On my way to 5k (running that is)

I've taken up jogging.

Now this wouldn't seem strange to most people. Some might even give me the thumbs up and say "Good for you! Jogging is good exercise!" But those people weren't my friends in high school, or in my gym class. I hate running...or jogging. With a passion. Unless something is chasing me, I don't run. And even then I'd find a blunt object to defend myself with first before I start running. Which really put a dent in my Gym grade because I would always be one of the last people to finish a mile at the end of the year (after slacking all year while others "worked their way up" to a decent time). During my Senior year my teacher looked at me one day and asked if I was "actually going to try today"
"Nope," came my reply as I did a pathetic jog past him (it was more of a fast walk really). See, I hate running.

Which makes my decision to start jogging every other day a strange one. But I realized as I was furiously knitting away on a simple sock, stabbing into each little stitch as if it could convey my frustration to my husband (which is didn't) that I had to find a different means of venting. I can only bitch at my friends so long before they get annoyed with me after all. And I'd run out of yarn soon.

So far it's going pretty well. I downloaded a few running podcasts from iTunes onto my iPod and they make the jogging much more bearable. I also discovered the PodRunner Intervals series which switches back and forth between walking and jogging for 30 minutes (which makes me cover about 2 miles). It's designed to get me running 5k (or 3 miles) at the end of the 10 week series. I'm determined to get there. What's funny is that I used to walk 3 miles to work every day. And then it was almost 2 miles from work to my Mom's (she was nice enough to give me a ride back home if she had errands to run in town). So 5 miles every day, 5 days a week, for 6 months would make you think this would be no problem...yeah, right.

My Mom snickers every time I mention my jogging, and my Mother-in-law usually just arches an eyebrow and goes "Well what do you expect?" when I mention that it's hard to breath, or that my legs are achy. The loving support of these people is staggering. *insert heavy sarcasm*