We’ll See

My friend from our Seattle days, Lindy, is a runner.  She does marathons, etc.  A few years back, my then seminary-wife friend, young  Jessie, ran a half-marathon here in St Louis.  Now I see that my friend from Atlanta, Jennifer, is running in 5ks and 10ks.  I am always impressed when I learn about their achievements, and I always encourage them.   I have lots of other friends who run for exercise, too.  But at my size and with all the failed exercise attempts of my life, it seems running is not for me.

Well, I have been thinking about it alot, and I finally asked Lindy what she would recommend for someone like me who is way overweight who would like to start running.  She recommended this book:

 I ordered the book used from an amazon seller, and last night when I was killing time at Borders, I read the first chapter.  It was inspiring. The author, John Bingham, was 43, a smoker, overweight, etc., when he started to run.  He advocates walking and interspersing short runs until you run out of breath throughout your walk to get started.  He writes a column in Runner’s World magazine, and I looked at that last night, too.  The starting program in it advocates just walking 30 minutes 3 days a week, and on the opposite days going out to walk and interspersing it with running.

I’ve read a lot of inspirational diet and exercise books before.  I have participated in a lot of diets and exercise programs before.  I have even lost lots of weight before.  But here I am years later with nothing to show for it.  It might be that I will start this and not keep with it.  It might be that I will start it, and I’ll be able to run, but I’ll lose no real weight.  However, if I don’t give it a go, I’ll never know.

So, here’s my goal–to be able to go on a hike with my 4 kids at a local state park by my birthday toward the end of July without being winded.   I don’t think it is too lofty, and it gives me a motivator.  We’ll see.

9 thoughts on “We’ll See”

  1. Thanks Brandy.

    I just returned from my first walk/run. I set my phone alarm to go off 15 minutes from my starting point, and turned around and came back when the alarm went off. I probably “ran” about 15 seconds of the entire time out, but it was something. When I got back home, I jumped in the car and retraced my route to see how far I went. In 30 minutes, I walked 1.8 miles. It’s nothing to be overly excited about, but it’s a good start. I also now know how far a half-mile is so I can help the kids know how far we need to go to do a short mile walk.

    I am trying to look at this as a “one-day-at-a-time” thing so I will hopefully be less likely to quit.

  2. How exciting! I can’t wait to see you enjoy yourself in the process – I really bet you will! There are a lot of really inspirational websites, too, if you google something like, “rookie marathon runner”. I always think its helpful to just shoot to reach your goal today, and not get overwhelmed by the end goal you are striving for. And if I am that same friend, I actually ran a whole marathon in Memphis…lets be sure I get the correct credit now b/c I don’t think my body will ever do it again! 😉

  3. Jessie,

    You are that friend. And now that you mention it, I remember that you did the full marathon in Memphis. I should have remembered that 🙂

    I am sure your body could do it again. Now that you’re a New Yorker, shouldn’t you try to do one of the big marathons, like NY or Boston?!

  4. Change starts with little beginnings. I hope that you are successful and enjoy the benefits of even walking. You go girl!!!

  5. Joanie,

    Thanks for the encouragement. I intended to go short mile walk today, but my knees didn’t want to cooperate. Tomorrow, I will go a mile, and then work from there.

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