Learning to Run

I am 40 years old.  And I am a biscuit shy of 300 pounds.

So what has possessed me to to start running?  I can tell you it is not a sudden urge to join a marathon or find my twenties.  I am not having a mid-life crisis and there is no new love to impress.

I am learning the ‘joys’ of running as a way to encourage my daughter to keep up her running regime now that her Cross Country season is over.  She is much better at this than I am as she has had two seasons to learn how to run longer distances and has spent the last 12 weeks working out every day.  Life lesson coming ahead – even those who are more experienced or seasoned still need encouragement from time-to-time.

While I am doing my best to be an encouragement to her and not an anchor that she has to worry about putting CPR into practice over, I am learning a few things about running that apply to life:

• It is easy to be energetic and passionate during those first few steps.  I can run with the best of them for about 10 steps.
• It can be very tempting to give up when you realize this ‘run’ is work and is getting harder than it was at the beginning.  After about 2 tenths of a mile, I am trying to figure out where I coughed up my lung.  It would be so much easier to stop running, lay down on the ground, and call 911 for emergency oxygen than to take one more step.
• Picking milestones helps to break up the bigger run and keeps my spirits up.  I have to pick a point about 10 yards ahead and say, “I can make it that far”, and then set the next 10 yard mark after I attain that goal.  If I thought about the mile mark when I was still in the first quarter mile, it would be too easy to be overwhelmed at what I am trying to accomplish.
• Keeping a record of how I am progressing from day-to-day, gives me perspective into how I am growing.  Setting up some ‘Ebenezer Stones’ called statistics lets me know where I was yesterday, where I am at today, and where I can be tomorrow.

These are some early lessons that I have learned as I have just started on this course of action.  I may gain some more insight if I survive the next couple of weeks and I may even post some statistics once I have enough to tell a story.