Back That Truck Up

My name is Jenna and I’m 32. I’m a lot of things; a mom, wife, student, friend, writer… but a runner is not one of those things. In fact, I don’t much like any type of physical activity. “Working out” is a dirty term around here. I don’t like it, don’t want to do it, and it shows.

So this whole running thing is pretty out of my ordinary. I would rather sit and read a book than get sweaty doing exercise. I don’t like to exercise. I mean, it hurts. My lungs burn, my muscles ache, I feel like dooky while I’m doing it… what’s to like? Seriously.

Except, I’m overweight. Out of shape. I have no serious health problems, but that could change. Probably will if I don’t do something about it, isn’t that how it goes? And I’m not as young as I used to be, meaning, the weight doesn’t come off like it used to. As sedentary as I would prefer to be, I would much rather be healthy.

I had my first baby when I was twenty, and I don’t know, maybe because I was so young, the weight was just easier to lose. I didn’t do anything special, the weight just came off. Silly me thought that it would be like that the next time around, so imagine my surprise when, uh, no. It wasn’t. I kept ten pounds with each pregnancy. That’s four kids, forty pounds, which had me at about 170. At 5’3”, that makes me chunky.

When my youngest was almost one, I lost about 20 pounds. Of course, I was getting divorced then, too, so maybe that had something to do with it. Still, though, I was doing Tae-Bo and the weight just came off. Then I met my second husband, and within five years, gained it back, and then some. Right now I’m at about 180. I think. I haven’t weighed myself since last year. That’s what the scale said, and I threw it away.

Denial is king.

Only, I can’t deny my huffing and puffing whenever I have to climb a flight of stairs. I can’t deny the fact that I can’t keep up with my kids anymore. I can’t deny that when I’m carrying a backpack around campus, I get really winded way too fast. And I can’t deny that my size sixteen jeans are getting too tight. I really don’t want to go up another size, but me wearing too-tight-around-the-middle jeans does not mean that they still fit me.

Denial sucks.

So I decided it was time to do something about it. And I decided that running was that thing. It’s not as random as it sounds; my best friend, Shanna, is a long time runner. She does all these training programs to help other non-runners like myself embrace their health. She’s pretty cool. Aaaand she lives in Texas. So we talk on the phone a lot, and one day I said, “Hey, Bean (because I call her Bean), wanna give me some tips on beginner running?” and I tell you, the woman actually squealed at me, she was so happy. She says, “I have been WAITING for you to ask me this for MONTHS! I’m emailing you links as soon as we get off the phone!” and she did.

That was back in March. The links she sent are really good, (I’ll post them later) and I decided to follow that advice and make a go of it. Only I thought I’d wait for the school semester to end. Well, it’s June now, and school for me is out. I guess it’s time.

Hence, the non-runner hopes to become a runner. And I figured, I might as blog about it. At the very least, I’ll be able to look back at it, right? And maybe it’ll be interesting for other non-runners who hope to be runners, too.

So that’s how this whole thing started…

Peace.