If He Can Do It....

I decided I wanted to run. I've always wanted to be a runner, but had bad knees that I've finally outgrown. So I decided it was time. I was motivated by watching my neighbor die of congestive heart failure. He reached a point, not long before his death, where he could not walk across the room and breathe. My other motivation is seeing some absolutely enormous people walking the halls at work. Waddling is more like it. It is such a visual representation of all that is decadent and overindulgent and unhealthy about Americans lives. I never, ever want to look like that.

So about a year ago, I started moving towards being physically fit. I've never been athletic and never been in good shape. I know the fibromyalgia makes physical activity painful, but that's just how it is for me. I'm not going to let it stop me. The Steamboat Classic race in Peoria - the world's fastest four mile race - has a training program for beginning runners. I did it as a walker a few years ago and at the end was in better shape than I'd ever been in. This year I decided it was time to run it.

The first night of the training was Wednesday. Everyone walks a mile out from the Riverplex, then runs (or walks) back. Based on your time running the mile, you put yourself in groups according to speed. I've been walking and running on my own - walking a few minutes, jogging a few - so I hoped I could jog the whole mile, I didn't really think I'd be able to.

I jogged almost the whole mile! About three quarters of the way through I stopped jogging and walked - quickly - for two or three minutes, but then I started jogging again. On the one hand, I am pretty proud of myself. On the other, it's pretty pathetic that after jogging less than a mile I could hardly walk the next day.

And the best part? I get to the end, having run/walked a 14 minute mile. I get with the slowest group, which would be the 13 minute mile group - they don't even have one for my speed (if you can call it that). Of the four trainers working with the group, the one clearly in charge is an older man. As he's telling us how the program works, Sal, the guy who runs the program, comes up and says he wants to tell us two things about the older man. One is that he's available and the other is that...he's 78 years old.

Sal adds that if a 78-year-old can do it, so can we. Sal should know. When he did the training program many years ago he couldn't run a quarter of a mile. So there's hope for me yet. The trainers made a point to say that by June 20th, we'll be able to run 4 miles, though one of the non-runners said she wanted that in writing. I'll let you know how things progress.