Greg Fitness Update: 1 Year of Running

Greg: April 2010/April 2011

On April 30th 2010, I was in Utah at the end of a work conference I was attending there and decided today would be the day that I start the Couch-to-5K running program once and for all.  I'd been playing a bit on treadmills, but this was my first out-door honest-to-goodness run.  I'd never run before in my life without a gym coach yelling at me.  The longest I'd ever "run" was the mile and a half--which I never fully ran, I merely ran past the coach and would usually walk the back half of the lap.

Greg's birthdays 2010/2011

Today is April 30th 2011.  I've lost 75 pounds on my way to a full 100, and feel better than ever.  I've accomplished a lot in the past year running-wise.  I've hit quite a number of milestones.  As I mentioned above, I'd never run more than a mile and a half in my life.  And since I usually walked a good part of that, probably never run more than a full mile straight ever.  I wasn't even sure I could run, but I was desperate to find something that could help me start losing some weight.

I worked on the Couch-to-5K program over the summer.  I remember the first time I was supposed to run 20 minutes straight.  I could barely sleep that night, but the next day I made it.  By the end, I was running 30 minutes straight.  I was far from the 5K that the plan promised, but distance aside, I was increasing my time.  I started the Couch-to-5K over again, this time replacing the cycles of walking and jogging with jogging and faster jogging.  I also started increasing my running time with longer runs on the weekend.  Eventually, I got to the full 5k (3 miles) and moved on.  By fall I was doing 4 miles, by winter 5 miles, by spring 6 miles.  In February I competed in my first 10K race at the Fort Worth Cowtown races.

Now, a year later, my longest running distance is 6.5 miles (which I ran yesterday.)  I regularly run 3 miles several times a week and do a long run on the weekends.  I've run for an hour and fifteen minutes straight. I've run a single mile in under 10 minutes several times, but I'm still working towards that 30 minute 5K (and hour 10K).

A year came make a big difference.  I suppose if I formally pushed myself a little better I'd be running marathons by now, but I'm still quite surprised and happy by how far I've come.  Just 25 more pounds to go...