As most of you know I am finishing up my c25k program this week. I have one more session…

One more.

Then I’m on my own to figure out where I want to take this whole running thing. I’m a little nervous that once the program is over I’ll lose my drive to continue. There are other running programs out there 5k-8k and 5k-10k that I’ll probably download to my trusty little shuffle and give it a go. With that being said I have run the 30 minute portion twice. Once outside. Once on the treadmill. Now a comparison.

Outside:

There is something to be said about knowing you’re coming down the pike to a finish that makes you look forward to doing something that is physically challenging. My first attempt was last Saturday. I decided to go out by where the gym was so that I could run and then meet with Kent (The trainer) afterwards (From here on out I’m going to call Kent “Superman” cause he’s built like Clark Kent on the outside but you just know there is something spectacular inside).

This was a run that was not very well planned out. I didn’t know how far I could get in 30 minutes, if there was a round about circular path I should follow that would put me close to the starting point, or what the traffic would be like on an early Saturday morning. I just started out and hoped for the best.

I got the best I could have hoped for. Too early for traffic so no problem there. I quickly figured out the best route to take so that even if I passed my original starting point I could easily fill in the rest of the time without going to far. What I didn’t think about were the two hills that I would encounter. One in the middle of my run and one at the very end. 4 weeks ago I would have dreaded those hills. Sunday I looked forward to conquering them. Both times I told myself I didn’t care how slow I took them but they had to be taken at a run, not a walk and without stopping. Both times were a success.

It was a slow run.

I didn’t care.

I ran up two hills.

The treadmill:

On Monday I woke up to find a torrential down pour happening in my city. Not the kind of rain that you muster up the determination to just get out and do it. This was the kind of rain that 10 feet from my house I would be soaked and it would make for an awful running experience, not to mention it was the first day of going back to work at the community college and time was not on my side.

So I did the only thing I could think off.

I took my run to the gym.

And this is what I thought of it:



It pretty much sucked. I tried my best to not watch the time and at one point even put a towel over it to cover the damn thing. Unfortunately my running is so haphazard that I vibrated it off and it fell on the belt, under my feet and then landed behind me.

Grrrrrrr.

I kept grabbing the bar and then quickly shaking a mental finger at myself to let go. The treadmills are in front of a long ass mirror and I kept watching myself. One thing fat people shouldn’t do is watch themselves in the mirror. It leads to stinkin thinking:

“That person next to you looks so much better”

“Seriously, you’re never going to be a runner”

“You don’t look like you’ve lost 30 pounds”

“Are your legs rubbing together…gross”

“All that sweat is disgusting”

“Look at how fat you look”

“You’ll never run that 5k”

“Give up already”

“You suck”

“FATTY”

O_o

You get the picture.

The only good thing about the treadmill experience is that the last minute I pushed myself and got the speed up to 4.5 and didn’t fall off like the towel did 25 minutes early.

So there you have folks, treadmill running is not for me.

Tomorrow would officially be my last day to run the c25k program but I’m going to postpone it until Thursday. I really want my last session to be outside and the Wappler Doppler says it’s going to be another bucket tipping downpour.

Bummer.

So instead I’ll be meeting with Superman tomorrow. It will be the first of two free sessions and if he gives me what I’m looking for (which I have yet to figure out) then this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I mean seriously, who doesn’t want to be a part of this 100+ weight loss life changing journey?

Don’t you?