something, so I stuck with P90X and spent the next three months doing push ups, jumping and down, using bands and doing sit ups.
P90X was the hardest thing I ever tried to do. I started out and doing all the push ups stunk because my elbow kept hurting. I would do the jump training and thought I was going to fall through the floor. I got winded frustrated and wanted to quit many times but I was doing this for mom and I could not stop. I didn’t either. We kept at it and did not miss a day all summer. When I would get tired, I would just get a drink and get back in there and do it. Never before was I so dedicated to getting in shape.
As the summer progressed, I had dropped a little weight but I was ready to go try running. I had busted my butt all summer and now I was ready to run, and assumed the running would be better this time around. The thing is, I hadn’t quite figured out the whole training thing, so the day before I my “big trial run before the 5K” we had not one but two summer barbecues at friends houses…That, my friends, is a whole different blog post, which I promise to post real soon.
Until next time, keep running.
Do not post:
Title for the next blog post:
How My First Training Run Went and Why it Changed My Whole Way of Thinking.
Fat Guy to Tri Guy 