My Head Gives Up

My legs are tired. 

I'm tired.  And this post may or may not come out a little whiny, so I apologize in advance.

And really, my legs are tired.

Today, as I was driving to work, I drove on an expanse of new road. 

The shoulders were wide and the view is pretty impressive, if I must say so myself.

I thought of when Wallace was first running, of how we'd clock the miles on that road in our cars.

I was a reluctant passenger, because I really didn't care how many miles the road was, or where the best turn around point was, or how hilly it was.

Today, as I looked at that wide shoulder, though, I thought of some girls that I know training for a marathon. 

I follow their posts on facebook, a little jealously (is that a word?).

I want to be a runner.

But we've already had the whole I'm not disciplined thing.

And I kind of feel faint sometimes when I run for three minutes straight.

(I'm exaggerating here.  I don't want to give my medical family members a heart attack.  I'm not on the verge of passing out or anything.  I assure you I don't push my limits... except when I need to.)

 The thing is, though, as I've worked through this challenge (we're on week 5 of the actual Faithful Finish Lines program, and I'm on week 3 of the exercise program because y'all know me... I procrastinated and passive-aggressively started a little late) I've noticed a change.

Each step is a little easier.  Today I ran for four minutes straight and didn't keel over. 

At least, I'm still here to type this...

My time is improving a little on my mile, and doesn't everything start with the first step, after all?

But tonight my legs are really killing me, so I thought again of a post I saw on one of those real-life runner pages. 

I hope she doesn't mind that I'm stealing it.

 And that is my problem, whether I'm walking a mile or five miles, or running a few minutes. 

My head gives up, a lot.

So tonight, instead of stopping at the minimum 19 minutes per the training plan, I walked an extra 15 minutes.

I'm slowly reaching my goals. 

I've walked a total of 18 miles the past week (and some of that, three and four minutes at a time, was running). That's treadmill time, or outside time.. not counting the miles from clinical or Walmart or from my house to Mom and Dad's.

I've walked at least 10,000 steps every day except Thursday the past week.  My Fitbit says I'm averaging over 11,000 steps a day, but a couple of days I've done over 14,000.

And I'm making myself do it...

Because excuses just aren't getting it anymore.

At least not this week =)