The Last Post In The World I Ever Thought I'd Ever Write, Ever

I have to tell someone, and dear, wonderful, wacky Invisible Internet Friends: I figured it should be you.  You deserve to know.

Two things first:

1. I have made plenty of announcements and proclamations here that didn't quite come to fruition. (See: declaring this a weight-loss blog five+ years ago; my 917 "I'm going to blog more often" announcements; my one attempt at NaBloPoMo that lasted about 13 days; etc.)
   
2. I blame this entirely on Stefania.

Okay. You ready?

Today I completed Day 1, Week 1 of the Couch to 5K.

I know. That breeze you just felt on your ankles? That was hell freezing over.  I'm doing my part to stop global warming.

Here's the real kicker though: I don't feel like I'm going to die. I didn't fall down. I didn't throw up. I didn't even throw my iPhone (with the C25K app) into the bushes.

I KNOW.

I don't smell great (sorry), and I did slightly pull some muscle in my butt region when I suddenly had to sidestep a dumbass man who SOMEHOW DIDN'T NOTICE A PANTING WOMAN WITH GIANT BOBBING BOOBS BARRELING TOWARD HIM WITH A JOGGING STROLLER and wandered in right front of me. So I'm sore. But only a little. (So far.)

Um. So yes. You might be wondering what the hell is going on with me and how I went from bitching ardently about how much I hate walking -- let alone jogging -- to taking on a "let's run every week!" type program.

And my truthful, deep-down, thoughtful answer is: I have absolutely no idea.

Here's what I can tell you, and you can go ahead and feel free to diagnose my mental illness --

After I posted about my hatred of walking and hearing a few of you sing the Couch to 5K (c25k) praises, I started thinking about it. Meanwhile, Stefania's been transformed into an actual runner, posting her c25k updates on Facebook and Twitter.  And you know, she's got TWO kids and she blogs and runs a company and has a life as crazy as mine and is somehow making it work.

I spent about 3 seconds Googling it. I saw that week one is basically a warm-up, followed by 60-seconds of running, then 90 seconds of walking, then 60 seconds of running, 90 seconds of walking, etc. until you've run 9 times.

I thought there was no way I could do it without dying. End of story.

But then one afternoon a couple weeks ago, I decided to take Eve to the park. My intent was to walk around the park's square, half-mile perimeter, and then push her on the swings. By the time I figured out how to collapse our new stroller and had hefted it into the trunk, however, I decided that the "workout" portion of my afternoon was complete. I was just going to push her on the swings.

I got to the park and discovered the playground is under construction. But after traveling all that way, what could I do but walk? So I walked.

I walked two sides of the park |_. And then, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to see if I could jog one length. |_|

I could.

It wasn't easy, but it didn't kill me. And I discovered a secret. Maybe you know this secret, but I sure as hell didn't. Or at least, I never saw it this way.

The secret is: if you jog, the stupid, hateful walk goes by SO MUCH FASTER.

AHA!

Well, so then I decided to try to alternate. Walk one length, jog one length. And it kept happening! The jogging length kept going by in half the time! OH GLORY DAY! It's like, you can cram your whole workout into however fast you can make yourself go. WHY DIDN'T I FIGURE THIS OUT BEFORE?

I went back to the park a few days later and did some more walk-jogging.

Then my new Napa friend asked if I wanted to go on a four-mile power walk and thought, "Yes! I can do that!" And it nearly killed me and I don't think it was in any way "powerful" but whatever. FOUR MILES.

Then this last week, I went on a couple of Ish and Eve's morning walks. I jogged just a little bit here and there.

Then I got to today. And this week has kicked my ass and nothing has gone right and everything's stressful and I'm just juggling way too many things. And when I realized I just needed to get out of the goddamned house already, I thought, Hmmm.

I put the c25k app on my phone. I picked my music. (Yes, you can pick your own music to run underneath the man who tells you when to walk and when to run.) I packed up the stroller and the baby and headed to the park.

And I did it.  And I didn't die.  And I think I will do it again.

Who starts a workout program at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon? Well, I guess that'd be me -- your crazy, crazy internet friend who just surprised the heck out of herself.