The Double Edged Sword

Today marks the first day of returning to running.

If I were to be strictly accurate I would tell you that today was a run/walk event. It is based on the Couch to 5k training schedule found at Coolrunning.com. So more than half of my time today was taken up with walking.

Since I was taking this giant leap, or many short steps, back into the world of running I thought I would review my running goals as per my old page here on the blog. I had a good giggle at them.

1. Run 5km in under 30 minutes. (Told you I was no Olympic runner!)


2. Run the Taupo Half-Marathon. (Definitely no time goals here.)


3. Run a minimum 30km each week.


4. Run Round The Bays in 50 minutes.

I'm a long way from any of these little puppies.
I think the renewed goals for 2008 should read something like:

1. Run more than once a week.


2. Learn to run with the stroller in such a manner that neither I nor Miss OWW lands in a heap on the pavement.


3. Overcome rebellious gluteus maximus muscles that insist running is too hard!


4. Eventually replace the grimace of determination with a smile of relaxation.

Once these four simple (hah!) tasks are completed I should then be in a place to take on my old "go for glory" goals.

As for the double edged sword - it's the idea that running and exercise in general is good for you, yet your body complains and aches and you find yourself asleep on the sofa at 3 p.m. in the afternoon exhausted from a twenty minute trot around the block.

If I go missing in action here for the next little while don't send out a search party, I have simply slumped onto the sofa and all areas of my body will have mutinied and refused to sit at a computer screen let alone stretch themselves to actually typing. Perish the thought.

For those who may be asking themselves - why are you inflicting this on yourself? The answer is simple. It's my attempt to pre-empt the dreaded XBox 2017 or PlayStation 29. After all it's unlikely she will take kindly to the hypocrisy of "go outside and get some exercise" if her Mum is sitting on the sofa munching her way through a double packet of Chocolate Chip Cookies (yum). And I may be getting old, but I'm not so far gone as to remember how much that sort of hypocrisy really ripped my britches. Although I am now old enough to wish that "do as I say, not as I do" really did work. ;)

I'll see you all once the aching has subsided. 8O