Journey to the Race: Day 1

Apparently I'm crazy and decided it would be a good idea to sign up for a 5K run when I'm not in great shape and hate running. This obviously brings up the question of why the heck I would choose to do such a thing. My reasons? It looked like a fun challenge and I wanted to prove to myself that I could push beyond my comfort zone and finish this race. Of course about a week after signing up I had the "oh my god what have I done" moment, but I'm sticking to it and I'll push myself to do the best I can do. I'm training with a local gym one day a week but I'm going to have to add my own workouts throughout the week. My biggest problem is going to be my lungs; I'm out of shape and have asthma and to put it simply, my lungs do not like running. Hopefully with training and warmer weather that'll improve.

I'm hoping that by sharing this journey with you I'll be able to keep myself motivated. As one of my professors once said, "nothing is a better motivator than the threat of humiliating yourself in public" (he was talking about learning material for an oral presentation but I think it's a good general saying). 

So day 1:

It was a great day to start training, it was beautiful out but cold (about -8C). The group met up and did a short warm up jog then about 10 lunges and some stretches. The main run included going down a hill, through a tunnel that slopes downward then back up, then up a hill. At the top of each hill, we had to stop and do a set of lunges or burpees. The first set included 8-10 runs with 10-20 lunges each run. Set 2 included runs (as many as you could do with the leftover time) with increasing burpees per run starting with 5. 

I was able to do about 7 runs with 10 lunges each time, then about 4 runs getting up to 8 burpees per run. 

I'm not going to lie and say it went amazingly well the first day, that's just not realistic or true. Realistically, my lungs burned and I felt like I had a weight on my chest, and at times I had to speed walk instead of run.  I can also guarantee I have shin splints in at least my left leg but probably both. But I got through it and I'm looking forward to improving my endurance and pushing myself even more next time. 

My family recently got a gadget that allows you to transform your regular bike into a stationary bike so I'm hoping to get that set up and use it to workout to strengthen my legs when I don't feel like running in the cold.
My legs are a bit sore today but not too bad yet, I'm definitely not looking forward to tomorrow though. 

I'll quit rambling now and leave you with a quote:

“We conquer - not in any brilliant fashion - we conquer by continuing.” 

—	George Matheson