It’s not a fascinating story I’m afraid, and I know 5k isn’t that much but when you haven’t done it before it seems very daunting. I hate running. Ok let me re-phrase that. I hate continuous running. Sprints and hill sprints yep I am happy to take part, but having to run longer than 100m count me out.
That was until I started dating a runner. Not a professional, just a lady that liked to run as her main/favourite type of exercise. Just a very quick Google search and you can find some health benefits to running, such as: it can help to build strong bones. Strengthen muscles. Improve cardiovascular fitness. Burns kilocalories. Helps maintain a healthy weight. Just to name a few.
As a kid, I ran, played sports (until high school) rode around my streets on a bike, I was fairly active. I had always been fascinated about lifting weights and exercise ever since I used to see my dad workout at home. This led me to body weight workouts then to lifting weights. As I got older I ran less but carried on with resistance training.
The moment I decided I wanted to be able to run (my goal is 7k) was after I had watched the Crossfit documentary Fittist on earth. My goals were to never be a huge guy, just fit and strong. I came to the realisation (thanks to the girlfriend at the time) that I wasn’t really that fit, as I didn’t run. After a day or so of thinking about it, then setting my goal I decided to make at start at this running thing. The plan was, and still is, to only run once a week, which fits nicely into my fitness goals.
My first attempt I wanted to see how far I could actually go. I lasted just over 2k, I’m not going to lie, I wanted to give up before I even hit the 1k mark. The following week went to 2.7k then 3k the following. Every week I increased it by 1 kilometre, as you can guess I got to 5k after 2 weeks. Once I hit 5k I did this 2 weeks in a week row, then I stopped. I would like to say that it was because I was busy and life got in the way but the honest truth is that I got lazy as I didn’t enjoy it and kept putting it off I’m afraid to say.
May 2019 I went on holiday for 2.5 weeks with my girlfriend at the time (the same one who likes to run) She love a hike and she was really interested in doing the sunrise volcano hike that you could do, I booked it for us thinking yeah It’ll be an experience. Oh man it was hell. My cardiovascular (CV) system was on fire during the hike. Don’t get me wrong; my CV system is strong, only in the sense that I have a quick recovery but no stamina.
I decided that once I was back on home soil I was going to put more effort in doing 5k. My first run when I got back was 2 miles and I moaned the whole way round, it’s funny when I think about it now. At this point I decided to just run as far as I could for 20 minutes. I stopped about 3 times, only managing to do just a little over 2 miles. The girlfriend suggested that instead of stopping, to slow down to almost a crawl (it was great advice). Not having done much or even that well since we came back, I was forced into a 5k park run.
It was a pretty chilly Saturday morning, I was tired and really not in the mood to do this run. I knew that I had to start I have goals to achieve. When we started, my other half ran off, I was left with my own thought, which mostly consisted of my brain telling me to stop and walk the rest of the way. I ignored that thought and pushed on. Another runner actually ran with me for the last 3k, which really helped, he spoke to me and it took my mind of the burning of my lungs and the two huge lumps of lead I called legs, which I was trying to move. I had to walk about 20 meters as I thought I was going to be sick, then ran the last 200m. I was glad I did a park run, yet still disappointed I had to stop.
The following week, the girlfriend and me went out again (no park run this time) I was determined to hit 5k. She stayed a little ahead of me this time. The first two kilometres was hard, I managed to find a way to breath through it, which really helped me along. This time I managed 6k. Now I really knew I could get through a whole 5k. I did this during the park run the following week. So far I have managed to keep hitting 5k every week constantly, even though I now run on my own, which I thought would actually be the hardest element of it.
Photo by Juliano Ferreira on Pexels.com
It doesn’t take much to find a goal you want to hit. The troublesome part would only be finding the right way to hit it. A lot of trial and error, but with a little patience you can do it. We all need to have a tortoise mentality to our health goals. Well with that in mind I need to get back to practicing my muscle-ups.
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