From Zero to Hero: What Running Means to Me, Now!

Last summer I really indulged on food. I ate out almost everyday and did not watch what I was eating at all. One day I tried on a dress that I had worn before to wear it for an upcoming  wedding. To my surprise the dress did not fit! That was when I realized that I was approaching the 30's and my metabolism wasn't the same as before and I needed to loose the weight, not only to be able to wear the dress, but to feel better about myself. 

I told my neighbor about my problem and she asked me that if I wanted to walk around the neighborhood with her.I agreed, but I knew that wasn't the only thing I needed to do. From there a couple of things developed:

1. A great friendship
2. A passion for exercising, becoming fit and healthy.

I decided to get back into shape, but I refused to diet because I do not believe in them. We started to walk around our neighborhood, but soon it started to get cold and we decided to join a gym because we were seeing the progress out of our walks. So we traded the streets (jajajajajaja) to the dreaded treadmill ( believe me I had never been a fan of them). 

When the new year approached I started thinking of a New Year's resolution. That is when I decide to start running. I seeked help from different people because I knew I wanted to do it right. The first person I asked was my boyfriend, since he is a runner. Then I asked one of my co-workers that is a runner as well. I took both of their advise, and decided to get  more advise from other sources as well. I bought 3 books online that were recommended for non-runners like me. I inhaled all 3 books in a weekend and decided to follow the running plan that fit the best.

So each week I followed the running plan to a T. This is the plan I used from "The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer book:

To say that this plan worked is an understatement. I went from a Non-runner to a runner... Me a runner, a runner! The timeline of this also worked perfectly because soon after me jogging for 30 minutes it started to get nicer outside. We decided to split time between running outside and running at the gym. This was a big eye opener for me because I still had to acclimatized to running outside and in the cold. I have had a positive attitude towards running until I had to run outside. No book, no person who I had talked to about running prepared me for this. The first day I ran outside I probably ran for .50 mile and thought I was going to die. I couldn't understand how was it that I was able to run 3.10 at the gym without stopping and here I wanted to stop every 10 seconds. Needless to say, the cold got the better of me and got me sick. Did I quit? No, quit was not a word in my new vocabulary. So instead of running outside half the time, we decided to run once a week outside and the other 2 or 3 at the gym. Something similar happened when I got used to running outside and noticed that it was too hot to run outside and went back to the gym. 


Another thing I did was that I started to log in my run/walks to see how I was doing. I was lucky that at the gym the treadmills were linked to nike+ and all I had to do was plug-in my iPhone in  the treadmill, then all I had to do was plug-in my phone and sync it in my computer and voila, all my data was collected. When we started running outside a problem arise, I wanted to record my runs/walks too. So I did my research and bought the Nike+ GSP app for iPhone so all of my data was still in one place. Then after getting tired of carrying my iPhone while running, I broke and bought the nike+ watch. So as of today these are my stats:
                       
                         workouts            hours ran/walked   miles              pace                calories burned

It has been a big change for me but one for the better. I've had to overcome pain every where in my body, negative thoughts, sickness, exhaustion, among other things. It has been a hard road, but it has been worth it. 


Until next time and happy running,
Nats