Running

I went running last night and it felt soooo good. I hadn't been in a week and I knew if I didn't get started again I would lose my habit that I have started forming. Fortunately my friend said she wanted to go too. I was thrilled to have a partner; but I was a bit worried that I would be found sadly lacking in the area of physical fitness. My friend runs quite a bit and the last time we ran together I was totally pathetic. I couldn't keep up with her at all. She would want to run I would be barely making it and wanting to stop. "Oh, well," I thought, "At least you can use it as motivation to push yourself and accomplish more." So, off we went. We got to the park and started to walk to warm ourselves up. It gave us a great chance to talk and catch up as well. About a half-mile later we started to run. I turned my music on to motivate me and started jogging at a comfortable pace. It felt good to be moving again. I had been pretty much physically inactive for the past week. I hadn't really had a chance to stretch my muscles or use them for anything physically challenging and they were thanking me for putting them to use. I moved along entering my comfortable pace, moving my body in rhythm to the music in my earphones. My breath was coming easily and I felt like I could run at least a mile. We continued for just over a half-mile. I started to notice that my friend was falling behind and I wondered if maybe it was because my legs are longer so my stride is longer. We stopped to walk for a bit. I noticed she was breathing a bit hard and she then informed me that I had set a good pace for us, that I was running a pretty fast mile for someone who doesn't run all the time. I was shocked. I always felt like I was moving so slowly and the main focus of my attention was to just keep going. I measured my runs by time spent running and the amount of time my heart rate was elevated. I had never thought that I ran fast, or even at a rapid pace. We talked and walked for a while longer and then ran another half-mile. I sprinted the last quarter of the stretch. It felt good to rush down the sidewalk, to feel the cool air hit my face and my sweaty self. When I reached the end I was out of breath but I felt so amazingly good. In all we had covered about 3 miles and I didn't feel like I was going to die. I just felt really good. Mostly I was so proud of myself. I have been pushing myself to get in shape for the last several months and I have not had a whole lot of success. Various problems have arisen and laziness has triumphed more than once but I have been successful for at least the last month. Then, last week I wasn't able to do anything and that was really depressing. I hated myself for falling off the wagon, so to speak, but I knew that I was determined to get back on. Running last night was the start of that and I am so happy with what I did. Maybe you wonder why I am going on and on about this or why I even bothered to post about. Well, when you are striving for something and it feels like you are hitting a brick wall every time, it gets rather discouraging to keep going. Good habits are hard to form and hard to maintain. This is something I have wanted for a long time and I am thrilled that I seem to finally be on the right track to achieving it and I am really proud of myself and the progress I have made. I wondered if I would ever really achieve this goal and now I know I can.