Earlier this year, the GOALden girls and I sat down and wrote down some short-term goals we wanted to accomplish. One of mine was to get into an exercise routine. Of course I knew upon writing this goal that it would probably never amount to much. Exercise and I have a spotty relationship. We often go through a honeymoon period about twice a year where we fall deeply in love. Then that love usually wears off and we take a little cooling off period. We see other people. But, we always seem to get back together eventually.
Anyway, being that I knew that I wouldn't follow through on this vague goal, I made a second goal- to run in the Turkey Trot this year. So to torture myself, I decided to run the 3 miles without any sort of pre-training. Instead, I signed up for the event and hoped that my body would just kick into gear. I overestimated my level of fitness... about 2 minutes into the run, I got a side cramp.
Not to worry, I decided to keep going. I decided my body was punishing me for not exercising in advance, and I didn't blame it. So I continued running and even made it all the way to mile 2 before the "I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die." mantra entered into my head. At that point there was a water station up ahead, so we slowed to a walk. As we reached the water station, a small boy thrusts a cup of water towards me. Half of it spilled on my long-sleeve t-shirt, but I was already numb enough to ignore this minor detail.
After swigging down the water, my trusty running partner motivated me to actually finish the run... (Actually the only way she got me to run was by pointing out that we were going downhill.)
Anyway, I finished the race, which didn't seem so bad after I crossed the finish line. I'm thinking that a new honeymoon period is upon us... I'll keep you updated on our relationship status.
