It wasn't always this way. (see picture to the right)Actually, up until about a year ago it never was this way. I was always one of those people who thought that people who ran were crazy, and the ones who did races like 10K's and marathons were even crazier. I first started to run because I wanted to realize a dream of mine. That dream was to join the military, and being 250 pounds wasn't going to get me there. I had to do something and just losing the weight wasn't going to be enough. I was going to have to be able to run, and be able to run a mile in a specified amount of time or so I thought. In reality I would need to run two miles in under 17:42. So I set out to lose weight and make the initial 1 mile running goal. The weight goal was to be 205 pounds or less. In mid May of last year this quest began, and by the end of May I was logging my exercise time and food intake with apps on my iPhone, tweeting and updating my Facebook status with the latest great accomplishment in my exercise routine. I think my first post went something like this: ran .2 miles walked .3 miles I think I am going to die.
Upon my return to the house I was thinking there is no way I will ever be able to run a mile straight. Feeling beat up and exhausted I retired to the shower to nurse my pain and wash away the feeling of failure. My goal was to run to the end of the street and back and I didn't even make it half way before I felt like I was going to puke. I would figure out later that what I had actually ran in total that day was closer to .15 miles than it was to the .5 I thought I had run.
So my transformation into a runner began, and continued in such a fashion until I could actually make it to the end of the street and part of the way back. Each venture out was just as painful and in some more so than the one before. All the while I was continuing to do lifting routines and post the feeble results online. What a joy it must have been for others to be reading my perceived great accomplishment of the day.
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