I got a very encouraging email today from a friend. He was impressed with the progress I’ve made in running. It made me think through why, it seems all of a sudden, running is coming so easy to me. Well the fact is, it’s not really “all of a sudden”.
Last December I set out to lose 60 pounds by my daughter’s wedding at the end of May. Part of my lifestyle change was to start walking, I went from barely walking a mile on a tread mill in January to walking 5 to 7 miles a day by the time daughter got married. From there I just kept walking and walking until one day in late July I walked 15 miles in a day. It’s then that I realized there weren’t enough hours in the day to walk further and keep a full time job so if I wanted to keep increasing my workout I would have to start running. Again, at first, I would run half a mile, then walk a mile, and just kept increasing my running time day after day until one day I just didn’t stop running. It was kind of the opposite of “mind over matter”. My body was ready, but my mind wasn’t. I didn’t think I could run a mile, then I thought I’d never run a 5K, 10K was out of the question 2 weeks ago, now I’m planning a 50K walk/run. I’m no running guru, but I suspect all that walking strengthened my legs and knees so that I was ready to start running.
Maybe the old adage “You have to walk before you can run” is true.