Back in the saddle again...

Yesterday morning, Joe and I woke up earlier than we have in probably a month (at least on the weekend).  We've gotten in this bad habit of sleeping LATE on the weekends.  I won't say how late lest you parents roll your eyes and curse me, but late.

Anyway, yesterday we woke up earlier and we decided to work out.  Truthfully, I didn't want to.  I had taken a sleeping pill the night before and was still really groggy.  And I knew that if I told him that I would do the 30 Day Shred video while he worked out, that would be a lie.

So we got dressed and we went to the workout room together because I knew that even 10 minutes on the elliptical would be better than nothing.

Camilla the Exercise Queen was on the treadmill running at a 8.0 pace AND READING A BOOK.  Folks, I don't know how that can be done, but I'm pretty sure that means she's not human.

I did the elliptical for about 5 minutes until she got off the treadmill and then I took her place.

I was SO nervous.  I hadn't run since October 6th.  What if I sucked completely?  What if I couldn't run at all?  What if Joe saw me fail?  What if my belly (that has grown amazingly fast in the last few months) hit the reset button, causing the treadmill to halt suddenly, and causing me to trip and fall?  I'm just saying...it's a possibility that floats in my head.

But I ran anyway.

And I'm kind of proud and also kind of not-so proud of the progress that I made. 

First, I ran the first mile - at a pace that was MUCH slower than my standard pace - but I ran the whole thing! 

But after that I didn't have much juice left - so I walked at a 4.2 and 3.0 incline (alternating running at a 5.2 pace at 0 incline) for the rest of our 30 minute work-out time.

It's not super fast - and it's far off my awesome pace of under 10 minutes/mile that I worked myself to.

But it's a starting point.

I found myself wanting to give up during that first mile...and then I realized that I actually wasn't hurting.  I wasn't out of breath and my lungs weren't on fire.  I was just uncomfortable.  It didn't feel good to move my body in such a way after such a long time of not running.  I was tired.  I was lethargic.  And I REALLY hate running on a treadmill.

I told myself to suck it up anyway.  One mile of constant running wasn't going to kill me, dammit.  And I wanted to prove it to myself that I could do it.

And I did.

Between doing that and the shred video, I'm super sore today. 

I'm sad at how much pace/time/distance I've lost.  But I'm happy that I have a new starting point.

I've signed up for the 5 mile Cherry Creek Sneak in May and the 7K Running of the Green in March.  I have a lot of distance to make up, but it feels good to have a goal again - one that isn't based on the number on the scale.