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Fit Club

By Holly Miyasaki

If you had told me two-and-a-half months ago I would be able to run six kilometres without thinking twice, I’d call you crazy. The only place I was running was from the idea of putting one foot in front of another in a quick and constant pace.

But here I am. I joined The Running Room’s learn to run 10 kilometre class. We started last week with a short introduction followed by a 5k run. I balked as soon as I realized we would be running five whole kilometres on the first day. I wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

We had to make ourselves name tags with our first name and then if we were a walker or a runner. I paused because I didn’t know if I would be running for a majority of the evening. So I put both.

As introductions went on around the room it seemed as though everyone else had more experience than I did, and again I wondered how I was going to complete 5k. I’d done it before, but this seemed like quite the feat for the first run.

One girl verbalized my thoughts on my running abilities perfectly when she said, “I walk faster than I run.”

We set off into the night. It was dark and there was a slight chill. But I had a heavy sweater on and decided I was set. Unfortunately I didn’t realize how quickly I would heat up. My sweater was like a sauna, trapping the heat. I unzipped it but was stuck as I had a water belt on and didn’t want to stop.

The hardest part of the run is the first 15 minutes. I feel so self-defeatest when I am running those first minutes. Thoughts cross my mind like, “this is difficult, I should stop,” or “why am I even doing this?”

But the trick is to just keep going. Ignore your own thoughts and keep chugging ahead. Continue putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually the difficulty dissipates and you get into a rhythm. Until then, it’s all mental.

The girl who claimed she walked faster than she ran, actually was really quick and soon passed me. The group, because it was relatively small, spread out fast.

Two people were so fast that I was pretty sure they had already completed the route before I’d even hit my 15 minute mark. I stuck with two ladies who had a good speed going. They were faster than I preferred, but I actually couldn’t remember the route and didn’t want to get lost. It was fear that kept me going.

Amazingly I finished the run in just under 40 minutes. I went on to do a 6k on Sunday, Wednesday and another on Thursday. I probably shouldn’t have done the last two so close together, my knees were pretty sore afterward on Thursday. But I RICEd them (rest, ice, compression and elevation) and they felt better this morning.

Pretty soon I’ll be running at least four or five times a week. In addition to my gym time (which is starting to diminish a bit due to fatigue and laziness), I’m going to be very busy.

By December we will be completing a 10k race, which is pretty big for me. Again, I will reiterate that I’m one of those people who hated running. I despised it as much as I despised cleaning the cat litterbox. I would drive past the running clubs and feel pity and awe at the same time for those people hitting the pavement.

But here I am, one of them. And I encourage any of you who have considered but then reconsidered just because of that self-defeating thought pattern. It is possible, you just need to overcome your mind first.

entertainment@kelowna.com

Tags: calories, cardio, running club, the running room, weight

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Fit Club. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.