I had once achieved a pretty big accomplishment. Then, I fell off the wagon. I lapsed. I picked up old habits and stopped new ones, I got into my own head, and I looked outside myself for the blame. I let things go to the point where I wasn’t running at all anymore. I joked about being Oprah-esque in my battle with weight, and there’s no one that can be harder on me than me. I’m my own harshest critic, so I’d make the joke about it before anyone could even decide if it mattered.
I tried to start running again in January of 2019 (I had started this as a New Year’s Resolution after all), but I only got so far, and … I stopped. I barely got half way through the Couch to 5k running program last year. It was disheartening, but that’s where things stood.
Something had happened, though. In the latter half of 2018, and through 2019, I started to lose weight. I was eating better, and even though I wasn’t exercising, the weight was coming off. Things started to feel good.
December 2019 rolled around and I decided it was time to start running again. Here’s a reality check: it’s far less conducive to run in the rain and gloom of the Lower Mainland in the winter, than it is to run in the cold and the snow of the Rest of Canada. But starting in January, I restarted the Couch to 5K running program. Again. This time it stuck, and I finished that mid-April (a few weeks behind “schedule”), and have been running 5k three times a week for a couple of weeks now.
The Couch to 5k Running plan – the key to everything for my running.
It feels good. I’m enjoying the running again, and enjoying connecting to my friends and contacts who are runners – and I’m only going 5 kilometers at a time. Most importantly, I’ve overcome the biggest hurdle that I had – shame. I was quite ashamed that I had put weight back on, that I had stopped running, that I had stopped staying in contact with people. Like anyone else, I had a fear of what people would think of me. Now I’m interested in telling a story again.
If you’re interested, follow along. As I approach 50 in a matter of months, I’m still on a journey – one I began about 10 years ago, and I have no clear idea where I’m going. I have set my goals, but I don’t have a clear roadmap yet. I just know that I’m on a path, and I’m currently putting one foot in front of the other.
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