Friday, June 01, 2007

Progress!

As most of you know, I’ve been running for a couple of weeks now and I finally feel I am getting the hang of it. Yeah, I know, it took me a while :) But like I said in my first post about this subject, running isn’t a thing that comes easy to me. I always thought I couldn’t do it, but hey, here’s a newsflash…..I can!

The first couple of weeks were quite horrible at times though. You have to remind yourself of so much like: keep your arms low and relaxed, breath in and out (duh!) and keep your breathing relaxed and regular, don’t run too fast (you are not running a race!), don’t land on your toes – heels first and so on and so on! A lot of stuff to take in and keep track of, but hey, I am doing it. Hooray! Even my personal (uhum…. Online and not so personal) coach/motivator is telling me I am doing great and that I should keep going!

I am keeping a log of my runs and here is a graph that shows my progress. I started out at fitness level 10 and now I am at 40 after completing one-third of my schedule. Hooray again!

There is a downside though; I am starting to feel better and look healthier but I am gaining weight. That wasn’t supposed to happen :( At first it got me worried a bit but then I realised that it actually made sense. When I started running I stopped doing my other work-outs on the running days. In the first weeks I didn’t run for very long period’s of time (and was eating the same) so I was burning lesser calories then normal. *sigh of relieve* nothing to worry about! Pretty soon I will be burning calories like before and probably even more. I think I’ve to put off buying new clothes for a while :) because like I said, I am gaining weight but I am loosing centimetres already :) Well, isn’t that a nice advantage?!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm very impressed Dakota. Learning to run is the hardest part - after awhile you just gradually become a runner and then your mind is free to wander off in all kinds of interesting directions while your legs and your lungs and your heart take care of the mechanics of running. Keep up the good work! (And don't worry about the weight - in a couple of months you'll be burning calories like crazy.)

Aoj and The Lurchers said...

Yoy are doing so well and I am very impressed!

DOn't forget though, that you are probably developing more muscle and that is always heavier so you are probably losing fat but still weighing heavier.

Max said...

Hazar! Well done it's good to keep fit, not that I do.

Dakota said...

Well, thank you, Zoom!. I am actually quite impressed too :) When I started out I thought running was just like walking, only faster, but boy, was I wrong! There is a lot of learning involved and I guess we are never too old to learn something new :)

Thanks for all your encouraging words and (running) advice, they are a great help :)

Thanks, Angela:) And I’ve been thinking that too until someone said to me “that’s nonsense, one kilo is always one kilo no matter what the product is. Only the density may vary!” Right or wrong, I still like your way of thinking a lot better :)

Thanks, Max :) So, why don’t you?

Anonymous said...

Angela's right - muscle weighs more than fat so it's common for people to put weight on when they convert fat to muscle. You will lose centimetres instead and then start to lose weight.

I only started running late in life and was amazed that one can go from not being able to run more than 30 seconds to running for about 5-10 minutes in 2 weeks. Stay with it!

KJ's muse said...

Yep, I was going to say the same thing about muscle weighing more than fat. It's true. What you will notice though is the inches coming off!

Keep up the good work kiddo. :)

Phil said...

Well done! I think my knees would give way if I ran like that. Walking is bad enough :[]

Dakota said...

Thanks for all the encouraging words everyone!

I have no intention of quitting now, Snowqueen. I am really starting to enjoy it, especially now that I can run for longer periods of time!

Thanks for the support, KJ’s Muse I’ll keep going!

*Note to self: Muscles weigh more than fat!* :)

And still you walk almost every weekend you’re away, DoGGa. So it can’t be that bad! :)