Over the weekend, after moaning that I needed to get fit and lose some of my flabby tummy, my friend managed to convince me to start running with him. To start small we will start to run on the track. As a warm up exercise we will run 2.5 km. In my mind I am screaming, "WHAT the hell!!!" Already I am coming with every excuse as to why I cannot run. I suffer with exercise induced asthma. The terrible stitches in my side that I will for sure experience. I keep playing in my mind: "What have I gotten myself into?"
Needless to say the day arrived. I got home from work with enough time to change. The weather was not particularly good. I phoned my friend to find out if we are still doing this, or we are cancelling due to the rain. To my avail, no such luck. We go running. To my surprise, the weather holds up.
He picks me up a little later. We arrive at the track. No stretching, no nothing. We go straight into it. For the warm up, we ran about 800 meter (I am guessing the distance because it was not on the track but to a gate and back.) I was relieved about not having to do a 2.5 kilometer one. Needless to say. I could not maintain a run throughout. I thought I was going to die and my lungs were on fire! My asthma kicked in on the silly warm up. I started to worry. How am I going to survive the entire training when I can barely run 800 meters? Thankfully I have a stubborn streak in me, and pushed myself through it all. I may not have run, but I did the distance alternating between a run and a walk. We get back. I try to ease the burn in my chest. At this point I have given up all regard to looking good. Red in the face, heaving away.
Finally stretching begins. The instructor goes and starts asking the newbies how much running they do. The lowest I heard was 5 kilometers. Boy did I feel like an idiot when it was my turn. I raised my hand and showed a big fat zero for me. To my surprise, he was completely unperturbed by it.
Once the stretches and skipping were done, we all were given a task. Mine was to run around the track 4 times. Four times 400 meters! Talk about a task that felt extremely daunting. I thought to myself: "This guy has got to be nuts!!". Other members had to run 10 times round. I guess 4 versus 10 was not so bad.
Once again, thanks to this stubborn streak, I decided that I will give it a good try and hope to not collapse halfway. Off I go. First round. Run half the field, walk a quarter, run the rest. Rest two minutes. Second round. Run 3 quarters of the field, walk the rest. The muscles are warm at this stage. They were feeling glorious. I cannot remember a time when they felt so good. Like they were finally doing something they were designed to do. After the three minute break, time for the third round. Run half the field, walk a quarter, run the rest. Fourth round. Run three quarters, walk a small section and run the rest. I arrived to the group and collapse on my back.
"Uh," says one of the ladies, "You must still do 10 push-ups and 10 sit-ups."
I'm like "WHAT!! Have you lost your mind??"
Needless to say, I did it. I survived. I slept like a baby that night. Now, I am even contemplating going back.
PS: If I can do it, so can you.
I came across this today, if you are thinking of running and need to ease into it, unlike me :-)
