5 Weeks to 5K

Before I started working with Abby, I had never run before. There was no reason to. There was no blood, no bone, no fire. My ex-husband used to say he'd never seen me "run with all my might." I had never run without all my might either. Running was for runners. I was not one of them. Have you ever seen the "Friends" episode of Phoebe running through the park? If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here now and watch: 

I'm pretty sure I would have been a Phoebe runner, had I been a runner at all.

But, lucky for me (?), my trainer is a marathon runner. And I fully believe that she fully believes everyone else on the planet should be, too. Even me. 

So, what is another thing I "get" to do with Abby? I get to participate in her 5 Weeks to 5K program. Thank God she realized early that I'm a Level 1 runner! A newbie. Since she had just started a new clinic the week before our journey began, she gave Nickey and me the Reader's Digest version of Training Session #1 on that first day we worked out together. In that first lesson, we learned the "correct posture stance." Seriously? You just run, right. Like walking, only faster.

Oh no. There was WAY more to it than that. Feet parallel. Weight evenly distributed. Knees soft. Hip Bucket flat. Tight pant muscle. Lean. I began hearing those things over and over and in my sleep. Who knew there was so much to running? And this was just the first lesson. Over the next two weeks, I learned about flat footprints, floppy ankles, washing machine hips, and so much more. So much that I couldn't remember it all! During our clinic, we'd take short runs and Abby would check our posture, our stance, our lean, our cadence and let us know what needed improvement. I don't think it all ever clicked together for me like it was supposed to though.

We had homework to do between our classes. The first assignment was to run for 1 minute then walk for 4 minutes for a total of 30 minutes of exercise. I did that one. And I did the next one (run for 1 minute, then walk for 3 minutes for a total of 32 minutes). And I think I did the third one (run 2, walk 4 for 30). Then I did the first one again because, in my mind, too much time had elapsed. So, I started over. This time, though, I felt like it went a little easier than it had the first time. But, time lapsed again. And I started over again. Yes, I did homework assignment 1 three times. Somehow, I let that slip to Abby one day and she said that I was NEVER allowed to do homework assignment 1 ever again. In my mind, that translated to "never do running homework ever again." So, I didn't.