Born to Run

Okay, a couple weeks ago, Amy told me that she was going to start training for a 5K and asked me if I wanted to do it with her. Due to my new body by Jake, I agreed. We're following a training program put together by the owner of RunTex. The first thing you should know about me is that I don't like to run. Period. When I was a kid I loved running short distances and was actually very fast. I won many a blue ribbon at the all school track meets. But even back then I had sense enough to know that there was just no good reason to run distances longer than, oh say, 200 meters. I mean I was never going to have to chase down an antelope or anything to capture it for food. I could just always go to the Toot-N-Totem if I needed a snack. And walking there would do just fine.

So, the first week of our training really just consisted of two or three days walking or jogging for thirty minutes walking as necessary. That was pretty easy. Week two got a little more strenuous with one workout consisting of two minute intervals of walking and jogging for thirty minutes. That was a lot harder. But, Amy and I both felt very proud when we accomplished this amazing athletic feat. So, now here we are in week 3 and today's workout was supposed to be twenty minutes long with five minutes of walking followed by five minutes of jogging followed by five minutes of walking followed by five minutes of jogging. Makes me tired just typing it! Amy emailed me when she had finished this workout and was so very proud that she had done it even though in her words she looked "like a geriatric" at the end. I was also excited to do this workout. I figured I was ready to run five minutes straight since I had proven to be an expert at running two minutes straight already. I mean, what's three more minutes? TORTURE! Three more minutes is torture.

I take our golden retriever Brady, who is about 15 pounds overweight, with me on these workouts. I have to say, I take him because it used to boost my self esteem. He had such a hard time walking for thirty minutes, God bless him. I always felt a little superior. It seems that Brady is much better suited for the running than I am. For Brady, running is pure, tongue-hanging out, jumping up and down joy. I don't get it. The really sad part is that today during my first five minutes of jogging I looked over at him to see how he was doing and he was actually just walking. WALKING! I'm running and he only has to walk to keep up with me. And he's not even panting hard. He was mocking me. Then, on my second round of five minutes jogging, he sabatoged my whole workout by jumping in front of me and tripping me. Granted, he had a good reason. There was, after all, a trashcan on the side of the road that scared him because trashcans are SCARY. So after tripping over a 105 pound golden retriever, it seems that I have pulled or stretched or inflamed a muscle running from the back of my knee all the way up to my rear end. This could set me back for days. I'm really upset because I was so looking forward to doing a 40 minute easy walk/jog tomorrow.