Couch 2 5K ~ Week 1, Day 1

I woke up this morning and one of the first things on my mind was this: "today I start the Couch 2 5K program. Why did I sign up for this?! Why did I sign up for a 5K this April?" My mind was flooded with negative thoughts. Negative thinking. No! No more! I quickly changed my attitude to: "Today starts a new journey! Today I'm going to change my life!" Because it's January and I live in Ohio, that means it's cold outside. Every day. And the sun rarely comes out. It's just a bunch of crappy with a side of awful most days! I've tried to embrace winter and the "beauty of the season", but honestly, it's just hard. Because of the snow outside and the very cold temps, my sister Beth graciously is allowing me to use her treadmill at their house while it's yucky outside. So, my son and I arrive at her farmhouse today to begin day 1 of my new training program. She takes me upstairs to show me how to get it started, sets up her ipad so I can watch something on Netflix while I exercise. I hit "start" on my running app and on the treadmill, and off I go. I notice right away that the treadmill belt is skipping some. I almost biff it a few times! Ha! I tell Beth about it and she looks a little puzzled; like it hasn't happened to her before. Well, let me just remind you that Beth and my niece Emma are maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. I am...not. I'm sure when they both run on this treadmill, it's not sqeaking and making these noises. It's like the treadmill was saying..."Whoa, who in the world is this?? Ouch!!" You have to find the humor in it, right? This poor treadmill is used to two small ladies running on it with perfect form, gazelle like speed, etc. And then here I come... I wanted a program that started me out slowly. I didn't want to set the bar too high, too quickly. This app is perfect for this. It started with a 5 minute brisk warm up walk, followed by 1 minute of jogging, and then 90 seconds of walking. Repeat for 30 minutes, ending with a 5 minute cool down walk. I survived!! My knee hurt, due to an old ACL injury and surgery that I had, but otherwise felt ok. Beth is also having me do a couple differnt hip exercises that will help my knee too. Strong hips = stronger knees. I'm sure I'll be sore as heck tomorrow. This program starts out with you walking/running 3 times a week, and then you slowly build up your time and distance over the course of 10 weeks or so. Justin and I signed up for a 5K that is on April 24 in downtown Columbus. It's the Cap City Half Marathon and 10K and Commit to Be Fit 5K. Now that we are signed up, I have a goal to achieve. To finish. Does that mean I have to run super fast and have a record setting time? No. I just want to run it and finish. That's my goal. And once we finish, we start working towards the next goal. And dang it, I want to put one of those 5K stickers on my car!! Usually I would gravitate towards the one that says "0.0 I don't run." I always joke that if someone saw me running, they better run too because something is probably chasing me. Day 1, check!