W5D2

"Our sport is your sport's punishment."

I've been lurking on Runnersworld lately and remember seeing this quote in someone's signature. It really hits home, mainly because I've been doing a lot of thinking about my early experiences with running.

The "President's Physical Fitness Test" was one of the most dreaded weeks of my elementary school career. They'd make us attempt to do pullups and other difficult exercises. The culmination of this annual humiliation was the "Mile Run". The teachers would lay out a course and time each student. I remember spending the majority of it walking, out of breath, and getting passed by other kids.

As I got older and participated in jr high sports and then marching band all the way through college, the penalty for screwing up was "take a lap!". I hated running. I hated the thought of running. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do it.

Well, today I completed W5D2 of the Couch to 5K. I ran two intervals of 8 minutes with only 5 minutes rest between runs. It's no more than I ran last week (16 minutes) but just the first 8 minutes was the longest uninterrupted time spent running in my entire life. Furthermore, at the end of the first interval, I know that I *could* have kept going. Wow.

And I was fine. When I started the run, I reminded myself of the things that got me through W1, like keeping the pace slow. Sure, I was breathing heavily, but I was able to curb Lucy when she started pulling on the leash. I was able to look around. I was able to stay positive when Ullrey gave time warnings for the other runs on this week's podcast. I was hyped.

I am so incredibly excited about this weekend's run. I'm going to mow that sucker down.