I have to keep telling my self that fairly often.

When I was younger I was a runner.

I ran for me.  I ran because I enjoyed it.  I ran to collect my thoughts.

I started running at the athletic club where we belonged.  In high school my mom canceled that and I had to run outside on the street.  Which I found I enjoyed more.

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I loved clipping on my walk-man, yes that says walk-man, and heading out of the house.  There was so many directions I could run, to change-up the scene a bit.  My mind would wonder and clear.  When it got hard, I would push through and keep going, because I had to get back to the house somehow.

Eventually, it was harder to find the time.  We lived where it wasn’t safe for me to run alone.  We lived where it was too cold to run outside.  Many reasons, well mostly excuses on why I stopped running.

For a while now I have wanted to start running again.  I didn’t because I had a mental block.  I knew I couldn’t just run like I used, I had to start out slowly, and run intervals.  However, I just couldn’t figure out how to start.

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Sometime last October my cousin was talking about how she started this Couch to 5K program.  Which I thought was just a name she thought of, cause she is funny like that.

Turns out it is an actual program.  Someone sat down and thought about the best way to get people to run a 5K (about 3 miles) in nine weeks time.  It is specifically designed for people who have not run in a long time, or have never been running.  It is designed for a 30 minute workout, three times a week.

There are a lot of resources out there, some are free, some you pay for.  I like this website because he has complied a whole list of resources for you to get started.

In October I joined a gym and I started running.  I am too old for running in poor weather right now, so I run on a treadmill.

I downloaded this free app.  There was some complications and then the holidays, so I didn’t quite keep on schedule.  I still ran, but sometimes I repeated some of the days.  I am now on track to be able to run a 5K in two weeks time.

I am not gonna lie.  It has been hard.  My lungs are not happy, my knees hurt and I need a new sports bra.  I have to learn to breathe again.

My run on Monday night was the most difficult yet.  I was just sooo tired, Baby Sid is teething, and both him and Ian woke me up a number of times the night before.  It was the first time since I started that I had to sneak in a minute of walking during a running interval.  Because I felt I was going to fall over.

But here I am now.  I am a runner.  I run. I run. I run. I am a runner….well almost.

Happy Running