It is Monday, January 12 and 8 degrees outside. I have to run for 21 minutes. I put on my gear, head out the door, and get hit with that first blast of cold and I think, what the hell am I doing?  I keep going. I do my warm up walk, set my timer for 21 minutes and I run. Now I am thinking I am just crazy because when I got done I thought, “That was not that bad or cold.”  What is happening to me??

Wednesday, January 14 is our first Wednesday group run. It is so nice to see these familiar faces going through this journey together. We split up by running/walking goal and are lead by one of the Foundations Mentors in stretching and warm up before we head off for our run. I am not a fast runner, in fact, of my 10K run group, I am the slowest — and I am ok with that. Slow and steady, may not win the race, but it will get you to the finish line!  I ran for 25 minutes tonight.

Our Spring Foundations Training  Group!

Saturday, January 17 group training run. We met at Dance Life Studio & Fitness to first work on our core. To do this we participated in a belly dancing basics class. Yes, I said belly dancing.  Some of us put on the fancy coin belts to get in the mood as we danced. It was fascinating and I think I am definitely going to sign up for additional classes.

We did our training run and it was 2 miles or 20-32 minutes depending on your pace. I have decided, I don’t like to say the miles part of it, I just like to say “today I will run for 32 minutes”.  It could or could not be 2 miles. I do have to get a watch to track my pace/miles/time but for now I want to enjoy the act of running versus making it so technical.

Post run or walk as a group we met next door at Digman Fitness. Corey Digman, owner, taught us some preventative strength and conditioning exercises and stretches along with how and why to we should use a foam roller post work out.

As I am going into week number two of the program, I am starting to feel stronger, more confident and learning to take the “hate” out of running.