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Hello everyone, when I start doing something I know little of, or think I will struggle achieving, it really helps me to find motivation in success stories so here goes one, I hope it gets a few arses off the couches.. I'm going to start telling you that I've never really stuck to anything, I am not very patient and I get demotivated quite quickly, I'm also a very proud person so these all in combination make me a rubbish candidate for success in any resolution I take up. I never liked sports, never mind running, I wouldn't understand why people did it really, I thought it was purely fitness obsession, to look good, I didn't realise anyone could enjoy it. And my kind of joy was in food rather than sports... So back in the summer I met up with a woman probably at least 15 years older than me, she told me about this app, she told me she does 5ks, 10ks.. she told me it was really fun, she assured me "hell yes, you can do it!" When I told her I could not control my breathing when I run, she told me I'd love it, she explained how The app worked (easy peasy), motivated me to try it, I thought "well, if she can do a 10k, really I should be able to do one too" but didn't do anything about that for months, later on in September we adopted a dog, I walk my Lina (Linita&i comes from there) 3x a day, I try for one of the walks to be long, In the mountains (we are surrounded by), I let her free, she loves it, she is a 12mth old German Shepherd (she is full of energy and it makes her the best pet ever when it is drained from her), so during those hour, two hour-walks I thought a lot and I realised I could actually try the app I heard about, wouldn't it be fun to run with my dog in the middle of the mountains? Lose some weight? (That's all I thought, honestly, i am frank when I say I DID NOT FORSEE THE POSSIBILITY OF JOY). I started from step one, the first few weeks were very hard, my breathing was really heavy, my legs were aching all over, shin splints.. The lot! Then I did that 20 minute run in week 5, I think I didn't nail it first time, but second and third and that's when I realised this could actually be achieved, my breathing started to get better by the run, my legs too, I started to get that "high" and feel awesome after running for the rest of the day (I even made better food choices on running day), and I started to understand why people run, It has been actually a very good tool for eliminating stress and frustration (I have two boys 7 and 2, the dog, a four floor house to clean on my own and a husband that works a lot) and at this point I can tell you I feel great, I've done my 10k yesterday with two friends, they had not done it before, I pushed them both to it, we left our kids with the hubbies in the morning and went for a run, the weather was amazing, so was the route so I insisted we run those 10k, we were all so proud of our selfs! But the best part of all of this is that thanks to running I am happy, and honestly no longer caring about losing weight, believe me, it's better to lose the bad mood than a few kilos, which i did as well by the way.. I have signed my two year old baby to go to nursery for three and a half hours per day, I'm looking forward to becoming a better, faster runner when he is there, it's awesome, please try it, please take it up to week 5, even I you don't do it three times a week because you don't have the time, even if you have to repeat sessions as you struggled to get thorough them, it gets better and fun-er as the weeks go by! Kisses and hugs to all you! Start! Believe in yourself! If I did it, anyone will do it!

A more experienced runner friend told me that you should dress for temperatures around 20 degrees warmer than what it is. It's working pretty well for me where it's 10-20 degrees these days.

Yesterday I discovered a 5K race practically next door to me that was happening TODAY. It was the Freeze your Buns 5K series in Nashua. This was apparently the 2nd of 5 races with a paltry $5 signup fee. I showed up early this morning (16F when I got there), handed them a $20 and, when they went to give me my $15 change, I told them to keep it and register me for the remaining 3 races of the series. So I got bib #153 and ran, predictably, at the back of the pack until even the pack was a distant memory. The good news is that I sliced between 4 and 5 minutes of my time at Walt Disney World. Maybe the cold weather (it'd gotten up to 20F) was an incentive In two weeks, I'll do it again. What insanity has possessed me? I also signed up at MakeYESHappen.com for a virtual challenge ($25). Something to keep my feet to the fire. They hook up with Runkeeper (among other trackers) so they automatically track your progress in the challenge. (You can also add sessions manually)

I've just calculated how far I was running on C25K and it turned out to be only 3.6K. Now doing C210K and and finding the same thing, the route is significantly less than 10K. Does this just mean I'm running way too slow?!