WEEK ONE by Jill

Today I began training for a marathon.  [Insert triumphant sigh and far off wistful look of pride].  Fine.  It’s not a marathon.  It’s a 5K.  But it sounds so prestigious to say you’re training for a marathon.

Ok. Let’s take a few steps back to how this all began, in a text message conversation:

Cassie:  Jill!  Let's train for and run the Disney Princess 5K in March!!

Jill:  Ok.  Let me finish my cheese fries first!  Seriously though, if you will, I will.  

Cassie:  It would be so great to set a goal and achieve something physically.  We only have to keep a 16-minute mile pace for the whole 5K.  

Jill:  Wait!!!  How long is that?

Turns out, a 5K is 3.1 miles.  So how do you start training for something like this?   Well, Cassie is no dummy.  She googled it, of course.  And we found "How to Go From Couch Potato to Marathon (oops, I mean 5k) Runner in 9 Weeks."  And she didn’t just forward the article.  No- she printed in out.  And brought it with her.  To the gym (which we immediately decided to leave since there weren’t two treadmills together).  So we took our couch potato behinds and our papers, complete with the 9-week strategy and the instructions for the 5 minute stretching process, to the lakefront.  Real runners run outside.  But we still looked for the closest parking spot to the trail. 

So here we are, at the lakefront.  We prepare to stretch.  We trade wall stretches for lean-up-against-the-mini-van stretches and read thoroughly through each stretch, moving our bodies accordingly.  We opt out of the ground stretches because people walk their dogs here, too.  And then we start.  The plan is to walk for 90 seconds, then to run for 60 seconds.  The first sequence begins.  We are feeling good.  We are walking, talking, joking.  Then Cass says, "Okay, in 5 seconds we've got to run."  Please.  The only time I run is to the bathroom, after 2 cups of coffee and a Diet Coke.  In fact, I've never run.  I despise aerobic activity.  I tried to get out of it, but she wouldn’t hear of it.  And so we run.

We are running.  And it feels good!  I don’t feel like I’m going to die.  However, my legs are itching uncontrollably.  I’m trying to scratch them while I'm running so I don’t mess up the sequence and look like a complete fool.  Her legs weren’t itching.  So being the 21st century cosmopolitan woman I am, I whip out my iPhone mid-run and google "itchy legs."  And we are still walking.  Cassie almost steps in dog poo.  Old men are passing me.  Svelte women who do this all the time are giving me the “Oh you poor thing” glance.  And google tells me that itchy legs while running are a result of activity after really long periods of inactivity.  And basically it says you have shocked the blood vessels in the muscles you are working.  So not only was I saying I don’t wanna run, but so were my thighs!

A couple more sequences go by and we are at the 1½ mile mark.  And things aren’t as easy.  Breathing is heavier.  Now my legs, arms, back, and abdomen are itching, since all those muscles have been inactive for so long too.  Sweat is rolling down my body and we haven’t cracked a joke in several minutes.  I want to quit completely but Cassie holds strong! She wants to keep going so we do, all the way back to the car.  Two miles and 30 minutes later, we had completed Day 1 of training.  We felt so accomplished! 

And we rewarded ourselves by sitting on the couch and eating a chocolate cupcake.