Today marks the first day of Week 3 in my quest to become a running machine. As you can tell, I’m still breathing. This is good.

Today was also a true test of my commitment to the quest. See, my friend and running coach, Jodi, was not available to run with me this morning. PLUS, I was up veeeeery late last night at the Trailblazer game (hee, hee!), so I was dead tired.

However, in anticipation of the day when I would have to run by myself, I downloaded some podcasts from iTunes. LET ME TELL YOU NOW, these things are cool. I downloaded the “Podcasts for Running” by Robert Ullrey, which follow the Couch to 5K program, and are all free!! I like free stuff.

At 7:30 this morning, while Mitch loaded the boys up and took Grant to school, I went running by myself. See? I’m actually serious about this running thing.

I gotta tell you, I’m pretty sure Jodi is kicking my butt.

We run on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 7:30am. We started out on Week 1 by running for 1 minute, then walking for 1 minute for about 20 minutes. Killer. I’m terribly out of shape. Then, for Week 2, we started running for 1.5 min. and walking for 1 minute for about 24 minutes. {hurl!} I’m pretty sure that if Jodi had her way, we would have started in with running for 2 minutes and walking for 1 minute for about 25 minutes. {gasp!}

Instead, I listened to Robert Ullrey’s voice tell me to do this:

Brisk walk for 5 minutes
Run for 90 seconds
Brisk walk for 90 seconds
Run for 3 minutes
Brisk walk for 3 minutes
Run for 90 seconds
Brisk walk for 90 seconds
Run for 3 minutes
Brisk walk for 5 minutes

Uh, I can handle THAT!! In fact, the 3 minute runs weren’t even that bad. I think that if I had to run by myself on Wednesday, I would go ahead and skip ahead to his Week 4 podcast. (Okay, I just looked at Week 4. Uh, maybe I do want to stick with Week 3 for a few more days. Hee, hee!)

This is incredibly encouraging to me!! See, the Couch to 5K program is supposed to help you go from being a non-runner to being capable of running a 5K in NINE weeks.

If you are interested in starting to run, I would definitely recommend these podcasts. I’m going to show Jodi and see what she thinks about following these instead of just doing these intervals with short recovery times which leave me absolutely breathless and ready to keel over.

On to the weight thing. My goal is to lose 10 pounds by April 1st. Nothing has happened, yet. Unfortunately, I have this problem. I like to eat. SO, starting MONDAY (I always start my diets on Mondays) I am going to start eating right. Superbowl is this Sunday, so it will be my one last hurrah. (Am I pathetic, or what?)

HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE!

I really do want to lose the weight!!

How are the rest of you doing with your fitness goals?

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