Progress

So I recently decided that I wanted to be able to run a 5k. Now, by recently, I mean about 2 weeks ago. I started this off by walking around the park here where I live. You may be going, wait, walking? Why are you walking? That's not running! You said run a 5k! Let me explain a few things about my thinking here.

1.) When I was in high school I went skiing with my youth group. I'd never been before, so I took the lesson and all that. On my first attempt at the bunny slope I failed fantastically and ended up slamming my back in the huge pole that holds up the ski lift and fracturing my hip. Impressive, I know. So I don't have back problems or anything, but I have to be careful.

2.) I've never been exactly.. fit. Now, I'm not fat (Okay, there were a really bad 6 months once, but we don't talk about that.) Even as a newbie freshman in college rocking a whole size 2 body, running a mile was pure torture for me. I huffed and puffed my way through it every Friday for a class, but my god, it was bad.

So my thinking was that I could work up to jogging once I started getting faster with my walking and in better shape. My goal here is fit, not fat! I want to be able to achieve my goal, I'm not worried about what I weigh. Anyways! I've been walking for about 2 weeks now, and last night my cousin asked to come with me. My cousin is 20 years old (that's 5 younger than me) AND she's always been athletic. She currently coaches a girls basketball team and plays in her church softball league. So I'm sitting here going "Great, she's going to come in here and absolutely school me and I'm gonna look like a nub."

So we meet up and set out at the park last night. Less than 5 minutes in I realize something that made my day. She couldn't keep up with me. I know, it's silly. But hey, it's the little things.  My 2 weeks of walking have put me at a pace that an average athletic person apparently finds too fast! I was absolutely ecstatic during the whole thing. AND! Her being the competitive person she is, we added bursts of jogging into our walk (I may have been egging her on, but pushing each other is what we do, and we love each other like sisters). I was using RunKeeper, an iPhone app that I'm in love with now and our average time per mile was pretty pathetic, but when we weren't jogging we were going at what felt like a dismally slow pace to me. Even with the jogging, I didn't get out of breath once, and we ended up doing 4 1/2 miles.

I guess the point of this is: I'm making progress towards my goal, and it feels great! I'm gonna hit the trails again this evening by myself and see what my average time per mile is. Seeing this has made me want to keep going even more! Is this how people get addicted to running?