Running For Fat Girls
I've been running probably around six months with some sort of effort behind it. I could solidly call all prior efforts half assed efforts. But somewhere in the past I decided to TRY. Yoda wouldn't approve so I don't tell him.
I run about a 20 minute mile when I'm not pushing. I've gotten down to much lower numbers on days when I was really pushing and had been working hard for several days in a row. My numbers are always double digits but I confess to feeling like a damn gazelle when I see I ran a 14 minute mile.
There is kind of a secret about it, that I think a lot of people don't know. It's hard. A good friend of mine runs every day up in Indy about 5am. I told her I just wanted to get to the part of it where I doesn't hurt anymore. Her response? "That never happens, because the goal keeps moving. I'm just happy if I don't puke." That was eye opening. I think in my mind there was some MAGICAL day when I would just NAIL this, when I was good at it and confident and my feet would be graceful and not burn and everything would be awesome.
Apparently NOT.
So I run. I'm slow. I try to be faster. Some days it's just not happening, so I still try to get the DISTANCE. Today my I.T. band is hurting like a bitch and it's nothing but hills where I live so double bitch. I still ran.
Someone at work asked me "How do you do it? How do you run? I've got a bad knee, I couldn't do it." My response, "No one said I was good at it."
I think that's the confusion. We get very complicit at things we can SIT and be good at. I can learn how to play any game with a degree of competence in a week. I can sit, with a cold drink, and play a board game, or a video game, and LEARN the thing. But taking my overweight body out where it's hot, where each step pounds the pavement making impact tremors the likes of which might indicate a large predator is on the way, where the activity is going to HURT most likely, well that's just not all that attractive of a proposition for most people.
I run about a 20 minute mile when I'm not pushing. I've gotten down to much lower numbers on days when I was really pushing and had been working hard for several days in a row. My numbers are always double digits but I confess to feeling like a damn gazelle when I see I ran a 14 minute mile.
There is kind of a secret about it, that I think a lot of people don't know. It's hard. A good friend of mine runs every day up in Indy about 5am. I told her I just wanted to get to the part of it where I doesn't hurt anymore. Her response? "That never happens, because the goal keeps moving. I'm just happy if I don't puke." That was eye opening. I think in my mind there was some MAGICAL day when I would just NAIL this, when I was good at it and confident and my feet would be graceful and not burn and everything would be awesome.
Apparently NOT.
So I run. I'm slow. I try to be faster. Some days it's just not happening, so I still try to get the DISTANCE. Today my I.T. band is hurting like a bitch and it's nothing but hills where I live so double bitch. I still ran.
Someone at work asked me "How do you do it? How do you run? I've got a bad knee, I couldn't do it." My response, "No one said I was good at it."
I think that's the confusion. We get very complicit at things we can SIT and be good at. I can learn how to play any game with a degree of competence in a week. I can sit, with a cold drink, and play a board game, or a video game, and LEARN the thing. But taking my overweight body out where it's hot, where each step pounds the pavement making impact tremors the likes of which might indicate a large predator is on the way, where the activity is going to HURT most likely, well that's just not all that attractive of a proposition for most people.
The thing is, it's GOOD for me. I'm building strong muscles and you know what muscle does? No -not "weighs more than fat" that's a shit saying one pound of one thing is the same as one pound of another. (Yes I know the actual comparison but still shut up it's misleading). No, strong lean muscles BURN CALORIES more efficiently IE better than sloppy not lean muscles.
So I went and ran this morning with a 7 year old partner.
I want her to think of running as something she SHOULD do. On our walking intervals we talk about how strong it will make her heart, and how good it is to build strong muscles. I don't want her to be 48 and fighting this battle, which is straight up hill both directions in the snow. On our running intervals I cheer her and let her get ahead of me which makes her laugh hysterically.
She likes to take breaks, which I might not normally do, but I want to make it positive. When I'm with her, I'm not pushing, I'm trying to introduce her to something so that for her she can find it fun.
I think she just wants to sit on as many things as possible, frankly.
We did 1.6 miles together today, with an average pace of 15:17. She kept up with intervals with me until about the last 1/3 and then we just walked the rest of the way because she declared she was too tired.
I'm not fast. I'm not good. Stuff hurts. I sweat and feel like shit during the running intervals sometimes. But I did it.
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