So I got one of those Couch to 10k apps a few weeks ago because I want to start running again. Let me preface this by saying I have a love/hate relationship with running, with the hate part being slightly more overbearing than the love part. Why? Well, for a few reasons– it’s uncomfortable and it makes me sweaty and smelly. The worst part about it is it manages to leave me injured in multiple places, sometimes at once. I have to attribute this, in part, to my stupid flat feet. I have told my parents time and time again I will never forgive them for not getting me the corrective shoes the pediatrician recommended I get back in middle school. Now, I have what my husband annoyingly refers to as duck feet. This wouldn’t really be a problem to me if it weren’t for the fact that it leaves my feet constantly sore from regular activity and that’s before I even start thinking about going on a several-miles-long run. I’ve tried shoe inserts, exercises, even buying a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes from a reputable running store. The result? New injuries. I am almost certain the $150 shoes a sales lady talked me into a couple years ago are partially responsible for the knee injury that took me out of the running game in the middle of last year. I never had any knee trouble with my $30 clearance New Balance shoes. I wore them into the ground. Then, I buy the new shoes and bam! Knee problems. Even after talking nine months off from running, the knee still bugs me every now and then. I saw a doctor about it a while back. He said something about knee problems being common in women and sent me to an 85-bucks-a-session physical therapy place. I found it to be somewhat of a joke. I’m sure physical therapy is great in many circumstances and helps people recover from traumatic injuries. I don’t think it’s necessary for someone whose crappy, ridiculously over-priced shoes led to an issue that never existed before. Another ailment running causes for me is horrific blisters. I’m talking on the sides of my toes and right around where my arch should be. For months, I tried several methods to combat these nasty skin bubbles, including buying insanely high-priced specialty running socks, which promptly formed holes within just one or two uses. Finally, I stumbled on a friction block thingy. It’s a miracle worker. I used that and had no further issues with the blisters.
So, why am I taking this awful activity back up? Well, it’ pretty simple. Unfortunately, it’s the only way my body will willingly part with the dozens of unwanted pounds I put on while incubating my beautiful baby girl. And before someone else suggests this, I am well aware nursing can be a helpful weight loss tool. I am already on that train and having some success. I’m down about 35 pounds since June just with nursing. The problem with breastfeeding is that it makes you insanely hungry. I’m talking I can eat my dinner, seconds, and my kid’s leftovers and I still want more. This makes weight loss hard because anything I burn with the breastfeeding, I take right back in and then some. And I don’t want to eat steamed broccoli and grapes and plain grilled chicken like I’m supposed to. I want to eat a bucket of French fries and pair it with a half-gallon of ice cream. Okay, so I exaggerate… a little.
You might suggest that if I hate running so much I should consider trying out another form of exercise to lose weight. The problem with that is that I have to do much more work with other activities to achieve the same results. And I’m not looking to lose a couple pounds. I’m hoping to shed the equivalent of a toddler from my body, so I need something that burns serious calories. And I’m poor, so I can’t take up any of those expensive exercise programs that all the moms on the discussion boards go on and on about. I’ve tried a few other workout options with little success in the past. I used to own a treadmill for walking, but I lack the necessary coordination to use a treadmill and walking basically burns no calories. The treadmill now lives at my parents’ house… along with the fancy recumbent exercise bike I bought when I wanted to lose weight before the kids were born. I got the contraption so I could exercise my heart out while watching my soap opera. And, to be fair, it got some good use. I kid you not, I spent an hour plus on that thing three or four days a week, pedaling at the highest resistance allowed the entire time. The little calorie counter inflated my ego with deceptive feedback. If you want a machine that will blatantly lie to you, invest in one of these. I’d finish my workout all excited about the 1,200 calories it said I’d burned. But I wasn’t really seeing any results in terms of my body. I’ll be honest. I didn’t change anything about my eating habits. I figured since I was spending several hours a week exercising now, that should take care of things. And, truthfully, I did lose a little weight. A few pounds here and there. And my legs got ripped! But my soft belly remained.
When I got pregnant with baby number 1, I quit exercising out of fear I would miscarry. I’d already lost one baby and was overly paranoid about losing another so I didn’t start working out again until after he was born. It shames me to say this, but I got to just over 200 pounds by the end of that pregnancy. I was about 160 when I got pregnant. I’m short, so neither of those numbers looks good on me. Around this time, my husband had decided he wanted to get in shape after putting on his own baby weight. He began running and was competing in races just a few months after our son’s birth. When I started saying I wanted to lose weight, he encouraged me to take up running. I resisted it with everything I had because I remembered how awful it was for me when I was forced to do it in PE classes. But I couldn’t argue with his results. He was losing weight and in all the places I needed to shed pounds. He kindly helped me start out slowly. He would run his 5k distances in the mornings. After work, we’d go to a local school track and he’d have me walk two minutes and run a minute. I won’t sugar coat this. It sucked. I yelled at him frequently during the running portions, insisting that he was lying about how long we’d been running for. The walking intervals felt so short compared to the running spurts.
But, eventually, it got easier and I was running more than I was walking. And I did end up liking it to an extent. That runner’s high all the crazy (but amazing) distance runners tell you about is a real thing. There’s a certain point in every run where I just get really happy and feel almost free, like there is nothing to worry about in that moment and everything is okay in the world. It’s just me and the outdoors and the Goo Goo Dolls blasting in my ears. Before my knee injury, I had managed to run 11 straight miles without stopping for a walk break. I was running at a pretty steady pace of 10:30 or less per mile. Best of all, I was in better shape than I’d been in in several years. I got all the way down to 130 pounds- a number I hadn’t seen since high school.
In May 2013, I decided I wanted to run a half marathon and began a training program to reach that goal. I ran something like 90 miles that month- the most I’d ever done. Then, I got injured. It started slow. I would have a little twinge of pain in my knee during my longer runs, but nothing I couldn’t push through. After a few weeks, though, it got worse and my knee would almost lock up in pain when I climbed the stairs at home. It began to get so bad that I couldn’t even walk around the store without feeling the pain. Around this time, my husband and I were supposed to run a 10.5k race in town. It was going to be my first race and I was hoping for a PR. I got one, just not in the way I wanted. It was my slowest run on record. I ran the first half of the race before my knee surrendered, forcing me to hobble with my husband’s help to the finish line. I think we ended with a time of about an hour and 34 minutes. After that, I took about three weeks off before trying to start back again. I worried taking a long break like that would mean I’d have to start training all over again from the very beginning. Thankfully, I didn’t have to start back at the beginning, but I did lose a lot of my training in that short amount of time. After the break, I could get about a mile or two in before feeling beat. The weight started to slowly come back now that I was only running a few miles a week compared to the 20 or so I was doing before. After months of working at it, I finally got up to five miles, just weeks before another scheduled 10k run. Then, I discovered I was pregnant with baby number two and my paranoia forced me to take it easy again.
So, here I am, trying to become a runner again. I am about to start my third week of the program. In two weeks, it says I’ll be half way to a 5k. My goal is to be able to run a 10k by November and a possibly a half-marathon by March next year. It seems attainable right now, but who knows if I’ll get there. I’m hoping the need to lose weight will keep me motivated. One thing is for sure, I’m avoiding the “recommended” running shoes in favor of a much cheaper pair the hubby found me at Ross. So far, they are working well. Here’s hoping the trend continues.
theledemom 