Learning To Fly

Talking to no one in particular here . . .anyone who wants to listen, just pull up a chair -

On the way to swim team practice last night, my 13 year old daughter's friends asked her if she wanted to run in our Y's next 3.1 mile run. A few of them were going to start preparing for it by running after school. She answered"no way" mighty speedily. She offered to be their cheerleader instead or to ride her bike alongside them when they trained.

That got my wheels a churnin'. The run/walk isn't until June 2. I know she can do it. She walked the same distance the last two years with me and my oldest daughter for a breast cancer walk. Last year she even ran most of it, beating me by a long stretch. Plus when she did field hockey in the fall, they made her run every day and she did fine! She can run! She should run.

AOL's Instant Messanger cannot have her. Once swimming ends in a month, there will be nothing to get her off her rear end on a regular basis. There's softball in the Spring, but softball practices don't tend to get too active.

I needed a plan . . . and it had to involve me because she is my shadow.If I do it, she will. If I don't she won't,

Big problem - did I ever mention that I cannot run? I would love to run but just never seemed like I could figure out how. My endurance with biking, swimming or walking is great. Why can't I run? DH says I can, I just have to start slow. I tried that, but never got anywhere.

Google searching last night, I found a program on http://www.coolrunning.com/ called The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. It looked perfect, but required a constant knowing of what time it was (i.e. run 60 seconds, walk 90 seconds, repeat 8 times). I knew having to carry and operate a stop watch would really not work well for me.

By inspiration, I decided to check out iTunes for a corresponding podcast. Lo and behold, some wonderful man took the details of this exact program and put them into a podcast. I was so excited!! Now instead of having to track time by a watch, a little voice in my ear would say, "start your five minute warm up now, I will tell you when it is almost over" or "OK, gear up for your first 60 second jog, breathe evenly, leave your arms loose and low" or "OK, we are more than halfway done now and you are doing great."

JOY of JOYs.

Tonight was day one of week one for DH (yeah, drug him into it too), DD13 and me. I wore the headphones and repeated out loud what the voice was telling us to do. In the background a really upbeat techno funk type music played. . . you know the type . . running music.

It was so cool. By the last 60 second run, I was so hyped I started sprinting. Did I mention I sometimes dream of what it would be like to run? I felt like I did in my dreams.

Then my body turned into a lead weight . . . . . but that was OK. The little voice in my ear told me I was finished, and that I should take a five minute walking warm down. So I did.

It was lovely. . kind of like what it must be like learning to fly.

My blog now has a purpose . . . . it is a running journal.